The Clog Blog of the Dancin' Librarian
Reading: 1001 Pearls of Buddhist Wisdom
Watching: Our 2007 clogging show (making the DVD)
Link of the Week: Cloggers' Delight
Current Terror Alert Level:
Help: 
Why lemurs?
Who am I?
1/31/2003
Creativity time(0) comments
OK, I've been working on the agenda for our next staff meeting, and for reasons that I won't attempt to explain, each item on the agenda has some kind of TV reference next to it. For example, next to the item about our Voyager system, whose symbol is a boat, is a line from the Gilligan's Isle theme. Anyway, I can't come up with anything for the agenda item about book collection weaknesses. So, send me your ideas!
And speaking of your ideas, I don't remember if I posted it, but the official fish name is Sushi. Thanks to Jim, Sue, Steph, and whoever all else had suggestions! Sushi is quite happy in his little iMac abode (complete with cheesy treasure chest) and enjoys displaying his fins to that OTHER fish in the mirror. :)
Cool!(0) comments
Barry over at Inktank totally rocks. I love anyone who not only does a great webcomic, but loves and respects libraries!
1/28/2003
Speaking of clogging...(0) comments
If anyone wants to buy a candy bar for a dollar to help send our group to the big clogging workshop in Gatlinburg, let me know. They're exact same kind of chocolate-with-almonds candy bars I remember the band selling in high school. (I seem to recall they were pretty good, but then in high school I liked Smarties.)
I survived the great frozen North(0) comments
A recap of last week, for anyone interested:
Tuesday the 21st: Drove to Greensboro to fly to Philly. I wish more Charlotteans would do this to revolt against the ungodly prices at the Charlotte airport. Just because it's a hub, doesn't mean it should cost twice as much to fly out of there. The seminar (which was the College Library Director Mentor Program seminar) kicked off with a tasty salmon dinner in a small Manayunk restaurant. Oddly, out of 19 participants, 3 of us were from NC.
Wednesday the 22nd: Spent all day in the seminar, and the evening at Houlihans solving a hypothetical budget problem with other new directors. Heard a rather interesting observation from my roommate, who is from South Africa and has been in the U.S. for 12 years. She said her biggest surprise coming to the U.S. was that it isn't as free as she thought. Legally maybe it is, but that doesn't make it free. Examples she gave were freedom of speech - yes, you can legally say anything, but you may still get fired/ostracized/in all kinds of trouble for saying something. And of course, the example of black people, who she agreed certainly have it better here than in South Africa, but who still overall face more problems than she had expected.
Thursday: Another full day of seminar, and another Houlihan's dinner. (It was across the street, and we refused to walk any further in single-digit temps with below-0 windchills!) Also a tour of the Philadelphia University library, which is quite nice and has iMacs.
Friday: The seminar wrapped up at lunch, and let me say again that it was well worth it. A major confidence-booster, contact-maker, learning opportunity, and more. Friday afternoon I finally got to do some of the tourist thing, visiting the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, and seeing the Constitution, Articles of the Confederation and Magna Carta. For lunch I had a LARGE philly cheesesteak that wasn't as good as the ones at the Philly Connection at home. Friday night was the opening reception of ALA Midwinter Conference, where I had a delicious soft pretzel (apparently the other food Philly's known for - who kenw?) and rather annoyingly missed Lawrence Block, who unbeknownst to me was signing books.
Saturday: Spent all day walking around the exhibit floor of the conference. Scored several autographed books, lots of literature on resources my library will never be able to afford, and miscellaneous swag. Had a better Philly cheesesteak at dinner.
Sunday: Flew back to Greensboro via Charlotte. *Rolling eyes* Drove home, where Brian took me out to a lovely steak dinner at the Longhorn. Totally ignored the Superbowl. :) Glad to be home.
Yesterday and today: Attempted to get caught up at work! Also went to clogging practice and tried to make up for missing the last two weeks. We're performing Feb. 8 at the Salisbury Mall if anyone wants to watch! :)
1/24/2003
NOT FAIR!!!!!(0) comments
I'm in Philadelphia, enduring single-digit temperatures BEFORE the wind chill (can you say negative numbers, folks?) and it's SNOWING AT HOME!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!
On the bright side, teh seminar has been well worth it. I've learned a lot and feel much better about teh new part of my job.
1/22/2003
Oh. My. Gawd.(0) comments
Not only am I in Philadelphia in January, but I manage to be here when it is unusually cold even for Philly. It is in the single digits at night and struggling to hit the 20s during the day, and that's before the wind chill, which is significant. I'm going to be really Southern here and say I'M *()$(ING FREEZING!!!!! ARGH!!! :) I keep telling myself, the librarian from Hawaii has it worse...
On the bright side, the conference is going well so far. My roommate and I get along great and the seminar is proving to be useful. And Philadelphia has some of the coolest architecture I've seen in a city. So, so far so good!
1/17/2003
I really liked this.(0) comments
So I stole it from Sue. :)
You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So an Australian dentist wrote the following to let everyone know what an American is, so they would know when they found one: An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person the pursuit of happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.
Americans welcome the best, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes. But they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. I've been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 other countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
1/16/2003
It's snoooooowwwiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(0) comments
Which more than makes up for spending the morning dealing with a crashed server!
1/15/2003
Let the inspections work!(0) comments
MoveOn.org has started a campaign to hold Bush to his promise that military action towards Iraq would be a last resort. Go here to sign the petition. I want Saddam gone as much as anybody, and I'm not one to be totally anti-war - I supported bombing the Taliban. But Bush is gonna start WW3 if he isn't careful.
1/14/2003
Too good not to share(0) comments
This explains a lot!
In other news, our library system has been upgraded, more or less painlessly; I have so far survived advising my students today, more or less painlessly (remind me how the hell I wound up doing this?); and the current best name for the fish is Sushi, courtesy of Steph.
1/03/2003
WHEW!!!(0) comments
For once, the university's...er...sluggishness in paying bills paid off. They haven't paid the subscription service yet. Needless to say, we told them not to. Of course, we will still be missing some journals since it will take a bit to get started with a new service, but at least we will have the money to get started with a new service!!!
We cloased today on the refinancing of our house. If you've never bought or refinanced a house, be prepared to spend at least a half hour signing your name. Over and over and over. Worth it though!
And we have a new addition to the menagerie! No, not a cat for once. We converted an old iMac to an iMaquarium, and tonight we got a pretty Betta to go in it. Currently the Betta is in a cup in the cabinet until the aquarium water warms up. The cats are gonna love this one. :) Name suggestions anyone?
1/02/2003
Well, happy new year(0) comments
Nothing like starting out the new year by finding out that your library may be screwed out of big bucks. Yes, we are one of the many libraries who use Rowe/Faxon as our serials subscription service. R/F decided to give us the Christmas present of telling us they're about to go under and basically they haven't paid the publishers for any of the 2003 subscriptions that we have paid them for. So, unless they find someone to buy the company or otherwise pull a miracle out of their butts, we won't be getting any journals in 2003...and we may or may not get our money back from them so that we can get said journals from another source. Hey, we're only a library, why do we need journals?
Well, onto happier thoughts, the holidays were quite nice. The time off from work reminded me why I work in academia. We saw lots (and lots and lots) of family at Christmas, got enough money to cover the bulk of our new mattress, and finished out the year watching the Checkers beat Greenville. (I knew we had talent this year, they just need to play a full game instead of slacking off!) We got a lot of geocaching done during our break. And saw Two Towers twice, and it was even better the second time. Our niece Eliza turned one and happily smeared chocolate frosting all over her face. Overall, a nice holiday and a nice vacation!