A week from tomorrow, I leave for Manchester, England, to speak at the Online Help Conference - Europe 2006, where I'm one of seven speakers. Matthew Ellison has put together an incredible program, with some really neat topics: structured authoring, Web technology update, latest RoboHelp news, a discussion on case studies for AuthorIT and Help & Manual, DITA, embedded Help, and collaborative authoring.

My topics are Trends in Microsoft Online Help (on Thursday morning) and Choosing a Help Authoring Tool (on Friday morning). (I included exercises in the HAT session...it will be interesting to see the results.)

I'm going to be making an announcement during Tuesday's session about a new project that JTF Associates is putting together, and then I'll announce it here. Stay tuned!

Edited because the days that I'm speaking were incorrect. Unless it's possible for me to speak on the morning before the day I arrive ;-)

Jesse has always been a "critter guy", and we've done nothing to discourage him. Of course, this has meant a variety of critters at the house at any given time, including a garter snake, a frog, spiders, snails, etc. (This is in addition to the two dogs, cat, Senegal parrot, cockatiel, two parakeets, and fish.)

Jim has never been a critter guy, unless it's birds (although he'd much prefer a cockatoo or maccaw instead of our smaller birds) or fish (thus the fish tank). He's ok with the dogs and cat, but he's not all that crazy about the bugs or reptiles. (I'm not all that crazy about the bugs, either, but I'm ok with the reptiles.)

But we had the chance to add to the menagerie when a friend of ours bred two of her corn snakes and then offered Jesse one when they were ready to leave (which was this week). He was so excited! We went over one night last week to look at them (and choose which one of the 16 he wanted), and Jesse fell for one of the brown and tan ones.

I fell for one of the pink and white ones ;-)

So last night, we went and picked up our new additions. We had nice clean tanks ready for them and even got a new wire bookcase to hold the tanks. (Given that the bulk of items in my living room consists of cages, I figured we may as well organize them instead of always having them on top of bookcases.)

But welcoming our two new little ones into the house isn't why anyone should mark the day on the calendar (including us). What makes it a red banner day?

Jim held both baby snakes.

We were told to bring them home and let them acclimate a bit, and to feed them either the same night (last night) or the following night (today). But really, two baby snakes? How could we not hold them, just for a little bit? (And Jesse's snake, now named "Scorpy", was very active and inquisitive. Mine was still a bit shy.)

So Jesse took Scorpy out and was holding him, when Jim's curiousity finally won the battle, and he asked to hold it. If you've never held a snake, you're not really ready for what they feel like, and Jim's first comment was that Scorpy felt like velvet. (I think they feel more like silk than velvet.)

And I got a picture :-)

Obviously, I couldn't be left out ;-), so I took my snake out for a bit, too. (I haven't come up with a name I like yet.) And Jim held her, too, and then took a picture of Jesse and I holding our new babies.

After holding them for a bit, we put them back in their tanks, and Jim fed them. (This works for me, because they eat pinkies, which are frozen thawed baby mice. I'd rather hold a snake than touch a pinkie!)

And after the snakes eat, they can't be picked up for two days, so we've watched them today. They like to hide under their water dishes and in the paper towel tubes we've put in the tanks, so every now and then we check on them by peeking in and under ;-)

So far, so good!

BTW, for those who are curious, corn snakes are constrictors. They can bite if scared, but we hope to minimize those incidents. Because they are reptiles, they don't bond with humans the way that dogs and cats do, but if they are held, they remain fairly calm. Our babies are about 12 inches long and weigh about 10 grams. Jesse's snake Scorpy, a male, will get to be about 5 feet long, while mine, a female should grow to about 4 feet. They like to hide, and even as adults, they can fold themselves inside a paper tube (like those for paper towels). If they get nervous, they shake their tails...in the wild, they would shake them against dry leaves to mimic a rattlesnake.

WritersUA has made a slight change in the venue for next year's conference, which will now be held at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach from 25-27 March 2007. The hotel has wireless Internet access, and is located near the Queen Mary and Disneyland.

Watch for the call for proposals! And start talking to your boss now about taking advantage of early registration.

Some of the HAT vendors have been busy...

• AuthorIT announces its new Website Manager, which lets you create and publish websites. The Website Manager builds on the AuthorIT concepts of separating content and presentation, and adds in pre-programmed items. Visit their site to request the evaluation edition.
• Quadralay has published an "end-of-life" announcement for WebWorks Publisher 2003. (Hat tip: Palimpsest). Update: They've also announced WebWorks ePublisher Express.
• MadCap has been quiet lately...it's probably all that work on Blaze ;-) But I ran into monkeypi tonight...he (he? she?) makes some interesting points on the future of RoboHelp.
• Adobe's forums have been quite active, too. (BTW, if you had problems activating RoboHelp recently, the activation servers are now up and running again.)
• Congratulations to ComponentOne! They've received the Reader's Choice Merit Award for Doc-To-Help recently, along with several other awards.