Saturday afternoon we decided to go to Illinois Beach State Park. I had been there a few times but Michele and the kids never had. The weather was perfect, there weren’t many people there, and we had a great time. Michele made a nice picnic meal which we also enjoyed. Afterward Tristan said, “This was the best day of my life!” An exaggeration, but it gives a sense of how much the kids enjoyed their time. Some photos are available here:
I just added a new WordPress plugin (WP More Feeds) that allows me to present RSS feeds for any categories or tags I use. This means that if you only want to follow what I have to say about a particular topic, e.g. faith, you can subscribe and receive posts that only deal with that topic.
Here is a link to a nice writeup in the most recent issue of the NASIG Newsletter about the presentation I made at this year’s NASIG conference with colleague Sarah Morris.
Earlier today I read about the 100 Things to Eat meme on Terry Weese’s Reese’s blog, liked it, and thought I’d continue it.
Below is a list of 100 things to eat with ones that I have actually eaten indicated in bold.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
So there you have it. Now here’s the rules:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
OK, I am feeling incredibly stupid (not an uncommon feeling). I write a blog post now and it creates about six more and sends all of those out via RSS, Twitter, Friendfeed, Delicious, etc. Ugh. Apologies to all who are wondering what the heck is wrong with me that I’d basically spam anyone brave enough to “follow” me via any such tools. I think I have a bad case of WordPress plugins gone wild.
Monday afternoon I accepted an offer to take a job in a different group within the library where I work. Basically what I’ll be doing is leading efforts to implement and expand search and taxonomy company-wide. A lot of work has already been done so I’ll need to get up to speed quickly on that. Also it is important to note that there is a whole team of people with whom I will be working on this large set of responsibilities. I have always felt it was a huge plus that the library group in my large, global company has been given the responsibility for search and taxonomy. That means that just about everywhere there is a search box on a page within our intranet or on external Internet sites, that is set up and maintained by the library.
This will probably be the most “un-library-like” job I have ever held. But I am ready for a new job and a new direction. I will still be working within the library but the scope of the job is much broader than that. One of the new things I’ll be doing is a lot of client development and managing client relationships as well as relationships with a new set of vendors. There is much more to it and frankly I don’t understand it all just yet. My official start date will by September 29 but I am already easing into the role and out of my existing one. This means that the next several weeks will probably be pretty crazy.
Why the change? Well, there are many reasons. Mainly, I have been looking for a way to get to another level of responsibility and this provides that. I have long wanted to try new things, to have a new set of challenges and learning opportunities. There is no question in my mind that libraries and information centers of all stripes need to have a great awareness of and involvement in search, especially in this Google era when everyone thinks search should be as easy to use as Google and just about everyone uses Google many times a day.
It seems to me that a lot of people in my company aren’t happy with search as it currently is established, so I hope that along with many others, I can help to improve that.
