Finishing the F-ing Book

So one finished the weighty tome that is Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth last week.

The book was finished with no thanks to Supervisor Grand Chief K who proved herself to be a bad librarian by not excusing one from a strategy planning day so I could finish the last 75 pages and find out what happened to my characters!

Anyway onto the book.
It being the F of one's A to Z of Unread SciFi and Fantasy Authors on the technicality that medieval is close to fantasy - and indeed one can imagine a young George R R Martin reading Pillars and thinking "this would be better with dragons!"

One quite enjoyed it, and even found it to be educational- who knew there was so much melodrama about in the Middle Ages?
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Scenes from a Conference Month

So time has passed, as it always does, and one had a busy month of October - the International month of user conferences.

Having somewhat recovered from the inevitable accumulation of work not done due to being away at said conferences one is now in a position to recount the hazy remembrances that remain.

• Organising, organising, organising
• MCing two days of conference
• Being caught once more in the late night bear trap with a Kiwi
• The standard motivational back prodding via pen from Sis
• Voluntarily stepping down as President making it the year for the ending of great presidencies
• Taking the First Lady, Salsa Girl, to a much deserved dinner
• Escorting the First Lady, Salsa Girl, to her train and thereby
• An Early morning jogging session to earn free upgrades for life
• Presenters and time wrangling for all that going long, short, and missing that occurs with public speaking
• Being compared to Mr Prada in the fashion stakes
• A short break before a second conference
• A long awaited catch up with Alecto after nigh on a year of missing each other at various Library events
• Late night mild food poisoning that has no connection to mixed drinks, it was the chicken I tell you!!
• The joy of just sitting back in a conference one isn't organising
• The stress of trying to keep new project ideas from entering Supervisor Grand Chief K's sphere of attention
• And, as an afterthought, the wonderful networking opportunities which may have involved equally wonderful food and drink but one is not one to notice that sort of thing

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