Yesterday was a beautiful day and we decided to take advantage of it by visiting Milwaukee County Zoo again. Below is a video of me with Brinley and Cohen on the Sky Safari ride. Click here for photos.
Obviously yesterday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t pay much attention to the media reports surrounding commemorative events. Not because I don’t care but because I thankfully don’t have TV anyway (yeah! no commercials!), and because I remembered in other ways.
Most people, me included, will never forget the events of that day. I remember driving to work at what was then Endeavor Information Systems (now, Ex Libris) in Des Plaines, Illinois, listening to the radio in the car and hearing about the first plane hitting one of the towers of the World Trade Center. And then, the next plane hitting another tower of the WTC. I remember calling home on my cell phone to update Michele about it, and also calling my mother to update her. When I walked into the office, everyone was glued to a large screen TV in the break room, and we soon were told to go home due to our proximity to O’Hare, literally a stone’s throw away from the office. At home we were glued to TV throughout the day.
The thing I remember the most about the whole situation was how deeply unsettled it made me feel. So unsettled, in fact, that the events of 9/11 were a driving force in making me think of moving out of the Chicago area to an area that I thought would be safer for my family. Within a few months, I had applied for and been offerred a job at Taylor University in Upland, IN, and we moved there in January 2002. Toward the end of that same month, my father died unexpectedly after a botched surgery. We stayed in Indiana ’til July of 2005 when, due to Michele’s health, we made a decision to move back to the Chicago area to be nearer to my in-laws.
Yesterday afternoon I was finally able to transfer a lot of video footage taken around the same time as 9/11 to my computer at home. A lot of the footage was of Keegan, who was nine at the time, and Tristan, who was less than a year old. Keegan was very much a giggly, goofy elementary school student, whereas Tristan was just learning to crawl, and then to walk. I hadn’t viewed most of this footage at all in the intervening years so it was an interesting retrospective that framed my memories of 9/11. I remember thinking seriously for the first time back then, what is this world coming to? What might happen next? How can I protect my family? Michele and I were still newlyweds, in a way. So much has changed over the years.
It was so meaningful to see footage of the kids and of the early days in Indiana, but that was counterbalanced by the realization that after that point in time, my videos were few and far between. As a result, I don’t have much video footage of Brinley and Cohen when they were little. That’s pretty sad.
We had a week of much-needed vacation last week. See some photos of the trip here.
It was nearly perfect weather combined with lots of interesting things to do and see. We saw bald eagles, river otters, deer, and a couple of black bears. The one thing we hoped to see but didn’t is the resident mountain lion.
In addition to trying some of the new features in WordPress 3.2.x, I’ve decided to switch themes and play around with a different look, a change of wardrobe if you will. The theme header uses an image I snapped late last year of an agave plant, as well as a light-on-dark scheme instead of the traditional dark-on-light. If only I could somehow get the Google +1 button integration to function, I’d be satisfied. For some reason, it just errors out constantly.
Yesterday was like most Saturdays in our house. I was feeling completely lousy and worn out. I’d be perfectly happy just vegging, drifting in and out of naps, trying to recover from the stresses of the work week. Michele and kids were antsy to get out of the house, to “do something fun” together. Add to that the stress of never being able to identify something fun to do that is fun for everyone, and you have a volatile mix, trust me. Finally, we decided we’d have a special treat and go to Evanston to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Joy Yee’s Noodles. It’s about an hour’s drive for us but worth it.
The main thing we like is their astonishing variety of bubble teas. My favorite is the Mango with large tapioca. For food, we ordered shrimp and eel fried rice, orange beef (the waiter made a mistake and gave us orange chicken instead, which was ok), curried chicken with coconut rice, shrimp and chicken pad thai, Vietnamese shrimp spring rolls, and something else I’ve forgotten. Anyway, what a feast!
I despise Facebook, deleted my account about three years ago, and have never looked back. So it was with some curiosity and excitement that I asked for, and got, an invite to start using the anti-Facebook, Google+. Now I realize that Google has many of the same problems as Facebook from a user perspective, and I also realize that it’s early days yet. But already, after using it for a few days, I definitely like it. I sincerely hope that this service becomes a serious competitor to Facebook and that it takes them down a notch or two or three.
Oh and by the way, I added Google’s +1 button functionality to this site so that anyone who thinks a post or page here is worthwhile can click it as a sort of approval rating. I have no intention of ever implementing the silly Facebook “Like” button.
I’m approaching 20 years of working in the library and information science profession. Here are some of the career lessons I’ve learned in that time.
Lesson #1: Your career is NOT your life. If it is, you are guaranteeing yourself a life of unhappiness and disappointment.
Lesson #2: Being a leader in your field or organization is not a position.
Lesson #3: It is more important to have the respect of your coworkers and those who report to you than the favor of your management.
Lesson #4: You will hardly ever get the compensation and recognition that you deserve.
Lesson #5: Find a work environment that values your strengths and abilities instead of one that expects you to change who you are to fit in.
Lesson #6: If there is no opportunity to grow and learn new things in your current work environment, look elsewhere.
Lesson #7: Workplace values are extremely important. In this regard, actions definitely speak louder than words.
Lesson #8: It is vital to treat coworkers as real people and to care about them.
Lesson #9: Many, perhaps most, career promotions are not given on the basis of merit.
Lesson #10: Balance is everything, particularly balance between work life and personal life.
The Overdrive nonsense continues. Overdrive, for those who may not be aware, is a vendor that provides access to ebooks and audiobooks for library patrons to check out, similar to print library books.
I’ve been pretty critical of them in the past. I wish they had improved enough to warrant some good words. One of the biggest criticisms I have of them is that their site does not allow users to automatically search or browse available ebooks or audiobooks. In other words, there is no easy way to just look at ebooks or audiobooks that are available to check out. Instead, this inane approach of theirs forces users to check each and every ebook or audiobook to see if it is checked out or not. Think of a “real” library experience where this issue doesn’t even exist.
Well, imagine my pleasant surprise when I noticed that their mobile site recently was enhanced to include this feature. The photo below is a screenshot taken from my iPhone to show what this looks like. My pleasant surprise quickly faded to irritation when it became obvious that this feature was implemented only for keyword search, not browse. How lame is that? It is hard for me to comprehend how the persons who thought this up and implemented it could possibly think this was a fix? Overdrive, if you are listening, please, please put more thought into feature enhancements in the future. Especially try to think of how regular library users might use your service. You have clearly not done your homework.
