It's Almost #RT14 !

Well, it's been quiet here around Alpha Heroes, hasn't it? Sorry about that. Some of the things that have been keeping me occupied include recovering from a cold (yay! it's gone now!), planning a couple of Girl Scout events (I'm an Encamporee Director this year, are you impressed?), working through some org changes at work, the usual mom & wife things, and of course, getting ready for the bookish highlight of my year, the RT convention in New Orleans.

I leave tomorrow at midnight to arrive in NOLA just in time to jump into the Tuesday Book Blogger Con.  I'll be the one mainlining coffee and/or face down in my red beans and rice. I'm an experienced enough traveler at this point in my life that the packing and traveling doesn't stress me out too much (I used to cry almost every time I got to an airport from the stress build-up... I think I'm over that now!).  And RT is going to be my vacation this year, so I've been wholly enjoying myself in the lead-up.  Way back in March, I posted a list of to-dos, and while I didn't get to all 700 authors, I did manage to work in a handful of new-to-me authors who will be at RT:

1. Jaye Wells
2. Jaime Rush
3. Kevin Hearne
4. Nico Rosso
5. Laura Florand
6. Sarah Castille
7. Jade Lee

Not all were home runs for me, but I will say that I might've gotten to a couple of additional authors if it weren't for a small binge on Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series. I stopped myself after three titles but I plan to finish up that series in the next couple of weeks or months (I want to pace myself a bit -- more than 2 or 3 in a row of a series and I can get a little burned out.)

I got through the rest of my list in a rather leisurely and pleasant way.  Yesterday I picked up a pair of shoes from the repair place and got my toes done, which is a rare luxury for me.  My husband and I agreed that we were due for a new camera, so that arrived on Friday via Amazon Prime. I hope I can figure it out well enough to take good pictures! (I wanted to bring both that one and the old one which still works and I'm very familiar with, but it has gone AWOL, grr.)  The new one has wifi built in, so keep an eye on Alpha Heroes' Facebook feed. That has admittedly been nearly defunct, but I think it will be the easiest place for me to post pics over the next week.

On that note, I am not going to try to blog during the conference.  I have a hard enough time writing up posts on a normal week, much less one as jam-packed as this one is going to be.  I've decided to leave the laptop at home.  I won't be completely unplugged -- I'll have my phone and Twitter and FB-- but without a keyboard (or TIME), I be much more about the face-to-face experience.  Which, after all, is really why I'm going! {/ramble}

Everyone on Twitter is talking about the outfits and costumes and shoes they are bringing and planning.  I picked up a fancy sparkly dress that I'm thinking about wearing to this event, but otherwise I will be fairly casual, in jeans or shorts and tee-shirts (including a Broken Circle one from Kit Rocha) or slightly upscaled tops. I did take advantage of the excuse to beef up my summer wardrobe slightly, which was definitely in need. So, no guilt there. Even so, I am bringing 5 pairs of shoes? that is really not like me at all.

The programming for the conference looks AMAZING, but I really want to tear myself away and enjoy a little bit of New Orleans as well. I was there in 1998 on my honeymoon and have not been back since, even though we totally loved the city. On my must-do list is a photo-shoot visit to the Saint Louis cemetery. I'd like to catch it at the "golden hour" but there is so much going on at the con in this timeframe!  Maybe early-early morning, but the downside there is you know, getting up early.  We shall see.

The run-up to RT has been so much fun this year. When I went in 2012, I was not on Twitter, and my bloglist was a lot smaller (I'm using Feedly now, and wow, what a difference).  I've become addicted to Parajunkee's blog, with the best NOLA insider info ever, and I've been faithfully stalking the Look Who's Going to RT feature at Literary Escapism. I've been reading all of the "how to survive" articles, which are mostly common sense but a fun way to build the anticipation. If you stalk the #RT14 hashtag, most all of them are linked in there somewhere, and if you follow the con account on Twitter, they do a great job of re-tweeting the best articles.

My only to-do's left are to figure out what tote/backpack/bag I'm going to take as my under-the-seat carryon, and load it up. I have a couple other things I'd like to take care of so my return week isn't too hectic, but that's all gravy.

Looking forward to seeing MANY of you in a few days!