Hey, folks!
I’m speaking today at the STC’s 55th annual Summit in Philadelphia, on the topic of the Paperless Office for contractors and independent consultants. The progression runs from 9 to 11:30, and I give my talk 4 times, so if you’re here at the conference and want to check it out, you don’t have to give up 2 of your sessions– just one half of one.
That’s the quick update. Later, I’ll blog about my impressions of the conference. Perhaps some of the folks who have steadfastly read my blog all year and are wondering “does she ever work?” will be happy to have something more “technical writing” oriented for a change. Just remember, you can filter out the knitting stuff by selecting a category (left-hand side of the frame) and then subscribing to the RSS feed for the category’s page, rather than the whole blog. It’s never been my intention for you all to read everything I post– knitterly folks should subscribe to the crafting feed, writerly folks to the writing feed, personal friends to the personal feed (yeah, LiveJournal folks get the short straw, but I even filter what gets cross-posted to LJ, too).
Also, since I never write about my clients or jobs, anything work-related is usually a more general thing, and not “OMG, my company just did the coolest thing!” Except in rare cases where the company explicitly says they’re OK with me evangelizing.
Because I am tired and have a cold and because we have a bunch of stuff to do tonight before we take the RV to be serviced in the morning, I’m just going to tease you about the launch.
We got out to the Space View Park park this morning at about 9:30 and set up our chairs and a sunshade. We sat around watching while hundreds of other people showed up. When we arrived, there was a 70% chance the launch would be delayed due to weather. Those odds only got better and better as the skies cleared and winds, though variable, settled into a decent pattern. The shuttle had a 10 minute window for launch, and they were set to go right in the middle of it. If they had had to delay more than a few minutes, they would have to delay the launch until tomorrow.
It was a textbook launch with absolutely no problems (at least, none broadcast to those of us on the ground). Gorgeous.
John and I took many photos and John shot video of the launch. We will post them soon. I promise!
We moved the Party Like a Rock Star party to Tuesday, December 11th.
6:30ish, at Boulder Creek Brewery in Boulder Creek.
Hope to see you all there!
It’s Baker’s Field, right? Where are the muffin farms?
We’re on our way to LA today. I’m speaking tonight at the STC San Gabriel chapter at 6. On writing a computer book. Should be exciting and fun. Meanwhile, we got the very last spot at the park last night– and when we pulled in, someone had parked his truck in our space! HA! (He moved, it was coo’).
I could really go for Starbucks and a muffin this morning. Now that we’re out of the mountains, I find myself longing for something that says “this food is identical to the food you ate before you got in this RV of insanity.” John was even craving McDonald’s yesterday! We’re listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink in the car right now, and we’re on the part about marketing and thin slicing for food purchasing decisions. I wish he’d talk about how the marketing obscures the presence of horrible things in your food, but this isn’t a book on food purity and politics.
In RV-news, our nearly-new (we bought it just over a month ago) sewer hose spouted a leak yesterday. Since I am Sewer Girl for the RV… well, it was not a pretty sight. We stopped in Fresno and bought our third sewer hose since buying the RV in March. Three hoses! The first one leaked due to damage, though, so we’ll forgive it. The one yesterday split at the seam– and it turns out the damn thing has a seam running all the way around it! If you don’t know, sewer hoses look like an accordion tube. There’s a device you can get that will convert your sewer waste into particles small enough to go down an ordinary garden hose, but they’re bulky and require installation– we would probably have one professionally installed, and that means stopping somewhere for more than a day. What I want to know is why they can’t make a 3″ wide sewer hose out of garden hose material. My garden hoses never spontaneously spring a leak!
The walk to Hawaii continues, though not as fast as I intended. I have trouble hitting more than 4000 steps a day– still much better than the <1000 I was doing before strapping the pedometer to my waist, but not as many as the 10000 steps I need to be doing if I want to get to Hawaii in 2009. I also haven't weighed myself this week-- I tend to do that mid-week, so it's between weekends, though since I walk more on weekends, maybe I should do it on Mondays. Ah, well. This note reminds me to check in with my Hawaii Walkers and see how the rest of us are doing, too.
A quick sketch in pen and watercolor of the Tuolumne River. We stopped here on the way down, after the windy road, so Alladin’s stomach could settle.
I’m doing a presentation this evening at the STC Silicon Valley monthly meeting on embedding videos into your online help systems. Details are here. The meeting starts at 6:00 PM, and is preceded by our volunteer appreciation ceremony and swearing-in of the new council. It’s also a great place to network!
If you’re in the area and want to come by, do so.
What: Video in Online Help presentation
Where: TechMart: 5201 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA. 408-562-6111
When: 6 PM until about 9 PM tonight, Thursday, June 28, 2007.
Who: Me! And you! And other technical writers in the Bay Area.
Cost: $8 if you’re an STC member and unemployed. $17-40 depending on if you’re a member and if you want beverages only, or if you want dinner, too.