Well, the world almost came to hear our talk...

Went to Olympia, the Red Lion Hotel to the WALE conference to give our presentation. The organization was wonderful, and completely helpful, I started thinking I was special and then noticed they were very nice to everyone (have I been working with bad guys too long?). I took in two presentations before lunch and then had a nice light lunch, and was asked if I was interested in writing something about working in a prison library for ALKI magazine. I told them that they would have to see my bosses, my reputation for bad word choice and attitude wouldn't help.

We set up, and there was a computer and projector and I found our ILS blog site, so we could show our visitors that we were entering the electronic age. Kathleen had about ten books, one of which she would try to sell, a picture of a chain bus and escorting vehicles, bibliographies of Mental Health Institution and Prison books, fiction and non fiction. There were tables of laminated newspaper articles and our esteemed senior secretary Rändi was video taping the entire presentation and questions. We were ready and our audience came in - your friends are always there for support, aren't they, sure enough if they knew who we were, they came to see the performance wishing us well. I was beginning to believe that no one else would be interested in institutional libraries and the role we play in preparing our patients and inmates for returning to the outside world. But we did get some visitors from the State Library, and from other area libraries, so I didn't feel like I was only preaching to the choir.

Kathleen started out and warmed up, I took my turn and back and forth we talked, answered questions and told tales. The important message of our pride in our work was laid out, the need for more staff, that our job does change lives because we take the time and do it right. Only the second time we have presented the message and it changed a bit, especially since we were answering questions as they were asked about things that needed some clarification, seems like I had extra words that were fit this time that had been too few before. We hurried and cleaned up and talked on our way out, I went to another session on how to find good medical reference resources on the Internet. I was still concerned about the presentation and its effect. I left the conference saying good-bye to Richard on my way out. One of those nice young ladies that had been making me feel special gave me a book bag full of goodies to remember them by.

The rains are back and I was in the Caravan on I-5 during the commute, so I pull off and go to Cabela's to pick up some important stuff for riflemen, a military leather sling 1 1/4", and dummy rimfire rounds, they were out of 30-06. And don't ask them about shooting coats or jackets - they seem to have the trap, skeet, hunting camouflage and blaze orange covered, but real shooting coats were not in evidence (get them online). I was given a military discount, but the sales tax is almost 9%, so the shopping was great - and the buying just enough.