This photo is from the computer station they set up in the conference center. I just thought it looked so funny with all of the people lined up with their tote bags over their right shoulder.On the last full day of the conference, I took the afternoon off to do some book shopping. To my delight, I found not one, but two HUGE used bookstores. OMG. It make Milwaukee a lot cooler in my book. There are two of the largest used bookstores I've seen anywhere, and they're just blocks apart!
The first store I went to was Downtown Books. They had room after room and row after row of shelves. They even had a whole room (and then some) with nothing but National Geographic! The place was well-organized (for a used bookstore) and they had a decent natural history section (my favorite). I bought a cookbook and another sort of random book.
The second place I went was Renaissance Books. You can hardly miss the sign and I can't believe I didn't go earlier. This place seemed to get more organized the higher up you went in the building. They had tons of boxes and stacks of books on the first floor. I didn't buy anything here because I was starting to worry I might not be able to bring everything home!
Last but not least, Herb said he'd buy me an academic book of my choice from the conference vendors, so I was like a kid in a candy store trying to decide what to get. I chose an expensive little book that's pretty specific to my field site.
I ended up missing the blogger meetup organized by BugGirl because Herb took the lab out to dinner at the same time and I couldn't just be like, "Sorry, I have a secret meeting to attend as my alter ego." Still, I got to meet up with a few bloggers who shall remain nameless (you know who you are).
Overall, I'm really glad I went this year because I'll probably be in Ukenzagapia during next year's conference. It was interesting to see what goes on at a 3,000 person meeting and I had some useful discussions with different people about my project, grad school, and academia in general. More on that later.
2 comments:
Oh good--then we didn't miss you!
I wasn't able to print much of a sign, and I hope people figured out my cocktail napkin was it.
I found the renaissance bookstore, but couldn't figure out how to get in! Now I'm really bummed that I wasn't more persistent.
Sounds like a fun trip and productive conference!
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