July 30, 2017

 This morning I slept until about the time I set my alarm clock. Or at least the time I intended to set my alarm clock. Turns out it works better when you actually turn the alarm on. Thankfully it wasn't an early work day.

I did end up scrambling around a little bit before work because I got sidetracked downloading drivers on my old desktop and taking apart my laptop. Last night I typed most of my journal with my laptop on the carpet in the basement while waiting for the new desktop to do the memory diagnostic thing. Following that, my laptop started getting really loud and I'm thinking it had something to do with sitting on the carpet. I opened up the bottom and nothing seemed off. It's completely clean inside, too. So I don't know what's up. At the moment it is quiet but we'll see.

At work today I spent most of my time working on a personalized reading list. It was a little difficult because the person only wanted audiobooks. Thankfully they were okay with digital audiobooks because I think I only found one book that we actually have on CD. I also found a bunch of books that would have been perfect but we didn't have access to them. That is always annoying. But I managed to find enough stuff to finish the list and I ended up checking out a couple audiobooks myself. I probably won't get around to listening to them but it's the thought that counts.

I printed more prize drawing tickets because they were apparently four short yesterday. Could have been worse. I printed out four hundred and cut half of them, we'll probably need the other two hundred but just in case I figured I would wait. Yesterday they also ran out of solar eclipse glasses. In the last week or so, however long we've had them, we have given out 1500 pairs. That's a lot of glasses. We still have some but those are for the events we're having at the library.

Other than that, I filled out my monthly report, helped patrons, and left a request for whoever opens tomorrow to make state library card for a patron. They jumped in chat less than two minutes before we closed so I didn't have time to do it but told them I would have someone make it tomorrow morning.

When I got home tonight I made dinner. I roasted red potatoes and scrambled some eggs to mix in with my leftover brown rice. I seasoned everything with garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary, and lemon pepper. It was very tasty. The combination of everything seemed a little random, and there's a chance I may be pregnant based on my cravings, but I'm already looking forward to the leftovers.

After catching up on YouTube videos I watched the movie Sand Castle on Netflix, which is about the war in Iraq. It was not an uplifting movie to say the least. It was along the lines of Generation Kill in terms of the tone. My interpretation of the title is that you spend so much time building a sand castle but ultimately it is still a precarious structure that takes very little effort to crumble. This whole movie the main focus is rebuilding a water pumping station, which ends up being a futile endeavor that cost way more than it could have repaid. It was an interesting movie.

I was going to play video games tonight but I lacked the motivation. I really need to get better at pulling the trigger when it comes to doing something. Too often I want to do too much and end up doing nothing. I am really tempted to come up with a schedule for my personal life. So specify times for video games or random other hobbies, and stick to it, so I end up actually doing things with my time instead of clicking around the internet doing nothing.

It is now late and I am going to record my audio journal. Tomorrow I want to go to the store at some point and play video games. We'll see what ends up happening. Probably a lot of nothing, but sometimes that is a good thing.

July 29, 2017

 This morning I slept in a little bit and got a solid nine and a half hours of sleep. I needed it after sleeping very little Thursday night. When I got up I let the dogs out and fed them, started my laundry, and then took a shower. I planned on doing a lot of reading today but I ended up only reading for about thirty minutes. Not great. I'm not really sure what happened with the time today. There seemed to be a lot less of it than usual.

I watched Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and that drained me. I enjoyed it because it was very well written and the actors nailed it, but it was also really sad. Something that can be inferred from the title. Also, I asked one of the other librarians about it and she told me what was going to happen. Given the title, it's kind of like going to see Titanic and hoping the ship doesn't sink, but I always hold out hope for unrealistic but happy endings. I do think realistic and sad endings make a movie better and more powerful, but I also find them draining and I often avoid them. I'm glad I decided to go with the movie instead of committing to the book, but if the book is even half as funny and witty as the script it is something I would like to read at some point.

After I fed the dogs dinner I packed up and headed home. Once everything was unloaded I ate my own dinner, the last of my stir fry, and watched YouTube videos. After dinner I tried playing Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (forever after known as PUBG) but when I launched it my keyboard shut off. That has happened a few times lately and I'm not sure what's going on. Sometimes I can unplug it and plug it into a different USB port but this time I had to restart my computer. I then tried updating a couple drivers, a Razer one for the keyboard and an AMD one, but both seemed to freeze on me and then wouldn't run after I tried starting them again. I gave up on the updating but then PUBG just gave me a black screen and I couldn't get the sound to work in my headphones. It was all super annoying.

But I've got a new computer now, so I said screw it with my old one and went down to the basement. It didn't take long at all to install PUBG on the new computer thanks to the ethernet connection I set up the other day. I should have forsaken wifi a long time ago. I do still need to try my new wifi adapter, but I'm loving the wired connection at the moment.

I ended up only playing one game of PUBG but I ended up coming in fourth place I think. And I died from the gas, not another player. I was moving to the new zone but was already low on health and my timing was off. I was hiding in one house and I knew there was a player in the house next to me and was waiting for him to leave but the timing didn't work out. I also made it that far without firing a single bullet. My passive style worked this time. I feel like if this was a real thing, I would play it by hiding and trying to avoid contact as much as possible. And in the game it seems like a viable option. I would like to get it working on my other desktop where I have a better mouse and a bigger screen so I can change keybindings to my mouse buttons and so I can actually see things. Then I will feel better about actually engaging other players. I would have been a little screwed if I got into a fight tonight, and not just because I didn't find any good loot.

After that I played Elite Dangerous in VR. I can't remember exactly what it looked like before but I bumped up the supersampling on my headset to 2.0 and I think it looked a lot better. It may be all in my head but I would like to think it isn't. As for the gameplay, I made a lot of progress on my exploring quest. I'm getting better at inputting destinations and navigating the system map. I can still do better, though, because at the moment it involves a lot of peaking at my desktop under the headset, which can get annoying. Baby steps.

I heard back from CyberPower and they recommended running Windows Memory Diagnostics. That ended up being confusing because when I tried running it the first couple of times my screen went black when I restarted the computer. I think it was working but it wasn't showing up on screen because it was treating my monitor as the second display and the Vive headset as the first display, even though nothing was showing on the headset. Once I unplugged it from the computer all was well. Minus the fact that there weren't any errors, which I guess is good, but it would have been nice to have something to point to. They also asked if I tried disabling XMP mode. Enabling XMP mode was the only thing that reliably allowed me to start the computer, so disabling wouldn't be good. I might try it though, which means I'll have to move the RAM sticks again, but maybe the diagnostics tool will show an error when XMP mode is off. I'll mess with it tomorrow.

I got my first match today on my dating app. I was wondering if I would actually see matches or if I would only know when I actually got a message. Turns out you see when you get a match but it is still up to the girl to send a message within twenty-four hours of the match. This is good to know but it also means after all the swiping I have done over the past few weeks, I've only had one match. Dating, even online, is a numbers game but I'm apparently not that great with numbers. Oh well. The girl actually messaged me, though, and we have been texting throughout the evening. It's an interesting experience. It's kind of like a modern day pen pal.

And it's now after one o'clock and I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I don't work until noon tomorrow but I would still like to get a full night of sleep and not have to run around getting ready for work.

July 28, 2017

Should I have taken notes today? Maybe.

I woke up this morning, got ready, and then went upstairs to feed the dogs and let them out. I eventually ate lunch and went to work.

I made two display signs today for the DVD cart next month. I couldn't pick my favorite so I'm just going to swap them out halfway through the month. I once again went with a broad topic, shenanigans and escapades, so that I won't have to make a list, and because that seems to be what the patrons want.

I also made a small diagram showing how to thread the microfilm machine for one of the other librarians. She had the idea but wasn't able to make a diagram she likes so I gave it a shot. We're going to put it on the machines to hopefully help the patrons who aren't as familiar with our machines.

I counted more prize tickets. I also cut two hundred more tickets. And may need to print more. Good grief. But we're in the home stretch.

This evening I looked through a few magazines because I have a massive backlog of magazines to catch up on. I still have a massive backlog but there are three fewer in the stack. Progress.

Other things may or may not have happened today. I can't remember.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal and then go back to my Mom's house. I think she is supposed to be back tomorrow. I've got the day off but then I work on Sunday. We're having to cover for the assistant who quit. On the plus side, I'll have Monday off.

July 27, 2017

 I got up early this morning so I could get ready and deal with the dogs before my haircut. Since the last time I got my haircut, the lady who cuts my hair got everything hooked up with her cochlear implant so she can hear way better. They're still trying to dial things in but she was able to hear most of what I was saying, which is impressive considering the sound of my voice.

After my haircut I stopped by my house to put some new music on a thumb drive. And then I went back to my Mom's house and eventually ate lunch and went to work.

Work was a thing that happened today. I thought about taking notes but then thought nothing exciting was happening so why waste the time. Well, now I can't really remember what I did most of the time. I remember working on a template for tutorials. I tweaked the one I made for my online class and merged it with the PowerPoint I made for the tour I gave. I don't know if I'm totally happy with it but I think I'm close.

Speaking of the tour I gave, the librarian who made that happen, and who asked to collaborate on a presentation proposal for a conference, was in the library today. We talked for a little bit and then I had her talk to my boss about an idea she had while I left to go to dinner. I haven't heard back about the proposal but I'm also not sure how long it generally takes to hear back about that stuff. The conference isn't until October so I imagine they can take their time. It would also be nice if they sent a rejection letter, just so we know.

Tonight the phones went down for maybe an hour. We couldn't call out or within the building and if someone tried to call the library they just got a busy signal. The assistant manager in Circulation texted one of the IT guys and we both sent help tickets. One of those things worked and we think he was able to reset something from wherever he was because the phones eventually came back online. Unfortunately it broke the closing announcements so I had to make those. I'm not a fan of that but I survived.

I was talking to the teen librarian this afternoon and she mentioned that she and a couple other library people were talking about me last night at a social gathering last night. She said they came up with someone I should date at the library but she wouldn't tell me who. Tonight, when I went around to see if everyone was having phone issues, I was talking to the lady in Childrens, who was one of the people talking about me last night, and she gave me more details. The girl they are thinking about is a summer worker in Childrens, has been for awhile now, and is and English teacher during the school year. I looked up her picture and I remember the picture but I don't remember ever seeing or talking to her. I imagine I was introduced to her at some point but I can't remember. We'll see what happens, the lady in Childrens tonight seemed very determined to make things happen.

After work I came back to my house so I could write this and record my audio journal. Surprisingly, it has taken me forever to write this. It didn't help that I took time to take a picture of my fountain pens, ink, and paper for the teen librarian. But now I'm going to wrap this up so I can quickly(ish) record my audio journal and go back to my Mom's house. I've been doing everything journal related on my laptop and I don't have that with me, so I've been writing this on my desktop and I'll be doing the audio journal thing on the desktop as well. It's been awhile so we'll see if my settings are alright.

July 26, 2017

 Good grief I'm tired all of a sudden.

I briefly thought about taking notes today but I didn't. It was an uneventful day. Over the course of the day I finished my latest personalized reading list and I feel pretty good about it. I also found a few different books that I want to read. After I finished and sent the list, I went to put the request back in the notebook and saw that we had previously made a list for this patron and I don't believe we ever received feedback. In theory, patrons can't request another list unless they have given us feedback on their previous request. It is so rare that people request a second list and even more rare that people give us feedback, so I never think to check. Maybe I'll remember next time.

I emptied prize jars and worked on numbering tickets. I also got a couple of the other librarians to help out so I am much closer to being caught up. I still need to look into the random number generator and see which one I want to use.

I talked to the teen librarian for quite awhile about fountain pens today. She's interested in calligraphy so I've been explaining what I know about fountain pens, letting her try mine, and showing her resources.

I had a meeting with my boss and the one-on-one technology lady about the classes from last semester. Very soon we need to start talking about the Spring classes, which is ridiculous because the Fall classes haven't even started yet. I like the idea of being prepared way far in advance but it is also a little overwhelming. I fear it will feel like there is never a break because we will constantly be either planning classes or teaching classes.

My throat hurt all day except when I had a small, half-priced strawberry milkshake from Sonic. I don't think the price of it helped my throat any but I think it probably made it taste better. I took some cold medicine this morning because I was beginning to think that maybe it had turned into a cold. I no longer think that because the medicine seemed to have no effect. I'm wondering if talking aggravates the healing process. Probably.

After work I went to my Mom's house to feed the dogs and then I came home to eat dinner, after I finished my strawberry milkshake. I then may or may not have taken a nap in my chair. I need a better napping office chair.

Now I need to record my audio journal, load up my car, and head back to my Mom's house. And maybe call it an early night if I'm lucky. Fingers crossed.

July 25, 2017

 I had a chance to wake up when my alarm went off. And I did, but then I didn't get out of bed and eventually went back to sleep. Only partially, though, because I had weird dreams that involved the random things I was hearing on the radio. Maybe tomorrow I'll get up. I need to take that first step to exercising again.

I took notes for the first half of my day. I pulled more books for my America display because it was starting to look a little empty. I printed out and cut more prize tickets. I decided to cut all 400 of them and I'm feeling good about it. I will probably have to print more before the program is over. We ran out of solar glasses in envelops so we had teen volunteers stuffing envelopes all day. I picked up a stack this morning and throughout the rest of the day the teens brought them up to us. We should be good for awhile. Hopefully. Our social media posts have done the trick and we are getting a steady stream of people asking for glasses. I also did multiple walkthroughs this morning.

Before lunch we had a little birthday celebration for my boss. The new librarian also brought cherries. We thought she was bringing something salty. Instead, we had a lack of fear of running out of cherries.

This afternoon I pretty much just spent my time writing numbers on prize drawing tickets. At one point I had to redo over 200 of them because for some reason I went from 539 to 340. Whoops. Despite that, I was able to catch up on all of the tickets I had pulled out of the jars. There are a bunch of tickets in the jars again because it is never-ending. Well, for at least another week or so.

I also pulled a few more books for my NPR display. I might pull a few more to hold me over through the end of the month. I think it has checked out eighteen books this month, which is pretty good for the kiosk.

The PR debacle from this weekend continues to grow. The spot on the news last night probably didn't help. It does show the power of a single individual and social media, though, so that's something. Based on the Facebook discussion, it looks like this guy saw the description of the event, got worked up and started posting on Facebook, went to the event having already made up his mind that it was promoting hate groups, and then went back to Facebook to post about his already formed opinion. Then someone else saw it and they posted it to the news station, which got that ball rolling. It is all still based on a single person's opinion of an event that he already formed before the event. The torches were lit before the monster was even created. And in this case, it doesn't really seem like there was a monster, just shadows and clouds mistaken for monsters. But again, I was not at the event, along with 99% of the people talking about the event, so maybe we should all just chill out.

On my way home I stopped by my Mom's house so she could explain what I needed to do over the next several days while she's out of town and I'm dog sitting. I'm not really looking forward to it because I don't like change, but I'll survive. Hopefully.

When I got home I ate the rest of the pretzel bites my sister made and then started making dinner. I made the stir fry recipe my coworkers gave me for my birthday. They gave me all the pre-measured ingredients for my birthday, so this time around it was a little more involved, but I managed. I also altered the recipe a little bit by adding a jalapeno and red and yellow bell peppers, which made it way more colorful. Something that I think is second only to taste when it comes to food. And in this case, it was pretty tasty, as well, so I had the whole package.

My ethernet cables came today so I hooked up both of my desktops. I had more than enough length to reach my new desktop in the basement but it's better to have too much than not enough. I also got my new wi-fi adapter but haven't had time to try it out. I'm curious to see what kind of connection I can get with it in the basement. I am thinking about taking my new desktop to my Mom's house when I'm over there, which will give me a chance to try out the wi-fi adapter there as well.

I bought Playerunknown's Battlegrounds today. My how my tone has changed from earlier in the month. I still think it might be a game I end up not enjoying, but it was on sale today, which I was waiting for. I've got it downloaded but I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to actually play it. Hopefully soon. Tonight I've been watching a livestream where they are all just annoyed with the game, which isn't a great thing to see after I just bought it, but I'll try to keep an open mind.

An update on my throat. It is still bothering me, but mostly just later at night. Kind of like my eye. I'm falling apart.

An update on the dating app. Still no matches. At least as far as I know because I think only girls see the matches. I do know that I haven't gotten any messages, so that seems like a pretty good indication that no one is interested. I'm beginning to think that dating apps might not be for me. It's still a decent distraction, though.

It's now after midnight again. I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm really behind on uploading videos and I'm running out of space on my hard drive for all the videos I've recorded. I need to work on that.

July 24, 2017

 Today was a day. It went by pretty quickly.

When I got to work I spent the first part of my morning working on a personalized reading list. I got a decent start on it and then kind of got sidetracked the rest of the day and didn't get around to finishing it.

I counted a lot of prize drawing tickets. I still haven't caught up but I'm getting closer. Last week I printed four hundred tickets and I'm going to have to print more tomorrow. It's kind of crazy how many tickets we have printed off so far.

There was a minor PR nightmare over the weekend. It was about a presentation at the library that was not received very well. On the plus side, it wasn't our program, but people often assume anything that happens at the library is a library event. The presentation was on a touchy topic and it sounds like it could have been handled better. There were a few people at the event that were offended, including the one African American, but it seemed like most of the people who contacted the library weren't actually at the event. I wouldn't say you need to experience something firsthand to be offended by it. I would say that you should have a decent understanding of something before you decide whether or not you're offended. So many times people raise hell over something they did not experience. They hear something from a friend who knows someone whose sister went to a thing and said it was offensive. Or in the case of some of the people offended about the event at the library, they read half a description and decided it was offensive. I was not at the event, so I can't say one way or another whether or not it was handled well. More people should try that. Either way, the news came to talk to our director and they aired a story about it tonight. On another plus side, the reporter mentioned wanting to do a story on the adulting series. This thing is blowing up.

We had a little going away part for one of our assistants today. He graduated in May and his lease is up this month so he is moving back home while he looks for jobs. It sucks because he was a solid worker and he was fun to work with. We spent so much time on the nights we closed talking about video games. So it kind of sucks. They did interviews today and I think they have narrowed it down to two people so hopefully we won't be covering shifts too much longer.

After work I came home, ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and then went to the grocery store. I wasn't planning on going tonight but we are celebrating my bosses birthday tomorrow and I said I would bring cherries. I also needed dinner stuff, so it was a good excuse to go. And I think tomorrow I'll be making stir fry for dinner. I'm looking forward to it.

When I got home I put my food away, caught up on washing dishes, and then watched livestreams. I think I'm' getting closer to pulling the trigger on Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. We'll see though. I feel like it is one of those games that I could easily hold off on, wait for the hype-train to pass, and never play it. Or, I could get in on it now, when it's huge and has a playerbase, and possibly have some fun with it while the community is still active. Decisions decisions.

It is now almost 12:30AM because it has taken me far too long to write this. Like more than two hours at this point. It's kind of ridiculous. I need to institute a no-video policy when writing my journal. It seems that as of late I have become increasingly distractible while writing these. It's getting out of hand.

Anyway, audio journal time. And then sleep.

July 23, 2017

 Today was a nice lazy Sunday. When I woke up I went down to the basement so I could start downloading a couple games on my new computer. I hit the power button and it was back to the blink on blink off thing. Moving the RAM worked but I decided to move it back upstairs so I could take a look at it. And because I figured the download speed would be better upstairs. I sent a message to CyberPower to see if they know a better solution to fix my computer. After that I went back into the BIOS and saw that XMP mode had turned off, so I turned it back on and the computer worked fine after that. I'm wondering if it resets after being turned off for awhile. It will be kind of annoying if I have to go into the BIOS every time I want to start the computer.

Also, despite moving my computer upstairs right next to my router, the download speed was still around 1mbps, often dipping below that. That didn't seem right and when I did a speed test on my other desktop it was several mbps faster. I then swapped wi-fi things and my new computer got the regular speeds while my old computer was super slow. So, turns out the wi-fi thing I got with the new computer sucks balls. The basement is still an issue but a lot of it has to do with the new wi-fi thing. I ended up finding the short ethernet cable that came with my router and plugged my new computer directly into the router. Oh boy. I got download speeds up into the teens, which is really fast for me, despite the advertised speed of my internet. After that I ended up ordering a new wi-fi thing for my new computer, so hopefully it can get a decent signal in the basement. I also ordered new ethernet cables, one for each desktop, and we'll see if the 100 foot one will be long enough to reach to the basement. If the new wi-fi thing gets a decent enough signal, I can save the ethernet cable for when I want to download stuff, so I don't have a cable running through my house all the time.

I managed to finish a book today, Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. It is the sequel to Every Heart a Doorway. I will probably read the third book in the trilogy whenever it comes out, but I have kind of lost interest in the story. Or maybe it's just a lost interest in Jack and Jill. Or even more specifically, Jill. I still like Jack, but Jill was really unlikeable. She just became the the stereotypical mean girl who is also under the influence of an older man. And then she has a psychotic break and Jack saves her, even though I would have had no problem if she left Jill for the mob. Finishing this book does make me want to go back and re-read Every Heart a Doorway with the perspective of knowing where Jack and Jill came from. I don't remember all the details but I remember Jill also being unlikeable in that one. We'll see if she gets redeemed in the third book.

I watched part of Scott Bradlee's livestream today. He's the guy that started Postmodern Jukebox and his stream today consisted of the chat asking him to play a certain song in a certain style. And later on he asked for song titles in the style of another artist. He then played them as he saw them in chat. Most of the time he knew the songs and just jumped right into it. For the few he didn't know he would pull up a YouTube video, watch about thirty seconds of it to figure it out, and then he'd just play it in a totally new style. It was ridiculous. He is incredibly talented.

I took a nap this afternoon which was really nice.

After dinner I moved my new computer back to the basement and borrowed the wi-fi thing from my old desktop. The internet still isn't great, and it cut out on me at least a couple times, but it was more successful than yesterday. I played theBlu, which has you standing in the ocean as cool things happen around you. I got it in the free trial of Vive games and I wouldn't pay ten dollars for it, but if it ever goes on sale I'll probably pick it up. It would be a cool demo experience for people new to VR. I also went through the Remembering Pearl Harbor. Another thing I wouldn't pay ten dollars for, but it was good. I really liked how they incorporated real photographs and things into the experience. It shows the potential of what can be done in VR. I tried play Star Trek: Bridge Crew (which I finally got my key for) but my internet cut out and it kicked me out of the game before I could get out of the initial menus.

After that I played several random games before giving Elite Dangerous another try. I ended up getting kicked after fifteen minutes or so because of the internet thing, but before that I was able to navigate the system map with my joystick. Hooray. Now I can do the exploration thing and mark specific planets in VR. The next step is to come up with a better system for my list of planets so I don't have to keep peeking out of VR. Also, when I first got into the game I nearly had a disaster. My throttle was apparently pushed forward when I initially tried to take off. As soon as I lifted off I shot forward, ran into something, and started spinning in a fast circle. I got it under control somehow but my ship got knocked down to 55% health. I tried to request docking again but ended up having to leave the space station before I could request docking again. I was then able to go back in, land, and repair my ship. I've seen people accidentally hit their boost or some other random button inside a station and blow their ships up, so I'd say I got lucky.

It is now time for my audio journal and then sleep. I might actually iron my pants before I got to bed. We'll see how nice my current self is to my future self.

July 22, 2017

 This morning I woke up, read in bed for awhile, and then got up to mess with my new computer. I thought I got the not starting thing figured out yesterday but when I hit the power button this morning it blinked on then off, paused, blinked on then off, so on and so forth. I did a more systematic troubleshooting and found that the quick fix to the problem was pulling out the RAM and moving it to different slots. So if it was one and three, I moved it to two and four. I think it also worked if I just pulled one out and left the other stick in.

After doing some searching I thought it might be an out-dated BIOS issue. And while looking into that I came across a video about the first five things to do with a new build. In that video the guy talked about the BIOS and RAM, which turned out to be the key. I learned that RAM is often under-clocked by the BIOS, or something like that. So in my case, my RAM was advertised as 3000mhz but in the BIOS it was set to 2133mhz. I thought maybe that was screwing things up so I learned about XMP mode and switched that on. That set my RAM to 3000mhz, and maybe did some other stuff. And ever since that I have been able to turn the computer off and back on with no issue. Hooray for that. Once that was sorted out I downloaded a bunch of updated drivers and got those installed. I think we're good to go now.

I went to my Mom's this afternoon to do laundry and while the clothes did their thing I read. It was very tempting to take a nap but I stuck with reading.

When I got home, I did something computer-related and then ate dinner. After dinner I moved my new computer and VR stuff downstairs. That took awhile. And it turns out the wi-fi is a bit hit and miss down there. I think I am going to get a long ethernet cable to run down there and see if that works. If it does, I will consider running a cable through the wall. I saw a product that you can plug into an outlet and it transmits the internet over the power lines. You then plug the other thing into an outlet in the room you want better internet. Sounds like magic. But the two outlets have to be on the same circuit. I can't remember all the circuit layouts for my house but I'm pretty sure the first floor and the basement are on different breakers. So it would be a no-go.

I played a bunch of the archery game in The Lab and the mini-games in SteamVR Home. I also played Plank Not Included, which has you stand on a plank in real life and then try and catch hummingbirds. I didn't have a plank but I lined up a few of the shelves from one of my DVD cases and stood on those. It's an interesting experience. It's also very short, so I'm glad I didn't pay for it. There's another plank game that has you measure the actual size of the plank you're using, so that it is a one-to-one experience in VR. Technology.

I wanted to try out Elite Dangerous because I mapped the galaxy map to my joy stick and throttle and that also worked on the system map. At least in the regular game. The hope is that it translates to VR so I can finally navigate the system map and make my VR progress more efficient. But I was having internet issues and it wouldn't let me connect to the servers. I'm going to try again tomorrow.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal. My throat still hurts from the box hit but I made it through the audio journal yesterday so I'm not too worried about tonight. As long as I can avoid yawning.

July 21, 2017

 This morning was so long ago. I made it to work on time, despite once again ignoring my alarm clock. I was awake enough to hear the radio DJ after reading the weather say “If anyone asks you to do something outside today, fight them.” It was pretty funny. And accurate, because it was around 108 degrees today and it probably felt much hotter.

My morning was spent working on a personalized reading list, which I managed to start and finish, and working on the idea for a physical Thank You card. My boss showed me where the library Thank You cards are but it turns out they were all for Thanksgiving. Not quite what I was going for, so I decided to make my own. I had the idea of using a picture of an old bookplate for the cover but that proved to be a bit tricky. I had a picture of one but it was kind of blurry so I went out to the stacks to try and find one. I looked through a bunch of old books and was eventually able to find one but it had tape over part of it so it didn't look very presentable. I finally emailed the head of technical services and asked if she knew of a better way to find one. Later in the morning she came down with a notebook that was basically a history of their department, and inside there was a copy of the bookplate. Jackpot.

I was able to scan the picture and this afternoon I edited it and got it printed on cardstock. I just had the thought that I needed to put something on the back, like the library logo and the date, so I'm going to do that on Monday and print it again. The whole point of the card is to send a physical Thank You note to the historical society. I already sent an email and got a response, but I want to get into the habit of physical Thank You notes.

I worked at the desk in the children's room for about a half an hour this morning but it was pretty uneventful. There was a program happening so most of the people were in the storytime room. I only got one question and it was about a free book program that I didn't know anything about so I passed it off to the children's staff person that actually knows what's going on down there. I spent my time working on the personalized reading list, so I was at least productive.

When I got back from lunch one of the other librarians and I went on a shopping trip to find stuff for our cubicle. The goal was to find Post-It notes and a big dry erase calendar. And a card for our coworker whose last day is Monday. We found the Post-It notes and dry erase markers, but they didn't have the calendar we were looking for so we're going to order it online. We also managed to find a card but we weren't totally sold on it so we also went to the grocery store to look there. Nothing there really jumped out at us so we went with the card we got at the office supply store.

A decent chunk of our shopping trip consisted of me on my phone trying to sort out my computer delivery. The original delivery window was between 10:45AM and 12:45PM but that came and went and the window was extended to 2:45PM. It also still showed my home address instead of my sister's. Just in case, I asked my Mom if she could go over to my house and wait. This was a good idea in theory but I forgot that my screen door was locked so she couldn't actually get into my house. She waited until five minutes outside the window before driving around to see if she could see the truck and then she ran over to my sister's house real quick. When she got back to my house she said it was less than three minutes until UPS finally showed up. It wasn't the most secure of deliveries. She asked him to put the box in her car, which he did, and he volunteered my sister's name when my Mom asked if she needed to sign something. I told my Mom that I had put my sister's name down so my Mom wouldn't be caught off guard. But she could just have easily been a complete stranger that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Thankfully that wasn't the case.

After work I went to my Mom's house to pick up my computer. It was in the back of her car and when I went to pick it but I forgot that I wasn't tall enough to stand upright under her raised tailgate door. I slammed my head into the door, which knocked my head down and sent the edge of the box right into my Adam's apple. My throat has been sore the rest of the night and it hurts to swallow and yawn. It's pretty annoying.

I managed to get the box into the backseat of my car but only just barely. It ended up being a slightly narrower box than the last time I got a desktop, so that was nice. When I got home I unboxed it but decided to eat dinner before messing with it. So I ate dinner. And then got to messing.

I set it up in my office because I wanted to get everything up and running to make sure everything was good to go before taking it downstairs. Then ended up being a good thing because it was immediately broken. Sort of. When I hit the power button the computer would blink on, then immediately turn off, wait a few seconds, and then start the process over. I tried some troubleshooting and managed to narrow it down to the RAM. The two sticks had been installed in the wrong slots. Once I fixed that, it was smooth sailing. I have only started to download stuff onto it, but I'm hoping I'll be able to start playing some games tomorrow.

After getting everything up and running I celebrated with a frozen hot chocolate and fries from Dairy Queen. They were delicious. I think I'm good for awhile on the frozen chocolate but the next time I get a craving for fries I'll probably go with Dairy Queen.

It is now after one o'clock in the morning because I have been very distracted while writing this. I need to record my audio journal (fingers crossed my throat can handle that) and then go to bed.

July 20, 2017

 I am exhausted.

I slept in this morning, which is always nice. And then I eventually went to work.

My main focus at work was getting ready for the event tonight. That included writing my introduction, printing out and folding architectural scavenger hunts, making door prize slips, and probably some other stuff. This was made more difficult because I was also constantly helping patrons, talking to coworkers about work things, and answering emails about work things. I can't remember what all was happening but I do remember thinking at one point that I was getting pulled in way too many directions today. This was my first real program that wasn't just a tech-related thing. Way outside my comfort zone and I needed to pretty much give my full attention to it. So the rest of my work today probably suffered a little bit.

When I got back from dinner I started getting ready for the event. My coworker and I pulled the four giant tables out of the room the event was in and grabbed a bunch of extra chairs and set them up. I made coffee (for the first time all by myself), got a pitcher of ice water, set out all the snack stuff, and got all my other stuff ready. All of that took me the hour running up to the event. I then had to keep pulling extra chairs in, even after the event began because people kept coming. We ended up with forty-four people, which I would say is a really good turn out. And it it may have been one or two people over the fire code. Don't tell.

The presentation was interesting. And I wish I could have listened to all of it but I had to pop out a few times to get chairs. It was cool learning more about the history of the town through the buildings.

After the event I spent a long time putting everything back where it was supposed to be. I moved all the chairs and dragged the tables back into the room. They were way heavier without someone's help. And I made so many trips dragging the chairs back to where I got them around the library. I also took down my book display, took care of all the snacks and drinks, and re-did the instructional coffee sign I made earlier in the day because I forgot the part about adding water into the machine. Water is a pretty important ingredient when it comes to coffee.

And that was pretty much my day. I also filled a display for the new librarian because it was running low, tried to avoid adulting-related stuff, and talked to my coworkers about pens and video games.

When I got home I watched YouTube videos and now I'm watching Vern's livestream. He is speedrunning Dream Daddy, a dating simulator where a single father tries to find a husband. Or maybe just a new boyfriend. I'm not sure what the end goal is yet, but Vern is trying to redeem his first playthrough where he ended up alone. It sounds like he started playing it thinking it was going to be a joke, like a lot of dating sims, but it has a more emotional angle throwing in the father's relationship with his daughter who is going off to college. Interesting.

In other news, Chester Bennington committed suicide today. It really sucks. I was a huge Linkin Park fan in high school and college. I was even a member of their fan club and have watched their DVD, Linkin Park: Frat Party at the Pankake Festival so many times. I'll be watching it again soon. My sister said today was Chris Cornell's birthday, which was probably a contributing factor because they were really good friends and Chester seemed to take Cornell's suicide pretty hard. It just really sucks. I am grateful that mental illness doesn't run in my family. I have had plenty of low points in my life, some possibly verging on mild depression, but I'm glad I don't have suicidal thoughts. I can't even imagine having to deal with that. And I wish other people didn't have to deal with it either.

And now I am going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I need sleep.

July 19, 2017

 I was a little better this morning about getting out of bed. Still not great but getting better.

I opened this morning with another librarian so we split the normal duties. When I was sharpening pencils I finally had enough of the electric pencil sharpener and went and got an old manual one from the admin copy room. The suction cup base only held for a little bit, so I had to reset it a few times while sharpening a pencil, but it was still less annoying than fighting the electric sharpener.

Before we opened I was able to set up the LEGOS in place of the coloring page. A decent amount of the page was finished and we put it up in the break room so staff can work on it. I borrowed the LEGOS from the children's department and they gave me a giant bag that covers half of the table. It's pretty great.

I did other stuff this morning but other than calling my homebound patrons nothing is coming to mind. One of my patrons tried to talk us out of coming because of how hot it was going to be. I appreciate the concern.

When we got back from lunch it was game on. We were both already sweating just walking from the building to the car. A great start. Our first stop was the historical society to buy a book for a door prize at the presentation tomorrow night. The historical society is giving the presentation and they ended up giving us the book for free, so that's pretty cool. We then moved on and made our deliveries, which went well, minus the heat. It was probably only around 100 degrees when we were out, which is “cooler” than it was supposed to be, so there's that. After our last delivery we went to the grocery store to buy a snack for the event tomorrow night. And then we headed back to the library, where we got all our books unloaded and processed.

I had a walkthrough and then I started working on updating my spreadsheets. The teen librarian came up to work at our desk around 4:15PM and she was asking about whether the wellness screening counted as personal time or if we had to get time back for it. My boss said she thought it was personal time, which I was cool with, but then the teen librarian checked with her boss, the head of the children's department, and she said it counted as work time. Which was annoying because then my boss told me I needed to get back thirty minutes. I really wanted to finish my homebound stuff but I also wanted to get the thirty minutes over with so I ended up leaving at 4:30PM instead of five o'clock.

I went to Qdoba and then headed to my house real quick. I wanted to get the recording of the epic moment in the livestream last night. And then I eventually headed over to my Mom's house for dinner. After we ate I showed videos, starting with the livestream clip. I ended up having to just show it on the computer instead of the TV because I forgot that I record my OBS videos in the FLV format instead of MP4, so it wouldn't work on the TV. But it all worked out alright.

I left my Mom's house around eight o'clock and spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos, livestreams, and now I'm watching rewatching Tove Lo's Coachella performance because one of her songs came up on the livestream I was watching and I was in the mood.

Now I want to record my audio journal and maybe play a little Elite Dangerous, not in VR, so I can make a little progress and maybe figure out some system map controls that will work in VR.

July 18, 2017

 The day is already a blur. Probably should have taken notes. I talked with my boss about the missed article and it went well. She recently missed one, too, so she couldn't be that mad at me. We also came up with a plan to better display upcoming due dates for things. We're going to put stuff in our cubicle upstairs because at least for writing articles, that's where we often go to write them. I'm looking forward to having all that information prominently displayed instead of buried on the computer in a million different places.

I pulled out more prize tickets from overflowing jars but didn't have time to count them. I got a call from a homebound patron who said she didn't want books this month, so I pulled the bookmarks out of all sixteen books and took them down to circulation. The one benefit is that now I have a pre-made list for next month. I thought about the tutorials I need to make but couldn't actually find the material that I'm supposed to use for the first tutorial so most of my time was spent just clicking around.

We had a department meeting today and it was delayed about ten minutes because right before I got off desk a mom walked up. She asked about summer reading, walked off, and came back with two teenagers. They needed to sign up and record minutes. It took a long time because they had to figure out how many minutes they had read, and they had numerous asides the interfered with the sign-up and minute logging process. But I eventually got it sorted and made it to the meeting. I just spelled 'meeting' like 'meeding'. Good grief.

After the meeting I was on desk for an hour. Most of that time was spent looking at my wellness screening results because they already came back. I was not expecting a twenty-four hour turn around. Last year I got a seventy-one out of a hundred and this year I got an eighty-four. So not bad. I need to work on my good and bad cholesterol and my triglycerides. Seems easy enough...

When I got home I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and clicked around the internet. Then I played some Elite Dangerous in VR. It was fun but also unproductive. I made it to my next system but it has three suns, each with several planets, and I can't find the one I need to scan. And it doesn't help that I can't reliably mark planets in the system map in VR. I did some searching online but most people just complain about not being able to easily navigate the galaxy map in VR. That's a whole other beast but I haven't had any trouble with that, mainly because I haven't messed with it much. There are still more things to try but not today.

It has taken me over an hour to write this because I keep getting distracted. First was a livestream. I was watching VernNotice play Playerunkown's Battlegrounds and he was saved in the most epic way possible. He was down and bleeding out behind a tree when his teammate said “Vern, I'm going to do something and I need you to trust me.” He then grabs a car, drives past Vern and toward the two guys shooting at Vern. He slides to a stop in the middle of a smoke grenade cloud, while simultaneously getting out and firing his rifle, quickly killing the other two players. There is a brief bit of confusion when the game bugs and he can't heal himself, but once he can, he runs to Vern to revive him. While he's running a third player jumps out of a nearby second story window and starts throwing Molotov cocktails at the car because he thinks Vern's teammate is still there. The teammate makes it to Vern and revives him with maybe half a second to spare. He then gets knocked down by the Molotov guy but Vern is able to shoot him and return the favor my reviving his teammate. It was so epic. And very distracting.

Then I got a message that my computer has shipped and it will be here on Friday. Being a computer, they obviously want a signature, but I will be at work. If it was a laptop, I might see about having it delivered to the library. But it's a desktop, and the last one I got came in a giant box. For one, I don't think it will fit in my car. And second, even if it did, it would be a pain in the ass getting it to my car. So I got sidetracked looking at my options. It looks like there is a business near my house that is a UPS Access Point and I could have the box delivered there and I could grab it after work. I'll need to check on that further.

It is now after midnight and I have to wake up at six o'clock so I am going to stop typing and I can record my audio journal.

July 17, 2017

 This morning I woke up, loaded up my car with my laundry and lunch, and then went to do the wellness screening thing. When I got into the building there was someone ahead of me and we both stood there for several minutes because there was only one person working and she was in back helping someone else. And then I waited several more minutes while she helped the guy in front of me. But then it was my turn and all went well. My blood pressure was decent (at least she said it was good), I haven't shrunk any, and I weigh less than I thought I would. Now we'll just wait and see what the blood work says. Hopefully good things.

After that I went and filled up my car with gas, stopped by the bank to deposit some checks, and went to the grocery store. I mainly went for dijon mustard and bell peppers but I also grabbed more cherries, eggs, and wheat flour, because maybe I will try one of the biscuit recipes in the book I checked out.

I went home to drop off my groceries and then headed to my Mom's to do laundry. And when I got to my Mom's I realized I forgot all of my shirts. I knew my laundry basket went into my trunk a little too easily, normally I have to push my shirts down because they're on top of the pile, but didn't think much of it, for some reason. So I ran back to my house to grab my shirts, then back to my Mom's, and I finally started my laundry. While my laundry happened I read the Black Panther book I checked out. I was a little disappointed. It is volume one and it was all just a setup for whatever cool things happen next. And I felt lost for most of it. The Black Panther wanted to make his country better but he was fighting against two women, who were fighting against the apparent bad guys, who were doing horrible things to regular citizens. And the women were doing this because the Black Panther wasn't doing anything to protect his people. It was all very confusing. In the back of the book they had what I think was the Black Panther's first appearance with the Fantastic Four. He was a dick in that, too, luring them to his stronghold so he could defeat them. Nice guy.

After finishing the book I took a nap until my laundry was done. And then I went home. I can't remember what I actually did when I got home but I eventually made dinner. I got in an epic battle with a red onion. I think it sprayed on my face and I haven't cried so much in a long time. It was pretty much impossible to keep my eyes open for nearly a minute. I won in the end and my dinner was delicious.

Tonight I played Elite Dangerous and it wasn't the least bit disorienting, which I was happy with. I still think it might be an issue if I was into dogfighting, but for exploring everything seems to be good. My main issue tonight was trying to figure out how to mark a specific planet in the system map. I never got it to work. There is an option to select unexplored planets but that's all I could find. I wanted to pick a specific planet from the system map but nothing seemed to work. And then the first system I made it to on the list I'm following only had four planets, but the list wanted me to scan planets five and six. It was confusing and I eventually said screw it and moved onto the next system. But I didn't actually scan anything there because I still couldn't figure out how to select individual planets on the system map. It was annoying. But it was really cool playing in VR. I will do it again in the future.

And now I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. Because that's what I do.

July 16, 2017

 The D&D episode of iZombie was fantastic. Just saying.

I planned on waking up a little early so I could read before work. That didn't happen. I really need to break this habit of waking up, ignoring my alarm, and then napping until I have to run around. It's not a good habit. If anything I need to be waking up earlier so I can exercise before work. I felt so much better when I was exercising regularly.

At work I pretty much just worked on my homebound stuff. And I was successful. I finished pulling books, including having to find new books for a patron because most of the books I tried yesterday were all in paperback and she needs hardcover. I also printed out all the bookmarks, got everything bagged up, labeled the bags, and got them stored in the closet. After all that I went through and updated spreadsheets. I got all but one of those done. So not bad. Other than that, it was the same old thing. Helping patrons, attempting to help patrons, and handing out summer reading prize tickets. And all the other things I'm forgetting.

After work I got a text from my friend's mom asking if I could come over and help her figure out the sound on her TV. She had the same issue months ago, maybe longer, when my friend was in town and we worked on it for quite awhile before kind of figuring it out. I had a vague memory of what needed to be done but struggled to remember how to actually accomplish it. I eventually got there, switching the HDMI inputs in the settings menu for the TV and the Blu-Ray player. For some reason the TV sound would play when we turned on the Blu-Ray player and switched to that input on the TV. The only downside was that she was wanting to watch Netflix, which is another input, but I couldn't get that one figured out. So I only half solved the problem. Better than nothing I guess.

We sat and talked for awhile afterward and I eventually got home around eight o'clock. I made tiny egg sandwiches on tiny toasted bagels for dinner. I added in green bell peppers, because that is what I had, but I think I like red bell peppers better with my eggs. It wasn't bad though.

I spent the rest of my night finishing the third season of iZombie. I can see it being a good stopping place for the show but I hope it gets another season... and I just checked and it looks like season four is a thing. That is great news. The best part from the episodes I watched tonight was when Don E shouted out “Pop a squat, girlfriend” while lounged out on the ground, eating brains, and simultaneously grabbing a box with his feet and moving it so Liv could sit down. I can't imagine that comes across as funny in writing but it was executed beautifully.

Tomorrow morning I have to go to a wellness screening for work. The wellness screening is not required but you do have to pay an extra $25 a month I think for not participating. So yeah, I'm participating. Then I'm going to go do laundry and hopefully read some of the graphic novels I have checked out. At some point tomorrow I would like to play video games, but we'll see.

July 15, 2017

 I woke up a little early this morning, because I set my alarm a little early, and then I stayed in bed a little late, so I ran around a lotta bit so that I could get to work on time. And I definitely did.

Work started off well because the money drawer worked out nicely and I didn't need to make a deposit or do any weird math to figure out how much money to leave in the drawer. I'm always a fan of that.

My main goal for the day was to work on homebound stuff, and that's what I did. I managed to finish my lists (minus one poetry book I forget to look up before I printed the lists and my patron I go to the shelves to pull books for). I also had a chance to pull most of the books, which put me ahead of schedule. I'll easily be able to finish that up tomorrow, along with printing bookmarks and bagging everything up. It will be a successful weekend. Other than that whole forgetting to write a newspaper article thing. That's kind of a big thing. And will continue to nag me. But hey, homebound progress.

With the rest of my day I helped patrons. I helped a lady with a cane carry her books downstairs, I attempted to help another with an app but had to go with a help ticket instead, helped a few more find books, handed out a bunch of prize tickets, and told an older patron that we couldn't scan the giant stack of pictures and plaques and whatever else he wanted to leave with us. He has come in several times before and I have helped him scan things before but today was just absurd. I told him I could show him how to use the scanner, and that the bigger stuff would probably require scanning multiple times and using software to join them back together because our scanner is big but not that big. He didn't seem interested in that so I offered the FedEx store as an alternative that might be able to help him out. It was really tempting to actually do the scanning myself but I don't have that kind of time anymore and it is far outside of my job description.

I also printed/cut 500 more prize tickets and talked to my coworker about a bunch of different things. He has put in his two weeks because his lease is up in a couple weeks and he is moving out of town to find a big kid job now that he has finished college. Kind of sucks because he's a really good worker and he's fun to work with. And now I'm going to have to get to know yet another new employee.

After work I came home, ate dinner, and started watching season three of iZombie. I am still enjoying the show and I really hope it comes back for a fourth season. I've heard rumors the third season may be the last. My fingers are crossed. The best episode so far, at least for Major, is when he ate teenager girl brains. “She slept with Blaine, which first of all, ew. And second of all, I can't even.”

And now it is almost 1:30AM. I started writing this sometime after ten o'clock I think, maybe closer to eleven o'clock. I don't know. But I do know it has taken way too long to write this.

July 14, 2017

 Today started well. I woke up kind of early, read Wonder Girl vol. 1, went back to sleep, and eventually got out of bed. I then struggled with my Vive controllers again. I ended up uninstalling SteamVR and reinstalling it, which got me to the place where I need to turn each controller on and plug it into my computer real quick before it turns off, leave it plugged in for several seconds, and then unplug it. After that all is well. Kind of annoying but I got it to work consistently throughout the day, so I'm not complaining.

I also used live chat with HTC to inquire about my missing Steam gift card and game code. They were immediately able to give me a code for the Steam gift card, so that was cool. They said the game code would be emailed but they were a bit delayed. So I will continue to be patient.

Not long after that I got a call from the library and one of the librarians asked if I had written an article for the Sunday paper. I had not. It had never even crossed my mind. A month or two or three ago they upped the number of articles we would write each year. Normally it was every six months and I had in my mind that my next article was in October. On the plus side, I do have an article in October. On the down side, I also had one due this week. I offered to write one quickly but I guess the paper was just going to run an advertisement instead. That kind of sucks. Like a lot.

So the rest of my day was tainted with the knowledge that I really dropped the ball for the library. I had fun reading and playing VR stuff but there was that nagging reminder that I kind of suck.

Speaking of VR, the guy I chatted with today about my codes recommended QuiVR, which is basically a tower defense bow and arrow game. I really like the bow and arrow game in The Lab so I downloaded the QuiVR demo and it seemed pretty fun. I could only do the basic training mission shooting at targets, and shoot bad guys from a window, but I could see the potential. It's currently still in Early Access and cost $20, so I'm going to hold off until a sale or something, but I'll keep my eye on it. I played a few other games throughout the day and I also finally got to try out Everest VR. It was pretty cool. I have always thought it would be amazing to climb Mount Everest. But I am nowhere near physically fit enough and I like being alive with all of my fingers and toes. I'm not big on risking my life unnecessarily, which is what climbing Mount Everest is. I also don't like spending lots of money, and even if I start saving now it would take decades to make enough to get anywhere close to even base camp. So I'll stick with the VR experience.

And we have reached that old song and dance. My audio journal beckons. Tomorrow I will probably be working on homebound stuff all day. I will also still be annoyed with myself for forgetting about the newspaper article. Something to look forward to.

July 13, 2017

 This morning I woke up early so I could go to my dentist appointment. The regular dental hygienist I have seen for the last few years was out on maternity leave so I had a new one today. She was maybe five feet tall, which is important to note because it meant she had tiny, unobtrusive hands. Something I think is important when someone is putting their hands in your mouth. As expected, and always hoped, my teeth got rave reviews, so that was nice.

Work was pretty uneventful. The sleeper wasn't there today, which was nice because it meant I didn't have to talk to him. I worked on my homebound stuff today but didn't really get very far. I did at least put a few books on hold so hopefully I won't have to find more books when I get around to pulling them. It seems like the last couple have months have included a lot of having to go back and find more books because the ones on my list were already checked out. We'll see if the hold thing helps me out.

My mom stopped by to finally pick up her summer reading stuff. I think showing her the mug yesterday was the incentive she needed. She also got to meet a couple of my coworkers, including the teen librarian, who shot a rubber band at me and almost hit me in the face. The library can be a dangerous place.

And other than helping patrons and talking to my coworkers, that was pretty much my day. Again with the caveat that I have probably forgotten stuff.

On my way home I went to Target to restock my lunch supplies. And when I got home I clicked around the internet, watched some YouTube videos, and now I'm watching a livestream. I like watching Playerunknown's Battlegrounds but it is definitely not the type of game I would enjoy playing. I think it would be fun to mess around with friends but I don't have friends who play games, and I'm just not good at gun games. I would spend so much time waiting for a game to start and then instantly get killed. I would rather watch people who are actually good at the game.

It is now after one o'clock in the morning and I need to record my audio journal and go to bed. Thanks to my Target run tonight I have no reason to leave the house tomorrow. I'm going to play some VR and read some graphic novels.

July 12, 2017

 This morning I once again struggled to get out of bed and ended up running around so that I could leave the house on time. I imagine tomorrow morning will be much of the same.

I took my new route to work and it does appear to be slightly faster than my previous route. This is important when I get a bit of a late start to my day.

At work I finished the personalized reading list I started yesterday. I'm pretty happy with it. We'll see if the patron is as well. I also refilled one of my displays, which ended up involving way too many trips up and down the stairs. I'm not quite sure how that happened but it seemed like every time I got downstairs I needed something upstairs. It was hot and exhausting. Still better than working outside when it's over 100 degrees, though, so I'm not complaining. Just a little bit of whining.

Our new frequent sleeper was back again today. I think it may have started last week, him coming in and almost immediately falling asleep. And I woke him up every single day, except yesterday when I said screw it, and decided I would just wait for someone to complain. And no one did, so I pretended it wasn't happening. Well, today I woke him up and handed him a copy of our policy stating that we don't allow sleeping in the library. That was ineffective because a couple hours later the assistant director woke him up. And then later in the afternoon I had to wake him up again and told him that sleeping wasn't allowed. It's getting to the point where we are going to have to ask him to leave for the day. We probably should have actually done it today but our library (along with most I would presume) is filled with passive aggressive introverts that don't like confrontation. I've decided that if I'm the person who runs across him tomorrow I'm going to sit down next to him and try and have a conversation with him. Try and figure out what's up. He's either not getting sleep at night, wherever he's staying, or he's got a medical condition. Or something completely different. I would just like to figure things out so he can continue using the library, but not for sleeping.

And I feel like that may have been the extent of my day at work. It was another pretty slow day.

After work I picked up Qdoba and headed to my Mom's house for dinner. After dinner I only had four videos to show, two of which my Mom added and the other two were only a couple minutes long. It was apparently a slow YouTube week. I ended up leaving around eight o'clock after getting a box from my sister with the kitchen stuff my aunt brought me. My sister also brought me the dining room chair that my grandpa used to sit in. I already have the dining room chair my other grandpa sat in, which I took from my grandma's house when she moved. The new owner bought a bunch of the furniture in the house (including the dining room table and chairs) but I said screw it because she was already screwing my grandma on the house.

When I got home I kind of eventually played VR stuff here and there.

The only things the HTC Vive is consistently good at are pissing me off and smudging my glasses. It excels at both. I enjoy it when it works but I have probably spent as much time trying to get the controllers to connect as I have playing games. I tried something new tonight, that hadn't worked previously because I wasn't using the supplied USB cord (just the one I use to charge my phone) and apparently it's special. The idea is to reset the controller by awkwardly holding down a bunch of buttons, plugging it into the computer, waiting a little bit, releasing the buttons, and then unplugging it. When I used the correct cord it worked. Other things have also randomly worked and then stopped working, so we'll see if this one sticks, or at least remains a reliable thing to do when the controllers won't connect in the future.

On the dating app front, I upped the radius to fifty miles, which has seemed to help out. At least in the numbers game. We'll see if it leads anywhere.

It is now creeping up on 1:45AM and I need to record my audio journal so I can get to bed. I was reminded with a phone call this morning that I have a dentist appointment at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. That is unfortunate. At least it's not at seven o'clock.

July 11, 2017

 I think I forgot to mention may unintentional jalapeno peanut butter sandwich for lunch yesterday. After cutting up a jalapeno for my dinner the night before I apparently forgot to wash my cutting board. Yesterday morning when I was making my lunch, the bread apparently picked up some of the oil from the pepper. While I was eating my lunch I started to notice a very subtle heat on the tip of my tongue. It was a very odd sensation.

There was something else I forgot to mention but I have since forgotten it again. Such is life.

Waking up this morning sucked but I managed it as always. I took a different route to work and I think I might keep it for a while. Until I forget and turn the wrong way. It is more straight forward and I think it's about as fast, maybe a little faster, than my current route. Both are slower than my old route but I'm not dealing with that construction so I will continue going with alternates.

Today was a very quiet, slow day. Most of my morning was spent pulling out prize drawing tickets and counting them. It was just so slow and I was tired so there was very little motivation to do anything requiring much brain power.

This afternoon I started working on a personalized reading list because they keep coming in. It is a very generic request, which can make it surprisingly difficult to pick books. I think I end up thinking about it too much. I should take the stance that if all they do is check boxes and don't provide any detail about what they actually like, then it is fair game to pick the first books I come across that meet those broad categories. But I also know the system is flawed and it is not the patron's fault that or request form sucks at the moment. I am really looking forward to when the librarian in charge of revamping the form is able to actually revamp the form.

Other than that, I helped the occasional patron, including one of my favorite old guys who comes in to get help with different ebook services. He's got a good sense of humor about it and he's fun to help. I also talked with the teen librarian because she is back from her vacation, and gave her crap about being gone for the phone interview and the photo shoot for the magazine.

I also ran into the music teacher from the school I used to work at and we ended up having a long conversation about all sorts of stuff. I'm always a fan of a good conversation.

Oh, maybe the other thing I forgot to mention was my flower getting fried yesterday in the 100+ degree weather. I gave it two big cups of water last night and one this morning, which had it looking better by the time I got home from work today. I'm glad I didn't kill it.

This evening was another one involving my struggle with VR. It's like an abusive relationship. It puts me through so much grief but then shows me a little glimmer of hope. My main issue tonight was my controllers not wanting to connect. It seems to be a common issue and one that everyone and their mother has a different solution to fix. I think it is a computer issue and not something that I can fix by messing with the controllers or the software, because I think I tried at least five or six different things to no avail. I think the only thing that worked was shutting down my computer. But even that wasn't reliable because it worked that one time but not any of the other times.

The one time I got the controllers working I played the bow and arrow game with the scary red robots. It works much better on my desktop and I could look around without dropping a bunch of frames and making me feel a tad nauseous. I also found out that I could teleport around the map, which let me find a location with my back to a wall so I didn't have to worry about them coming up behind me. And the sound worked, which was really helpful. I still had a couple scary moments because even with the sound working there were some Weeping Angel moments where they weren't there one second and the next they were about to hit me.

I ended the night by jumping into Elite Dangerous because I didn't need the controllers for that. The first attempt was a fail because the headset was somehow oriented in the wrong direction and I couldn't figure out a way to fix that other than redoing the SteamVR process. So I redid the setup and all was well. And it was freaking worth it. When you get into the game window, you are standing in the hanger with your ship behind your. At least I think it was my ship. I could be wrong on that but there is definitely a ship there. Once you're in the game you're actually sitting in your seat and you can look all around the cockpit or cabin. I could even get up and walk around a little bit but I have a small ship so that wasn't very exciting. But the rest of it was. It was so cool. I had to look to either side to see my menus. I could look down to see my character's body, which moves the controllers just how I'm moving them, which is kind of freaky. I could also look up and behind me out the top canopy windows to get a better idea of where I was related to other objects. It's crazy. I launched from the station I was in and I can definitely see myself getting sick flying around. I did a few barrel rolls and that was about enough for me. I think the problem is that my eyes are seeing it but my body isn't experiencing it, which is confusing. I am hoping I can keeping playing around with it and maybe build up a tolerance. I'm just glad I'm an explorer at the moment and not involved in combat-centered stuff. It would be badass but I don't think my head is ready for dogfighting.

While I was waiting on VR stuff, and taking a break from VR troubleshooting so I didn't break a controller, I edited my dating app bio. I haven't gotten any hits yet, thankfully, because I don't know that I am prepared for that part of the online dating experience, but I wanted to make my bio better, which I think I accomplished.

And now I keep getting distracted by all the random things, so I am going to stop writing this so I can record my audio journal and go to bed.

July 10, 2017

 I took notes today, so that's helpful.

This morning I slept in a little longer than I would have liked but I still got to work on time, and that's what matters. The first thing I did when I got to work was print out more prize drawing tickets and cut them apart using the giant paper cutter in the basement. I then pulled books for my two main displays this month as well as a few chess books to put on the table next to the chessboard. And then I ran around trying to find props for the photo shoot this afternoon.

The PR lady called down this morning and started talking about the photo shoot for the magazine writing an article about our adulting series. I had completely forgotten that was happening. Whoops. Before I got on desk I ran around and looked for props that we could use. I found a bunch of stuff in one of the small kitchens or whatever we call the tiny rooms with sinks and microwaves. The PR lady also scrounged around for stuff and went to the store to buy vegetables.

And then I was on desk for a couple hours. My friend stopped by with her boyfriend and his daughter so I talked to them for awhile. The boyfriend and his daughter spent most of the time working on the jigsaw puzzle but came over near the end. It's been awhile since I've seen my friend. Two or three months at least I'm guessing. And now they have moved even farther north, up to Michigan, so I will probably see her even more infrequently. I need to make more local friends.

The photo shoot was at one o'clock, which was during my lunch break, but I bumped that back for the sake of publicity. The photographer called an audible on the shooting location and we ended up doing it in one of our meeting rooms because it had really good natural light. The meeting room was currently being occupied, with a meeting of all things, but they were going to lunch, so we asked if we could use the room while they were gone. They ended up bringing their lunch back to the room but we were done about five minutes or so after they got back and they were using the other half of the room.

I ended up being the “instructor”, which I didn't really want to be but the teen librarian wasn't there so I was the one representing the series. Yay. We pulled staff members from around the library that looked the right age, had them sit around the table, and then I cut vegetables and pretended to tell them things. It was super awkward. And kind of fun but mostly awkward. Then we moved down to the computer classroom and I pretended to teach them about budgeting. That was a little less awkward. We'll see how the pictures turn out.

After that I helped put everything back where we got it and then I went to lunch at 2:15PM. I was so worked up about the photo shoot that I didn't even think about being hungry, so that was nice. While I was at my Mom's house my new CPU was delivered, which was strange because I was pretty sure I had changed my address but apparently not. But it worked out because I was able to take it with me instead of having to swing by after work. It also didn't have to sit out on my porch all day in the 100+ degree weather. I brought it into the library with me so it didn't have to sit in my 100+ degree car.

The rest of the day was very uneventful. At least what I can remember of it because I stopped taking notes before lunch. I remember looking at ideas for the maker faire, which I have to go to in September. I really want to do the large Jenga thing but my boss wants me to do something technology related. We're thinking about doing something big-ish for International Games Day and maybe I can convince my boss that the Jenga thing could be used to promote that. We'll see.

When I got home I installed my new CPU. It was actually a pretty quick process. The hardest part was remembering how my liquid cooler is attached. It's confusing. But after I got that figured out, it was smooth sailing. I applied a thermal paste cleaner to the liquid cooler, cleaned off all the thermal paste, and then applied something else that is supposed to get the surface ready for new thermal paste. I then installed the new CPU, applied a rice-sized bit of thermal paste, and reattached the liquid cooler. After that I cleaned the thermal paste off the old CPU and put it in the new CPU box, along with the stock cooler.

I dinner when I was done with that, and then spent the rest of the nice cursing, because I am once again trying to set up my Vive, this time on my desktop. It's a pain in the ass and if I had a swear jar I would have easily paid for an international plane ticket. It was just one thing after another. First the base stations wouldn't turn on, then the controllers wouldn't connect, then I got a cornucopia of different errors every time I tried to launch SteamVR, then Steam itself stopped working. And now I'm back to it kind of working but the controllers won't show up again. I never did get it working properly and it is now way too late because I spent way too much time trying to figure it out.

I think one of the big issues is that it can't run in Direct Mode, which it says in the best mode. I think this means that the headset is seen as its own entity or something. When that mode is disabled the headset shows up as another monitor. This is the only way I can get it to work on my laptop because regardless of the mode there is a compositor error, whatever that is, and it can't be manually launched (or if it can there is no indication anything changes). The only way to get around this is to disable Direct Mode so you can move your mouse off the side of your monitor, onto the “desktop” that is the headset, and click on it. It's like bringing focus to the headset and making it the active window. In Direct Mode you can't do this. So I'm not sure about that. It's all very confusing and it is discouraging when solving one issue just presents a different one. I'm having flashbacks to trying to set it up on my laptop. I seem to be getting way more errors this time around. I think it will be easier with my new computer because I'll be starting from scratch and won't have to worry about some random program causing a conflict or losing something important if I have to uninstall something.

VR is definitely a love hate relationship.

While I messed with all that stuff I finished watching Shooter. It was an alright show but I still really don't like Ryan Phillipe as someone named Bob Lee with an intermittent Southern accent.

And now I'm going to record my audio journal because midnight is creeping up and I have to open tomorrow. Six o'clock is going to come way too early tomorrow morning.