Sign on a nearby farm, seen by my wife yesterday a.m.: “Farm Fresh Deer Urine For Sale.” My wife thought to herself, how do they collect it? My response: I just don’t want to know.
Tag Archives: indiana
A beautiful fall day
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Today is a beautiful fall day here in Indiana. The leaves are turning brilliant colors, the temperature is around 70 degrees, and the sun is shining. Better yet, the kids — my hooligans — are all either asleep or calmly watching television. In other words, yes, I get an opportunity to write in this blog a little bit, and to reflect and relax a little bit, too.
Today didn’t start out very well. The nighttime was rough. All of the kids except for Keegan have colds and aren’t feeling well, which means that invariably, one or more of them end up in our bed, and I end up in one of their beds. It’s been so long since I slept in my own bed the whole night through, sans kids, that I can’t remember what it was like! I couldn’t sleep for most of last night and ended up watching Nova on PBS, an interesting show on pearls. I fell asleep in the living room and woke up with one of the worst headaches I have had since the meningitis episode a year ago. I had to go back to bed, twice. Fortunately, now I feel quite a bit better, although worn out. Michele is taking a much-deserved nap upstairs. Keegan is holding Cohen.
Things on my mind today: I need to pay bills; I wish I had the energy to clean up around the house; we might do some shopping this afternoon so that Michele can spend some of her birthday money; should I accept the offer to teach another class next spring (’05) for my alma mater, the #1 ranked graduate library school, UIUC GSLIS; if I’m going to start my PhD program next fall, I need to get going with the application process; how am I ever going to get caught up at work; I desperately need a network of Christian friends and community here, and so does Michele; how ironic it is that this is so hard when I’m working for a Christian university in a largely Christian town.
Another Brinley scare
On Monday when we were getting ready to leave my in-law’s house to go back home, Brinley found a stray pill and decided it was candy and chewed it. Turns out it was Toprol XL, which my mother-in-law takes for her heart. When Michele discovered what Brinley had done, she tried to clean out her mouth and then called for me. I rushed her into the bathroom and forcibly rinsed her mouth out as much as I could while Michele called the Illinois Poison Control Center. They advised that we get Brinley to a doctor immediately because Toprol is quite dangerous, even in small amounts, for someone Brinley’s size and weight. Basically what it does is slow down the heart rate and lowers the blood pressure.
At the ER, they gave us a cup full of liquid charcoal stuff to force down Brinley’s throat. It was an incredible mess and of course, Brinley fought us the whole way. I must say that the nurse(s) weren’t very helpful at this part, they just gave us a Dixie cup of the stuff, said “Here, give this to her!” and left the room to leave us to figure out how to get Brinley to drink it! Finally, after getting her covered in pitch black goo, and getting a liberal amount of it on ourselves as well, Michele asked the nurse for a syringe. That helped a lot and we finally got it all down Brinley’s throat. The charcoal apparently helps to “bind” the drug in the stomach so that it isn’t readily absorbed into the blood stream.
The ER doctor told us they were going to admit Brinley into the pediatric ICU for observation, perhaps overnight. That’s what ended up happening. Poor thing, she had diodes all over her and it wasn’t a very comfortable experience. However, I’m thankful to report that she was released yesterday with a clean bill of health. She is fine. It could have been so much worse. We are somewhat shaken by the whole experience but thankful for the Lord’s mercy in the whole situation. We made it back to Indiana around midnight last night.
Something to do with gentiles
Life as a husband and father of three boys and a girl has its ups and downs. I dearly love my kids, but sometimes they frustrate me so much that I want to scream or cry. Other times, they say such funny things that I laugh hysterically. For example, the other day while driving through rural Indiana, Michele and I were talking about something. Keegan was preoccupied with reading a book in the middle row of our van, yet also trying to keep an ear open to what we were saying. I think Michele and I were making a lighthearted joke about the Amish for some reason or another (we were driving through an Amish community at the time). Keegan hadn’t heard the whole conversation, misunderstood what we were saying, and asked, “Are you talking about something to do with a person’s gentiles?!” He meant, “genitals.” I laughed so hard, I nearly drove off the road.
Indiana-isms
As someone who is still adjusting to the vagaries of living in rural Indiana and who still doesn’t take kindly to being called a “Hoosier,” I thought these Indiana-isms, sent to us by friends and whose source is unknown, were pretty funny. They are funny because many of them are very, very true. In our two years here, we have experienced many of these. That’s scary!
If you are a Hoosier:
* You think the state bird is Larry.
* There’s actually a college near you named “Ball State.”
* Your feelings get hurt whenever someone points out the acronym for PurdueUniversity is PU.
* You’ve never met any celebrities.
* Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
* “Vacation” means going to Indiana Beach or Holiday World (Santa Claus,IN).
* You know several people who have hit a deer.
* Down south to you means Kentucky.
* Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
* Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
* You’ve ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
* You’ve heard of Euchre, you know how to play Euchre, and you are the master of Euchre.
* You’ve seen a running car, with nobody in it, in the parking lot of the grocery store,no matter what time of year it is.
* You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: “Where’s mycoat at?” or “If you go to the mall I wanna go with.”
* You install security lights in your house and garage, then leave both of themunlocked.
* You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad withmarshmallows.
* You carry jumper cables in your car regularly and your wife/girlfriend knows how touse them.
* You think nothing of it in spring and fall to be stuck behind a farm implement drivingon the roads. You just hope it’s not a hog truck or a manure spreader.
* High school basketball games draw bigger crowds on the weekend than movietheaters, IF you have a movie theater.
* Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
* Newspapers have international news & headlines on one page but requires six forlocal sports.
* You can repeat the scores of the last eight NBA games, but, unless the MVP is aHoosier, you are not sure who he is.
* You can see at least two basketball hoops from your yard.
* The biggest question of your youth was IU or Purdue.
* Indianapolis is the BIG CITY.
* Getting stuck by a train is a legitimate excuse for being late to school.
* You know several different definitions as to what a Hoosier really is.
* Everyone knows who the town cops are, where they live, and whether they’re athome or on duty.
* To you, tenderloin is not an expensive cut of beef, but a big, salty, breaded piece ofpork served on a bun with pickle.
* You’ve been to the covered bridge festival
* You have no problem spelling or pronouncing, Terre Haute
* You don’t know what a real pacer is but get upset if they lose
* People in your area REALLY like NASCAR.
* You know all four seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, construction.
* You actually understand these jokes and forward them to all your friends in Indiana.
UIUC GSLIS
The week before last I made what has now become an annual tradition for the past twelve years or so: a trip back to my alma mater, UIUC GSLIS (the best graduate library school in the country!), to speak to the Hendersons’ Technical Services Functions class. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to the class and the students had very good questions about my topic, which was the opportunities and challenges of handling e-resources. Each year the Henderson’s assign me to be a mentor to one or two of their students in this class. I enjoy that part as well. I cannot say enough about how much I admire and respect Kathryn Luther Henderson and her husband, Bill. They have been my mentors and close friends since my library school days and I am thankful that they include me in their course.
When I first made this new blog public last week, to my surprise, who should pick it up and mention it in LISBlogsource, a blog about library blogs, but a former mentee of mine from this same class. Greg not only co-moderates LISBlogsource but also has his own well-regarded library-related blog, OpenStacks. And, he apparently is an Indiana resident like myself. It’s a small world. I was really pleased to connect with him again.
Trip to Indianapolis to attend consortial meeting
Yesterday was a pretty long day for me. Our library is part of the PALNI (Private Academic Library Network of Indiana) consortium and we had a consortial meeting yesterday at PALNI HQ, which is at INCOLSA’s offices. (INCOLSA is yet another library consortium but one that has a broader, statewide membership.) The meeting was the first-ever meeting of a group called the PALNI Aleph System Librarians. Since PALNI libraries share an integrated library system (Aleph 500 ver. 15.5) and since a big load is borne by designated system librarians at each member library in terms of the daily management of the system, this was quite an important event.
The reason it was a long day for me was that I was asked to give a presentation on macro software (I’ve attached the Word document here Macro Express.doc) Taylor has already purchased for use with Aleph, and I hadn’t had a chance to prepare anything up until the last minute. I was up at about 4a, got to work at 5a, and worked on the presentation until it was time to go to Indy at around 8a. After the all-day meeting, I then had to work the evening reference desk until 10p.
Anyway, the meeting was quite a success, in my opinion. I finally was able to put faces to names as I hadn’t met most of my counterparts before in the 23 libraries that make up PALNI. I also thoroughly enjoyed getting to meet one of the PALNI systems analysts face-to-face for the first time, someone with whom I have spoken on the phone and emailed back and forth for a long time, but had never met in person. Plus we as a group came to some important decisions about the system and how we’d like to manage it. This is a great first step to leveraging the power of a group to addressing the many complexities and demands of our implementation of this new system.
A beautiful Fall day
It’s a beautiful, fall day here in Indiana. Michele and I agree that this area is very pretty in the fall, with the narrow country roads, abundant trees, and the corn and soybeans waiting to be harvested. There is a lot of undeveloped land here, and that means that there is wide variety of wildlife. As far as we know, the woodchuck is still burrowed beneath our garden shed, and lots of birds come to drink from our little goldfish pond each morning. I need to start filling up the birdfeeder again so that they will get used to feeding there. Last night Michele and I had a better night’s sleep, although Tristan did his usual routine of coming into bed with us in the middle of the night. Brinley slept pretty well. Mother is leaving today to go back home and get some much needed rest! Michele’s mom and her brother, Bryan, will be coming to stay for a while on Sunday, so we look forward to that.
Martin Burnham
We survived the hectic day yesterday — got the perennials planted, the lawn mowed, etc. and then drove up to the western Chicago suburbs to stay with my in-laws in Warrenville, IL. It was a beautiful day and today promises to be the same. On our way there, we passed by lots of garage sales throughout small towns in Indiana. Michele was upset that we couldn’t stop and browse, but we didn’t have time (thank goodness!). I was greatly saddened to hear the news that Martin Burnham, a missionary in the Phillipines who, with his wife, had been held captive for almost a year by a rebel group there, was killed in a rescue attempt, along with two other people. Gracia Burnham, his wife, was also shot but survived. What a tragedy. While we must accept God’s plan and purpose in this, I still mourn for that family, especially the children who have been waiting and hoping for so long to see both parents again some day. Please join me in praying for them and for the families of others in the same group who were killed. I opened my Bible this a.m. to John 16:20-22 and read Jesus’ words to His disciples: “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy…Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”
Dirk Bean
Another hot, sunny day in Indiana. Went to chapel and heard Dirk Bean give his testimony. He was a member of the original Survivor TV show on CBS who was very open about his faith. It was great to hear what he had to say about standing up for what you believe, relying fully on God’s Word, and trusting Him to make your own dreams a reality.