how did a month go by?

In re-writing the opening sentence to this post about seventeen times, I have alternated between apologizing, rationalizing, making excuses for, and outright ignoring that I haven't posted here in a month.

I've been attending conferences and traveling a lot. Four meetings/trips in three weeks, and four states (yes, one state was Virginia, but I was off site for three days, followed the next day by a trip over two hours away and overnight for two nights, so that counts). That doesn't stop most folks from continuing to reach out and share, but I find travel very draining. I can happily spend my days chatting with colleagues, taking notes and tweeting, and talking about what excites me about my job. By the time I collapse in my room at the end of the day, I sometimes feel like I hope to never discuss the BagIt specification again (But I will, you know I will, and with great enthusiasm). And when I get home, I hole up and do not feel social for a good 24 hours. Yes, I might be the most outgoing Myers-Briggs "I" out there, but I'm still an I who just wants to sit quietly and think for a while.

And, if I also want to make some semi-valid excuses, my work PC died again and it was out of my possession for 3 weeks, one of my projects had a major deadline that was almost fully met on time and required some last minute scrambling on my part so I didn't blow the deadline too badly, and we had to pack up and move out of our office suite so some duct repairs could take place. I should not even admit how far behind I am in studying for my Japanese class.

I hope to resume normal blogging this week. The coming attractions: the IS&T Arching 2009 conference, Open Repositories 2009, and a visit to Scola, the Library's international newscast preservation partner.