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I made my way down to McCormick Place one more time to attend the closing session. The speaker was Steve Lopez, the author of the book, The Soloist, which was recently made into a motion picture with Jamie Fox and Robert Downey, Jr. I had only vague memories of hearing about the movie so the true story he told was new to me. Mr. Lopez is a columnist for the L.A. Times and about 5 years ago he was looking for a topic for his latest column. He happened to hear a homeless man playing a violin (with only 2 strings) and learned that the man had at one time attended Julliard. He went on to tell how he befriended the man and how that experience had touched his life. It was worth getting up for. He also mentioned that the Philadelphia Public Library is using the book for their One City/One Book program and have planned over 100 events involving The Soloist.

I then made one last run at the exhibits where I picked up some information about DVD security and entered a drawing to win an iPod. I didn’t win the iPod and now I’m outta here. Getting to go to the ALA Conference, in Chicago, with my sister….priceless.