Can you blame them? Who in their right mind woudl risk catching Captain Trips just to get some posters and tote bags?

Mmmmm....Posters and tote bags..

I can't blame people too much but you know there are lots of folks that don't take (or get) any break from Library work other than this. I've always said I believe it is important for us to go to conferences but just as important for us to get (and take) vacations. I guess it wouldn't seem so sad to me if we (as Librarians) didn't get a better shake in regards to $ and vacation.

Librarians should go to more conferences, no doubt. Regional and state library gatherings are useful, as are conferences devoted to specific topics like the ASIS shindig I went to Monday. But ALA was, in my opinion, a waste of time. And way too expensive. Had Unkie Bill not picked up the tab, it would've cost around $1500 when hotels and food and reg and plane fares were added in.

Your ASIS blog gathering/workshop sounds like such a great time. It's extra cool because you/we already knew most if not all of the presenters. I'll bet lots of other interesting folks were there too.
About the ALA conferences:
If you are on a round table or active in a group, or an author or vendor or are looking to buy or even going to see a new/cool place I still think ALA is worth it. I do agree that for many people the state and/or regional gathering are often times more useful particularly when it is a specialized workshop/gathering.

It was a pretty cool conference. You should check out the link I put in the comment on your Thursday posting. The presentations of the various speakers are being linked to that page. I found the one on RSS by Steven Cohen of librarystuff.net the most personally useful, sinec the other ones were mostly about search engines or "how to start a library blog." Jessamyn West's presentation was more esoteric, but also quite interesting.

Didn't Jessamyn just move out east from Seattle? She is the one who used to work for TRI/GCTA/BMGF?