going to atlanta

I am going to the meetings of the American Sociological Association tomorrow. In my early years of graduate school, I never really got why people bothered to go to the meetings. Certainly, while some presentations are great, the intellectual content as a whole didn't seem enough of a draw. Later, when friends of mine got their Ph.D. and scattered across the country, it made sense to have this annual reunion. And, of course, you start to develop relationships through correspondence or otherwise with other people in the discipline. So I'm looking forward now to seeing a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a year, and maybe I'll get in some sociological-sight-seeing to boot. Plus, I'm making a trip on Monday to see my sister Faye and niece Jamie in Norcross.

Perhaps I will get and take the chance to send a blog update while I'm down there, but loyal readers should not count on it. Then again, some of my readers will be down there with me, I suppose.

BTW, I confirmed tonight that I have the dreaded Blaster Worm on my home computer, and I'm hoping that the computer staff will purge this for me while I'm gone. I was talking to my mom earlier and I mentioned that I had the virus [sic] that was in the news on my computer. "It's not a virus," she said, "they're saying it's an infection."

"I thought it was a worm," I replied, despite having absolutely no reason to think that my mom would know the virus/worm distinction.

"No, they're saying it's like an infection, like it's already inside your computer and that it's an infection." I wasn't really able to make out who "they" were, except that they were on the TV (where else?), and I wasn't able to make out what "they" meant by infection.

Special weblog contest #3: Explain to me what my mother was talking about; she seemed quite sure of herself.