I’m a big fan of Neil Gaiman and just finished his new book “The Graveyard Book”. He’s been touring since its release last week and tonight he appeared in Saint Paul less than five miles from where I work.
For the past month I’ve been wanting to see him in person. His appearances online seem very genuine and entertaining.
I’m over-committed and have a laptop due to hand over tomorrow to Global Deaf Connection. The new interim CEO is heading to Africa next week and needs it to deliver to the office in Kenya. Dammit.
All afternoon I was torn between getting to see Neil or spending a boring evening installing Windows XP onto the laptop and installing update after update after update. I even drove by the church building where he’s appearing. (Apparently, the church has seating capacity for about a thousand people, which is why he’s appearing at a church.) An hour before his appearance the streets were lined with cars; no place to park for blocks.
In the end I decided better to stick to commitments although I’m really bummed about not getting to see Neil speak. I’ve promised myself that next time I won’t have any excuses not to see him.
Tomorrow I’ve promised Joel at Deaf Connection that I’ll have a technology budget for him. He’s agreed to get a grant to renew our Microsoft licensing, install a wired network and purchase a new server.
He’s acquiring a lot of used, donated equipment. Today he said he received another laptop and Tuesday he showed me an office quality Ricoh Savin printer. I hope it doesn’t all turn out to be junk. People tend to donate items more to get rid of them rather than to be charitable.
Remember the Human 