California here I come

After a significant amount of personal (family) and professional (waiting to hear about presenting and a conference grant) dithering and dragging of feet, Thursday afternoon I registered for the ALA Conference in Anaheim. It was not without issue, despite what the ALA conference flyer in my mailbox that afternoon touted; thousands of hotel rooms in walking distance of the Anaheim Convention Center?

I spent a great deal of time on Wednesday with Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, AAA, and Hotels.com researching (hunting) flights and available hotels close to my travel budget and the convention center. I cross-checked results with flight time, airlines and airports, ultimately settling on a flight and location. With the hotel available through four of the five travel sites, I decided to wait until Thursday to place my reservation (I had the wrong credit card with me at work). Imagine my infinite joy Thursday morning when the hotel in question was sold out with all five of the travel sites I visited on Wednesday.

I started over on Thursday afternoon ultimately selecting a travel package Expedia, American Airlines (shortest & least expensive flight from Columbus International Airport) and the Anaheim Plaza Hotel. In a lucky circumstance, as I was making the reservation a notice from Expedia popped up saying "good news, the cost of your flight has just been lowered" and I saved close to $100! Woo-hoo, I will take that without any problem.

I have an airline reservation with a short layover at O'Hare (wish me luck), a room reservation (walking distance to the convention center), and conference registration (made just in time to get a small advance discount) with the added Librarians Build Communities option for Friday afternoon. I will need more than one book for the flight, usually the latest Stephanie Plum novel Fearless Fourteen from Janet Evanovich, and updated tunes for my MP3 player, good thing I have Pepsi Stuff points.

I wonder if the post title should say "ready or not?"

Tags: ALA, American Library Association, 2008 ALA Conference, ALA Annual Conference, Anaheim, California