Friday Roundup: Bagels at Beauty's

Siggy looking pensive at Waterbury. 

Books, beer, and a dog named Bialy: Congratulations and thanks are in order for Diana Forgione and the other organizers of Death Rattle Writers Festival, both for a fantastic series of readings last month and for inviting me to participate. It was not, surprisingly, the first alley I've ever read in, but it was definitely best attended and best organized alley I've ever read in. 

Going through the Big "D": It was a mad dash there at the end but we finally rang the closing bell on Connected 2015, Truckstop.com's first-ever user conference. The good: the creme brûlée station, the overall look and feel of the conference, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees. The less-than-good: lost luggage and the lack of a freight elevator in the hotel. The key takeaways: 1) Always carry on your luggage. Always. 2) A (dressier) blazer does wonders drawing eyes away from (less-than-dressy) jeans. 3) When a bottle of beer costs you $7 in the hotel bar, it's best to go off-campus and find a place where the same dough will land you a double vodka soda.

Random idea for a country song: "We drank together but then you stopped drinking / And I kept on drinking and you went away / I get nostalgic while you get more sober / So, now, I'm drinking for two."

Montreal via Vermont: A hyperlinked tour of Siggy and my trip to Burlington and Quebec: pensive lake shots (and above); disgustingly vibrant fall colors; giant Adirondack chairs; duck fat breakfast; bourbon at Big in Japan; bagels at Beauty's; narwhal skull!

Because procrastination and screenwriting seem to go hand-in-hand: It's a bit late, but after hearing that Mark Duplass and Nat Faxon will be running the screenwriter's lab at the Sun Valley Film Festival, I'm hoping to throw a script into the hat.