February 6, 2016

 It is freaking late so lets make this quick.

This morning I had to scrape ice off my windshield and rear window. It has been a long time since I've had to do that in the morning. Then I drove to class. We started with talking about requests for proposals. That's a super boring topic. It's basically the documents a library comes up with when they are looking for a new product and want to get options from different vendors. The main example we talked about was when the university was wanting a new course management tool. So they came up with this document that included all the features they wanted and a bunch of other legal stuff, and then different vendors presented their case. The idea of it is interesting and I will probably be involved with some aspect of the process at some point in my career, but it is also boring. We spent maybe ten minutes to compare and contrast two different RFP documents. That ten minutes was to read through both, dense documents. And then we talked about them. That was more interesting.

Next we had a short presentation from a librarian about the university library's databases. She has given the same basic presentation to us almost every semester but it also changes every time, if that makes any sense, so I find it informative. And she's entertaining.

Before lunch we briefly covered HTML. I took Web Design over the summer so I didn't really need that discussion but I did get to look at the code from the web sites I have made using Dreamweaver. It was pretty cool. I still like Brackets, though.

For lunch I went to Jimmy John's and then came back early so I could work on a picture in Photoshop. I did a quick search in the morning for old photographs so I could mess around with Photoshop. I found one that was in bad shape with creases and other stuff so throughout the day during breaks and downtime I edited it. Halfway through I noticed that the lady in the picture looked like she could have been one of my old friend's great grandmother. The similarities were definitely there. Anyway, I made progress and at the end of the day I saved it so I can mess with it some more. I think Gimp can open Photoshop files. And if not, I saved it as a pictures so I can open that in Gimp and continue editing.

After lunch we were told to go out and wander around the library and look at the various technology. The idea being that our final group project involves us renovating a library that hasn't been updated since the the 1980s. I lost track of time but I covered three floors, including the stacks, and then went back and edited the photo again.

After discussing what everyone observed we moved on to learning about Camtasia. The professor gave us an overview of the software and then had us play with it for awhile. I came up with a simple slideshow. We were doing all this because one of our upcoming assignments requires us to make a tutorial video that involving us capturing our screen and talking over it. Camtasia was interesting but at this point I still think I'm going to use OBS to record my screen and Sony Movie Studio to edit everything together. We'll see, though.

When class was over I briefly spoke with the professor about her son-in-law's involvement with the game The Witness. He worked on the the art design of the world. That is pretty cool because the game does have really nice visuals. It has also been really well received, which has got feel good as a game developer. I would like to play the game but it will have to go on sale before that happens. Until then I can watch Twitch streams to get my fix.

Before leaving town I topped off my gas tanks and picked up Spangles. At one point on my way home when I made it back onto the highway, I briefly drove off the highway. I noticed that there was a section of road where there really wasn't a shoulder and the road stopped right on the white line. And then I noticed a chunk out of the edge of the road, which also cut into the white line. And my driving apparently followed my eye line because not long after I drifted off the road, ever so briefly. I calmly brought all four wheels back on the road and kept going on my way. My heart rate didn't even go up, so it couldn't have been that exciting.

When I filled up my tank I reset my MPG and monitored it throughout my trip home. While doing that I was also able to catch my odometer hit 13337, which I took a picture of because it was nerdy. At that point my MPG was up to 36.8, which I thought was pretty impressive. But it just kept creeping up. On the final stretch into town I peaked at 38.3, which I think is the highest I have ever seen in my car. I was impressed.

After getting home I posted a couple questions to the question bank for the assignment to interview and electronic resources librarian. I also feel like I did something else but it's not coming to me.

Not too long after that I went over to my friend's parent's house because she was in town this weekend. She gave me a belated Christmas gift which included string for cross stitching, coloring books, and colored pencils to go with the coloring books. Several years ago when we were hanging out I got kids coloring books and we colored those while watching DVDs. Since then, adults coloring has become a thing, so it is much easier to find coloring books. At least for adults. I haven't looked recently but I would hope the trend has improved the options for kids as well. I had a hard time years ago finding actual coloring books that weren't mostly activity books with a little bit of coloring. Unacceptable.

We sat and talked at the dining table while her parents watched stuff on TV. Then her dad went to bed and we ended up bringing her mom into the conversation. I went over at eight o'clock and didn't think I would be there more than an hour or so. I ended up not leaving until almost one o'clock in the morning. Good grief. It was a good conversation and the time just disappeared. Those moments are rare these days so I appreciate them when they happen.

But now it is after two o'clock and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I want to read some stuff for class, do my laundry, and maybe play a video game. Completing all of those things would be nice. But I might also sleep through half the day and screw myself over when trying to go to bed tomorrow night. Only time will tell.