August 31, 2016

 I wasn't that impressed with Deep Impact. So many people died and it seemed unnecessary. The greatest impacted area was along the coasts and it only seemed that at the last minute people thought maybe they shouldn't be on the coast. Even though the situation changed somewhat near the end with the asteroid, maybe as a preemptive act people could have moved away from the coasts just in case. There was also the mom who killed herself because I guess she wanted to go out on her own terms. Thankfully the daughter and the ex-husband also died so they won't have to live with the fact that the mom killed herself when she didn't really have to. And then the parents of the new bride died, while the newlyweds escaped up a hill on a motorbike. It was just annoying that they presented the situation in a way that showed a lot of advance warning and everyone who wasn't picked in the lottery to go underground pretty much just resigned themselves to death. Then the movie ended on an uplifting note, despite all the unnecessary death, and there wasn't even a hint at all the backlash and unrest that there surely would have been from the people who didn't win the lottery and ended up living. I don't know, I'm thinking way too much about it.

Today was another eight o'clock morning at work. Everyone in our department except for one assistant were there at eight o'clock but I was the only one opening because everyone else was at the staff meeting. In order for everyone to go to the staff meeting while they're on the clock, there are actually two staff meetings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's an interesting way to do it.

After doing all the opening stuff I wasn't on the desk until eleven o'clock, so I did things. I think I mostly focused on coming up with my staff blog post about incident and behavior reports. I went with a PowerPoint because it is quick and easy. I started with some text slides describes each type of report and how to post them. Then I made several slides with pictures to illustrate possible scenarios for when a report should be written. I think it will be mildly entertaining and hopefully educational. I wasn't able to post it yet because my boss wants to run it by administration, just because it ended up pointing out the fact that the difference between the two reports isn't explicitly stated anywhere and there seems to be a lot of subjectivity to it. So once we get that sorted out I'll be able to post it.

This afternoon I set up one of my displays for September. Originally it was called Autumnal Favorites. It was decided that 'Autumnal' probably wasn't the most patron-friendly word, however, so we went with my alternate title, which was Fall Into Autumn. Kind of clever. I went out and pulled all the books on my list, and used my cart for the first time to do this. It is way easier doing it that way than holding all of the books and making several trips. It is awkward pushing the cart, though, because if I stand directly behind it I kick it. Anyway, I'm going to need to find many more books because even if my display is only a little popular I'm going to quickly run out of books.

I was also reminded that I have a third display this month, which is another non-fiction display (like the Fall Into Autumn display). I think at one point I had an idea for it but I either didn't write it down or I lost that piece of paper, so now I need to come up with something, possibly by tomorrow. No pressure.

At four o'clock I went to the second staff meeting. We remembered at the last second that we were going to record it so I ran back and got my bosses camera and tripod. Then I quickly got it set up while everyone waited on me. I will admit it is not my bed videography, but it got the job done. Although it is a whole staff meeting, this particular one ended up being run entirely by Adult Services. It started with my boss and one of the other librarians doing several small skits about how to handle particular patrons that are causing a disturbance. It was pretty entertaining but I'm glad I didn't have to participate. At every staff meeting the Adult Services department is in charge of giving a short presentation on a particular safety issue, ideally in an entertaining way. I don't believe mine will involve a skit. The second presentation at the meeting was another Adult Services librarian talking about the reference interview. It involved a funny video from Australia or New Zealand that showed a bad reference interview and then the correct way to handle it. The camera ended up dying at the tail end of the question portion after the presentation. I at least got the important stuff.

Tonight was Chipotle night. I've had better. The rice wasn't great due to random crunches, so I'm not really looking forward to part two tomorrow. After dinner I showed some videos and then it was the same old thing with the rest of my night. I read a little, practiced my handwriting, and watched YouTube videos.

Soon I will go to bed so I can wake up and maybe do something with my morning before going to work. The open beta is live for Battlefield 1 and I downloaded that tonight but didn't play it, so maybe I'll look into that.

August 30, 2016

 This morning their were two of us opening and the assistant beat me to work so there wasn't a lot for me to do for the hour before we opened. On the weekend two people open and we have thirty minutes to get everything done. During the week there is usually only one opener and we get an hour, which is usually way too much time. So yeah, I had a lot of time to fill. And I can't remember what I did, other than turning on a few computers downstairs and turning in a lost flash drive. I found the flash drive still plugged into a computer and interestingly, someone came in later in the day asking about a flash drive they had left. And I say interestingly, because some time after that the flash drive was found, once again left in a computer. So they forgot it, came back for it, and then left it again. They should probably consider tethering it to their wrist.

I finished the outline and handout for my first class and pretty much finished the outline and handout for the second class. Progress. I also came up with an idea for my second September display. I got creative with the first one, going with Witty & Whimsical, so I kind of just phoned it in with the second one, going with Autumnal Favorites. Not original but I've got a lot on my plate at the moment so I'm okay with not being original all of the time. The only change I may make is with the title, possibly changing the second word to create some alliteration.

I ran into my ex-girlfriend's mom today. She was at the library for the meeting. It is the first time I have seen her in eight or nine years and it was surprisingly less awkward than I would have imagined. The only awkwardness was really what I would associate with talking to a stranger, because I'm not really great with smalltalk.

Other things happened today but none of them are coming to mind. I was mainly just focused on making progress on my To-Do list.

I need to work on my post-work motivation so I can make my evenings more productive. Tonight I read a little bit, watched YouTube videos, practiced my handwriting, and right now I'm watching Deep Impact. It was on when I came home for lunch so I recorded it. I missed however much of the beginning but I got about two hours (with commercials), so that's not bad. The commercials are, however. Having not really watched much TV in quite awhile, I had almost forgotten how much commercials suck. I think each commercial break during this movie has been over six minutes long. That's just absurd.

Now I'm going to finish the movie and then go to bed. I'm looking forward to bed.

August 29, 2016

 This morning I woke up early, got ready, and headed to the school. The strangest thing about walking back into the building was that it felt more natural than it does to walk into the library. I am apparently not fully comfortable at the library yet, whereas walking into the school feels like going home.

I also liked feeling like I knew things. At the library I still feel like I have no idea what's going on half the time, I'm just making it up as I go, and I'm never fully confident in the things I do. Being back in the school reminded me of what it feels like to feel confident in my ability to do things. I easily know the answers to questions at the school and in general I just know what I'm doing. I'll get there eventually with the library but it was nice to be reminded of what that's like.

Anyway, back to my day. When I got to school I met up with the principal and we headed down to the lab. Along the way we ran into a few teachers so we spoke briefly. And then while I was in the lab the music teacher and a couple paras stopped by. It was cool getting to see everyone. But yeah, MAP testing started today and the main issue was getting the shortcut on the computers. We later found out the program was on the computers, which is good because I always had to install it on all the computers myself. We just had to put the shortcut on the desktop. When the new computer aide arrived I showed her how to put it on the public desktop to make sure everyone who logged in would be able to see it. I also showed her my shortcuts link and how to put it on the desktop. She had contacted IT and had them dump a bunch of links on the desktop, which is good because those won't get wiped like mine did before I came up with the shortcuts link. She liked the idea of having everything in one spot though and it sounded like she had experience with HTML and CSS and was asking about adding links to it, so that is a good sign. I also showed her how to add printers and we talked about a few other random things like the thermostat and where I hid the canned air.

More time would have been nice but as it was I ended up being twenty minutes late for work. I like the new computer aide. She seems fairly tech savvy and also seems to be a quick learner, which is important. Other than the challenge of having to learn an entirely new job, I think the biggest hurdle to overcome will be her thick accent. There were a couple times when I had to ask her to repeat herself to give my mind a chance to slow down and catch what she was saying. But I think it's one of those things where the longer you're around it the more natural it becomes and overtime it is probably pretty easy to understand her. And, English is her second language, or maybe even third or fourth, I don't know. I can only speak one, so I have total respect for people who can not only learn a second language, but then function in a society that only speaks that language. I remember how lost I felt at times in Europe when I was surrounded by people speaking and not hearing a single English word. So I've got nothing but respect for her. We'll see how the rest of the year goes but I think the principal did a good job.

I got to the library late but I wasn't on the desk or doing anything important so it wasn't really a big deal. I did stay late, however, mostly for my own conscience. Throughout the day I worked on things. I've decided that maybe I'm spinning too many plates and I need to focus on one thing at a time so I can actually get stuff done instead of having a bunch of things kind of done. One of my coworkers reminded me of the Ron Swanson quote along the lines of not half-assing stuff when you can whole-ass it.

I finished my class schedule list and I updated the calendar so it now lists all of the classes with descriptions, except for maybe the Windows 10 class. I can't remember if I put a description in for that one because I was struggling with it. I also did other things. Like telling my sister about a new book and putting it on hold for her, and I answered some questions for patrons over the phone and in person. My most accomplished moment was getting a test working on a computer for a patron. It kept getting blocked by the pop-up blocker and it took several minutes, two computers, and three browsers to get it figured out. But we got it figured out and he was able to take his test, sooo Success! Always good to have a win, especially when struggling to keep my head above water with all my other work stuff.

Tonight I read, practiced my handwriting, and watched YouTube videos. Maybe tomorrow night I need to watch Silver Streak in honor of Gene Wilder. Somehow I don't own Willy Wonka, Young Frankenstein, or Blazing Saddles, which doesn't make a lot of sense. I do have The Producers, which might have to be watched as well.

But not tonight because it is late and I must sleep so that I can wake up early and go to work.

August 28, 2016

 This morning I woke up and instead of getting out of bed and doing things, I stayed there and listened to music until I needed to get up and take a shower. Then I ate a quick, very early lunch, before going to pick up my sister and head to my Dad's house. And then we headed out of town.

I think the trip was about two hours. I think it went fairly fast. My grandma is staying in a really nice in-between kind of place, where she was moved after the hospital. It's way better than the places we have here, which I am glad to see. I was a little worried it would be one of those sad places that are super warm and smell weird. But this place is the opposite and I think that has gone a long way in keeping my grandma's spirits up. She was happy to see us and was just in a really good mood in general. We all moved out to a sitting area where there was more room and we all talked for quite awhile.

On the way home we stopped at Spangles for dinner. Delicious as always.

When I got home I watched YouTube videos, practiced my handwriting (both left-handed and right-handed), and watched an episode of Psych.

This has been another short entry day. Maybe more things will happen tomorrow. Or maybe I'll be in more of a mood to ramble on for awhile. We shall see.

August 27, 2016

 I did a lot of stuff today and I feel pretty good about it. I didn't sleep in too late and I spent a few hours reading before eating lunch. This afternoon I cleaned my computer room and finally threw out all of the packaging trash in my room from my new clothes. For some reason I never got around to that. I still have some work to do on the cleaning front but I made significant progress.

This evening I watched Psych and wrote with pens. I practiced my penmanship with my right hand because I haven't done that in forever and I need to get back into it if I ever want to get better. I also spent quite a bit of time writing random quotes with my left hand so that I can improve my left hand writing. Progress was made on both fronts.

And that was my day. Despite doing a lot I apparently didn't have much to write about.

Tomorrow there is a roadtrip planned to go see my grandma. I don't think we're leaving until later in the morning and I'm not sure how long we plan on staying, but I imagine the visit and travel time will take up most of the day. I might try and wake up early so I can get some things done but I doubt that happens. It's hard to pass up an opportunity to sleep in.

August 26, 2016

 Today was fairly boring. At least what I can remember of it. Most of my day at work was spent working on class outlines. I pretty much finished the outlines for both September classes and got a brief start on the handouts. Progress, but it would have been nice if I had accomplished more. My To-Do list is ridiculous at the moment and a lot of it is coming due way too soon. It's getting a little overwhelming actually, which I'm not a fan of. I need to get better at time management and focusing on my objectives. And keeping track of what I need to get done so I don't randomly remember things that I need to do. Like coming up with a theme for a display and book lists for two displays by the end of the month.

I can't really think of anything else worth mentioning from my day at work because it was pretty much just boring stuff, working on a Word document. I did help the occasional patron but it was just the usual stuff.

My lunch included red pepper hummus and homemade tortillas that my sister made me. And for dinner my mom got Little Caesars pizza. So it was a pretty good food day.

Tonight I read from a few different books, watched YouTube videos, and played No Man's Sky. I have embraced the opinion of most that it really is a game on par with early release games on Steam that are at most $20, not $60 like No Man's Sky. I still like the game but the content really isn't there, I think I did everything there is to do in the game and got the recipes for all the tech in my first system, and the planets don't look half as cool as they did in the trailers. I'm up to forty hours in the game though so I'm at least going to get my money's worth. My goal now is really just to get to the end of the game and move onto other things. I do see it as a game I could continue to hop back into and just wander around to waste time. I also played the demo for Virginia tonight, which look-wise reminds me of a mix of a Telltale game and Firewatch. I'm intrigued but I would need to see actual gameplay before I would consider purchasing it. In the demo none of the characters talked and all the picture frames were blank. Just two things that annoyed me.

Soon I will probably be going to bed because it is one o'clock and I wouldn't mind not sleeping through my Saturday because it would be nice to get some things done. We'll see.

August 25, 2016

 This morning I slept in and it was fantastic. And then I went to work.

My morning plans at the desk got a little sidetracked by a chat question I inherited from the librarian on the desk before me who had to go to lunch. We believe the person in the chat was a librarian from a small town that is part of our library system. A police officer in her town was interested in books on psychology and human behavior and they didn't have any so she contacted us. The chat itself went on for about an hour and I ended up spending quite a bit of time looking for books. I not only looked through the catalog but when I was off the desk I went into the stacks and just browsed, which led to several more books added to my list. I sent her the list after I got back from dinner so hopefully we'll hear back from her and find out if I was in the ballpark or if she needs me to keep looking.

I nearly finished my outline for the first tech class. I still need to come up with the handout for it, which hopefully I can start/finish tomorrow. My goal was to have that and the outline and handout for my digitizing class done by the end of the week. That could still be a thing if I work on the digitizing one this weekend but I don't work this weekend and we aren't supposed to work on things outside of work. I also don't know that I would have the motivation for that. We'll see.

I got a prank call tonight from a teenager and it was pretty great. When we answer the phone all say a variation on the same thing that lets people know they have called the library. After I said my thing there was pause and then...

          Kid: Is this Taco Bell?

          Me: Nope.

          Kid: ...Ah man, she must have given me the wrong number to Taco Bell.

          Me: It appear so. Do you want the real number to Taco Bell?

          Kid: ...Uhhh, I guess.

          Me: Which side of town do you want?

          Kid: ...Uhhh, the west one?

          Me: Alright, you ready for it?

          Kid: ...[click]

So he hung up on me. It seems that it wasn't the most thought out prank call. And that he wasn't actually expecting me to be helpful. I found it pretty entertaining.

Tomorrow instead of closing I go in at nine o'clock. It feels like I have always closed on Friday, unless I had it off because I was working on the weekend. And I say always but I have only been working my current schedule for a couple weeks. So yeah. My feelings aren't based in a lot of precedence at the moment.

Now I'm going to go to bed beause it is late and I have to wake up in the morning.

August 24, 2016

 I am often surprised by how quickly my days seem to fade from memory. I don't know what that says about me considering the “often” aspect of that statement.

I would say a decent chunk of my day was spent going over my weeding list. It is eighty-one pages long and I think contains over 950 books. I have an emotional attachment to books, which I fear will make me a very conservative weeder, so I have decided to take an analytical approach. We aren't weeding books that have been added to the collection from 2012 to the present, so I went through and underlined all of those so I know they're safe. The next candidates are books that have a publication date of however many years ago and haven't been checked out in however many years. It depends on their Dewey Decimal Number. I went through and put a little line by all of those that meet that criteria, so I know they are good candidates to be weeded. Finally, I am going through and writing how many times they should have been checked out since they were added to the collection. Some of mine should have been checked out at least twice a year and some at least once a year. I'm doing the math and putting that number next to how many times they have actually checked out. That gives me a better visual of which books are obviously under-performing and which ones are on the fence. I got about halfway through doing that. There are other criteria to take into consideration but I thought this would give me a good start. I won't have to go out into the stacks and figure all this stuff out for each book as I come to it, it will already be done so I can quickly check my sheet. This seems like a good plan. Hopefully it works out.

Also, I did all of this editing on my sheet with my left hand. I haven't written with my left hand in quite awhile but this was really good practice. As the day progressed I got pretty good at my left-handed numbers. Some of which look better than my normal numbers now.

I had a meeting with the lady who does individual tech training in the library to go over my classes and the classes she has scheduled outside of the library. I already have all of her classes added to the calendar but they were only placeholders because she hadn't come up with the classes yet. But now she has so I was able to update the calendar with that information. Now I just need to come up with titles and brief descriptions for my October and November classes.

Today I found out the librarian hired with me is also a big fan of Psych, so now we're even better friends. I think I started re-watching it during Winter break and made it through the first season and into the second, which is where I started the other day. But now I think I need to go back and start over with the first season and make it all the way through so I can remember all the references. And because it is a great show and I want to watch it.

Tonight I read chapters in three different books, watched YouTube videos, and practiced rolling on my skateboard. I think I'm getting better. Or at least slightly more comfortable. Progress.

I got an update on my grandma today. Her hip is fine but it looks like there is a small fracture on her pelvis which thankfully shouldn't require surgery. This still sucks but it shouldn't be as bad as last time, so that is good.

Tomorrow I work at noon so I plan on sleeping in. I've been missing that so far this week.

August 23, 2016

 On the radio today I heard a song called “The Right Song” by Tiesto and Oliver Heldens, featuring Natalie La Rose. It's a catching song but the only reason I bring it up is because for most of the song I thought she was singing “Come on lick me with the right tongue”, which made very little sense and led to several questions. Turns out she was singing “Come on hit me with the right song”, which made much more sense, especially after seeing the title of the song.

This morning I took a few batteries to work to put in the recycling bin. I didn't think much of it. Then when it was time for me to go to lunch I couldn't find my keys. I looked in the usual places but I was stumped. I decided to go look in my car, hoping I hadn't locked them inside. On the way I thought I might as well look in the battery bin. At first I just saw a bunch of batteries and I was about to move on, but then I spotted my keys, in amongst the batteries. They really blended in. But I found them and was able to go home and eat food, which is always a good thing.

Today I got a chat question from a patron that wanted a specific book but couldn't remember the title or the author. I had her describe it for me and thanks to Google I was able to find it. It was reminiscent of the book joke “I'm looking for the one with the blue cover.” Turns out that's a thing that happens in real life. We ended up having two copies of the book but she wanted the audiobook. That added several more minutes to the chat as I double-checked that we didn't have access to it through one of our resources and then had to search for it and put in an interlibrary loan request. But I was successful in the end. And I felt like a librarian.

In other eventful news, I emailed the IT manager about wanting to use scanners for my class on digitizing and editing old family photographs. That opened a can of worms. He emailed my boss and explained basically how that was the biggest inconvenience and kind of a bad idea. He also contacted the assistant director who came over to talk to us about the concerns the IT department had about tech programming in general. This led to my boss emailing the IT manager again and saying that having access to one or two scanners was fine and we didn't need to inconvenience anyone and that I had a history working with technology so I could help out if that would make things easier. He eventually came upstairs to talk to us and I think we worked things out. It is much easier talking to someone than it is communicating through emails or superiors.

What started as a simple email this morning turned into a whole big thing because there was an underlying issue that I wasn't aware of. Mainly that IT often feels left out of the loop when programs and classes are planned that may involve their services. I didn't see the use of a couple scanners as that big of a deal, and I still don't, despite how big of a deal it has been made out to be, but I can see where they're coming from. It all comes down to communication, which is the main complication in most group work. This was a learning experience. I didn't realize this kind of inter-departmental conflict actually existed in real life, but it totally does. Noted.

Tonight was Chipotle night because I got off at five o'clock. My burrito bowl was good, even if it had a little too much cheese. The videos after dinner also went well. I had more than I remembered.

I spent the rest of my night reading, watching YouTube videos, and eventually playing a little No Man's Sky. I booted it up last night just to see if I got screwed with the glitch the other day and luckily I did not. I was put back on the planet but I didn't lose any of my progress and the bugged out enemy ships preventing me from using my pulse drive were gone. So tonight I was able to play the game. I discovered the remaining planets in my current system and got ganked by enemy AI at least three times while traveling between planets. That was a little frustrating because there were always four of them, so I was constantly being shot and I quickly ran out of materials to repair my shields. Then then after surviving I would get to a new planet and forget to collect the resources needed to repair my shields or my weapon. So when I got back up to space and inevitably got attacked again it was pointless to fight back because it was just drawing out the whole thing. In my next system I think I'm going to buy a new ship, so I don't want to sink money and time into upgrading my current one. I'll go full out on the next one.

My dad text my sister and I tonight that my grandma fell in the kitchen and was in a lot of pain. My followed behind the ambulance that took my grandma to the hospital. Initial diagnosis was that she didn't fracture the same area she hurt before but they needed to do further tests to see if she had hurt her pelvis. Good grief. Falling is never good and it only gets worse the older you get. My fingers are crossed for a bruise.

August 22, 2016

 Despite my room being darker than usual this morning, thanks to the new curtains, I did eventually get out of bed. I would have preferred to just spend the morning laying in the dark listening to music. I'll have to do that some morning.

Most of my day at work was spent working on stuff for upcoming tech classes. I'm not teaching the first one but I need to come up with the outline and handouts and all that. Part of that process today involved creating a Gmail account for the tech classes so I can create forms for the classes. The first class is about our library resources and after giving a brief overview of all of them I want the people in the class to use a form to check all the resources they are interested in learning more about. The librarian teaching the class will then be able to go through the top five or so and give a more in-depth explanation and show off what they can do. I also want to use a form for the evaluations at the end of the class. This will save paper but I will also have all the data in one spot, not in a stack of papers that I then have to go through to gather the information. Hopefully we don't end up with a class filled with people that aren't great with the computer.

The chat had been quiet all day until about three minutes before I was supposed to go to lunch. That is when I got a question about an interlibrary loan that led me on a hunt that took far too long. The patron wanted a textbook which I could only find out of state from university libraries, which meant they probably wouldn't send it and even if they did they would charge a lot of money and it could take at least four weeks to process the request. In my search I found the textbook on Amazon, where it could be rented for less than thirty bucks. I brought this to the patron's attention and they decided to go with that option. Wish I would have started with that option.

Tonight I didn't really accomplish much. I paid for my vehicle registration, I read a little bit, I watched a movie and YouTube videos, and I clicked around the internet. An uneventful evening. Now I'm thinking about going to bed because I need to go to bed so I can wake up early and go to work. Hooray. I wish weekends were longer.

August 21, 2016

 I slept in today and that was pretty nice. I didn't really do much with the rest of my day. It was very relaxed. I read more from Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde and I started reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I also hung new curtains in my room. My mom got them awhile ago for her room but they were too good at blocking out the light. She likes the sun gradually brightening the room and these don't allow that. I think I prefer the blackout style curtains so she gave them to me and I finally got around to putting them up. There was a very noticeable difference between the new curtains and my old curtains. And I like it. My only worry is that it will be harder for me to get out of bed in the morning without the incentive of the sun shining in the room. We'll find out tomorrow morning.

I finished watching Stranger Things and I really liked it. It completely sucked me in and now I have to wait a year until the next season comes out. Which is the only problem with Netflix releasing an entire season at once. In the future maybe an entire series will be released at once. This will lead to much longer marathons but at least they will end with a better resolution.

I also watched a couple episodes of Psych because it has been far to long since I've watched that show.

Tonight I switched back and forth between reading, watching YouTube videos, and playing No Man's Sky. Near the end of my gaming session I encountered a bug where the game thinks enemy ships are nearby and it won't allow me to use my pulse engines or hyperdrive. This is a problem when trying to move between planets because the current distance between the planet I was on and the planet I want to go to will take me two hours in real time to cover. And that's when I'm holding down shift to get a little boost. This all happened because I was on my way to a planet when I got the message that enemy ships were incoming. I was close enough to the planet that I was able to make it through the atmosphere safely and didn't have to deal with the enemy ships, but it turns out the warning doesn't go away unless you have killed them or they have killed you. Since neither of those scenarios occurred, I'm now in limbo. It looks like the main solution is to revert to an old save, but my only saves happened after this started, so that won't be helpful.

I pointed myself toward the planet I want to go to and put a heavy fountain pen on my shift key for the boost while I read a book, occasionally clicking the mouse to blow up an asteroid in my path. But that felt pointless after awhile so I quit out of the game. Because you can't save while flying in space, I believe this will put me back to my last save on the planet, whenever that happened. I am hoping the problem will miraculously go away when I log back in but something tells me it won't. Which means I am stuck until they fix the bug. Even if I traveled the two hours to the next planet I'd still be in the same position. It seems like my only hope will be coming across more enemy ships and getting killed by them. Maybe? I don't know. I might log in tomorrow to see what's up but I should probably take a break from the game anyway, so this is a good excuse.

August 20, 2016

 I slept in this morning and then I read a couple chapters in one of the books I have checked out. Then I spent the rest of my morning and the majority of my afternoon sewing. I tried one of the more advanced projects in the small quilting projects book I checked out and that was probably a mistake. It did not go well. At least in terms of ending with a final product that closely resembled the example in the book. It was successful in that I ended up with something that is kind of a thing. It was also a learning experience. I learned how to sew a binding around a project which is pretty useful. I also learned that working with folded in half jelly roll fabric is a pain in the butt. Also useful.

Tonight I did laundry, watched YouTube videos and Stranger Things on Netflix, and played No Man's Sky. Stranger Things has sucked me in. I didn't really know it was a thing until I started seeing references to it online. I like the 80s aesthetic and I am intrigued by the mystery. The casting is also really good, which I'm not surprised about considering the track record Netflix has established with their original shows.

With No Man's Sky there was an update when I first loaded the game. I checked the patch notes and they mentioned they had altered a bunch of code that the game would work on AMD processors. That sounded promising, so while I played it on my laptop I re-downloaded it on my desktop. I spent the majority of my play time tonight on a single planet. I finally figured out how the number puzzles work and I got sucked into solving those and following where they led me.

When I finally pulled myself away from that I opened up the game on my desktop, just to see if I could get past the initial screen where it has been crashing. And the game worked. It seems like they have actually fixed it. That is exciting. I'll have to play around with it more to see if it will actually play without crashing, but progress has definitely been made.

I'm not sure what is on my agenda for tomorrow. Probably more of the same. Minus the sewing. I kind of got my fill of that today.

August 19, 2016

 Today I slept in and then eventually went to work. And then I did things at work. My main project today was coming up with the descriptions and timelines for each of the tech classes coming up. That was successful. Now I need to focus on creating the outlines and handouts for each class. My goal is to have the rough drafts for the first two classes finished by the end of next week. I think it is doable.

Today a patron called because she couldn't log into her account. It ended up being an address check block which I cleared up, but in the process of talking to her she mentioned her husband. She was born in 1995, which seems way too young to be married. And not necessarily in the sense that she's only twenty-one (although also in that sense) but because 1995 doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Even though it was 21 years ago. I still find it hard to believe that anyone born in the 1990s is an adult.

Tonight a woman passed out in the bathroom and her mom used our phone to call an ambulance. My boss, who was closing with me tonight, went down to meet the ambulance to direct them where to go. The firefighters got there first because they're right down the street and they ended up coming in a different door than the one my boss was at, so I got to steal the glory and point out where the bathroom is. I am a stealer of thunder. I can't speak for the health of the woman but they took her out of the building on the stretcher and they weren't in a hurry, so hopefully that is a good sign. The most impressive thing of the whole experience was how many firemen and paramedics fit into the bathroom, along with the woman, her mom, and her sister. It was like a clown car.

I got off at eight o'clock and when I got home I talked to my mom for awhile and then watched YouTube videos. Which I'm still doing. I don't work this weekend and I'm not sure what I'll do. I know I want to read and play video games. I also want to look at the quilting book I checked out and see what I need for the project I want to try. If I have everything I might do that as well. It's been far too long since I've been able to be crafty.

August 18, 2016

 Today I slept in and it was glorious. I didn't even get out of bed until I had to get ready for work and eat lunch.

Today at work I did things but it was a very uneventful day and doesn't feel like there was much to write about. I looked through some of the new books we got and I went from wanting to make my own broth, to wanting to crochet a giant granny square blanket, to wanting to do basic home repairs. My desires and hobbies are easily influenced by books apparently.

As far as work-related stuff goes, I responded to and sent several emails. I was still trying to come up with the second tech class for October and it has been decided that it will be about genealogy, taught by the genealogical society. Hopefully. I emailed our contact there and she said she would be interested but she's got to talk with her colleague and make sure the scheduling works. Fingers crossed on that. I also started writing up a brief description and time line for each class for my boss so she has all that information in one place. It also gives me a more concrete idea of what I need to get done, which is helpful. My goal in the future is to have the outline for each class finished at the beginning of the month prior to the month the class is in. That obviously isn't happening for the classes in September but I want to have those outlines done by the end of August. Then a week later I want to have the outlines done for the October classes. And by the end of September I want to have the outlines done for the November classes. Lofty goals.

It was a really slow night and I ended up spending most of it talking with my coworker about random things like books, video games, and car accidents. I really like that I genuinely like my coworkers. I liked my coworkers at the elementary school and it is always a worry starting a new job whether or not you will get on well with your new coworkers. Coworkers can make a crappy job bearable and a great job miserable. Thankfully I lucked out and like my new coworkers and my new job.

About forty-five minutes before we closed we got a call from circulation saying there was a car out in the parking lot with the doors open and the engine running but no one inside. It was time for my coworker's walkthrough so he went out to investigate. He found the car and one of the doors was open but it wasn't running and the keys weren't in it. He shut the door so the car next to it could get out but the window was down and there was a purse and some other valuable stuff on the seat. When we checked before closing the car was gone so someone obviously came back for it. I'm not sure what the story is behind the situation but in my mind it was someone who just really had to go to the bathroom.

About thirty minutes before we closed I got a call from someone looking for the phone number of a man. All she had was his name and that he lived in town. It wasn't a very unique name so that wasn't very helpful. It wasn't in the phone book (which is why the patron called) so I checked our A-to-Z Database, our city directory, and Ancestry.com with no luck. I found a couple numbers on Ancestry but she didn't know his address or how old he was so I couldn't be certain the numbers were correct. The patron wanted the number because she was trying to contact the husband of her current house guest who is apparently no doing well physically/mentally and the patron thinks she may have to take her to the hospital at some point. She doesn't want to get the police involved, however, because the woman is originally from another country and she isn't sure of whether or not she is here legally and doesn't want to open that can of worms. I told the patron I would keep looking, and I'll ask my coworkers tomorrow if they have any ideas that I didn't try, but I don't think I will be successful. Always disappointing.

When I got home tonight I didn't want to get sucked into No Man's Sky so I ate pistachios and watched YouTube videos. Not a bad way to spend an evening. Now I'm going to watch a few more videos and then maybe read a book for a little bit before going to bed. I need to get back into the habit of reading for fun. I am still kind of in the mode of avoiding reading until it has to be done because that has kind of been my life for the last two years. I'll get there eventually.

August 17, 2016

 This morning at work I got a call from the wife of one of our homebound patrons. Her husband had finished all of his books and she was wanting to know if she could bring them back to the library and get new ones. He isn't my patron and the librarian who has him wasn't coming in until noon so I went ahead and agreed to it because she said she wasn't going to come in until tomorrow. About an hour later she called back and asked if she could come in this afternoon instead because her husband kept bugging her. I said that would be fine and then freaked out a little bit because that meant I needed to come up with a list of ten books, pull them, and process them before she showed up. I managed to do all of that with time to spare, which is surprising. I even included an extra book because he is apparently a fast reader.

This afternoon I went out with another librarian for our own homebound deliveries. I still don't understand why it was decided that we should be going out in the middle of the afternoon, during the hottest part of the day. It was only 95 degrees today, so not as bad as previous trips, but still sweat-inducing. My first stop in the nursing home was a lady who had only been able to start one of her books because she had fallen and hit her head on her nightstand and was still recovering. I met her in the lobby and we ended up walking back to her room so we could swap out some of her books with the new ones I brought. It turns out she wasn't really interested in any of the books I had brought last time. That kind of sucks because the whole idea is to pick books that she would like to read. And last month was a fail. Almost entirely. I'll need to do better next time.

At the last nursing home it was really hot in the hallway as usual but they were also in the process of cleaning the carpets, which made it not only humid but also stinky. I ended up having to wait in the hallway for a long time while the other librarian took books to her talkative patron and I was sweating just standing there. I had already visited my patron, who fell asleep while I was showing her a book last time but was awake the whole time today. She still seemed a bit out of it though. I swapped her books out for her, or at least most of them. I took her seven and when I got back to the library I saw that she had eleven currently checked out. One of them was one I had to renew last month when I got back and saw she still had it. So, the lesson here is that I need to go out with a list of how many books each patron has so I know that I'm getting all of them back. And not too many, because I had another patron today who ended up having two of her own books in the bag, but I caught that before we left.

When we got back to the library, and after we got all the books sorted and given to circulation, I went up to the third floor to update my patron spreadsheets. That took awhile. I still had time after that before I got off work so I caught up with emails and the staff blog. One email was from the librarian I went out with today for homebound and it was about different display ideas she learned about in a webinar. One of the ideas was to use a quote as the theme of a display. The first thought that popped into my head was using “Et tu, Brute?” for a display of books involving deceit and betrayal. Trying to come up with a display sign for that one is going to be a pain. I thought about a shocked facial expression but I didn't come across any good ones that were free to use. Just as a placeholder I ended up using a picture of a three-pronged power outlet that looks like a face with a shocked expression. I think it is pretty funny.

Tonight I did a load of laundry and then spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and playing No Man's Sky. I apparently hit the max limit of inventory space. That is disappointing but it also makes sense because whatever my current limit is barely fits on the screen. I discovered a few new planets but none of them were that exciting. I found one with trees, which is a first for me, so that was neat, but I still want one with trees, grass, and water. Something that just looks nice and hospitable so I can turn it into my library planet. I think now that my suit inventory limit is maxed I need to turn my money toward buying a bigger ship. Because you can never have too much inventory space. Oh, I also got attacked by space pirates tonight but managed to fight them both off. The space combat isn't that exciting because flying the ships isn't that exciting. They don't handle well and it kind of feels like the ships are on-rails most of the time, not allowing you to fly too close to the ground or too near objects on a planet. You are allowed to crash into asteroids, though. I'm sure there is logic there somewhere.

Now I'm going to go to bed because I'm freaking tired. I don't work until noon tomorrow so I get to sleep in, which I am looking forward to. Sleeping in is the best.

August 16, 2016

 Today was the first day of school. The first one I haven't attended in five years. It felt like any other day I've had at the library this summer but listening to my mom's stories tonight made me miss it. It sounds like they still don't have a replacement for me yet, so there is still time for me to change my mind. I've kind of gotten used to making real money, though. And I like my fellow librarians. We've got a good dynamic going and I enjoy working with them.

I had three hours off the desk when I got to work this morning so I had to find things to do. Among those things, I made my sign for the whimsical and witty display. I tried several different things but ended up coming across a picture on Flickr after trying several different keyword searches and it did a pretty good job of capturing what was in my head.

This afternoon I had a patron come up and want information on a man. Years ago he had bought a diary at a storage unit sale that was in the form of a book but he didn't think it was actually written by the writer of the diary, if that makes sense. He said at one point we had a book in the library about the man but I couldn't find any record of it. I also couldn't find any information about him on Google. I ended up on Ancestry and found census information and town directories that mentioned him. But I didn't really find anything substantial. Just finding that stuff took awhile and I didn't want to keep the guy any longer so I got his name and number and said I would continue looking and let him know if I found anything else.

That happened right as I got on the desk and other than that I had three online chat interactions. Or really two because one just popped up and said they didn't want a particular book anymore and then they logged off. We can't see who people are so I had no idea who that person was or what they meant by not wanting the book. It was a new book and there was at least one hold on it. My assumption is that they were on hold for the book but I wasn't going to take someone off hold for the book on the off chance that my assumption was right. Better safe than sorry. On one of the real chats I signed someone up for a state library card so they could use Mango. So a success. The other chat was less successful because of poor communication on both our parts probably. They wanted to know if the library would “sponsor” someone to come and speak at the library. I told them as long as they had a library card and the person wasn't trying to sell something, they could reserve one of our rooms. That didn't answer the question because the chat continued on and it felt like we were just talking in circles. When I offered to give them the number of the administrative assistant who is in charge of reserving our rooms they asked if they could be put in contact with someone responsible for making decisions, or something along those lines. My boss told me to just give them her email address and she would deal with it. I think that the person asking the question had no affiliation to the person they wanted to speak at the library and wanted the library to contact them and schedule a presentation. That is one problem with chat, and even email. It takes a really long time to get to the point, if it is ever reached, when it would take a fraction of the time if it was a face-to-face interaction.

I spent my last hour at work looking at microfilm trying to find an obituary. I found the original police statement in the paper and a follow up five days later after an autopsy, but I couldn't find an obituary. Online I found that the person was buried out of state so when I emailed the person back with copies of what I had found I told them that maybe one had been posted in the person's hometown or wherever they were buried. It is kind of annoying not being able to find what a person is looking for.

Tonight ended up being Chipotle night because the earliest I get off all week is six o'clock and I figured tomorrow I would be tired after doing homebound deliveries in the afternoon. I was luckily able to find a parking spot in the parking lot on my first pass, which almost never happens after six o'clock. After dinner I managed to make it through all of the YouTube videos I had but wasn't able to sshow because I was finishing up school stuff.

After dinner I finished scanning genealogy information for my grandma, turned it all into PDFs, and emailed it all to her. Hopefully remembered everything but if not I told her to email me back and let me know.

When that was done I had a little time to play No Man's Sky. After finishing yesterday's entry I logged back in and all the lagginess was gone. It held up tonight, too, which was nice. I continued making money for a bit and then discovered another planet. It's my first planet with water, which is pretty cool. I only spent a few minutes looking around before logging out but I'm looking forward to exploring further.

And now I'm going to go to bed because it is after midnight and I have to work in the morning. But I'm going to watch a few more music videos first because my friend asked me a music question, which I shockingly knew immediately, but it sent me on a nostalgia trip back to music I listened to in high school. So a few more videos. And then bed.

August 15, 2016

 Today went by really fast. I woke up early to go get a haircut. One that I remembered to go to, which is always a plus. When I got home from that I spent a little time creating an answer sheet to the practicum scavenger hunt. I made one for the original scavenger hunt I made but now I'm making one for the shorter final version. I nearly finished it but then I moved on to scanning a few things for my grandma.

I made a little progress with the scanning but then I got a text from my sister saying my aunt and grandma wanted to meet for lunch at noon. So about fifteen minutes later I headed to Panera. My grandma had a doctors appointment at 12:45PM and by the time we got our food they had about ten minutes to eat before they had to leave. My sister and I finished up our lunch and then parted ways.

Maybe a half and hour after I got home, probably less, I got a text from my sister saying my aunt and grandma were waiting at my Dad's house for him to get home. So I headed over there. My grandma had wanted me to find information about the genealogy of her side of the family in one of the boxes I have from one of her cedar chests. I found it but hadn't had time to talk to her about it at lunch so that is what we did at my Dad's. One of her relatives has started doing genealogy stuff and contacted my grandma because she has a copy of a map of the Montana homestead that this relatives grandfather (I think) lived on. So I'm going to scan the map, which I found, and send that to my grandma, along with some of the family tree stuff and death certificate that I found.

After we went through all that we sat around and talked until about 4:30PM when my aunt and grandma had to leave. My dad hadn't had time to eat lunch and because he is diabetic, that screwed him up. It was to the point where even he was scared about it and didn't know that he could make it up to the kitchen so my sister went up and got him some trail mix and we stayed around and talked for another hour until he was feeling better.

Tonight I did laundry, which I had been a little worried about earlier in the day because there was a bit of a water issue in town. It started with us needing to conserve water due to a power outage at the water plant and then turned into a need to boil water just in case the lack of water pressure caused issues with the chlorine and stuff. I don't know. By the end of the day all but one of the water towers were back up to their normal levels. The one that wasn't is in the rich part of town, which is also the area that was affected the most by the water situation, losing all water at one point. This could be that it is the farthest tower from the plant or because they didn't listen to water conservation warnings and left their sprinklers on and wasted water in other ways. The latter is a more amusing scenario. But we were good this evening so I was able to do laundry.

I wanted to play No Man's Sky tonight but it was super laggy. Like slow-mo laggy so it felt like I was trying to walk through quicksand. And I was on a space station, so it wasn't like there was a bunch of game assets to load. I ended up making money on the space station for a little bit but couldn't go out and actually land on a new planet because that would have been awful. Nothing changed on my end so I don't know if there was some update or something happening on the developer's end that caused the game to suck tonight but it was disappointing. Just to make sure I have continued to try running the game on my desktop but that is still broken, so no fixes have happened there yet. I should just be glad that I have been able to play the game at all when there are plenty of people who haven't.

Tomorrow is the first day of school and it feels a little weird that I won't be going back to work at the school. I still don't think it has entirely hit me yet. It still kind of just feels like a summer job at the library. Maybe it'll never hit me. I think I would prefer that because it was pretty sad at the end of last year knowing I wouldn't be coming back. Tomorrow I will just need to focus on work. If I can find something to do.

August 14, 2016

 Today was as slow and boring as predicted. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a way to visualize whimsical and witty for a display sign. It is surprisingly difficult. I have vague ideas but can't find anything online that has open usage rights. I'm also not an artist, so even if I had a better idea of what I wanted I can't create it myself, which means I need to find something online. I've still got a couple weeks to get it figured out.

I had one librarian moment today, when a patron came in and wanted to know the contact information for our state representative and senator. I feel like knowing who those people are, not necessarily their contact information, is something I should know. But I don't. I recognized the names when I found the information but didn't know their names off the top of my head. I ended up having to find a map with the districts on it, which are different for the representatives than the senators. It was interesting and I thanked the patron for coming in with the question, not only because it gave me something to do but also because I learned something.

I also responded to a couple emails and restocked my historical fiction display. So a little work was done.

A decent amount of time was spent speaking with my coworker. We talked a lot about video games and computers. I don't really know a lot of people that play video games so it is nice being able to talk to someone about them and have the person actually know what I'm talking about.

After dinner I dug back through my grandma's boxes and found the other stuff she was interested in. I'm going to meet her and my aunt sometime tomorrow afternoon to give her the information. After that I read the first chapter in Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. It's got an interesting concept. One of my favorite quotes from the first chapter is “But somehow its rarity wasn't enough to make it interesting, and we stared blankly for some minutes at the faded parchment, hoping to either misunderstand it on a deeper level or at least get our money's worth.”

Then I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and livestreams and playing No Man's Sky. I made it up to four million units (money) and then used my hyperdrive to go to a new system. I completed the first requirement after reaching the system, which was learning how to make fuel for my hyperdrive. Then I spent the rest of my time flying around and looking for drop pods so I could add slots to my inventory. It took awhile but I found a bunch and I think I have over forty slots now. I also discovered more upgrades to my suit, which take up inventory slots, but they will be worth it. I ended by leaving the planet and going to a space station. This station is even better for earning money, because every ship that comes in has the item I need, so that is probably what I'll be doing the next time I play. Now that my inventory is bigger it will go a lot faster.

It is now way too late and I've got to get up in the morning for a haircut. I'm looking forward to getting my haircut but not waking up for it. There might be a nap in my future.

August 13, 2016

 Today was in fact a long day. I spent the majority of my day at work coming up a list of books for a display for next month. The idea is to create one outside of a specific genre using appeal terms or whatever they're called, like Netflix does with their groupings. I used an idea from Novelist and created a list with a Witty and Whimsical theme because I'm a fan of witty and I like alliteration. So far I've got a pretty decent list and I'm excited about it. I ended up finding a bunch of books that now I want to read. That's a downside of working in a library. My to-read list just keeps growing. I ended up checking out one of the books today, which is the seventh book I have out right now and I haven't read any of them, minus the O. Henry short story I read yesterday.

I had one librarian moment today finding information for a guy regarding an old mansion in a nearby town. It is no longer open to the public because it was bought and turned into a private residence and he was interested in pictures and more information about the history. I ended up finding a lot of pictures and a decent amount of information. I'm not sure how long it all took but we were there for awhile. We ended up printing out twelve color pages and four black and white pages, and luckily he had a credit on his account so it didn't cost him anything.

In other news, I also finished a personalized reading list, filled with YA books, most of which I want to read now. There are so many good YA books out there. Anyone who doesn't read YA is missing out. I also updated the web analytics spreadsheet for last month because I just got access to the information.

Tonight I played No Man's Sky, obviously. Most of my night was spent on the second planet. I kept getting pulled to the next save point. I would walk to one, see one on the horizon, walk to that one, see another one, and the cycle continued. And then I was six minutes away from my ship. And on the way back I got distracted by more stuff. When I finally thought I would leave the planet I found a drop pod, which is where you get an extra slot in your inventory. That sucked me back in and I ended up finding several more, bringing me up to twenty slots, which is way more than I started with. I briefly set down on the third planet in the area, which was mostly barren, so I quickly moved on to going to the space station for the first time. I ended the night buying stuff from the incoming ships and selling it at the station to make money. It's a slow grind but so is the rest of the game. I just want to make sure I have enough money to unlock inventory slots because I ran out early and it was annoying. I also finally switched over to the preorder bonus ship because I finally earned the hyperdrive and antimatter fuel for it on my own. The next step is to use the hyperdrive and fly to a new system. I am hoping for a colorful planet with grass and water, like in the trailers. My first planet and the two moons nearby were pretty desolate so I'm wanting something more bright and happy.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do at work tomorrow. The assistant today was bored so he pulled all my homebound books today and processed them. I can add more books to my display list but that's not going to take me five hours. I'll come up with something. Hopefully.

August 12, 2016

 Last night I was up super late grading assessment responses. But I got it done. So it was worth it.

This morning I slept in because I was up super late last night grading assessment responses. I actually didn't sleep in as late as I originally planned but I felt like being at least a little productive with my morning. When I got out of bed I posted all of my graded responses into the online Google Sheets we're using to collaborate on the project. I'm not sure what the next step is, or if there is a next step, or if I'm involved in it if there is one. But for now I am done.

At noon No Man's Sky went live to download. It took me about an hour to download it and then it turns out the game is broken. I would get the initial screen with the developer's name/logo and it would either immediately crash to the desktop or it would freeze until I clicked and then it would crash to the desktop. I updated everything I could think of, I restarted my computer several times, at one point there was an update for the game, but nothing worked. I was really annoyed.

I checked online and saw that this was a common complaint for a lot of PC users, leading to a huge amount of dislike for the game on Steam. As a last ditch effort I downloaded it to my laptop because I saw somewhere that it seemed to be affecting AMD more than NVIDIA. My desktop is AMD and my laptop is NVIDIA, so I figured it couldn't hurt. While it downloaded I read a short story by O. Henry, so that was a positive.

After the game downloaded I crossed my fingers and clicked Play. And it worked. At least it got past the first screen, so I took that as a good sign. I had already hooked my laptop up to one of the TVs I use as a monitor for my desktop, and before going any further I also connected a keyboard and mouse to my laptop. Thankfully I wasn't just being an optimist by doing that because the game ended up working completely, it wasn't just a fake out. Also, my laptop is enough of a beast that I was able to play the game on decent settings without anything horrible happening.

I ended up playing most of the rest of the day, with breaks for dinner and laundry. Apart from the game being broken and not even loading for a lot of people, there were also people who got in but still had issues with the game. I'm not really one of those people. I think a lot of people were expecting an MMO, which I thought it was fairly obvious that it wouldn't be. The only thing I would like would be to build a homebase but that would discourage people from exploring so it is probably for the best. I definitely would have been spending most of my day today gathering resources for a house. In the end I spent most of my day walking around my first planet discovering stuff. It's one of those games where you walk to one spot to discover something and then you see something a little further out, so you go there and then you see something a little further out, and it continues. Which is like an MMO so I guess it has that. One of the biggest aspects of the game is discovering new plants and animals and then renaming them. I think you get twice as many points for renaming something and then uploading it to the server, rather than just uploading the randomly generated name the game gives it. I ended up pulling up a random name generator and clicking through that to come up with names. I've only been on my home planet and one small one nearby but when I get to my next big planet I want to go with a library theme. Like naming all the animals after authors and all the plants after books, or something along those lines.

Even though the game is a lot of the same after awhile I foresee myself playing a lot of it. I'm really glad it came out after I finished school.

And now I'm going to bed because it is late and I've got to work in the morning. It is going to be a looong day.

August 11, 2016

This morning my alarm went off at six o'clock but I didn't actually get out of bed until seven o'clock. I was still productive, though, managing to get through the first set of assessment data with time to spare. I could have started on the second set, and probably should have, but I didn't. Instead, I ironed my clothes for today and searched for the plastic folders I used to make lamps many years ago. It would only make sense for it to be with my craft stuff but I can't find it anywhere. It's becoming a bit frustrating.

At work today I did things. I finished making my book lists for my homebound patrons. Last month I started including at least one extra book on each list in case something ended up being checked out. I can also carry that extra book over to the next month, which gives me a little bit of a jump start because I don't have to start with nothing. I think it is a good system.

I helped patrons with computer and printer things. I'm getting pretty decent at that. I updated all of tech classes on the calendar so they have the right phrase in the title so they'll show up on our tech page, and I made them all require a reservation so we know how many people to expect. I still need to come up with one class for October and fill in details about the classes in November, but I'm making progress. I imagine this weekend will be filled with a lot of research for classes because I don't have much else going on.

Tonight I talked with the newest assistant about my trip to the conference and my free day spent at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. He's never read the books (which doesn't make sense when people say that) but he has seen all the movies and really enjoys them. He was very envious of my trip.

I slacked a little bit when I got home and have only managed to grade seventeen responses in the second set of assessment data. That leaves me with between an hour and an hour and a half of grading left. I would like to finish that tonight but I'm also feeling a tad tired. So we'll see. I will have time to do it in the morning, unfortunately.

And I say unfortunately because I should be playing No Man's Sky at midnight and then all day tomorrow. When games come out they are supposed to be released at midnight. For digital games, especially on PC, you're also supposed to be able to preload the game a day or two in advance so that when it is officially released at midnight, you can start playing it almost immediately. This is not the case with No Man's Sky, however. The game doesn't actually release until noon tomorrow and as far as I've seen, you can't actually preload the game. This means that thousands of people are all going to try and download the game at the exact same time tomorrow, rather than spreading that out over a one or two day period. Doesn't seem too smart. And it means I won't actually get to play the game at noon because I will have to wait way too long for the download to finish. I also have to keep my fingers crossed that most of the neighborhood is offline and not streaming or downloading massive files. But, despite all that bitching, the game is finally here and I will get to play it at some point tomorrow. Hopefully. I've been waiting for nearly three years so a few more hours isn't going to kill me.

Now I'm going to grade some more assessment responses. Maybe all of them. Or maybe just some. And then go to bed.

August 10, 2016

My days seem to be blending together at work. It is hard to differentiate between them. Today I continued working on my homebound book lists and I got started on my second-to-last patron. I took a break from looking for books to dig out the forms each patron originally filled out that listed what types of books they like. Some are more detailed than others but I added all the information to the Excel spreadsheet where we keep track of all the books we have taken them. Previously I have mostly looked at the books they have been given and trying to find similar ones, especially if the patron made a note saying they liked the book. This was a bit hard and pretty time consuming. I hope my new method makes things a bit easier. I've only used it for one patron so far but it did seem to speed up the process and gave me a little more to work with rather than just staring at a giant list of books in a spreadsheet.

I helped patrons throughout the day at the library. I helped one lady print a bunch of pictures by first downloading them, extracting them, and putting them into a Word document so we could get two on a page. I helped a mom and daughter download and extract their pictures so they could view them as a slideshow, rather than one at a time. I also showed a woman where are books on glassware are. And I think that is it. Or at least all that I remember.

This afternoon we had our departmental meeting. Before the meeting two of the librarian's from the children's side of the library came over to cover the reference desk so we gave them a brief tour of where things are and what they might have to do. I think the one thing we didn't point out were the ceiling fan controls, and the first person that came to the desk after the meeting started asked about turning the ceiling fans on. Live and learn.

The meeting went well. It started with the head of technical services talking to us about weeding and the upcoming weeding of the non-fiction section. The fiction section I think is fully weeded now of all the old duplicates, which I believe she said decreased our collection by around 7,000 books. The goal is to go even further because she doesn't want books on the top shelf where people can't reach or the bottom shelf where no one wants to look. A smaller collection will also allow us to put shorter shelves in the middle of the fiction section which won't block the back windows, which the current tall shelves do block. One of the goals with the weeding of the non-fiction is to get rid of a shelf or two in order to open up more space for tables and seating because there is never enough room for that. We were given the sections each of us is supposed to weed and we have quite awhile to work our way through those. Some people really love weeding but I don't think I will be one of those people. I will most likely be a conservative weeder, which is okay because it will offset the eager weeders.

We were apparently supposed to talk about the reference interview webinars we watched or articles we read, not just post our notes on the staff blog. Whoops. Three of us forgot to bring our notes because I don't think any of us realized we would be talking about it in the meeting. The other two winged it but I quickly pulled up the blog on my phone so I could read bits out of my notes.

Other things happened in the meeting but I'm losing interest talking about it and I'm tired. So let's move on.

The meeting ended shortly before five o'clock. I was scheduled until six o'clock but planned on leaving at five o'clock because this Saturday I will be working nine and a half hours and need to lose an hour and a half this week. I got a half hour yesterday and an hour today, so I'm good now. Right before I left my practicum supervisor came up to the desk with one of her coworkers, who actually graduated from the same program I did, I think a year before me, maybe six months. We chatted for a little bit and then I headed out.

I stopped briefly to mail a bill and then headed to Chipotle. My bowl was good but not amazing. I fear I am getting into a Chipotle rut and probably need to change up my order again. When I was done eating I started showing YouTube videos. It's been two or three weeks so there is quite the backlog. I had other things to do tonight so we didn't watch them all but we got a start.

I planned on spending my night quickly remaking the scavenger hunt app using the new email account my practicum supervisor set up, and then taking the rest of the night to grade assessment responses. This changed however when I got downstairs and checked my phone. I missed a call from my grandma and she left a voicemail saying a family member was doing genealogy stuff and my grandma thought she had a map of where some of her relatives had lived in Montana. I spent the next however long working my way through the stack of boxes I have of the stuff that was in one of her cedar chests. I found the map in the very bottom of the box on the bottom of the stack. I had actually almost given up because I didn't see anything map-like, but then kept digging in the bottom of the last box out of curiosity. Good thing I did. I also found some other genealogy stuff, which may be of use.

After I found the map I called my grandma back. She was glad I found the map and said she also thought there might be a death certificate and a wedding certificate in the boxes. I'm pretty sure I came across both but that I didn't think much of them and put them back in the boxes. The boxes which I had already packed back up in my closest because as I went through the boxes originally I had stacked them up in front of the door to the closest and was unable to get out without putting the boxes back. My grandma and aunt are coming to town on Monday so at some point over the weekend I will need to go back through the boxes and find those documents as well.

That whole process took awhile, some of it my own fault because I got distracted by looking at old pictures and documents. I love that sort of stuff, especially when it is family stuff. At some point I would like to work in a museum or archive.

When I was done with that I started working on the app. That took longer than expected, mainly because I got caught up in the potential cost of the app. It's free for personal use but other than that it is a dollar per user. I'm not sure how it keeps track of that if you don't require users to log into the app but maybe they have their ways. The app will really only be for a pilot program, not some commercial enterprise, so I don't think money needs to be involved. I let my practicum supervisor know about this and also offered up alternative survey programs that might be free. We'll see what happens.

That whole process took me past ten o'clock, which didn't really leave any time to grade assessment responses. Dang it. My goal was to grade forty-five responses tonight and I graded zero. Now my goal is to wake up much earlier than I want to tomorrow morning so I can hopefully get a decent amount done before I have to go to work.

And it is nearly midnight so I'm going to go to bed so I can at least get a little bit of sleep before I have to wake up.

August 9, 2016

Today already seems like so long ago. At work I did things. I think most of my time was spent coming up with books for my homebound patrons because we go out again next week. I made significant progress, getting four or five out of my seven patrons done. And I'm working this weekend so I've got so much time. I also picked out my first four books to go on the Staff Picks display. I think all the other staff members also brought their books over today which led to a lot of good book conversations. One of my favorite things about working in a library has to be the chance to talk about books with my coworkers. I'm constantly finding out about new books and now that I'm done with school I can actually start reading some of them.

This afternoon when I was coming back from lunch I ran into the old first grade teacher with her mom in the parking lot. This is the same first grade teacher who was also my reading tutor way back in the day. And the person I referenced in my application letter to grad school. It was really cool to run catch up with her and she was really excited that I had finished school and gotten an adult job.

Last week I helped a man find information about his mother and grandparents using Ancestry. He came back today and I gave him information about DNA tests through Ancestry and National Geographic, and showed him the books we had on Native Americans. He is becoming one of my favorite patrons.

I know I did other things today but I've either forgotten them or have decided they are not worth noting. I will say that it was a good day. I accomplished things, I helped people, and I had good conversations with my coworkers.

After dinner I spent my night grading survey responses. I believe yesterday I graded eleven and tonight I graded thirty-nine more. I timed the grading of the last ten so I could get an average time, which ended up being around two minutes per response. Doing the math, that leaves me with just under four hours of grading left to do. That's not bad. Way better than I originally thought. I should definitely be able to finish by Friday if I can keep that pace going. Hooray.

My practicum supervisor also set up a generic Gmail account so I can recreate the Google Forms mobile app I made the other day. Using the generic account will allow her to log in and have access to the data behind the app and be able to make any changes to the form itself. I should be able to get that done tomorrow and hopefully finish grading at least the first set of assessment data, possibly even get a start on the second set. I've got goals.

Friday I will finally get to play No Man's Sky. It was released on PS4 last night at midnight and my favorite streamers and YouTubers are all streaming it and making YouTube videos about it. And I can't watch any of it because I don't want the game spoiled for me. In theory everyone's experience, at least visually will be unique, because of the ridiculous size of the game and the fact that everything is procedurally generated. But I want to experience it for the first time, outside of trailers, for myself, without any expectations formed by watching how others are playing the game. Once I get into it I will definitely start checking out what others are doing, but not until I try it first.

Soon I will be going to bed so that I can sleep and it will be very nice.

August 8, 2016

This morning I woke up to use the restroom and then saw it was 5:59AM. My alarm was set to go off at 6:00AM. Kind of perfect timing but it also kind of sucked because it meant I couldn't go back to sleep.

Most of my day was spent researching digitizing old photographs, with a little bit of budget research mixed in. I already know how to digitize photographs but I need to come up with the content to fill a two hour class. So I'm researching.

This morning was a little boring and then I got a call from a lady who wanted help with her book club. She said she was computer illiterate and that her husband was the one who did all the computer stuff but he passed away recently. She was the leader of the discussion for the current book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and wanted information about the book and the author and maybe things to keep a discussion going. So I looked into all of that stuff. I found information about the author, an in-depth summary of the book, and a bunch of book discussion questions. I printed that off for her and when she came in this afternoon to get it she was super happy. She said I was the nicest person and I'm going to accept that. It's true.

It was nice actually doing something for a patron. So much of this job so far has been sitting around quietly. Right now I'm working on developing classes but that is still kind of abstract and in the future. I became a librarian so I could help people, which I will do with my classes, but until then, sitting around is boring. Especially when it is really quiet.

Tonight I had the rest of my leftover pizza and that is sad because it was delicious. I had funfetti cake for dessert and it was much better without a stomach full of Chinese food.

After dinner I was tired and I think I dosed off for a bit while watching YouTube videos. After that I put in a chunk of time on the assessment project for my practicum. Most of my time was spent getting things ready. Formatting the spreadsheet, setting up another spreadsheet for my scores, finding the detailed explanation of the rubric, and other little things here and there. That all took awhile but it will make the grading process go much smoother. I ended up grading the first eleven responses, so only 152 more to go. I think I can get it down to about five minutes per response, which means I've got about twelve and a half hours to go. Good grief. My goal of getting it done before Friday does not look like a thing that will be happening. I would need to put in a lot of hours after work the next two days and wake up really early on Thursday to put in several hours before work. It's probably doable but I don't know that the motivation is there because I've got until August 22^nd to get it done. My goal of the 12^th is just so it doesn't interfere with No Man's Sky. We'll see how it goes.

Right now, however, I'm going to bed because I'm freaking tired and I've got a headache. Hopefully one that I can sleep off.

August 7, 2016

This morning I woke up and finished reading the first part of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It ended on a cliffhanger so I probably should have kept reading. But I didn't.

After lunch I played GTA5 for the first time in quite awhile. It is still fun to drive around the map. The new races are also a lot of fun but they would be better without collision on. So many players go with full contact as their preferred method of winning, rather than actual racing skill. I don't have much skill but I also try not to bump people at inopportune moments so I'm not the dick knocking them off the course. There were quite a few races where I was doing pretty well and one perfectly timed bump knocked me to the back of the pack. Kind of frustrating but I know a lot of people play it for the full contact aspect, so I'm not going to get too worked up about it.

For dinner we went to the Chinese buffet in celebration of me graduating. It was a little awkward when my sister first got to the house and at the beginning of dinner, but I think we eventually got past all that and it turned into a normal dinner. A delicious dinner where I ate too much food, but that is to be expected.

Right before we left dinner my doppelganger walked in. Or at least my doppelganger from the side. My mom saw him walk in and then out of site as he stood at the register. I kept an eye out because I wanted to see how much of an insult it would be to me. But then he briefly cross from the register and out of site behind a wall and I have to admit that from that far off distance he looked exactly like me from the side. It was really freaky. Even my sister agreed. When he got closer he didn't look anything like me, which I'm thankful for because that would have been even weirder.

After dinner we went back to the house and had the frozen fruit yogurt/ice cream my mom makes and the funfetti cake my sister made me. She put a flat, colorful wooden train on the top to make it look more “manly” but it really just made it look like we had stolen it from a small child's birthday party. It was worth that child's unhappiness, though, because it was a good cake, even if I was way too full halfway through eating it. My mom also got me a small sign, a funny card, and a yellow pen that has a ruler on the body, a bubble level, and a stylus nib on the back. It's a pretty cool pen.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and played more GTA5. I raced more and then tried to do one online story mission that involved teaming up with three random players. It involved shooting, which I have not spent a lot of time doing in GTA5 so I'm kind of awful. We also only had one team life, which I ended up using, and then I died a second time, which failed the mission for everyone. Whoops. I would say my teammates took it well but as soon as we spawned back into the regular, non-mission world, one of my teammates tried killing me. Thankfully I almost always play on passive mode. I need to jump back into storymode and not only work on my shooting, but also maybe finish the story. I can't remember how far I got but I know it wasn't too far.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is after midnight and I have to open at the library tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to that but it will be nice getting off at five o'clock. I have no idea what I'm going to do at work tomorrow. Probably more research for my classes.