Atlanta in the Rear View; New Zealand Looming Large

I just got back tonight from three days in Atlanta, spent at the NITLE Strategic Planning for Digital Asset Management Symposium, held at the Georgia Tech Conference Center, smack in the middle of the city. The conference was more stimulating and interesting than I expected, and I was honored to be able to share the stage with University of Virginia’s Thornton Staples and Andrew Rouner of the University of Richmond in a session on Fedora, the powerful digital archiving tool. I learned a lot, and I hope that I can hold most of it in my head to be applied in January 2006. However, it was very hard to concentrate through most of the symposium, due to the fact that I knew I would be getting on a plane to New Zealand in only a few days.

I feel prepared and hopelessly not ready for this trip at the same time. We have made most of the critical reservations required when travelling in a very popular country during their high season, including the ferry ride from Wellington to the South Island, a place to stay right after we arrive, and the 16-day car rental that will help us get to all of the places that we want to see. But, a few critical problems are popping up, even before we’ve left the house. My plan for blogging and uploading photos while on the trail is in jeopardy, as the power management unit on my 3-year old iBook appears to have completely failed, meaning that I cannot use the iBook on battery power. And I just can’t knock the sense that I am forgetting something, even though I haven’t even left the house.

Hopefully, these issues will work themselves out over the next couple of days. I’m planning to post as much as I can, whenever I can, in this space so that my friends and family can keep up with our progress.