Dear Diary,The title of the entry should be
"Sierra MIST-ake"
Today Leslie (my co-resident) and I were 2 of 4 panelist presenting at the Annual Indiana Library Federation Conference http://www.ilfonline.org/conf/AnnualConference/annconf2006.htm.
I have to say I cuold not have been prouder of our presentations. We worked extremely well together under very difficult circumstances. I love technology except when the projector malfunctions during a major speech. But naturally, we had printed out our slides as handouts so the audience could follow along. We definitely rose to the challenge of presenting at 3:30 (after lunch) on the 2nd day of the conference. So we brought intense energy (although we were admittedly weary after the 4 hour drive there immediately prior to presenting).
I discussed my concept "Spiritual Literacy." I discussed Cultural Literacy and includes a project at Yale that has Blogs discussing the war, from US Soldiers and Iraqi Citizens perspectives.
I discussed Digital Literacy, specifically Snopes.com and Steganography. They laughed when I said that Steganography is not the study of a Stegosaurus (Steg-owe-saw*russ). They agreed that they are annoyed by Hoax emails and were interested in Snopes.com to combat those urban legends.
I connected the Steganography and Snopes.com using the American POW Jeremiah Denton story. http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/denton.asp "As you may know, Admiral Denton was a Navy pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 8 years in a Vietnamese prison. In 1966 while in prison, he was interviewed by North Vietnamese television in Hanoi after torture to get him to "respond properly." During this interview, he blinked his eyes in Morse code to spell out the word "TORTURE." Four of his 8 years in prison were spent in solitary confinement. He later wrote the book "When Hell was in Session" chronicling his experience in Vietnam. "
But what I thought was the funniest faux pa (experience) of the day, bar none, was what I did just 5 minutes after delivering this enlightening speech on LITERACY.
Leslie bought sodas for our long ride back to South Bend. She handed me the bag and said "I bought you a Sierra Mist."
Now, just between you and I,
I like my sodas the same way I like my
men & romantic relationships
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DARK & UNHEALTHY.
But I digress.
Anyway, I had never had a Sierra Mist, but I knew they came in a green bottle. So I grabbed one of two green bottles and drank half of it. I gotta say it tasted like hot sea lion urine, or at least what you would imagine that would taste like! I did not want to be rude, she was kind enough to buy me a 20 oz drink....but I just couldn't swallow any more. I even tried pretending I was on Fear Factor and if I drank this I'd get $50,000....NOT!!! So I finally explain to her how much I appreciate the thought but I can't drink this...and as I go to place it in the cup holder FINALLY, I read the label...DIET 7-UP."
We burst into laughter...here I am basking in my present accomplishments and engaging in shameless self-aggrandizement....while simultaneously suffering NEEDLESSLY simply because I the great speaker on LITERACY...failed to read the dang bottle label. Well I never!
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For more information on Steganography
http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/
8th Annual International Information Hiding Conference is in Virginia in July
http://ih2006.jjtc.com/
http://www.infosyssec.org/infosyssec/security/stendig1.htm
