tay-hoss!

{i am baking chocolate biscotti (and it smells delicious).}

this past week i broke my conference hymen and attended one in dallas, tx, put on by the user group of our library's ILS (integrated library system) vendor. kind of thrilling!


alexis, thrilled

i admit that i love to travel and that was a real big reason for wanting to go. however, i did meet some wonderful people and learned a huge amount of information. it's good to feel excited about work again (but only from 8-5, of course).

we left saturday morning and met up with ramon & alexis, proceeding to catch up and sight see, have brunch with bekah and eric, eat inhuman amounts of sushi and drink delicious brews. we had heard so much about deep ellum, but it turned out to be a bust, even with an arts & crafts festival that weekend.




at the house of blues, where we declined paying $40 each for their gospel brunch.


anthony at the jfk memorial






the aquarium in dallas is wonderful!! it's like traveling downwards from the top of a rainforest.



i am such a foodie that the serendipitous "happy hour" sushi that we stumbled upon at gui was one of the highlights of the trip. $20 all you can eat sushi on sundays and tuesdays. and all you can drink hot/cold sake on sundays. needless to say, we were there both days.

wonderfully enough, we also had time to take in the dallas museum of art and the crow collection of asian art (FREE).











the first evening of the conference, a "rodeo roundup" was hosted, complete with dancing cowgirls and cowboys performing lasso tricks. tons of free food and booze! alexis had unfortunately left for home by this time, however ramon crashed the party and rode the mechanical bull. not to be outdone, i quickly followed suit. (and i was not drunk! only 1 glass of wine, people. had i been drunk, the bull riding would have been sloppier from then on from the copious quantities of vomit that would have hurled forth from my maw.)

... and there's video.

it's on my coworker's phone, so i'm trying to see how i can get a hold of it. suffice it to say that i completely rocked the plastic bull riding and i bounced a lot when i finally slid off. *boing* on my back, legs splayed. very attractive.


me, post bull riding

all in all, a lovely week free of the confines of work. still doing work stuff, but frolicking in the hotel shower and having our bed made for us every day. also, endless hot water and a dynamite view from our room at the top of the north tower (32nd floor).


me, post conference