It is finished

I break my blogger fast (I doubt any of you would have really wanted to read what I was thinking about, namely controlled vocabularies and strategic planning and all that fun stuff).

I have just turned in my COMPs essay and must now wait to find out whether I am a librarian or not.

I do get a second chance if I don't pass this time.

A "better" accent quiz

Jon says this is a better quiz than the other one.

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

What do you sound like?

Here's an interesting quiz.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
Philadelphia
The South
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Clows on the web

I found this endearing essay by my very own dad on the internet. The Clows in the Red River Valley appears to have been written in 1969 (wow, dad existed back then?). There's some funny tidbits, such as the sheriff who drank moonshine, and how my ancestor Charlie Clow accidentally became an American.

This essay popped up in my rambling genealogical search. I'm getting used to doing reference work, and genealogy is a big deal at Clark County (and just about everywhere else, to hear those patrons talk), so I'm researching my own family history to get acquainted with that kind of research.

So far, I've determined that bucketfuls of Clows emigrated to Prince Edward Island (imagine my proximity to Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon!) from Suffolk, England, and from PEI to the Red River Valley in northwestern Minnesota. I also found out that my Grandma was born on the White Earth Reservation in MN (as reported on the census). So I've got some small amount of Ojibwe (Chippewa) blood in me.

An altogether very enjoyable way to work!

A mouse is just a mouse

I helped a lady at the library who had no idea how to use the computer. This observation didn't hit me until after she had left--I could have demonstrated a few basic things for her. My perspective needs to be adjusted. I'm used to working at an academic library where everyone knows how to use the computer and is keeping up with the trends. At the public library, they offer beginning computer classes. By beginning, I mean they literally start at the beginning, demonstrating how to turn on the computer, use the mouse, etc.

This is one of the reasons why I like working in libraries, and why public libraries hold a special place in my heart. They are the poor man's university, often the only place where people can access information through free books and the internet.

Fashionable disability aids

This is a hearing aid.

In animal print.

Is this a style of hearing aid my audiologist will recommend when I go and get checked out?

Killing ourselves thinking

The power of the brain amazes me.

Somehow I am able to go from whining about a paper, the initial composition of which is like pulling teeth, to knowing exactly what to write and tying it all together in a logical fashion. It's that in-between period that I can't understand. What happens that enables the finished product?

All I know is that while your conscious part feels dead, somehow the unconscious part is plugging away, percolating ideas while you sleep, while you stare aimlessly into space. I first discovered this while studying for exams--we would study late into the night, force ourselves to sleep at least 4 hours, then get up and study a little more before the test.

Somehow, things made more sense after sleeping than before. We no longer had to cram stuff in--it was already neatly organized in our thoughts, like a book had been written and filed away while we slept, and all we needed to do when taking the test was to pull that book out.

Meet my daemon

We are family

We went to Aunt Opal's 90th birthday celebration in Springfield, Ohio this past weekend. Debbie has a large and rather rambunctious family. I'm still a little shell shocked from all the noise, but it was neat to meet some more of her folks and see how far the Noble & Ryman side of the family extend.
Aunt Opal let Jon and I root through one of her desks (which looked like it hadn't been touched since the 40's), so we had a lot of fun looking at old pictures of the Ryman family, various papers, the inevitable bullet casing, pocketknives--all the stuff you find in old desks. I think this is why I like to go antiquing--not necessarily to buy anything, but just to look at old things and imagine their history.

Tagging and cataloging should be friends

Tagging is Web 2.0's answer to cataloging. Basically, you assign a word or term that you think is important to whatever item you want to find again, like a website or a picture. This is particularly helpful when you've accumulated a big list of pictures and want find all the pictures of your pet porcupine Prickly. You can tag those pictures "porcupine" or "Prickly" or "pet" or whatever term is meaningful to you.

Tagging becomes pretty cool when you can share your tags with other people, such as on the website LibraryThing. You can see if other people have used the same tags as you, or if they have better tags. This social aspect of tagging ties into the concept of Web 2.0, where people can share information and even create information together.

Some libraries are joining the tagging bandwagon, such as UK Libraries with their Encore interface or the Ann Arbor District Library, which allows its patrons to tag materials in the catalog.

I think this is all very cool, even if some librarians don't. Some catalogers are decrying tagging, saying it is akin to letting a bunch of typing monkeys go wild in the world of information, which should be carefully organized and categorized just so. I think they're missing the point of tagging. It's just another form of organization, albeit a much more relaxed one.

Besides, I think the popularity of tagging should be a clue that users don't find much use for the standard library catalog (what do you expect if the standard subject heading is "cookery" not "cooking"?), which is static in comparison to the dynamics of the web. I'm not advocating the abolishment of subject headings (they're still quite helpful for researchers), rather pointing to the need for libraries to evolve and take advantage of new technology.

The unending search for knowledge

A search on Wendell Berry in google turns up 1,150,000 hits. How much of this is actually relevant to what I'm interested in is anybody's guess, but google does a pretty good job of pulling the good stuff to the very top.


A keyword search in EKU's library catalog, eQuest, turns up 92 results. A subject search in eQuest brings back 9 hits, while an author search brings back 69 hits ( the man is a prolific writer!)

Obviously the results list for these searches in eQuest is much smaller because the search was limited to just what the library actually owns . This is good for those of us who are physically stuck in the Crabbe Library and just want to know what books there are for us to touch.

Searches in eQuest will bring back much smaller, precise results, especially if one limits the search to subject headings or author headings--those carefully controlled terms that only a select few can establish, and which are only applied to those records that are explicitly about those certain subjects, or written by those particular authors.

For example, the subject heading "Berry, Wendell, 1934- --Criticism and interpretation" will only be attached to records for books that are actually studies of Mr. Berry's books, so one can be pretty certain that searching by this subject heading will bring back only relevant results, not some children's book that happens to have the words "berry" and "interpretation" scattered somewhere in the text.

Compare this with a google search, which does not rely on actual assigned subject headings, but on different factors, such as the number of times a certain word shows up in a website, and what part of the website it appears in (in the title of a website, or down at the bottom?). But while a google search will inevitably bring in some irrelevant results, it still does a pretty good job in pointing out many websites of interest. Hence, the googlization of the world (of which I am a happy partaker).

My favorite way of searching for books is to do keyword searches in Amazon. When I find a book of interest, I'll search for it in my library catalog, or worldcat (notice the worldcat search box in my blog?), to see what subject headings it has been given, and search library catalogs by those subject headings. I've found quite a few things of interest this way.

And the pile of things to read grows and grows..

Making friends

A junco made friends with us on top of Grassy Ridge in Roan Mountain State Park, TN.

We were admiring the view of Roan Mountain and the surrounding ridges when Jon whispered, "There's something coming our way." No sooner had he said that than this little slate-colored bird fearlessly stuck its head around the rocks we were sitting on. We must not have appeared threatening because it approached us and took its time hopping a circle around us on the rock, pecking here and there, clicking its beak, fixing us with a curious eye now and then. I could have reached out and touched it.

While we're on animal matters... a mouse landed on my head while I was asleep in the Fire Warden's cabin on Roan Mountain. It must have been making a flying leap for our food bag, which was suspended from a mouse deterrent hanging from the ceiling. I don't think either of us was very happy with the situation.

Resumes

I'm working on my resume and not enjoying it at all. How does one convey that you are knowledgeable about something even if you don't know it all? Writing down my skills and qualifications always makes me feel as if I am over-stating myself. I hate these types of grey areas, especially in such a changing field as libraries where technology keeps leaping forward like Hagrid's skrewts.

I just want to say: here I am. I do a good job because I am always learning.

Here there be dragons

Fairy tales are more than true,
not because they tell us that dragons exist,
but because they teach us that dragons can be defeated.
G.K. Chesterton

There's something fishy here

Dwain and Miah had a sushi bonanza last night.

I think I can safely say that I will never, not ever, like the taste of raw fish all by itself. Having tried it twice over the past year, I can safely add it to my list of abominable tasting things (which is very short, thankfully) and never try it again.

However, the sushi rolls (rice, seaweed, various veggies, some raw thing or other) were quite delicious.

In-laws

In-laws
Originally uploaded by ozimanndias8

The Edwards...

I'm trying to figure out how flickr posts to blogger.

A tooth

Autumn has a tooth now. If only it were this easy to excite such declarations of pride in our loved ones.

We saw her last Saturday, and I can't get over how she keeps changing. Perhaps the most unnerving of all was the fact that she has started thinking. She would gaze at you with a somber expression and it was quite clear that she was sizing you up. Not unlike suffering the steady gaze of a cat (of which I suffered plenty last night).

Down to the creek

A place that I consider very dear to my heart is no longer in the family. My aunt and uncle have moved away from their place in the country. They had no choice in the matter, so I am quite happy that they have found a wonderful new home.

But there is still a queer sensation in my stomach as I think about the lane Jenny, Rosie, and I walked down countless times, gravel crunching underneath as we laughed and talked about everything--boys, friends, school, books, everything silly and serious that concerns growing girls.

The cats and dogs would always keep us company, the cats pretending that they just happened to be heading our way, the dogs too stupid to care about pretense. They would leap and prance, snapping at the air, happy to be going somewhere. There was nearly always a hawk in the air, hunting in the fields bordering the lane.

We would cross the road at the end of the lane and forge our way through the sharp waist-high prairie grass to the creek--for the creek was nearly always our destination, a hidden place. You never knew where exactly its path was until you nearly fell in, for the creek was always changing its way through the grass, subtly, slowly with each passing year.

It seems we grew up there, though I know we hardly went there as often as memory misleads me to think. But we went often enough that it has become a backdrop for my childhood--the prairie grass and the wide open wind mixing with such sensations as the smell of woodsmoke and the harsh scrape of Grandpa's mustache when he kissed my cheek and the crisp page of a book in my hands as my parents and I all sit quietly together, reading.

All this serves to tell me what this queerness is: I am grieving.

I should also mention that this paper is a management paper.

Ugh.

I have read too many quasi-scientific papers in which the behaviors of the human race have been reduced to numbers that somehow fit into an equation that purports to predict how they will act next.

Jon told me, "Welcome to the scientific method."

He also said that if psychologists can predict what people will do 20% of the time, they are considered geniuses. He would never have approached his adviser with results that abysmally low in his soil science experiments.

A ring of fire

I finally understand why I procrastinate.

When I am working on a project, particularly a paper, it tends to take over my life. I live and breathe the project to the point where it becomes like the ring of fire that encompasses Frodo's life towards the end of his quest. It becomes the only real thing in my life, and everything else a shadow, while the paper is being formed in my mind, random ideas being knitted together into coherent sentences.

Even my dreams are affected (I am a wonderful sleeper, to Jon's chagrin, except during these times), becoming like fretful little squirrels in the face of the behemoth that has taken up residence in my head.

I don't like it. So I procrastinate.

Lolcats

Here are a couple silly pictures from a silly website I found out about through facebook:

Will the circle be unbroken?

A lady I worked with at EKU passed away unexpectedly last week. Her desk was on the other side of mine, behind a flimsy cubicle wall. Throughout the day, I could catch glimpses of her movements through a crack in that wall--picking up a journal, sitting in her chair--myriad actions that reminded me that someone was on the other side, always ready for a little chat...

I don't know why I dwell on such an ordinary memory, something that doesn't indicate our growing friendship, other than that remembering those fleeting glimpses makes the present all the more stark: her chair is empty, the computer screen on her desk black.

The ordering of love

Madeleine L'Engle passed away recently.


I don't remember when I first read her books. My memory of them is timeless, like that of my parents. They've been there since before I can remember, before I even knew that memories are something to be made and cherished, what the older folk meditate on in their later years.

Electronic resources madness

The past couple of days have been a little crazy, work-wise. A librarian emailed ERIL, an electronic resources listserv, asking if anyone had started compiling a list of publishers and their perpetual access policies (for those of you happily unaware of what this means, I think you should remain so, if not, go here for clarification). I innocently responded that I had started such a spreadsheet and would be happy to share.

Well.

If I counted correctly (I can't make the picture above any clearer), I got about 170 responses within the past two days, mostly of "me too!" emails. There were even some responses from abroad: Hong Kong, France, England, Slovenia, Beirut! Obviously this is a big issue.

The cool thing about all this is that my supervisor, electronic resources librarian Kelly Smith, and some other people associated with ER&L (Electronic Resources & Libraries) are going to start developing a wiki (a website that can be edited by anyone) that will be based on this spreadsheet so interested people can contribute to this ongoing project.

Animals everywhere

Here is some of the wildlife we saw:

1) wild turkey

2) Southeastern five-lined skink

We almost saw a black bear.

These don't count:

-deer

-squirrel

Wise old sages

Hooray for Professor Dumbledore!

Oh the things I never knew

I found out about some funny quizzes through the blog of one of the librarians here at EKU :

What Kind of Guy Will You Fall For?
	You would fall for the geek. If you're looking for love, consider spending a little more time studying up in the library. To you, there's nothing more attractive than intelligence, shyness, and kindness; your future love may have four eyes and zero social skills, but he'll make up for it in brains and heart.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Disney Villain Are You?
	You are Lady Tremaine. You're the evil stepmother little girls have nightmares about. Hooray for you, who helped kids learn to love their birth parents and do everything possible to avoid stepparents. Next time, though, be careful not to get in between a girl and her dreams.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?
	You are Dumbledore. You're the wise sage in any group. With your guidance, any situation can be resolved in the fairest way possible.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

The merry-go-round of web 2.0 applications

I'm not too interested in learning about all the web 2.0 applications out there simply because there's so much out there! You can create online "to-do" lists, make your own wiki, join all sorts of social networking sites, make your own travel page, etc. etc. etc. etc. If you want to dive into the madness yourself, go to Web2List yourself.

We're supposed to write about something that might be useful for work. So here's what I found before I got web 2.0 fatigue: Connotea. This is a "free online reference management" tool that lets you save citations and webpages to your account for easy access later. This is certainly a helpful tool to recommend for researchers. I haven't explored it too much--I wonder if it allows you to save citations from databases that the library subscribes to?

For fun, here's a link for all you scrapbookers out there: Scrapblog. This is a free website that lets you create online scrapbook pages. Here's a sample scrapbook: Old Wind Gap Postcards. This has a nostalgic flair to it. Here's another one, made by one of the PLCMC people who created the original Learning 2.0 playground: My favorite books (warning: this contains some Jane Austen pictures).

Sense of s p a c e

The personal space bubble of people from abroad is quite different than that of Americans. Jon and I were routinely elbowed off various trails in the Smokies by large Indian families. They weren't being rude, though it was hard to be gracious after several close calls with the dangerous edge to nothing but a graceful dive into the welcoming arms of the rocks below.

Out in the mountains

Jon and I just got back from a weekend in the Smokies. We stayed at Standing Bear Farm, which is located about 200 yards from the Appalachian Trail, right on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. It is nestled in a little hollow, with mountains rising up on either side--absolutely beautiful!
The cabin we stayed at sat on top of a stream (though there wasn't much of one while we were there). When Jon first stayed here, back when he was hiking the AT, he said the sound of running water lulled him to sleep. There was an outhouse and a snug shed with hot water for washing up and showering. Everything the body needs--though I was a little nervous about going into the outhouse with 2 huge wolfish spiders nesting in the corner, until Jon investigated and told me that they were dead.
We biked through Cade's Cove, where I had my first accident on my bike, and hiked up to some old growth trees above Laurel Falls on Saturday. On Sunday, Jon climbed the road on his bike up to Clingman's Dome while I did some hiking. We met up at the top and admired the spectacular view of the fog. On our way back down, I drove behind him while he descended on his bike. I had a hard time keeping up with him in spots--he was going over the speed limit of 35 mph!
A very pleasant way to spend the weekend, though I'm a little sore from all the activity!

For those of you who have nothing else to do with your time

This is Pope's only talent, besides being full of himself.

One of the books I worked with today was Snog the Frog. Can you guess what it's about?

Search engine fatigue

Rollyo is a tool that lets you create a search engine that will search only trusted websites on a particular topic of your choosing. All you have to do is add whatever websites you want to a list, name the search engine, and you're good to go. For example, here' s a link to Ainulindalë, which searches several J.R.R. Tolkien-related websites.

We're supposed to create our own search engine, but I have to think about that one; we don't need to add my half-hearted attempt right now. Rollyo seems to work well for those searches that are specific, like the Tolkien example above, or the Mr. Fix-It! search engine. I explored a knitting pattern search engine, and the results were awful--too many blog posts, not enough actual patterns.

For most of the search engines I explored, I kept thinking: I could just google it, and get quicker results! However, Rollyo would work well for people who know exactly what websites they trust and want to search only those, like reference librarians or educators. I personally tend to like the serendipitous nature of google--you just never know what you'll find.

Maybe I'll make a meat goat search engine.

A birthday

Yesterday was unusually packed full of activity (at least for me).

I woke up fully aware of my dream, which strangely coherent and chronological: we were all part of the Viking expedition to North America, exploring the coast land of Canada with Leif Ericsson.

Jenni, Autumn, & Sue came over in the morning. We went to Magee's for breakfast, chatted and watched Autumn squirming around in her stroller. She started doing seated rows with the plastic thing (whatchamacallit) that you can set sippy-cups and other whatnots on--so determined she was to put it in her mouth (or get her mouth on it).

We toured Waveland, which had the standard dining room with plastic representations of what they might have eaten back then. I always find those kinds of details amusing--like we're all playing make-believe.

After that, it was back to the house for BLTs and Miss Potter for a movie, though Autumn turned out to be the entertainment for us, squirmy little thing so determined to get to the coffee table, or the cat.

She can crawl now--hence the struggle for independence begins.

After that it was dinner with the Edwards, then dessert at the Greek Festival with entertainment provided by girls doing the hora.

Jon and I finished the night on an anti-climatic note looking for an antennae for his truck.

Tom Brown's School days

Class starts in about half an hour. This will be my last class (hopefully).

I have been in school for about 23 years.

An odd sort of melancholy is settling over me; school has been like a younger brother to me (no offense intended, Ben). I disdain it on the outside, but secretly don't mind it so much. I hope this doesn't make me one of those professional "students" that make classes their full-time job.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.--Thomas Carlyle

I was quite pleased Kelly chose LibraryThing as one of the fun applications for Learning2.0 folks to play with. It's ridiculously fun for us bookish people.
My catalog is still a paltry 10 or so books--I'm sure it's getting quite boring to look at the random selection of books that LibraryThing inserts into my blog--but I plan to change that...when I have time. The limit for books is around 200, then you have to pay a lifetime membership nominal fee for more than that. I have over 1000 books, so I'm not quite sure I want to go that route.
What I love about LibraryThing is the Suggester tool, and its polar opposite, the UnSuggester tool. The Suggester tool is quite obvious--and works quite well, too. Once I start meandering through the links of suggestions, I forget what book started the journey.
For an idea of how the UnSuggester tool works, I input Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and the list of books that came back included:
-Brothers, we are not professional: a plea to pastors for radical ministry, John Piper
-Greek grammar beyond the basics: an exegetical syntax of the New Testament, Mr. Daniel B. Watson
-More ready than you realize: evangelism as dance in the postmodern matrix, Brian D. McLaren.
I'm a little curious about these results, since I actually own some wonderful books by Brian D. McLaren and <gasp> enjoyed reading them. I suppose they must think that all Christians view fantasy with disdain.

Cicada

A cicada hitched a ride with me on my errands yesterday. It perched on a windshield wiper like a jeweled ornament, bravely holding on in the buffeting winds while I drove.

According to wikipedia, the song of a cicada is used by filmmakers and animators as a "means of representing silence, pathos, and the great outdoors." (I got that from here ).

Never thought you'd learn something while reading this blog, I suppose?

The search for feeds

The only search engine for RSS feeds that I actually liked was Technorati. It actually works. I could limit my searches to actual blogs, rather than postings by everyone and his dog about the particular topic I was looking for. The other websites suggested, like Feedster and Syndic8, either froze on me or returned ridiculously long lists of results.
I used Technorati to search for Jane Austen-related blogs. (I just found a blog dedicated to the new movie Becoming Jane--further prove that I am a hopeless Austen addict in Dwain's opinion). This is probably the only time I'll use Technorati--I prefer learning about feeds and websites through word-of-mouth and things I read. I trust those sources more (word-of-mouth always takes you in cool new directions you would never have thought to take).

"Our little systems have their day."--Tennyson, In Memoriam

Another reason why I love libraries...
The other day, I came across this book: Forensic Science: an encyclopedia of history, methods, and techniques. Its introduction was quite imaginative and engrossing, a far cry from the typical droning "Chapter one is about... Chapter two is about..." The author opened each section of his history with a quote from literature.
He started off the whole introduction with "The world's history is the world's judgment." (Friedrich von Schiller, Lectures, May 1789). In writing about how the Industrial Revolution led to the invention of some elaborately named construction that made forensic science possible, he quoted Shakespeare, "The brightest heaven of invention..." (from King Henry V). From there, it was but a leap to "By a set of curious chances..." (Gilbert, The Mikado), relating to the explosion of applied science discoveries in the 19th century.
"Turning to poison..." (Keats, "Ode on Melancholy") and "For the red blood reigns..." (Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale) opened sections on very obvious things that forensic science is interested in.
In discussing how research in other fields of science helped forensic science, the relevant quote was "The true university of these days is a collection of books." (Thomas Carlyle, "Heroes and Hero Worship Lecture V. The Hero as a Man of Letters") The dawn of the twentieth century merited the quote "Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley, title of his book). The section on increased sophistication in identification was introduced by "The American system of rugged individualism..." (Hoover, campaign speech, 1928). The ability to solve crimes long past due to biometrics (use of bodily evidence) had this curious quote "I have been looking for a person...all my life" (Sydney Smith, Memoir, Chapter 9), as well as this rousing Shakespearean one, "...summon up the blood" (King Henry V).
And for those of us who watch shows like Law & Order, "Rome has spoken; the case is concluded" (St. Augustine, Sermons, Book 1), which refers to the importance of case law in establishing what can be used as evidence.

Weakness

I should not have shown a sign of weakness. The dark gods have pounced.

There is a baby cave cricket in the kitchen.

Mammoth Cave

Mammoth_Cave_crickets
Originally uploaded by National Parks Game

We went to Mammoth Cave this weekend. How wonderfully glorious to go underground on a wool-muggy day!

Here are some cave crickets. Back when we were living together, many many years ago, Jenni and I called them spidickets because we had no idea what they were. One time, the power went out; knowing what we would probably see, we turned on a flashlight and saw that 20-30 of these ugly thumb-length creatures had materialized out of the woodwork.

It puts me in mind of the goblins in the mines of Moira, and Gandalf calmly saying: "They are coming." That is how we felt just before turning on the flashlight.

A link to a previous post about this vile things...

The Inscrutable Ways of Cats

Meet Oscar, the cat that can sense death.

Cats are as various as they come.

Our own Pope is quite blissfully, thoroughly full of himself. That appears to be his only skill.

RSS feeds

I like the idea of RSS feeds in theory, but I wasn't too sure about them in practice. I think this is because most of my web-surfing activity consists of checking a few, relatively static, websites regularly, with the occasional foray into speeding-bullet-updated websites. I'm not a a big news-checker on the web--seeing the daily news, glimpsing the occasional newspaper headline, and word-of-mouth does it for me--which is something that RSS feeds would work really well for.
But I went ahead and set one up, just to see what it's like. I've set up an account on Bloglines, and after the initial overwhelming, stumbling-around-the-website-tour, I got started. Jane Austen related blogs were my focus, since I knew I had to be interested in checking my feeds.
Since I know you're so curious, here's what I've subscribed to so far:
Austenblog...she's everywhere
Jane Austen's world
Books & Culture
Modestly Yours
Relevant Magazine
Tame the Web
EKU Library Learning 2.0
Dwain's blog

What I like about Bloglines so far is the ability to display items as far back as a month, or just one day ago. Being able to just click on a feed in the lefthand column is certainly quicker than typing in an URL. What I miss is getting the website experience--seeing the layout, the colors, the graphics that the creator put into creating their website. Kind of like how having the actual book in hand while you're reading it is preferable to reading bits and pieces on a computer screen.

St Vincent, Minnesota School

St Vincent, Minnesota School
Originally uploaded by Joan44

And here's another one. Dad (and Grandma)--is this the school you guys went to?

St Vincent, Minnesota flood (1955,56 or 57??)

St Vincent, Minnesota flood (1955,56 or 57??)
Originally uploaded by Joan44

The things you can find on flickr.com!

I wanted to see just how broad a net Flickr casts in its photo coverage--apparently, it's quite thoroughly broad! I just found some photos from the area where my dad grew up--the little town of St. Vincent, MN, located in the northwest corner of Minnesota, several miles south of the Canadian border.

Here's a photo of the frequent floods in the area.

The places Flickr takes you...

Flickr has lots of applications that you can have fun with. Retrivr lets you create a sketch, and it will search Flickr for pictures that match that sketch. The results don't always seem to match your sketch, but who cares....they're still fun to browse!

While fiddling around with the Retrivr application, I stumbled across a picture taken by one of EKU's own librarians. The sweet little baby in the middle of the picture was taken by our own Cindi Trainor. I'm not sure how a clumsy sketch of an eye managed to pull up a baby, but the association is intriguing, nonetheless. The ways the internet can connect people!

It is finished

I finished the book yesterday. All 750-some pages. I got up with Jon around 6 AM, started reading it at 6:30 AM and finished it around 7:30 PM. It was like a mini-vacation for me, though I did have to take some breaks just to let my eyes readjust. With those breaks accounted for, it took about 8 hours to read.

If you can believe it, Jon was actually curious about how it ended!

The Harry Potter release party at JB was insane. I'm glad I went, just to see what it's like, but I can't remember the last time I was surrounded by a buzzing horde of excited teeny-boppers. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of people there.

Lots of sweet little Harry Potters running around, with over-large glasses slipping down tiny noses, stumbling over their robes. There were even some duels going on, though Abbi and I thought that the point of wands was to cast spells, not hit people...

The older kids had some clever costumes. There was a whomping willow--the girl was dressed in filmy green fabric, with some leaves tucked into her hair, with a car hubcap hooked over her arm (you'll have to read Chamber of Secrets to know why). There was a portrait--a girl wearing a dress and holding a frame. There were plenty of snitches--one girl was wearing gold lame tights, yellow t-shirt, and wings (you'll have to find out about Quidditch to understand this). A lot of fun to observe.

All good things must come to an end.

At long last

The book comes out tonight!

If you can believe it, I'm planning on going to JB tonight and STAYING PAST MY BEDTIME until 1 AM to get the book.

My original plan of going in Saturday morning sounded too boring when Abbi regaled me with tales of Harry Potter release parties at JB.

Worldcat

I hope you've noticed the new addition to this blog. I remembered enough html to figure out exactly where to put the code for it in the rest of the code for the blog. I'm quite proud of myself, if I may say so.
This search engine is kind of like amazon.com. It allows you to search for books in libraries all over the place. It may even have more stuff contained in it than amazon.com. This is a service based on Worldcat, a database containing most (if not all) the records that libraries participating in it have ever created.
Kelly told me there was a movement among libraries towards using Localcat as their front-end catalog--a way to provide a more powerful search engine than what traditional (dinky) integrated library systems could offer.

Facebook, some reflections

Other than the fact that I feel like I'm back in high school (albeit a much more friendly version) with all these "adding friends" and "throwing sheep" and "casting spells" options, Facebook is kinda fun, though a little addictive. I don't think I'll find much use for it after the learning exercises are over, unless my friends keep in touch.

What I found particularly of interest was the various groups/networks one can join. This could be helpful for maintaining an informal relationship with your peers, such as OVGTSL or Kentucky Libraries. This is the only reason I think I will maintain a Facebook account.

It might be beneficial for a library to maintain an account on sites such as Facebook or MySpace, especially if their target audience is the younger generation. If it joined various networks to broaden its reach, this could help draw the attention of those people who might never otherwise set foot in a library. It's kinda cool to see a library demonstrate its technological finesse, particularly since the bookish stereotype of 'hallowed hall of learning' tends to make people think libraries are stuck in the past.

Lakes of the Clouds hut

DSCF0133
Originally uploaded by jdebner

I've been here!

If you follow the trail back down to the hut and on past it, you will reach Mount Washington (hidden by the fog).

This is located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Jon and I could keep coming back every year and be gloriously happy.

I Saw The Book

I just saw The Harry Potter Book today.

I walked past piles of them--they were like waves of orange and red meandering along the conveyor belt (BWI has a large processing facility with conveyor belts that snake throughout the whole warehouse).

For half an hour, I sat next to 30 of them as Charles, one of the other catalogers, prepped them for delivery. It's a curious sensation to know that the conclusion of everything rests within those orange and red covers, and how easily I could reach out and flip to the last page. Yet my reader's instinct stays the irrational thought--I remain (oddly) coolly distant, knowing how much more delight I will get from reading all 784 pages.

Mom says I'm obsessive.

But considering how infrequently I get excited about things, I think we can let this slide. I thought of all the children feverishly waiting for 12:01 AM July 21st, knowing how much harder it would be for them to see so many books and not be able to touch them--part of my excitement is on their behalf.

SecondLife spoof

This is a hilarious spoof of SecondLife. (SecondLife is a virtual reality community where you can interact with other people, fly if you feel like it, build a home, etc...it's become so big that librarians are actually staffing a virtual reference desk in it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flkgNn50k14

Who wants to throw sheep?

I've just visited MySpace and was reminded why I never developed my profile there. The sensation one gets from wading around that site is of a deer caught in the headlights. Where do you go? How do you get out? These questions are blindsided by the sheer volume of advertising on that site.

I managed to find a friend there, and the experience lightened up considerably, though it was still a little overwhelming. I was surprised at the difference between MySpace and Facebook. I thought the former would have as much, if not more, "stuff" going on, yet Facebook trumps MySpace in everything and manages to maintain a friendly user-interface. To see what I'm talking about, check out my account. Apparently, you can do silly things like throw sheep at people, too (I have not yet loaded that feature).

Whether I maintain my profile at Facebook depends on how much energy I want to invest in it, and whether I develop an actual community of people to interact with--it's not much fun if you're just posting messages to yourself. That's one thing to remember with all these cool new things developing on the internet: just what exactly can I use this for? I don't want to fall into the old trap I did when email was a new thing: checking it almost every hour, just in case.

Community and the American way of life

I'm reading Bill McKibben's book "Deep economy: the wealth of communities and the durable future." He says that we need to return to a more local community--supporting local farmers, keeping our money local--and we need to learn to get by with less (ie do you really need to buy the latest Martha Stewart kitchen appliance when the one you've got works just fine).
One thing that really struck me is his statement that the American way of life is not sustainable, much less so if the rest of the world is trying to attain our level of living. We humans may want it to be true, but the earth just can't keep up with our growing demands.
Is this true? At her talk, Barbara Kingsolver posited a similar stance, that we should strive to become "locavores"--eating locally--to help conserve the amount of oil that goes just into transporting food. She made the statement that "It's not a question of 'what if' the oil runs out, but 'when.'"

One disadvantage of being hearing impaired is waking up to cat puke on the bed, and knowing you slept quite peacefully through the process that got it there.

Pope has done it twice since we've moved to the new place.

Why he insists on vomiting on what little scraps of carpet or blankets we have scattered throughout the enormous space of easy-to-clean hardwood, we will never know.

One does not initially think of libraries and MySpace in the same sentence.

Yet it works. I've just looked at some examples of libraries creating pages on MySpace to reach out to their targeted communities (mostly teenagers/college students). What blew me away was the number of people who had "friend-ed" them--some libraries had over 1,000 friends listed on their profile pages. Clearly, they're doing something right.

I find this exciting because now libraries are starting to reach out instead of waiting for people to come to them. In this age of google, it's hard for patrons to see why they should bother coming to the library if they can just google everything. But the library is more than about finding information, it's about learning new things, being exposed to different ideas. It's a center of community, and now it is adding a virtual component to that community.

I think libraries need to remember that the key here is to maintain the page as other MySpace-ers do: shake it up, and keep up. Static pages are last century--MySpace is about networking, which means it's a two-way street: people will respond to you, and you need to respond back. Libraries also should talk about more than just what the latest books are in the collection--after all, books are but a part of the collection, no longer the main thing (though they remain so for me). Do they have what it takes to keep up, and maintain it?

Kelly makes a interesting point about social networking fatigue and wonders how it will affect the library's focus on providing quality service to their patrons. I think this is a valid concern to address--a library really needs to determine what will serve their patrons best.

Barbara Kingsolver is a powerful, lyrical writer. Her book Prodigal Summer manages to slip you science lessons here and there without your knowledge--at the moment, all you know is that you are thoroughly immersed in the lush Appalachian life she weaves for you, able to hear the birds trilling, see the tan blur of a coyote, feel the honeysuckle in your hand.

Pope and the bogeyman

The cat jumped on my head last night right when I turned off the light and rolled over to go to sleep. I have the mark and blood to prove it.

My first thought was a mouse (Pope usually knows that claws+human skin=not good). But I didn't find anything except Pope crouched wide-eyed under the bed.

Which makes me uneasy for several reasons:

1. if there was a mouse...I don't even want to go there

1. it was something else

I am more attuned to Pope's behavior than most people--he's my hearing ear cat, if you will. So I notice when he reacts to things--like someone at the door, or the phone ringing--but I also notice when he gets startled, or starts staring at something, or is generally acting strange. Last night, he was staring at the door, as if there was something on the other side. Never mind that this apartment is new for the both of us, with its new sounds and nooks and corners, it was at night and we were alone with my overactive imagination and the knowledge that in stories and folklore, cats are able to see through the veil separating this world from the realm of the unknown--for instance, in Constantine, gaze into a cat's eyes long enough, and you will be transported to hell.

Yes, I am still afraid of bogeymen. In my defense, Sue is too, and we commiserate.

Web 2.0

EKU is doing a "class" of sorts for its staff, helping us all learn more about new technologies that feed into the Web 2.0 concept--things like RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, folksonomies, etc. The idea being that having staff in tune with the times will be especially beneficial since the people we are serving are so tech-savvy (college students, young people, young-er people (than me)). I am borderline Millenial/Gen I, or whatever that generation is, which means I should be tech savvy... yet reading a book still wins the day.

Anyways, they had us watch a very intriguing, inspiring video that really communicates what Web 2.0 is all about. ( have no idea how to make the video show up in this blog.)

Web 2.0 is increasingly about collaboration, about people reaching out to each other, sharing information, learning from each other, learning from the process. It also makes me think of Vannevar Bush's memex machine--a sort of intuitive machine that would work like the human brain does, forging connections between all sorts of things (like the way we associate memories with specific physical items, for instance--whenever I smell woodsmoke, I think of Grandpa N.; whenever I see Mr. Darcy's name in print, I immediately think of Colin Firth, etc.), allowing us to manipulate it in an intuitive way, following connections here and there.

What does this mean for libraries? I have no idea--who knows how the internet works? No one is quite sure where it will go next. I never thought about blogs until I read a friend's blog--now I can't live without it. I never thought about RSS feeds, but now I see they are a neat way to keep up with the news, with new posts to blogs. This is all quite new and still changing (a process that will never end)--something that libraries are not used to. They are used to remaining still, to gathering information and cataloging it and putting it on the shelf and having it remain in one spot on that shelf so that when someone comes in asking for it, they can be taken to that one spot. The internet is quite different. You can't be sure that information will still be there in that one spot--which makes it a challenge to provide access to it (cataloging/tagging) and find it (reference).

Which means we are either in for a fight, or in for an exciting time. Which will it be?

Dr. Russell Arben Fox gleans clues from the cover of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, one of which involves the mysterious veiled arch that we see in the Order of the Phoenix.

The countdown begins for the last Harry Potter book...

Lots of rumors are flying about what will happen: will Harry die? Whose side is Snape really on? How will Voldemort be defeated? and so on and so forth. I've read some intriguing guesses about what will happen, from predictable places like the Leaky Cauldron, and from not so predictable places like Books & Culture--Alan Jacobs muses over what might happen.

I am starting to seriously suspect that Harry will die--that he will willingly sacrifice his life to completely and utterly destroy Voldemort. What makes me lean this way, however reluctantly, is the fact that I've just read a quote from JK Rowling:

"Every time I’ve been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what’s coming in the books." (Wyman, Max. " 'You can lead a fool to a book but you can't make them think': Author has frank words for the religious right," The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), October 26, 2000)

Other people are afraid of this, and of how it will affect the kids who have grown up with Harry. There are even articles out there counseling parents on what to do and say should Harry die. I don't see the need to worry so much--kids are tougher than we think, or are willing to admit.

We are officially at the new place.

The past couple weeks have been a blur of moving endless boxes and cleaning (most of it involving attacking Pope's relentless fur --Jon & I have a theory that when we've vacuumed up every bit of wisp of fur we see, Pope's body will spontaneously emit a new round of fur balls, like a walking time bomb of sorts), and a lot of things have been neglected, like this blog.

I'm still settling in, getting used to light switches in different places and a gas stove and windows on the first floor--not only can we look out, but people can look in. Pope has discovered a new source of entertainment--birds pecking on the grass right outside our living room window. We're no longer in the trees, where he could watch squirrels bounding from branch to branch.

So Dwain's off doing fantastic things on his and Miah's cross-country trip, and the most I can blog about is starting a new job today--the learning experience there isn't quite as pleasurable as the learning one gains through travel.

They pretty much threw me in the deep end and had me start cataloging right away. There really isn't any other way to learn, but all the same, I feel a little bone-dry, as if everything I've ever learned has just turned to sand and slipped through my fingers.

I think I'll enjoy it there. My fellow co-workers are quirky and have a good sense of humor--that tends to be a good combination.

Well, we don't have a particular dresser anymore. The pieces are sitting in the new apartment, waiting for re-purposing.

This is very funny--I am the kind of person that laughs when these kinds of things happen, because what else can you do?

We were moving our buffet and the tall dresser I've had forever. We loaded them in the back of Jon's truck, put the drawers back in, and Jon roped everything together. The thinking was that tying all the drawer handles together would keep them from coming out during the drive to the new place.

Ha! We came to the intersection of S. Broadway and High Street--which is a small incline, as well, and Jon slowed to a crawl to make the left-hand turn. I had a bad feeling and looked in the passenger side door. Sure enough, I could only watch as the dresser tilted ominously and the drawers start to slide out. Before I could say anything, the whole thing tipped out of the trunk and smashed open in the outbound lane of Broadway (which was very busy as it was rush hour). Jon, scientist that he is, theorized that the weight of the drawers contributed to the spectacular fall. Since they were all tied together, it took just one drawer inching out of place to pull the rest of the drawers open with it, and the whole dresser followed suit.

Thankfully, Allie and Josh were right behind us and able to pull the worst of the stuff out of traffic's way. We tried to clear off as much stuff as possible (it was mostly my trinkets and odds and ends that had fallen out), but there will be a patch of Broadway that will smell like patouchli for a while.

I am in love. We saw a gorgeous dog at Miguels near the Red River Gorge. He looked like a wolf, with a long narrow muzzle, keen eyes, and a powerful body on long elegant legs. Standing on all fours, he came to about mid-thigh on me--a big dog! He had a ruff of shaggy grey fur, much like lion's mane, around his shoulders. He was extremely laid back and offered his head for me to pet. (Jon and his parents stayed far behind me).

Allie thinks he may have been a Native American Indian dog. He looked a bit more wolfish, and much larger, though.

This is the kind of dog I would like to have with me on a farm, or out hiking.

My, what a surprise... (though Dwain always said I reminded him of Emma)

Take the Quiz here!

My post on The Fountain was a bit short because Autumn demanded my attention at that very moment. She is starting to want your attention all the time, and just because.

Dwain said on his post that this movie was supposed to be romantic, but lacked the romance. I thought Jackman and Weisz were excellent actors, but the script/the story/whatever just did not engage me. The Fountain is a reference to the fountain of youth, so the idea of immortality is intriguing, but the movie failed to combine the romance and this idea in a satisfactory way.

Apparently there's "nothing" wrong with the car. We are starting to get a little suspicious. The last time we took the car in, there was a very noticeable odd odor and the brakes were rumbling beneath your foot. When we went in to pick it up, they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. The odor was gone, and the brakes completely smooth...
This time, the car died on me when I was speeding up to merge onto the interstate. Not very fun. So even though they say there's "nothing" wrong with it, I am a little leery of driving it. For all I know, maybe it will decide to conk out on me out in the middle of Madison County.

I watched The Fountain last Friday night. I don't know what to think of it. It didn't quite work for me, and I wanted it to. The conquistador part didn't fit in with the rest of the story.

Autumn is inventing her own language, even as she tries to mimic mine.

When I repeat what she says back to her, she pauses and gazes at me with a scrutinizing crease in her brow: "But that's not what I said!"

I hate to say it, but most librarians do fit the stereotype (I'm pretty sure that any librarian stereotype that any one of you can think of, I saw at the conference).

About a month ago, I applied for a scholarship to attend a library technical services conference in Bowling Green May 17-19. I found out that someone else got it, and forgot about it.

Then I got a call last Tuesday inviting me to come. The first thing I thought was: "Oh great, now I have to meet people."

But then, amazingly enough, immediately (the fact that this was immediate is what makes it amazing) after that thought I told myself to get over it and returned the call to accept it.

I've realized that most people I will meet are not the Lord God Emperors of anything, except maybe their backyards. I've grown up and realized that people are normal--imagine that!

I don't think this story will have any significance for anyone except my parents (my Dad, when asking me how my day was at high school, asked, 'But did you talk to anyone?' and I thought about it for a minute and said 'No.')

As always, Autumn continues to grow. It is astonishing how quickly babies grow--now she isn't plumping out so much as growing longer. When you cradle her, her legs stick out from under your arms. She is getting old man jowls, plump cheeks drooping slightly on either side of her mouth, giving her a rather serious look.

Thursday night I made Asparagus and mushroom bread pudding, from Barabara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It was delicious--even Jon, the bona fide cook of the household, he who instinctively knows what kind of spices, and how much of each to add to even the most mundane dish, told me so. If anyone is so inclined, they can probably look it up at the website for the book (listed in the post below).

Asparagus is my most favorite vegetable. I hope we can grow it here.

Dad, speaking of vegetables, have you seen the latest V8 commercials? Maybe someone needs to knock you on the head. When Ben and I were growing up, we (oddly enough for kids) accepted that Dad didn't have to eat vegetables, even if we did. We recognized that Dad was exercising his adult privilege to do whatever he wanted, and that someday we, too, would have that power. It was only a matter of waiting... Though I haven't used it to banish veggies from my life.

Pope is my doorbell notifier. He normally does his job just fine, perking up and rushing to the head of the stairs to see what's going on. Monday night, I missed a friend at the door because he didn't do anything when she rang--perhaps he grew tired of the task. Or didn't feel like it.

I'm currently reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Her writing style is irresistable, and the subject matter is inspiring. She chronicles her family's attempt to eat only local foods as much as possible, either by growing it themselves or getting it from the area, and eating in season. So no fresh fruit in the middle of winter (unless they acquired it locally beforehand and froze it), that kind of thing.

Here's her website, by the same name.

We signed the lease on the Victorian-ish apartment. It was either that or a smoke-saturated house in a neighborhood not quite ghetto (there are a string of widows living one by one down at one of end, which pulls its status up) or a strangely partitioned apartment in Chevy Chase--quite charming, but such an inefficient use of space that we couldn't see how two unmarried people could live there without tripping over each other all the time.

Pope still has a hall for his mad dashing gallops.
I have a reading nook.
Jon has space to cram his bike stuff.

It is finished.

Last night I celebrated finishing the last final by watching Dancing with the Stars.... which I would have watched anyways. I like to watch it and think about my cousin Rosie teaching dance to the typical middle-aged couple--a little shy about being there, but curious nonetheless.

There's a new Jane Eyre movie, put out by Masterpiece Theater. The little girl from the movie Chronicles of Narnia plays the younger Jane. I have no idea who the other people are, but it's pretty good. Gloomy house, foggy moors, and an Irish wolfhound--can't go wrong with that!

It's a lot of work to find a place that will take a pet, and not charge an obscene amount of money! I scoured the newspapers, we drove the neighborhoods, and got countless numbers. 90% of them did not allow pets. Jon would ask "Would you allow a cat?" There would a long pause on the other end, and they would say "No." Their pet policy is a guard against dogs, we understand that. But the only thing Pope destroys is our own property, and we've managed to curtail about 99% of that behavior (he'll still scratch the back of the couch if he has excess energy).
Anyways, we may have found a place. It's off South Broadway, just past Virginia Avenue/Red Mile. South Broadway Park is an enclave of mostly Victorian-ish homes that have somehow avoided being torn down. We'll have roughly half the first floor of a large blue Victorian home. There's two bedrooms, and a large living room area with a fireplace and (my favorite) a floor-to-ceiling window in a reading nook-like enclave.

A couple weekends ago we went apartment hunting on a thoroughly wet Saturday. Heaven was gleefully dumping buckets of water. Jon and I reminisced about different hiking trips we've taken in which liberal amounts of water were involved.
My stories (slowly adding to them!) come nowhere near Jon's. He tells of hiking the Appalachian Trail when the trail was nothing more than a cheerful river. I think his worst one is when he went somewhere in Tennessee with his friend and it rained nonstop the entire time. If you can, imagine hiking in clothes thoroughly sopping wet in 50 degree weather. Shirt, pants, underwear, socks, boots, the whole shebang is so soaked that you can grab a fistful of shirt and squeeze out enough water to fill a Nalgene.
This isn't the worst part.
Now, imagine peeling all of this squelching mess off, warming up tolerably for the night. Come morning, though, you must put all of your soggy clothes (which have only dried to a clammy dampness) back on. The worst part of all is pulling on wet, cold socks and wet, cold shoes. Nothing freezes you up better than cold footwear.

Finals are next week. I have one more class after this, and then I will actually be done. It is both exhilarating and terrifying.

This means I have to start looking for a job. I've been keeping my eyes open for a long time, but so few things open up here in Kentucky it is frustrating. Jon and I agreed that if an opportunity opens up in another state (I'm checking Virginia and North Carolina postings regularly), we should move and take advantage of it. I hate the thought of leaving Kentucky, though.

I counted 3 baby birds on the sidewalk the other day. They lay as if asleep, enormous beaks a slash of yellow on their pink heads.

Autumn is starting to figure out that her hands are part of her--that she can actually (somewhat) control them. She had a hold of my finger and decided she wanted to taste it. She furrowed her brow in determination, trying to aim it to her mouth, going cross-eyed in her attempt. I sat there laughing, then realized I was watching the process of her brain neurons firing off new connections.

I tell Jenni she should file away all the 'embarassing' stuff Autumn does so she can tease her when she's a smart-alecky teenager. 1) She is in love with the Lamaze monkey suspended over her carrier. She will stare at it in a trance, smiling and making expressions. We wonder if there is some kind of conversation, one-sided or not, going on... 2) She drools. 3) She passes a lot of gas. 4) She dances to country music.

When you can't think of terms like "boycott" or "resist", I think that's a sign you need to call it quits on your paper.

Hopefully this paper will turn out okay. The last time this professor asked us to write an essay, he made his requirements so vague that 98% of the class got papers back covered in red marks. Thankfully he realized his error and did not count it towards our overall grades.

For those of you dying to find out, the paper is about the serials crisis in scholarly publishing. Publishers in this field--the science, technology, and medical journals--make a 40% profit. Subscriptions to certain journals reach $30,000. Considering that publishers, particularly Elsevier, the one every librarian loves to hate, routinely raise their annual subscriptions by double digits, it's not hard to see why libraries are starting to fight back.

"The meaning of and motivation for mall walking among older adults." Activities, adaptation, & aging 19:1 (1994).

The things one comes across in a library...

Abbi gave the 300 her stamp of approval. We were surprised at how, given that it is basically a graphic novel come to life, historically accurate the movie is overall. The Persian king was so impressed with the 300 (they killed 10,000-20,000 of his men) that he wrote down their deeds. Since the Spartans fight to the death, there would have been no record of this battle were it not for the king--highly unusual since history is comprised mostly of the accounts of the victors.
The gallows humor happened for real. A Persian really did say that their arrows would block out the sun, and a Spartan really did retort that they would fight in the shade.

I am reading:
The name of the wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
Dog years, by Mark Doty
Grave Matters, by someone
The history of the ancient world, by Susan Wise Bauer
Prayer, by Philip Yancey
Secrets in the dark, by Frederick Buechner

and I'm going to pick up:
Grace (eventually): further thoughts on faith, by Anne Lamott

Dog years is a memoir of a life with pets, rather intriguing. I think I will write one about the animals in my life so far. As I am the only one who will read it, I will feel free to pen eloquent, lengthy chapters.

Last Friday, there was a wall of darkness stretched across the interstate. The difference was night and day. I was driving in bright sunshine, and it was as if Saruman was perched on some hill nearby magicking a fey storm onto the road. I entered the roiling clouds and visibility was null. Snow roared everywhere--it was like some cosmic dandruff party. Then just as quickly as I entered the darkness of snow, I drove into bright sunshine again. The effect was uncanny.

If you want a self-esteem boost, go find a baby. They look at you like you're the greatest thing on earth. Autumn is curious about everything, but once her gaze passes over your face, her eyes light up and she will stare at you in rapt adoration forever with a bubbly smile.

One time, I was walking down an aisle in the children's department at Joseph-Beth. There was a fat baby learning how to take her first awkward steps. She was staring at the ground in determination. Once I was close enough that my shoes entered her line of vision, she stopped with a fascinated, perplexed expression on her face. I watched as her eyes traveled up the length of my body, wondering what on earth it was about me that had captivated her so, and once her gaze reached my eyes, her face exploded in glee. She shrieked with joy ( I kid you not) and beamed such a delightful smile at me that nothing could stop the smile forming on my lips in return.

I'm reading the book "Grave matters: a journey through the modern funeral industry to a natural way of burial" by Mark Harris. (Yes Dwain, I know that makes me Victorian).

I'm only the first chapter in--it's making me think about something I've never really thought about before-- and I'm already wondering what the point of the modern funeral industry is considering that bodies will decompose regardless what we do.

Someone was buried on her rural property in a shroud and nothing more. I can't help but think how nice that sounds.

The weather has been so nice lately, I've been itching to go outside--go to a park or something. The itch gets particularly bad when I see people walking their dogs. That was a special daily ritual for Bear and I, and one I miss all the more now that he is gone.
Anyways, I said the other day, "I want to rent a dog and go play in the park."
Jon said, "What about Dwain's dog?"
"He's too much like a cat to count as a dog!"

Of course, we're prejudiced since we only saw him in the house, and witnessed only his house-behavior: perching on the back of a chair, huddling on Miah's lap, burrowing under the blanket.

So I got a ticket a couple weeks ago. There's a police officer that directs traffic in the mornings at a busy intersection at EKU. He motioned for cars in both lanes of my road to stop, which we did. He let the cars in the road perpendicular to our road start turning left and right while we waited. When I saw that there was going to be no one coming turning into the lane of the perpendicular road heading into EKU, I thought it would be okay for me to turn right. Nope. The police officer was kind and explained the situation to me when he pulled me over because I had no idea what I had done wrong.
My mistake, clearly. But now the charge on my record is "Eluding a police officer"! This brings with it a 6 month probation of my license, and traffic school. I hate how that looks--it makes it sound like I led the police on a high speed chase!
So there you go--I am a candidate for that show Cops.

http://www.heraldleader.com/101/story/20672.html

Joseph-Beth is revamping their Lexington store...

I'm curious as to the effect it will have. Wendell Berry will not shop there, nor come for a book-signing, because he believes they are a corporate bookstore, not a local one. Others have stopped shopping there because their inventory is erratically refreshed.
It still has the ambiance that caught my attention when I first went there while visiting Asbury way back in '98, though.

There's a picture of King Leonidas on the USA Today cover, looking Spartan with things sticking out of his chest and still able to bellow a war cry.

At first I wasn't sure I wanted to see it--those Middle-Earth monsters don't quite fit into the history lesson. I read an article in an obsessive-compulsive sci-fi magazine about the moviemakers' intentions with this movie, and then it all made sense. It's told from the perspective of the lone survivor of that conflict, and naturally stories tend to snowball into giant mythic narratives. Apparently the Middle-earth monsters are just Persian warriors who shared the Spartan quality of superhuman strength. The narrator just perceived them as monstrous because they were the enemy.

I'm at my parents' shop. Mom is nagging me the frequency of my updates (Dwain is too...) So here you go!

It's funny that a person who writes about the ancient British isles and their druidic spirituality should have written a completely honest and convincing account of a particular character's conversion to Christianity. I found his story more gripping, more "real", than a lot of the fluff that is published nowadays (yes, I do acknowledge that that fluff is worthwhile to many readers out there).
I wonder how some Christians would feel about this--that a writer with a professed interest in pagan spirituality should write about ancient Christians with as much respect as she does for the Celtic culture in which she places those Christians (these are monks that have traveled abroad to live the Word of God).

(I'm talking about Juliet Marillier.)

This article about a librarian in Baghdad makes you appreciate your job tenfold here.

It is quite cold out there. The ladies at the library get a kick out of the fact that I'm used to this kind of weather (I hesitate to point out that being used to the cold doesn't mean taking joy in the stabbing pain in my cheeks whenever I step outside).

Jon gets a kick out of my levels of description for cold. My favorite is "cold as death"--that kind of cold that creeps into your bones and won't let go. It's usually our living room before the heaters are turned on. I want to point out that right now, the outside is not cold as death. There's a difference between just plain cold and "cold as death".