Coffee Klatch

Well, the first partial week of classes is over and I think I got just about everything caught up. We had three days of classes this week, which meant three days of partially staffing the Reference Desk. We’ll begin our evening desk hours Sunday night. Much of my week was scrambling to make tons of last-minute changes on the library website. Just an extra page here, a few links there… nothing ginormous (yes, that’s officially a word now–gotta love neologisms!) but the cumulative effect was that much of my free time was spent on website changes. That and getting everything ready at the Reference Desk for things like tracking our reference transactions (various types of interactions with people at the desk) and keeping statistics on which books in the Reference collection are getting used (we scan the barcodes in the books and reshelve them ourselves, so I had to get the interface ready for entering that data).

So things are going to start settling into a regular Fall routine this next week. Preliminary stuff is out of the way, we begin evening Ref. Desk hours next week, and we’ve got students using the library again. It’s always nice to have them back and see the library busy and being used!

On a personal note, my three boys all finished their first full week of school now. Things have started settling down for them, too, which is nice. They’re all at new schools and in regular public schools for the first time. Before this, it was either Christian schools or charter schools (which functioned almost like a poor man’s Christian school). Alaric’s in 8th grade now, Blaise is in 5th, and Camber is in 1st, and they’re all riding the bus to school. “The only thing that is constant is change.”

It’s funny how technological innovations eventually become commonplace and then forgotten. My six-year-old was doing his homework last night and had to write the first and last letters of things that were pictured on his worksheet. When he got to a typewriter he asked me what it was.

Isn’t that funny? He asked me what it was and when I looked at it, it was clearly a picture of a typewriter.

And then I found myself EXPLAINING to him how a typewriter works. My ten-year-old got into it then, asking if each letter hit at the same place, so I explained how the roller moves each time you hit a key.

Who’d have thought it?

This is the week that classes begin here at Butler University. Classes start Wednesday as do our hours for staffing the Reference Desk in the library. So things are pretty busy with all the preparation tasks and scheduling and making sure everything’s ready. Making last-minute changes to web pages, getting procedures in place for things like Blackboard usage or Reference statistics, and communicating necessary things to the faculty are just some of these last-minute tasks that have me hopping this week.

A few weeks into the Fall semester and things will settle down into a somewhat regular routine, which will be nice.

Over a year ago, I blogged about FindYourSpot.com, which asks you questions and gives you a list of ideal cities for you to live in. It seems to be a really good survey with accurate results. I decided to take the quiz again and see if my results had changed. Here’s the comparison:

I think the biggest difference was that this time I didn’t rule out any particular areas of the country. They say that doesn’t make too much of a difference, but there are more places in Tennessee this time than last time, as well as a South Carolina and an Oklahoma. Very interesting. I like how each city in your results list has a link to a page that tells you more about that city.

Check your own recommendations at http://www.findyourspot.com/.

Air conditioning sure is nice on these days when it’s in the mid to upper 90s and the humidity puts the heat index well over 100. This morning when I got in my car it was already feeling nasty outside and the car’s air conditioner was running as soon as I started the engine (because I didn’t turn it off the evening before). While driving to work, I thought about how nice air conditioning is and I reflected on a different philosophy of air conditioning that exists where I grew up: Phoenix, AZ.

Out there, air conditioning is a way of life. You go from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned work and back again. Out there, the sun has a physical presence in the summertime and the heat is something you have to battle. Your air conditioner is your weapon to fight against the sun and protect yourself.

Here in the Midwest, it just makes you feel nice.

Big difference. Not to say it’s not critical at times like this when there are strong heat waves, but it’s different.

Overall, I think I’m glad I don’t have to fight the sun/heat every summer day as a general way of life.

There’s a special kind of magic that happens in a family. I’m not talking about special relationships or warm fuzzy feelings. I’m talking about the magic of how things get used, broken, or lost. Or how cups or dishes appear in the living room. All without ANYONE having done it.

The adults can usually be believed when they say they didn’t do something small like leave a cup half full of milk in the living room. But when you have children and they ALL say it’s not theirs, THAT’S THE PROOF OF THE MAGIC! Nobody filled it and took it to the living room; it just appeared there. The same is true of things that get broken or used up. Nobody did it, but the evidence remains.

This special magic eludes many people, like singles and married couples that don’t have children. For that matter, families with only one child miss out on the magic, too. After all, if somebody knocked over a lamp and there’s only one kid in the house, it’s pretty simple deduction.
Those of you with two or more children, though, know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. We are co-participants in a special magic.

This is the magic that inspired Bill Keane to come up with his “ghost” characters Not Me and Ida Know.

I‘ve been a fan of Sudoku for quite a while now. While searching my blog for references, I found THREE different posts about Sudoku: 20 March 2006, 27 December 2006, and 9 March 2007. Lately I decided to look for a site that I would track my progress–if not actual puzzles solved, then points earned by the number of puzzles I’ve solved at each difficulty level. I’d found one before, but found it too cumbersome to navigate to new puzzles that I hadn’t solved yet, so I started looking around for a better site.

My favorite: Sudoku Kingdom. It has an interface that’s easy to work with (although I’d like it if they allowed using the Arrow keys to switch between boxes) and if you enter a number that’s already in that row/column/box, the existing number’s box flashes red a few times, alerting you to the conflict. Every month they reset the standings, so you can see who’s in the Top Ten for points (1-easy, 2-medium, 4-hard, 8-very hard). At the end of each month, every player who has at least 100 points is entered into a drawing for one of five e-books with 48 sudoku puzzles (with answers).

They have the regular collection of sudoku puzzles, which you can solve to your heart’s content. They also have Daily Sudoku, which gives you one point for each one you solve. Each puzzle is only available for two days (in case you miss a day, you can still get your puzzle done the next day). The Daily Sudoku has its own Top Ten list and its own monthly drawing (for 3 people who got at least 20 points that month). As a perk to keep you coming back, you get TWO points if you’ve solved the daily puzzle the day before. If you miss a day, though, then it goes back to one point until you do two days in a row.

If you’re more into solving Sudoku puzzles on paper, they keep the last twenty daily puzzles (plus solutions) available for downloading and printing. And if you’re new, there’s a Tutorial and a Beginners section which has its own Top Ten list, too (no drawing, though).

And to add a little something to the puzzle-solving process, they’ve got a Web Browser Toolbar (for Firefox AND Internet Explorer) that you can install, which allows you to listen to the radio or podcasts while you’re solving. Or even while you’re just online, since you can use the toolbar to share favorite links and jump right to sudoku puzzles with the click of a button.

Current music: Paint the Sky with Stars–The Best of Enya

Since I’ve begun shaving my head with a razor and shaving cream in the shower (instead of using an electric shaver, for instance), I’ve been using shaving cream on my head, which can be “invigorating” when it’s got menthol in it. But a friend of mine, Topher, who was one of the first people I knew who shaved his head, has been telling me about shaving cream alternatives for a while now.

I’ve noticed that using body wash (or shower gel) always leaves the skin feeling slicker and smoother than soap does (which is half the point), so I decided to try that on my head this morning instead of shaving cream. Turns out it works great! It doesn’t take as much, has a good smell to it, and will save me money because I won’t have to buy shaving cream any more. Plus, since I have three different kinds of body wash in the shower, I’ll have my choice of scents for using when shaving my head.

Pretty cool.

Here’s a link to a cool online store I found, called Port Royal Trading Company. Just loads and loads of piratey stuff: accessories, books, costumes, decals and stickers, drinkware, flags and pennants, games and toys, headware, jewelry, maps and charts, nautical goods, party goods, t-shirts, and much more! It’s a regular TREASURE CHEST of goodies!

Because of the highway construction going on along my usual route to work, I’m forced to take a route through the city along city streets to get to work. Much of 38th Street that I travel has a speed limit of 40 or even 35. Not to mention the school zone. And of course there are many people (a majority, actually) who drive 10-15 mph over the posted speed limit. I’ve seen people doing 60 mph in the 35 zone.

I don’t know about you, but I get REALLY irritated when I watch people weaving through traffic while ignoring posted speed limits. Not because they’re getting to their destination faster, but because they’re endangering others and flouting the law as flagrantly as possible.

So I’ve started playing the Speed Limit Game. This is where I drive along until I find someone driving closer to the speed limit than the rest of the traffic. And I get alongside them in the other lane, matching my speed to theirs. I can see in my rear view mirror that there are people behind me weaving and trying to pass everyone, but that ceases when everyone is forced to slow down to a more reasonable speed.

Now, I’m not laughing at them or trying to actually make people mad. I’m just doing my part to help those around me become more reasonable. I even act like I’m “just driving along” and not paying attention. As long as I’m less than half a car length in front of or behind the car next to me, I don’t look like I’m purposefully planted right next to someone else with the intention of creating a blockade.

Does it work? Well, they’re not exactly more reasonable, but for a short time they’re being forced to ACT like it! And the roads are a little safer.