Happy New Year!

May you have a peaceful, healthy, and happy 2009!

This & That

So I haven't been posting lately for a couple of reasons:

1) My life has been entirely consumed by the current theatre production ("Evita")
2) I've been spending time writing on Facebook instead

As to the former, there's one more show to go. Two weekends, as usual - and this time it's with a twist, as we had two different actresses playing Eva Peron. The woman who was originally cast ended up with a conflict so that we had the understudy do it the second weekend.

What's so interesting about all that is that when we did the auditions and the casting, John, the director, was very divided about which of the two he was going to cast. One of them (last weekend) was more operatic and actually kind of resembled Eva Peron (but not with blond hair). The other was much more of a Broadway type and looked more like Patti LuPone playing Eva Peron. He agonized and said, "But I want them both!" - and apparently someone in the Universe was listening and granted his wish.

So. Having said all that - we've had five good productions, and I have expanded my technology repertoire to include a semi-mastery of a very cool product called Sinfonia®. It's a system that allows you to have a full orchestra at your fingertips even when you don't have the room for the entire group! Check it out here. I had a great time using it!

Now, as for Facebook - well, let's just say that I'm up to 31 friends and I think it's very fun! I've talked to folks I haven't seen in years. And it's all because some of my colleagues created accounts there and I submitted to peer pressure and logged on, too.

:-)

In panda news...there's a new little guy at the Atlanta Zoo! Mei Lan has a little brother, and Lun Lun is just as wonderful a mother this time around.

Accidental Discoveries

Part of today's lunch table discussion encompassed "accidental discoveries" - we were puzzling about how certain things ever got discovered. Like, for example, maple syrup. Who on earth ever figured out that you could stick a spout into a tree, extract the sap, then boil it till it was this sweet substance that was good to eat? Or who would figure that poppy seeds could be a drug? That sort of thing.

So while waiting for a process to finish running, I took a look online to see what sorts of accidental discoveries there are out there. Found some interesting stuff, of course!

http://listverse.com/miscellaneous/top-10-accidental-discoveries/
Listverse in and of itself is fascinating to those of us who like lists. Of course, the "Top 10" designation is purely subjective.

Toll House cookies were discovered by accident? Really? Now THAT'S the kind of accident I wouldn't mind having.

This list leaves off a couple of really important things, like Silly Putty and Vulcanized rubber. Ice cream cones.

Some of the items weren't so much mistakes as they were simply people using the materials they had on hand to substitute for something else and found that it was simply better in some way. (See the ice cream cones example!)

There are so many examples out there, mostly in the area of science or food. It's amazing!

So, panda news. Looks like Mei Xiang isn't going to have a cub this year. The folks at the National Zoo are speculating that she actually might have lost a fetus in an early stage that was reabsorbed into the uterine lining. I guess it's not uncommon in mammals, but it still makes me sad. :-( Guess Tai Shan is still an only child!

Waterblogged

Couldn't resist, Matt. You rock at post titles!

So, water. Cool, pure, lovely (that's for Kelli) water. I love it. It's always been my drink of choice - well, except for coffee - even as a kid. (Yes, I drank coffee as a kid. I started drinking it regularly when I was twelve, but that's another whole story.) I've never really been one for flavored waters, especially those that are carbonated. Yeah, I can drink them, and I would prefer to drink that over soda, but give me a plain old glass of spring water any day.

But I generally like to try new things, and I particularly like to peruse the shelves of "Nature's Marketplace" at Wegmans. Recently in my perusals I discovered an herbal water called "Ayala's Herbal Water." Feeling adventurous, I purchased a few bottles (of different flavors) and much to my surprise, I REALLY liked them!

Now, the folks at work find these highly amusing for some reason. However, you lunch table people need to know that there ARE others who like them as well. And I'll also have you know that the woman who developed them is a pediatrician.

So there.

In panda news, they're still watching Mei Xiang (that's her at right) at the National Zoo and hoping that she'll deliver a cub. Ditto Lun Lun at Zoo Atlanta. Ultrasounds on pandas are generally inconclusive, and they experience pseudopregnancies, so until either their urine analyses show that hormone levels have returned to normal or they deliver a cub, we're all in the dark!

Here's a great YouTube video on the birthday celebrations of 3-year-old Su Lin and her 1-year-old sister Zhen Zhen at the San Diego Zoo! There's something highly amusing about a panda cub climbing all over (and falling off of) a cake made of ice, bamboo, and other frozen treats!

A New Toy!

No, not the Wii, and not a new game for the Wii, either. I'm referring to http://wordle.net - a nifty site where you can create a "word cloud" based on a block of text or a URL.

Such a perfect thing for a word nerd!

Check out my first Wordle! (Based on the lyrics of "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" from "Evita" by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice.)

A moment away from the server

Just needed a break from rebuilding a software installation. I'm totally redoing the WebOPAC - moving it from one version to a newer version, and unfortunately, that doesn't just mean an upgrade of the software. It's a whole new install, and then each of the 40+ sites needs to be individually rebuilt, the links changed on the web page, their visual OPACs transferred from the old to the new, etc. Tedious work. The installation resisted me for a long time and didn't want to work properly, but I finally got it to see my point of view. It does, however, still occasionally stop working just to show me it can.

Random thoughts:
Yes, there is justification for my having a Wii. Truly. Educause says so.

Busy week last week; I was out of the office to work on the kids' theatre stuff I do every summer. This year we actually ran two productions, which went VERY well! The kids were fabulous and I think they had a good time. I did too, all in all, but boy, was I tired when it was all over! I'm not sure I'm recovered still.

Panda watchers everywhere are zeroed in on the National Zoo in Washington and the Atlanta Zoo (in Atlanta, of course) to see whether Mei Xiang and Lun Lun, respectively, will "bear" another cub this year! Pandas go through all the symptoms of pregnancy whether or not they are actually expecting, so we'll just have to wait for a birth or cessation of symptoms. I'm hoping that Tai Shan (Washington) and Mei Lan (Atlanta) will both have new siblings this year! The other two zoos in the U.S. that have giant pandas, San Diego and Memphis, are out of the running - San Diego's Bai Yun is still nursing Zhen Zhen, and Ya Ya, the female in Memphis, didn't go into estrus this year. Well, she's still young!


In the meantime, we can look forward to a 1 year birthday celebration for little Zhen in San Diego on August 3rd!

:-)

Welcome to July

Towards the end of the school year, the librarians always say to me things like, "You must look forward to summer when it's quieter" and "Enjoy your vacation." Ha!

Here we are at the 10th of July, and so far I haven't had a single day that hasn't been busy - almost to the point of frenzy, sometimes. Sure, email is slower (I think I've gotten 2 today that were both work-related and reasonably important), and the phone doesn't ring as much, but there is still LOTS to do.

Today, for example, I've been attempting to rebuild the WebOPAC. It's been slow going, and so far not successful at all. The only reason I have time right now to post to this blog is because I had to reboot the server to apply an update, and it's not willing to come back up. I called the Help Desk to have someone physically hit the power button, but of course all the server team is in a meeting, so I'm monitoring a ping request but still getting the "Request Timed Out" response. This project will likely continue into tomorrow!

Well, I think I will go clear some stuff off my laptop. It's running very slowly and I think it's cause it's over half full. Gets like that!

Back to before

Well, the girls have gone home and it's quiet around here now. Funny how you can get used to having dogs around in such a short period of time! Though I suppose the cats never DID get used to them...

We spent several hours today getting things together from the shed and the garage for the current theatrical endeavors. Annie & Sarah were very interested in the shed and investigated every inch. Once they had sniffed each nook and cranny, Sarah lolled in the shade of the nearby willow tree and monitored my progress while Annie jumped in and out of the car to "help" me load the props & costumes I was gathering from the shed.

After we finished all that, it was time to play some Wii (!) and have lunch, not necessarily in that order. So we did, and the afternoon passed rather quickly; I suddenly realized it was time to head off to rehearsal! After rehearsal, I dashed home to gather up the dogs and take them back home, where John was anxiously awaiting them. I'm not sure if John was more delighted to see the dogs or if they were more delighted to see him, but it was a pretty happy reunion.

When I got home, I found Pierre and Jasmine lurking at the bottom of the steps. Pierre looked past me when I opened the door, and when he saw no canines following me, he dashed upstairs. Jasmine stayed below; however, I soon discovered that it was only because she was anxious for me to bring her "puff" back upstairs. So up it came, along with Jasmine, and at this very moment Pierre is kneading the pillow next to me and purring madly while Triscuit is contentedly settled on my lap. Jasmine is happy out on her "puff," and I guess that means all is right with the world.

Day 4 and all is quiet

Triscuit did spend the night in her normal place on my bed, purring happily and occasionally licking my hand, my cheek, my elbow, whatever she happened to be near at the time.

This morning she allowed Annie to get on the bed with us, and seemed mildly interested in her overtures, but when Annie got a little TOO close with her kissing, Triscuit smacked her across the nose and hissed. It was a different kind of hiss than the others, though, it wasn't evil, it was very matter-of-fact, more of a "I'm going to tolerate you but I'm not ready for that sort of familiarity, missy," sort of thing. Annie backed off, but didn't look as crushed as she had earlier, so I think she got the idea, too.

We lounged a bit, and after breakfast (in bed - best way to have it!), Triscuit decided it was time to check out other parts of the house. (Probably the litter box.) She had a bit of dilemma getting off the bed, because it seemed that all ways out were obstructed by dogs. Triscuit finally decided the best way off was OVER the dogs, and so she opted to leap across Annie, who was stretched out full-length along one side of the bed. No mean feat for a 17-year-old obese cat! She then trotted down the hall; the dogs wanted to follow. I told them, "No," and Annie stayed, but Sarah went down after Triscuit. I didn't hear any repercussions, so I suspect that either Triscuit had already gone downstairs or else Sarah kept her distance; in any case, Sarah came back down the hall a few minutes later and resumed her napping position.

Guess I'll go see what Pierre & Jasmine are up to! Ah, the fun they miss out on by being scaredy-cats...

Triscuit the Brave

So there I was, playing Wii Tennis (and actually winning for a change), when all of a sudden a paw comes around the door to other end of the basement and pulls the door open and Triscuit walks through. I'm not sure who was more surprised, Annie, Sarah, or me. She kind of huffed at the dogs, who were sitting stock still out of pure shock, then sat down and stared at us all. Annie started to get a little wiggly and was looking at me, begging me to let her go over to the cat, but I just said warningly, "Annie..." and she sat down reluctantly. Sarah was just staring back at Triscuit in utter fascination. Triscuit then turned her back on us all and continued to sit there, probably contemplating her next move. She then nonchalantly wandered up the steps. At that point the dogs were both trying to decide whether or not to follow her, but I told them, "No," and they unwillingly stayed down with me (they listen very well!), but they watched with the steps with rapt attention.

I continued with my tennis playing (proceeding to lose after all) and since Triscuit had not reappeared, the girls lost interest in the steps and settled down to nap. Ten minutes or so later, Triscuit stalked down the steps, crossed the room and jumped on the futon. She stared at me accusingly and meowed, which caused Annie to jump up and dare to approach. Triscuit glared at her but didn't hiss and allowed her to get pretty close before she deliberately turned her back and climbed up onto the back of the futon, where she settled down.

Poor Annie was about ready to jump out of her skin with excitement. She slipped onto the futon as furtively as possible and inched her way forward as far as she could toward Triscuit. She got within a foot, always expecting that hiss, and just as she leaned forward to sniff, Triscuit leaned into HER and sniffed! That, of course, startled Annie so much that she leapt back and missed her golden opportunity to finally give one of the cats a kiss! I cried, I was laughing so hard!

I'd gotten tired of playing tennis (had played 12 matches at that point, and actually won a couple), so I plopped down onto the futon and decided to see if there was anything worth watchinig on TV. (Yes, I know you're all shocked that I would even look.) Triscuit was utterly delighted. She climbed off the back of the futon to sit on my chest, purring very loudly. Annie climbed up onto the futon onto my feet, and I had no choice but to watch whatever was on the current station (I had dropped the remote). Fortunately it was on TV Land or something, so I ended up watching "Murder, She Wrote" and alternating petting Triscuit, Annie, and Sarah. (The other two cats hadn't come out of the other end yet.)

Last I saw Triscuit she had followed us upstairs and was sitting in one of her regular positions in the living room. Perhaps she'll work up the courage to come down and resume her regular sleeping position on my bed!

[Edit...probably 10 minutes after I originally posted this, Triscuit DID work up that courage, and is now very contentedly snuggled up next to me in bed.]

Day 3

Well, it's been quiet so far today. Bill got up this morning to head off to the Poconos for his brother-in-law's 60th birthday party. (I hope the weather holds...) The girls still barked at him when he emerged but it didn't last nearly as long and sounded somewhat more like a greeting today. Must be they're getting used to him!

Had a nice long visit with the kitties this morning; Pierre was all hugs today (he's actually a very huggy cat normally, anyway; he's been known to get up on his hind legs and reach up like a toddler does when he/she wants to be picked up) and Jasmine actually came out of her corner. Triscuit was all "I'm busy sleeping, go away," but the other two definitely were up for some company. So I gave them a can of cat food (a treat for them) and we did some brushing and petting and they did a lot of purring. I told them if they wanted to come upstairs I would keep the dogs away from them, but they passed on that. Maybe later.

So I threw in more laundry (I still have about 6 or 7 loads to go. Seriously. I'm still catching up on costume things from the last show at Broadway and from cleaning out the ELT building.) THEN - I decided to explore the Wii Play game that I also bought when I got my Wii. (Well, heck, I wanted the extra remote and this was only 10 bucks more. Such a deal.) Very fun. Not quite as active as the Wii Sports or the Wii Fit (which I do not YET have), but there are a few things that require a bit of activity. I like the Billiards game, though I did not do particularly well, and there's a game where you ride a cow and try to knock down scarecrows which is a riot.

So then, more laundry, and now we're sitting on the deck eating cheese and crackers and fruit and watching the hummingbirds and listening to the house wrens that are living in the martin house. They have a beautiful song. There's a nice breeze, and it's so quiet and peaceful...ah, the joys of living in the country!

Close Encounters

So, to continue from yesterday...during the entire time we ate dinner Pierre sat on the table just inside the sliding glass doors and monitored our meal. The dogs would occasionally go over to the screen and whine at him, but he either reacted by ignoring them with the utmost disdain or else by glaring at them with a loud hiss. (The hisses from any of the cats always appear to crush Annie, she gives me a "what did I say?" sort of look and slinks away most pathetically.)

[Note the bag on which Pierre is standing - he had discovered a bag of dog chews and was more interested in them than in his own treats. The grass is always greener...]


Triscuit stayed happily ensconced on my bed even when I came down the hall with both dogs at my heels. She glared at them when they came in, but didn't bother to move. I sat down on the bed next to her and Annie jumped up next to me, but she still stayed. So there we were, the three of us. Annie kept trying to inch her way closer and was desperate to give Triscuit a kiss. She got within inches, and Triscuit, who had been ignoring her up to that point, turned and gave a soft but evil hiss. Annie backed off apologetically, and Triscuit looked up at me with an expression that clearly said, "Please. Would I let a dog lick me?" I swear she rolled her eyes. It was hysterical!

[Note - I am NOT holding Triscuit down in the picture, nor did I use PhotoShop for anything other than to reduce the image size to post it on the Web!]

We were invited to Will's house to watch the fireworks at the airport (you can see them pretty well from his front lawn). Annie & Sarah had been invited to come along, too (Will's a dog person), but I opted to leave them for a bit, as I don't know how they react to loud noises. Triscuit seemed content to stay on the bed, even with them there; Pierre had long since hidden in the closet, and Jasmine has apparently taken up permanent residence in the basement.

When we got home, Jasmine was the only one I could locate immediately. Pierre and Triscuit were nowhere to be found. The dogs had come outside, of course, when we got home, and Bill stayed out with them while I hunted. I called around the basement for a bit, and came back upstairs to find the two cats sitting at the top of the stairs. We let the dogs back in; Pierre bolted downstairs but Triscuit nonchalantly strolled down the hall. I thought she went back to the bedroom, but she had parked herself UNDER the bed in Bill's room and was apparently not planning on coming out.

Bill reported this morning that she DID come out - about 1:00 a.m. - and went back downstairs.
Last time I went down all three were present and accounted for, for once.

I think I'll go visit them...

Ai Haz A Wii!!!

My favorite friend Sue called me this afternoon while I was bathing the dogs and left me a voice message telling me that she was at the Mall and had just walked past the GameStop store. They had a sign out saying that they had Wiis in stock! So I hustled myself up there (okay, it was almost an hour later, but only because I had to wait for Bill) AND - I now have a Wii!! So far I've played three games of tennis (I actually won one) and bowled two games (I got a 123 and a 185).

The dogs watched me, but were not impressed. They wanted to go outside. So after my two games of bowling and three games of tennis, we went out onto the deck so I could brush them and clean Sarah's ears. During this time, I happened to look over toward the sliding doors and discovered Triscuit sitting inside glaring at us, and Pierre was at the top of the stairs.

Bill came out to grill hamburgers for dinner, so I left the girls out on the deck with him and came in to have a few moments with my kitties. I'm not sure where Pierre went, but Triscuit has had a brushing and is now sitting next to me on the bed purring happily (it's HER bed, after all). I hate to break it to her that the dogs won't be staying outside indefinitely...

Burgers are done - more later!!

Bath time!

When I picked up the dogs from John, he said to me, "Does Bill have a sensitive nose?" (He knows I don't.) I asked him why, and he said apologetically, "Sarah is kind of strong...she needs a bath but I didn't really realize how badly until she got in the car this morning." So I allowed as how I could do that. He kind of frowned and said, "Well, Annie will be good for you, but Sarah..." at which point I said, "John, have you ever given a cat a bath?!" He laughed right out loud at that and said, "Of course, I forgot who I was talking to!" and reminisced about giving one of his cats a bath once.

So this afternoon I figured it was time. After his warning, the whole thing was quite anticlimactic. They were both VERY good, and as a matter of fact, Sarah was even quieter than Annie was. When it was over, they both wanted to run and play (I remember our dogs growing up always wanting to do that), so we went outside...where it was raining. They didn't care; they were already wet.

However, Bill had just mowed the lawn this morning...so now we have clumps of grass all over the house. Oh, well, it needed vacuuming, anyway!!

On the cat front...Jasmine has been seen moving from one room to the other downstairs. The other two are still sleeping in the front window. I suspect this will last pretty much till the girls go home...

Day 2...

It was a quiet night, but it was also a bit disconcerting to be awakened by an all-over facial wash by Annie this morning. Triscuit will sometimes give me a bath, too, but a cat's idea of a bath is much more localized. AND it was at 7:15 a.m.! Doesn't John teach his dogs that Saturdays are for sleeping in?! (Of course not, actually, he works on Saturdays.)

So we got up and went outside, and then I went down and threw some laundry in. While downstairs, I checked on the cats. Pierre & Triscuit were happily snuggled on the cat bed in the front basement window, but Jasmine was nowhere to be found, still. Hmmm.

Went back to bed for a bit, but was awakened by the girls barking madly at Bill. Seems like anytime he walks around the house they bark at him! And they are quite protective of me...they won't let him near me. It's quite amusing, actually. So I decided to get up after a bit and make breakfast, which pleased them all immensely.

After breakfast Bill went downstairs and came back up to announce that he had seen Jasmine; she was in another window in the basement. I felt better knowing she had been sighted! But I have not been downstairs since; I think that perhaps I shall go down and see if I can find her, too.

Maybe some catnip is in order...

Cats and dogs update

Well, Annie & Sarah seem to have settled in quite nicely, thank you. They are currently snoozing on the floor next to my bed. The cats, however, are still not very happy about this.

Earlier this afternoon, Triscuit confirmed that she had been in my bedroom closet (which is not an unusual thing; she sleeps there quite regularly, so that was not necessarily on account of the dogs) by wandering down the hall when I was sitting in the living room with our canine guests. She stopped short when she saw them, apparently quite surprised. I don't know if she was sound asleep when they arrived and didn't hear them, or if she just forgot they were there. In any case, we had a staring match amongst the three of them, then she nonchalantly slipped downstairs. Annie & Sarah weren't sure if they should follow her or not, and by the time they decided they should, she had disappeared, so they came back and settled into the living room again.

A few minutes later, Pierre slunk down the hall and followed in Triscuit's steps down the stairs. So we had two downstairs! Jasmine was still sitting next to the computer, apparently not having moved for several hours. I took her some food and water, but she wasn't at all interested. Oh, well...

Came back and fell asleep (naps are good!) and was awakened by Sarah barking. Pierre had decided to brave things and had come back upstairs! Pierre, our resident 'fraidy-cat, of all things. He lay down under the piano and dared the girls to approach him. They declined, and a long staring match ensued. Annie lost interest pretty quickly, but Sarah was fascinated by him. (Well, he is almost as big as she is.)

During this time it was pretty quiet, so Triscuit must've figured the dogs had left, because she came back upstairs and stopped short once again to see them there. They, of course, immediately were all tail-waggy and happy to see her, which caused her to turn around and go back downstairs in alarm. That in turn freaked Pierre out and he abandoned the staring match to follow her down.

When Bill got home, Annie and Sarah were not at all sure about him. They raised a ruckus, and it wasn't till we were actually sitting down to dinner that they finally decided that it was all right for him to be there. I don't think he was very sure about them, either!

After dinner I went back down to the bedroom to find Jasmine in the same position she had been in for the past 8 hours. This began to concern me; I figured she MUST need to use the litter box by this time! So I figured I'd carry her downstairs...

Suffice it to say that I now have some scratches on my left shoulder that sting quite a bit. I had to get Bill to take her downstairs while I took the girls outside.

So all three are downstairs where there are litter boxes and some food and water. I believe I'll take them some more and see if I can visit with them for a bit. Poor kitties!

When cats and dogs meet

About a month ago, I agreed to dog sit for my friend John, who is going on a family trip this weekend. This morning Annie and Sarah came to visit until Monday!

I was, of course, a bit concerned about how my three resident felines - Pierre, Jasmine, and Triscuit - might feel about these house guests. After all, they've run this house for 9, 10, and 17 years, respectively. And though I've been trying to prepare them for weeks for this visit, I don't think they really believed me.

When I first got here to the house, I pulled into the garage but left the overhead door open. We got out of the car and Annie & Sarah enthusiastically investigated the side yard, the front yard, and the driveway. After they'd done their business, they turned back into the garage and expectantly waited at the door. (Smart dogs - how'd they know that went into the house? They've never been here before!) So we went in, and I expected that Pierre and Jasmine would be on their "puffs" at the top of the stairs as they usually are at that time of day, and that would see the girls and instantly go flying off somewhere.

Instead, nothing. Not a cat in sight, anywhere. Sarah immediately went downstairs (which surprised me, because John said she might have trouble with stairs) and investigated the basement, followed closely by Annie and then by me. No cats anywhere. In fact the whole house was eerily silent. Knowing how well cats can hide, I decided that probably I would see them sometime later in the day and shouldn't worry.

So I was very surprised upon entering the bedroom after Annie to hear a very loud hiss. I followed the source of the hiss to find Pierre waiting with VERY big hair and fire in his eyes huddled under a chair. Jasmine was sitting next to the computer with very big eyes but was otherwise quiet. She did, however, lay her ears back and glare when Annie jumped up onto the bed.

Annie and Sarah tried to sniff Pierre, but he continued to sound like an air mattress with an intermittent leak. They kind of glanced at Jasmine but for some reason didn't bother to approach her.

Triscuit is still nowhere around. But this is her best sleeping time, so she's probably somewhere curled up. I think Pierre just went into the closet. Maybe she's in there, too.

Uh-oh...It's awfully quiet around here...I think I'd better go see what's going on!!

Monday, Monday

School's almost out. For me, that means a lot of end-of-the-year questions, like which reports should be run for final statistics and that sort of thing. Other than that, it's fairly quiet, which is why I thought today would be a fine day to take as a vacation day and recover from a VERY busy weekend.

Here's the thing...I'm working on two shows at once. Well, actually three. Our kids' theatre group had 67 kids audition, so we split them into two groups and are doing two shows. It's kind of mind-boggling...I'm not so sure we should've done it, but there you are.

The other show doesn't go up till this fall, but we're getting a head start on it now; it's "Evita" and that's a pretty massive show. Had auditions this past weekend, and between the three days of auditions for that and an all-morning rehearsal for the kids' shows, I was pretty beat. So, as I said, I opted to stay home and sleep.

I should have known better. It seems that every time I think it's going to be quiet and I can take a day, something happens. Today it was server issues. Had to log on via VPN to reset a server. Of course, I always foolishly check my email, and there was a pretty full inbox today, even though when I left last Friday I had it down to three.

So I've got plenty to do tomorrow. First thing I need to do is make that the troubleshooting sheet I left with Kelli is up-to-date and that she remembers to actually use it! :-)

Phew!

It is HOT. Hot isn't so bad; it's humidity that really gets us here, and it's also humid. Yesterday we had some thunderstorms go through, and that helped very briefly, but here we are today, back to 95 degrees and 36% humidity. Poor Miss Triscuit Cat, who is 17 years old, really minds the heat, and it was pitiful to watch her over the weekend as she just stretched out on her side in a position strategically located between two open doors and didn't move for hours. Bill finally was able to get the air conditioners in, and she's now back to normal! The other two cats don't seem to mind nearly as much...

My sister and her husband came to visit this weekend, and brought their Nintendo Wii. I need one. I NEED one. And no place around here (or anywhere else, from what I can tell) has any. So I now have a nifty little gadget on my Google homepage called "Nintendo Wii Tracker." It keeps track of when the elusive Wii comes into stock online so I can check to see if I can actually get one. You've gotta love gadgets!

Rich just handed me an article called "Wii Love Learning" from the June/July 2008 issue of "Edutopia." It's a short article on some classroom teachers in Indiana who use the Wii in the classroom. Now, I can see that entirely. My sister brought her Wii Fit component, too, and it tricked me into actually exercising. Here I thought I was just playing computer games, then all of a sudden I realized that the muscles in my legs felt like I had really done some exercise, and I was sweaty and out of breath as well. So if the Wii can trick a couch potato like me into exercising, why couldn't it trick kids into learning?

Sounds like fun to me!

Yikes!

Here it is almost the end of May, and I haven't posted anything for ages. It's been SUCH a busy month...finished "The Odd Couple" (female version) for Elmira Little Theatre (I was Mickey the Cop) and am preparing for the kids' summer show ("Kokonut Island" makes a reprise this year) as well as ELT's fall show - "Evita." More on that to come, I'm sure!

Work-wise, May usually brings plenty of inventories (yes, my trigger finger is sore!) and preparation for the end of the year. Evaluations, all that. A couple of classes, and lots of catalog cleanup and tedious type work!

Of course I've been following the plight of the Giant Pandas in China who were affected by the recent terrible earthquake, especially those at the Wolong Nature Reserve, which was very close to the epicenter of the quake. Amazingly, only two pandas were injured, and six escaped, but five were either recaptured or wandered back. There's one still missing, though. Hope they find it soon! All the panda houses were damaged or destroyed, and sadly, five staff were killed at the reserve.

If you're interested in finding out more about the pandas or helping out with the people & pandas in China, visit the Pandas International website. They have great pictures and information. The National Zoo and the San Diego Zoo also have good information and links.


Happy May!

(The six pandas on the left were moved from the Wolong Reserve to another reserve that was less affected by the earthquake.)

Another reason to really love RSS

Andy Carvin, who works for NPR, posted "The Cutest Panda Video Ever" on his "Waste of Bandwidth" blog. That in turn led me to "The Chengdu Diary" blog that some of the folks at NPR are writing as they prepare for a program from China.

Andy, you are my hero!

:-)

RSS Revisited

I love my RSS feeds. You can learn so much stuff quickly just by glancing at the little synopses that are listed under the headlines. If I see something that looks interesting but don't have time to really look at it then, I can either mark it to keep it new so it doesn't disappear on me, or else I can email it to myself to look at it later. I've got a nice little folder in Outlook to file those emails, and I periodically take a moment or so to check them out.

Like today, for example. I took a little time to look through the folder, and found a reference to Time.com's First Annual Blog Index. It lists 25 of what it considers to be the top blogs in the blogosphere - quite a range of different topics, too! People are SO creative with their blog names sometimes..."The Velveteen Rabbi," "Freakonomics," "Web 2.Oh...Really?" You have to love it! Now, I haven't read most of these blogs, but I do intend to check at least some of them out!

Maybe I'll go do that right now.

Clean-Up Day

It's Clean-Up Day here at work; we do this periodically to get things in order, and this being the last day before spring break we figured it would be a bit slower than usual. It is, but only a little.

In any event, my office is really not in very bad shape; I have a small pile of things to sort, but that won't take long. The computer lab is in more need of work, so I'll go there presently to join Cheryl & Lisa who are cleaning the keyboards & monitors.

But first, I need to do a little mental housecleaning. I've been reading Doug Johnson's postings on "Changing How We Teach Copyright," which was very timely in view of the fact that I actually taught a class on copyright & intellectual property earlier this week. He has some great resources on this, and he really has me re-thinking how I should approach the subject in class.

The whole copyright thing gives me a headache, as I'm sure it does many other people. I'm not a copyright attorney; I don't know every legal ramification of every action (is there someone who does?), but the folks who come to my classes want clear answers of what they can and can't do. The best I can do for them is to refer them to Hall Davidson's chart on techLEARNING.com, which seems to please them, but there are so many grey areas in the whole issue that I still feel like I'm letting them down somehow.

There are SO many resources out there that I really need to organize them in some coherent manner. Maybe that's the kind of cleaning I should be doing today!

Fridays

What is it about Fridays?

They seem to go by so slowly sometimes. Today is one of those...I've been totally devoid of ambition, but have still managed to accomplish some things. Mostly things that could have waited, of course, like reorganizing my bookmarks (and I had quite a few dead links, thank you very much), but things that leave you with a feeling of satisfaction nevertheless.

It's interesting to go back and look at the things you've bookmarked over the course of time. Some of the links are used often; some I have not looked at since the first time I added them to my favorites. I got tired of organizing them after awhile (I have lots of them!), and since I use two browsers that means I'll have to go check Internet Explorer and see what links I have there that I don't have in Firefox, then export and re-import. It's a lengthy process...

I am not the only one suffering from lack of ambition today, either. Just before lunch, several of my colleagues and I rearranged the lunch area. A couple of file cabinets had been moved out this morning, giving us room to expand, and we took advantage of the opportunity! It is really going to disturb a few of the folks who weren't here, I think, who have difficulty with any deviation from standard practices. All the more reason to do it!

Procrastination

Mondays are never consistent. Some Mondays I come in and am inundated with phone calls, emails, people dropping by; other Mondays I would just love an email or two so that I have something on which to focus.

Actually, I guess that's true of all days, not just Mondays. It's the nature of the technical support person. Though I am not JUST a technical support person, so I do almost always have other projects to do.

I have one now, in fact, but I am procrastinating. And when you're in a mood to procrastinate, there are several things you can do:

1) Post to your blog. It gives you a feeling of accomplishment without really accomplishing anything important.
2) Stumble some sites. Have heard about StumbleUpon, but never tried it till last week. VERY cool, and somewhat addicting. It also can be very useful, I think - have found some excellent resources which I had never seen before.
3) Eat lunch. It's about that time, so I guess I will do that.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Success

There's nothing like successfully outwitting a computer, especially on a Friday.

Well, okay, I didn't actually outwit it. I mean, computers can't actually think for themselves, although it sometimes seems that way. So it was actually more like getting it to do something that I wanted it to do that I previously wasn't sure how to do. And I've actually done it three times today - once by getting the OPAC to display a new icon next to the bib records for a Playaway, once to get a computer that was stuck in maintenance mode (DeepFreeze) OUT of maintenance mode, and once to be able to edit this blog from my Infowench account instead of my other Google account. Probably all small, unimportant things, but they made me happy (and in the case of the OPAC icon, they'll make a librarian happy).

It's a good feeling.

Podcasting booktalks

I love podcasting booktalks.

It's all my friend Jill's fault. She asked me to do one for her middle school kids as an example, and now I just love doing them. I find myself planning them and when I read a book I think about what piece of it I might use to do a booktalk on it. I even want to do booktalks on books I haven't yet read!

It's really not all that unusual, I guess - booktalking was one of my favorite things in Youth Lit class when I was in grad school. I remember doing a booktalk on "Child of the Northern Spring" (Persia Woolley - it's the King Arthur story told from Guinevere's perspective) and I did it in the first person as Guinevere. Perhaps it's the theatre in me that likes booktalking so well.

In any case, I've done three booktalks for Jill so far and have gotten my friend John to agree to do one, too - he has a GREAT voice and will be Nicholas Flamel for a booktalk on Michael Scott's "The Alchemyst."

Last Friday I went to Jill's library and worked with some of her kids on the finer points of expression and performance when creating and reading their own podcasts, as well as some of finer points of editing in Audacity. We had a fine time, and they started a few new podcasts that I'm hoping to hear soon on their site. It's so cool - not only are the kids getting into this (and Jill says that the books that they podcast are flying off the shelves), but the teachers are getting into it, too, and volunteering (or in some cases, agreeing) to read booktalks. Some of them are interested enough to pick music for the background, and some of them are happy to let the group of sixth-graders who are the "podcasters" for the school do the editing and choose the music. What a great collaboration - and how great for the kids to be seen as the experts on this!

It's good to work with librarians. It's good to BE a librarian. What other teaching job allows you to study ALL subjects instead of just focusing on one?

Hmm, does that make me indecisive?

We interrupt this day...

On my Google homepage, I have a widget called "Things to Ponder." Today I encountered this one:

Why is it when you get from here to there, you're still here and not there?

Now that's profound. It would tend to explain, too, why some days you feel like you've never gotten anywhere, even though it's 3:30 in the afternoon and you have done a lot of stuff - just not the things you intended to do.

So how DO you get "there?" In my job, the only way I can possibly imagine doing that would be to work in a void - no contact with other people - at least for periods of time. It's the constant phone calls, emails, people dropping in that prevents me from staying on task and accomplishing exactly what I set out to do this morning.

Okay, so I distract myself, too. Why else would I be writing in this blog when I haven't finished everything I set out to do today?

Oh, look...

Fun toys

My friend and fellow librarian Jill sent me a link a little while back to Big Huge Labs. It's affiliated with Flickr; if you have a Flickr account you can link to it and create really fun stuff. Actually, you can create fun stuff without the Flickr account, but if you have one there are some cool features like being able to upload pictures and find them again easily.

So far I've played with the Movie Poster creator, the Framer, the Jigsaw puzzle, and the Lolcat Generator. I used my cat Pierre as the subject for this one:

He's such a goon! And he doesn't even really LIKE pineapple.

Happy New Year

Here we are - another year! There's something really exciting about starting over again, I think. It's almost too bad that school years don't follow calendar years, but then again, maybe that's okay - it gives you two fresh starts in a year!

I don't have too much to say, just felt compelled to start the year out with a post. Guess I'm really already a day behind, actually, but I'll justify it by saying it's the first day back at work.

In any case, though, here's a pretty nifty little gadget - if you haven't seen YouTubeCatcher yet, you must! Unfortunately, our filter here at work blocks it, but you can try this at home!

http://www.youtubecatcher.com