My Recent Visit to Orlando, Florida...

...was spent entirely within the walls of the mega resort hotel known as the Gaylord Palms, where the staff has been bred by crossing a phalanx of Stepford Wives with a particularly vigorous Mitt Romney clone. Chewing gum is forbidden within the confines of the resort. I am not kidding. The round-faced young man who delivered my breakfast one morning looked very much like a smiley face come to life. I wanted to take a photo of him, but he SCARED me.   It was eerie, I tell you. Nevertheless, it was a very pleasant two days with the FAMEous Florida librarians (FAME = Florida Association for Media in Education), a group of super-dedicated school librarians who were all working Really Hard to make the most of their annual conference while I frittered away most of my time hanging out with (name dropping, I know, I'm pathetic) David Lubar and Marc Aronson and Rick Riordan and Alane Ferguson and Chris Crutcher and Priscilla Cummings and several other YA fabulists. It was a good time. Here's the view from my balcony, showing a small part of the ginormegaplexicon: Next week I'm off to the OASL/WMLA conference in Portland, Oregon. I'm hoping to score some mushrooms while I'm there! Oh, as far as writing goes, I'm working hard on the biggest and most challenging project I have ever undertaken. More later.