... The Trade Show Dinner

After my first day of work consisted of hacking my way through a jungle of email to the bottom of my inbox it came as a welcome relief to see that Supervisor Grand Chief K had remembered to invite me along to the VALA trade show this time. She now realises that taking your IT man to an IT focussed event is probably a good idea.

I also had an invite to a dinner put on by our LMS supplier. I agonised for all of one second about skipping gaming night for a free dinner before accepting the invitation.

So yesterday morning, after an interesting meeting with representatives from a printer and PC control company, I was able to take off in the early afternoon to head home and prepare for the impending fun.

Once home I freshened up, donned my trusty excursion bag (see Svetlana, I told you it would be useful once I was back!), gave The Tiger a quick few minutes of stuff-chasing fun, and caught the next train for the big smoke.

I decided to walk from Flinder's street only to discover that the event was not actually at Jeff's Shed but across the river at the convention centre. Upon my eventual arrival I met up with SGCK and Mr Prada and we began the great stuff hunt.
I may be becoming a little blasé but not much of the stuff was that interesting. Most of the pens were flimsy plastic affairs and I already have popping tins and such-forth from Information Online last year. I did pick up a great pen from Civica, and my drawing of a tree earned me a lovely green watch which was far too small for my wrists made rugged from years of keyboard pounding. I was disappointed in the stands that thought a brochure about their product counted as free stuff but what can you do?
I may also have accidentally gained a little first-hand experience about different RFID products along the way.

Our little Bayside triumvirate managed to evade expulsion from the hall and was able to stay for the cocktail reception which was up to the usual beer or wine is a cocktail libraryland standard.
Mr Prada and I tried to find the optimum point in the hall for food tray interception bumping into Madame President and several other of the usual suspects before joining the SPUN friendship circle and heading off to the dinner.

Dinner was at Breezes restaurant in Crown which is a delightful place to relax with dinner except for the hourly huge explosions just outside the window.
The service was of the much appreciated bottomless wine glass style - except for the strange neglect of Sonja Roster Queen's glass which lay barren for the first half hour. I was a little suspicious that they were making fun of me when they produced a double-sized glass for my use for the second half of the evening.
SGCK was flitting around enabling everyone, The Flibberty Gibbet fell off the wagon but was surprisingly well behaved, and I even managed to have a civil conversation with Dubrovnik Hater.
All in all it was a good evening and we left at a reasonable hour as there was nobody with a hotel room and mini-bar to raid.
Fighting off jet-lag on the train I narrowly avoided missing my stop and was home before midnight.


This morning sees me coming into work for my birthday day of work - brightened immeasurably by the presence of Days of our Libraries birthday cake. I also received a wonderful card from Sister Serials - ever the pinnacle of card selection - featuring one dog saying to another:
"I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking."