I've helped to keep score at Battle of the Books the past two years. The competition is fierce and the air is electric. This is the reaction after one of the questions -- they reacted this way each time.

What does a week away mean? It means getting a week behind.

Take a week to look through these, while listening to the soundtrack @ http://kevinyezbick.muxtape.com/:

My interest in Guys Read stems mainly from being a guybrarian. Our library has already initiated the program, but I was looking to gain a deeper understanding of the goals and issues that make-up the movement. As a member of the Adult Reference staff, I was a bit concerned about the relevance of my presence - especially considering our already sailing efforts. But I do serve the young adult population and I am the only guybrarian between the two branches - so I am reconciling my guilt and recognizing the generosity of my library in allowing me to attend. I'm leaving the preconference with fresh knowledge looking to be turned to wisdom. I will share what information I can here --

These are admittedly - very - very shorthand notes and observations. The preconference packet contained numerous handouts - which probably dissuaded me from taking stellar notes. Basically I'm just gonna capture the salient points from the day -- those that stuck with me - because I'm a selfish prig. Perhaps not the best use of the word prig - but its use is what mattered to me in this moment. I'll make separate posts for the different panels at some point later today - but for now just an incredibly brief mention of the keynote:

Jon Scieszka, children's author and founder of Guys Read opened with some lighthearted but pointed commentary detailing the need for the program, spotted with points that would be reiterated throughout the day. Goals were identified - how to pitch it to your library, and how to get the funding. One benefit of libraries getting involved with the Guys Read program is that we aren't tied down by curriculum or parenting - we are free to be the other - allowing the guys to read whatever they like, be it novels, graphic novels, magazines, and video game narratives. It's the reading that's important.

Brevity.

There's also this list of 150 things to do while in Minneapolis, divided by season. While officially we've made our way into Spring, many of the posts to Twitter echo the same sentiment -- something along the lines of: "looking forward to such and such at PLA, not looking forward to the cold." The weather will likely inihibit some of the extracurricular activities for the week -- but the forecast really isn't all that much different than what we've got here in Michigan - highs in the 40s with some rain towards the end of the week.

I'm going through the twitter search engines looking for other people posting about PLA. Twitter's been around for a while and there's been clamoring for twitter groups -- and it's large events like these that would benefit the most from that feature.

This will be my first national conference of any sort - so I'm looking forward to the experience - and will likely be starstruck by all the nifty librarians I've been following for some time on the Internetz. I printed out the Tips for Conference Bloggers [pdf] sometime ago - but never really got around to reading it. I'll likely just post my notes and have a lot of twitter action. Maybe this will actually be the week I iron out some of the transitional miscues from moving to movabletype 4 - like that archives link on the bottom of this page that takes you nowhere.

Time to get a move on...see you in Minneapolis.

Photogamer - Green, originally uploaded by Kevin Yezbick.

This one swirls.

Just figured I needed to get something up on the front page.

Me Not Dancing, originally uploaded by Kevin Yezbick.

Go with the flow.

There are lots of reasons I love Bon Iver's album For Emma, Forever Ago. A lot of it is covered here - via picturegift.

You can judge for yourself.

	Bon Iver - For Emma
	Found at skreemr.com

Photogamer - Looking Up, originally uploaded by Kevin Yezbick.

This photo was for the photogamer challenge.

It is not meant to be confused with this:

Fashionistas, originally uploaded by Kevin Yezbick.

I met up with Carlie and Eva, had a few drinks and a really good time. I heard about the event via motorcityblog, saw Carlie online and threw it out there for something to do. An hour later we were all gangbusters at the bar and getting reacquainted after not seeing each other for many months.

There were DJs and Bands and a Fashion show - which was rather interesting and can be seen above.

It was good to get out of the house. Tonight it's Ferndale and the New Way.

Another notch on the stat sheet...

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