Hawaii Diarii, Day 6

4:30 local time, and I'm back in the room after the career fair. No panel I want to attend in the late-afternoon session, so I think I'm going to slather myself in suntan lotion and go finish my book on the beach.

• Breakfast was a bagel and some coffee. I skipped the early-morning session.

• Late-morning session was on visual design, graphics and so forth, for print and the Web. Good information. We do a lot with graphics so it's good to know. Got approached by a recruiter... who wanted to know if I knew any designers, since I'm not one. That was kind of a lame feeling, I thought, but they had some desk openings so I coughed up a resume anyway.

• I blew off some kind of lunch and went to do some other stuff, including stopping by the career fair - when most people were headed to lunch. I also chatted with Julie Dam, who's in my chapter but I never met, and is the author of the fabulously titled fashion-world novel, "Some Like It Haute" (I'm going to her book-writing session tomorrow - gotta prepare for Stewie's NoMoWriMo novel month thing, or whatever it's called). Turns out her fiancee (who was there) is a Jewish horror movie fan, so I not only got to gab with a fellow fanatic, but I got to tell all my Vietnamese AND Jewish jokes. So not only have I given out several of my work business cards, I got to give out a HorrorTalk business card, too!

• As for lunch, I tried Royal Steak & Seafood again, but they're closed for lunchtime. Guess it's destiny. I went to the Japanese place next door, and had some grilled stuff that they do up right in front of you, like Benihana, but without the fatal flying shrimp. Good, though chopsticks still give me fits.

• The early afternoon session was the best one I've been to - it's on personal essay writing. That was a course they offered at CMU that for one reason or another, I never got to take, even though I badly wanted to. So the seminar was interesting to begin with, something I could understand as far as writing goes, and to top it off, the panelists were excellent. Will it improve the blog? I don't know about that, but it gave me a lot to think about. I wrote a personal essay-type thing several years ago that wound up in print and on the Web, so I think I've got it in me. Or perhaps I'm just going slightly crazy again.

• Then I went back to the career fair, where I promised somebody I'd return after the session. But the session ran a touch long and I spent a wee bit of time after gabbing with some people I knew, so I just barely made it in before close to talk with some folks. I didn't get to talk with others, so I'll have to go back tomorrow. And then, on the elevator up, I ran into the copy chief for another major newspaper, and promised to stop by in the morning. Funny, it wasn't even an elevator pitch, it was more like a holler-through-the-closing-elevator-door pitch!

Got invited on a hike tonight, and I think I'll go despite my sore leg. But that's a ways off. Meantime, to the beach, then (after a quick stop in the room to shower the sand off) to dinner, then to the night club (don't know if I'll make the 7:30 comedy show, but maybe), probably in that order.

Further bulletins "if" events warrant.

On to the next part!