Knights in Shining Armor and a Few Other Shiny Objects That Caught My Eye

On Tuesday this week, I went with four of my co-workers on a three hour drive (No, not a three hour tour.  That's something else entirely.) to Dublin, Ohio.  We went there for a one day conference for work at OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center.  


OCLC is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs".  This from Wikipedia, "OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract, and full-text information to anyone.  OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog (OPAC) in the world."  Basically, OCLC provides the cataloging for our books and for just about every  other library book worldwide.


I took a picture of their main headquarters building.

Our meetings were held in a nearby building in their conference center.  The conference was on Wednesday, but we went down on Tuesday afternoon and spent the night so that we would already be there early in the morning when things got started.


I liked my hotel room.  I had it all to myself.  It was nice and quiet and very comfortable.  It was actually much bigger than I needed just for me overnight, but no complaints here!


It had a kitchen which I didn't use except to make myself a cup of tea.

The rest of my room was quite nice too.

My room was on the fourth floor, and this was the view out the window.  Not a lot to see there really, except the parking lot, but it was a different view from my window at home.  Every once in a while, it is nice to go someplace new and gain some new perspectives.

We went out for a nice dinner and then went to a store called Garden Ridge to do some shopping.  Garden Ridge is a crafting and home decorating retail chain.  I didn't really have anything I needed to shop for, so I just wandered around and took pictures of shiny, pretty, colorful things that caught my eye while my co-workers shopped.


I remember when Christmas trees used to be green, just green.  Now you can have any color or size that you'd like to have.

I found a plethora of poinsettias.  (No, not a plethora of pinatas!)

What color do you like?  I think they had them all there!

These wreaths were colorful and shiny too.

Oooooh!  Sparkly!

This aisle looked like it might be a good place for that Where's Waldo guy to hang out, but I didn't find him there.  

I loved this aisle.  Gingerbread men, elves, Santa, and snowmen--what's not to like?

I guess I'd call these minimalist trees!

This snowman and Santa were up high on a shelf.

Pink flamingos with Santa hats.   :-D

These scarecrows and other Halloween and fall items were all marked half price, but I didn't buy any of them.

These pigs with wings and bright colored ducks made me smile.  "When pigs fly!"  Do you remember Flo from the show, Alice, used to say that?

These other wire and metal sculpture animals--giraffes and such were whimsical too.

I found a knight in shining armor there.  Actually, I found several,

and in more than one color.

I also found these.  

I'm not sure if they are supposed to be turkeys or peacocks, but when I saw them I immediately thought of this:

Finally, I saw several shelves of urns and vases and bottles and pots that pulled me right to them.  I have absolutely no use that I can think of for any of these things, but they were very pretty, in a loud and showy sort of regal way.  Made me wonder if King Midas had been there, touching everything.

These ones with the blue butterflies on the side made me think of my friend Mildred who likes butterflies. 

I didn't take any pictures the day of the conference since the day was spent in meetings listening to speakers and looking at Power point and video presentations.  They fed us a grand lunch, and I found the experience overall to be both informative and entertaining.  Although it was nice to get away for a couple of days,  it was also quite nice to come home again too, as it usually is when I've been away.