Working hard now

After the fun evening at the city museum and yet another ballgame (there seems to be one every night) the conference started yesterday with a plenary talk by Adam Bly from Seed Media Group. The theme of his talk was Science re-imagined. He believes in the unique potential of science to improve the state of the world. He said that we need to rethink science education and literacy, that we should pursue science literacy for everyone so that we ultimately have 7 billion scientifically literate people. And one of the ways we should do that is by designing games to teach science. Sound familiar?

The sessions have been very interesting so far. I am off to another.

Fun at the City museum

We went to the City Museum http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp last night for the opening reception. Getting there involved about a 20 minute walk with a gaggle of librarian colleagues. There are only about 350 at this year's conference which is about half the number that came to Palm Springs last year.

The city museum is a strange and whimsical place though I have to say I was mostly focused on getting something to eat and drink. The food mostly comprised of nibbly bits (thank goodness for chicken on a skewer for my protein needs) and desserts which I mostly resisted. The museum is a converted shoe factory with a variety of strange and wonderful displays. Someone at breakfast said they'd been wondering on what it would have been like to work at the shoe factory and how difficult it must have been. That reminded me of the time my sister worked briefly at the shoe factory.

I met a few people who were fun to talk to and after a couple of hours we walked back together to the hotel, having been warned not to walk alone. I met a few more people this morning including a couple of first timers. Off to the plenary session now.

Panera Bread Cafe

Those of you who know how important breakfast is to me (see yesterday's link on Facebook) please rest easy. I am well taken care of. The first morning here I managed to find the St. Louis Bread Company also known as Panera bread. The valet at the hotel actually sent me elsewhere but either his instructions were wrong or my backwards sense of direction kicked in but I didn't find the place he sent me to, instead I found this place and I am glad. I have been having a breakfast power sandwich with an extra egg: a slice of tasty rye bread containing 2 eggs, a slice of ham and a bit of cheese all grilled like a panini. A little greasy but enough protein to keep me going for about 4 hours. Of course in the last couple of days I snuck in a bit of fruit or a few tomatoes and that completes my breakfast happiness. I had green tea at the hotel so caffeination has also been taken care of.

Conference work starts later so I have a bit of time to explore the attractions. The weather has been hot and muggy and the baseball game last night was not over till midnight. I have no idea who won.

The view from St. Louis

I am attending a conference in St. Louis. So the first blog post is not the view from the huta aka the yoga/art studio/garden shed in our back yard but the view from my 9th floor window at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. I look out over Busch Stadium where every night hordes of people mostly dressed in something red climb bleachers more than 4 stories high to watch little (from my window) men in white chase after an invisible ball and run around the field seemingly at random. I can only see about a third of the field but I can hear thousands of people yelling in the bleachers when something exciting is going on. The hotel is showing the game on every large screen tv it owns so if I really wanted to watch the game I could but alas I would still not understand it. My upbringing did not include any exposure to baseball nor to any rules of baseball and virtually no actual participation. My only experience with baseball (though I had no idea that is what it was at the time) was once having a bat thrust at me and a ball thrown at me in high school gym class. Miraculously, I managed to hit the ball and even more miraculously figured out that I should run, though how I figured out where to I don't remember, but I recall that people were cheering me on so I guess I did the right thing. I remember nothing more from that experience and there has been no more baseball for me. Just as well because being legally blind in one eye, I am not good at hitting small objects traveling at high speed.

I managed to get into the pre-conference workshop although it was full when I tried to register earlier. The workshop was packed with information, presented by an expert in the field and left my mind somewhat boggled. I had trouble keeping awake after a more than usually starchy lunch and I finally resorted to an afternoon cup of coffee which did the trick and woke me up. I realized later that the two cups of green tea I'd had earlier were actually decaffeinated so that did not help keep me awake after lunch.

There is no wireless in my room so I am sitting in the hotel lobby with my iPad. Several groups of librarians are congregating around the lobby so the din is getting louder and louder.