August 30, 2017

 I forgot to mention that yesterday I came to work and found my inbox filled with about 65 emails. Sixty of them came between 7:00AM and 7:59AM. One every minute. They were reminders to upload attendance information for the last drop-in we had, which I uploaded on the day of the drop-in, so that was annoying just by itself, getting a reminder to do something I did two weeks ago. Sixty reminders is a bit excessive. I emailed the IT guy who wrote the attendance program and he got back to me letting me know it was a mis-click on his part. He had set the reminder to happen at 7:00AM but then also set it to happen every minute, starting at 7:00AM. Whoops. It should be fixed now. Hopefully.

I also decided yesterday that 'denounce' should be the antonym of 'announce'. Just saying.

Today I woke up with a headache and as the day progressed my neck got progressively more stiff. I obviously slept wrong. The headache eventually subsided but now it is a literal pain in the neck to look to the right.

The staff meeting this morning was about harassment. We watched a video that had a decent production value about various forms of harassment in the workplace. The best part about meetings about harassment in the workplace is all the joking about harassment following the meetings. Later in the day I needed to borrow the credit card to buy wire for the maker faire and the administrative assistant said it would cost me, quid pro quo. That was one of the forms of harassment talked about in the video. I thought it was pretty funny.

And speaking of that wire, we decided on the final ideas for the maker faire, one of which is the telephone wire bracelets, so I bought the telephone cable today. I got fifty feet and it is twenty-five pair cable, meaning fifty wires. So, if we cut it at five feet intervals we can get five-hundred bracelets out of it, which should be more than enough, and if there are leftovers we can use them for a craft night.

My boss posted information about active shooter situations in the library, due to what happened in New Mexico, and she included a video about Run. Hide. Fight, which is supposed to be our response in an active shooter situation. I watched that video and then went down a mini rabbit hole of other active shooter videos. It is scary to think about but it seemed much more likely to happen when I was working at the elementary school. That was also much more depressing to think about because a school filled with kids is much more tragic that a building mostly filled with adults. No offense to adults.

I have now heard back from three libraries about their Kindle programs. Two have discontinued them because they kind of ran their course and the other library still has them but they check out very infrequently (she thought only twice in the last ten months). Not great but I still think there is potential with our homebound patrons. I'm going to create a survey to take out and see what their interest is in getting Kindles. That will really determine if this idea is worth anything. If they aren't interested then there's no point.

My tour went well this morning and it lasted the perfect amount of time because I only had a few minutes to kill before lunch. The group all had varying levels of mental illness or handicaps. Thankfully one of them was pretty talkative and asked a bunch of questions which gave me more stuff to talk about. The others were pretty quiet, so I don't know what they thought of the tour but it seemed like I kept their interest the whole time. It was my second tour and I think I'm getting better at them.

This afternoon I got sidetracked while on desk and started looking at braille books available through ILL. I still remember a bit of it and want to relearn all of it. I also want to learn how to actually read with my fingers. That's the real trick. Our one-on-one tech lady has a braille writer in her office so at some point I might borrow it.

I feel like I'm forgetting something about work but I'm moving on.

After work I picked up Qdoba, running into the new librarian while in line. It is interesting how socially awkward we all can be outside of the library. It was the same when I ran into another librarian at the grocery store. Very interesting.

I went to my Mom's house after picking up the food and we ate dinner, watched the news, and then watched YouTube videos. There were a bunch because we missed last week. Most of them went over well but it is easy to tell when my Mom or sister start to lose interest.

I got home around eight o'clock, quickly ran through the few YouTube videos that looked interesting from today, and then I watched the last two or three episodes of the fifth season of New Girl. And now I need to wait for season six. Waiting sucks.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Hopefully I will sleep better tonight. It would be nice if my neck isn't stiff tomorrow and/or I don't wake up with a headache.

August 29, 2017

 Today happened. It was a fairly boring day.

Most of my morning at work was spent upstairs, with a few trips down for walkthroughs or to check something downstairs. I compiled all the stats related to the adult side of summer reading, including overall participants, the number of events, and money spent. Then I continued researching Kindle stuff. I emailed a few more libraries and heard back from one of them. They had discontinued their program awhile ago because their Kindles became obsolete and their patrons lost interest as they got their own devices. I don't know that we'll have that problem for awhile with our homebound patrons because they're not that tech savvy. Which also creates a steep learning curve, but I still think there's potential.

This afternoon I was basically on the desk the whole time and spent that time reading about readers advisory. It was kind of a distraction from other things but I learned some things. I was also on the desk just a few minutes too long because I took a call that ended up with me giving a tour tomorrow. Yay. I've only done one but they're kind of stressful. Especially when they come at the last minute.

And that was my day at work.

When I got home I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and spent the rest of the evening watching New Girl. I also finally made test swatches of the two ink samples I got awhile ago. I think the green one might be my new favorite green. Noodler's Gruene Cactus Eel. At some point I'm going to get it in a pen and see how it actually writes. I've heard Noodler's ink can be kind of wet. I'm hoping it looks as good with a regular pen as it does with the glass pen.

It's nearly ten o'clock so I'm way ahead of things tonight. This still took me an hour to write but I've been slower. Tomorrow I have to be at the library at eight o'clock for an all staff meeting. At least I'll get off at five o'clock.

August 28, 2017

 This morning it would have been nice if I could have slept in. I would have liked that.

When I got to work I did all the opening stuff, which included sharpening a whole bunch of pencils. So many pencils. It was fantastic.

Today was a laid back day. I started researching getting Kindles for our homebound patrons. One of my goals is to do the research and write a proposal so hopefully when can try it out. I also need to look into grants so we don't have to put a lot of money into it if it does end up being a thing we want to pursue.

I refined the adulting classes for next semester with the teen librarian. We switched the police one by adding firefighters and we chose to go with EMS for the first aid class. The teen librarian is going to contact all of those services so we can hopefully get on their calendar early. It would be nice to avoid another delayed confirmation like we had this semester.

I watched all one-hundred usability videos for the month. At this point it is kind of pointless because we're rolling out a new website next month. That's kind of annoying but such is life.

I also refilled displays and probably did other things that I am forgetting. The best interaction I overheard today was an old man at circulation. “Do you like children? I like the as adults when they live far away...” It was pretty funny.

When I got home I ate leftover stir fry and it was delicious. I also had some homemade bread, which doesn't really go with stir fry, but still very tasty. I spent the rest of the night doing the same old thing. I watched videos and livestreams and leveled up a few times in Tera because the lower levels go by quickly and I am still in a Tera grind mood apparently. I'm still uncertain about the priest. Mainly because I haven't put much effort into figuring out the skills. It's also difficult going solo with a class that seems better suited for standing in the back of a pack and keeping people alive. When you're solo you draw aggro, which is not good for a class not designed for dealing a lot of damage. That's my novice opinion anyway.

Tomorrow is another day. We'll see what happens.

August 27, 2017

 This morning I woke up, went back to sleep, and woke up again. Then I pulled out my bread machine and made bread. Or at least started the process because it took almost four hours. For a late breakfast I made eggs, some time later I had lunch, and some time after that my bread was done. I made Italian bread apparently. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between white bread and Italian bread. I imagine it involves the ingredients. Anyway, the top collapsed and the crust was really hard which leads to a lot of crumbs, but it tastes good, so I'm counting it as a win. I think the collapse may have been due to only using 2.25 ounces of yeast instead of 2.5 ounces. And it was dry active yeast instead of bread maker yeast. Oh well. It tastes good.

I started a priest in Tera because I got bored. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I think there is potential once I figure out all the different skills. I still miss my brawler. I like beating up things. I'm not a fan of having to run all over the place.

Today I was going to roast vegetables but I decided the vegetables I had would make a better stir fry so I went that route instead. It was delicious. I used asparagus, red bell pepper, yellow squash, jalapeno, red onion, and carrots. Delicious. I'm getting really good at stir fry.

Throughout the day I watched New Girl. I'm just finishing up the ninth episode of season five. It has taken a little while to get used to Megan Fox's face. It is unfortunate that cosmetic surgery exists outside of necessity, like reconstruction following injury or birth defects.

A lot of today was spent wanting to do something and then just watching New Girl. I could have been much more productive, so I find that frustrating, but I did do things with my day, so I can't complain too much.

It is now eleven o'clock and I open in the morning so I'm going to stop typing now.

August 26, 2017

 This morning I slept in. I didn't really get around any quicker than usual. I think I watched videos and did other things and eventually made it over to my Mom's house around one o'clock. While my laundry happened I read a little bit, took a nap, and watched a few episodes of Night Court and The Drew Carey Show. I occasionally watch Night Court when I see it on TV but I haven't seen The Drew Carey Show and I think I can appreciate it more now. It's really funny. And Night Court is pretty great.

I got home a little after five o'clock and ate dinner before going to a work thing. We met at a coffee shop and just hung out. It was one of the librarians from our department with her husband, the new librarian in our department, the new assistant, my boss, a guy from the tech center, the assistant manager of circulation, and the head of youth services with her boyfriend. Not a bad turn out. We started off inside but as more people showed up we moved outside where we could move tables together. It lasted about two and a half hours and we just sat around and talked. It's nice to have some social interactions outside of work every now and then.

When I got home I watched a live stream and played Tera. It took me until 12:30AM but I reached level sixty-five. I found two dungeons that actually had decent XP and there were enough people playing tonight that the queues were really quick. Those dungeons got me most of the way and for the last three-quarters of level sixty-four I just ran around and did story quests which gave me at least forty million XP per quest. And I max leveled. I got the flying mount and a cape but I haven't opened them yet because I'm assuming they will be locked to my character, not available across all of my characters. It would be nice if I could mail them to another character so I could actually play with them. I'll be honest, I probably won't spent too much time playing the character I just leveled because my main enjoyment with any game that involves leveling, is the leveling. I really like my brawler but once I hit level sixty-five I kind of lost interest. The same will happen with this latest character. I know that there is still a lot of game left, but if I can't rank up it takes a lot of the fun out of it. They need to do a CoD thing and add in prestige, so you can reset your levels but get an icon or something to show that you have done this. I would play the crap out of that system. Anyway, at some point I'll see if I can transfer those items to another character. I want to try a healer class at some point, but after putting in so many hours recently, I think I need a break. My hands certainly do.

August 25, 2017

 Today was really boring.

There is a bookmark design contest for teens so I drew one in Paint because it was Friday and there was nothing going on. If I could draw, it would be a great bookmark because the idea is solid. The theme is unleash your story so I drew a picture of someone walking books (like a dog walker) and one of them has broken free of the leash and is flying away. Genius.

I was on desk for two hours before lunch and I had two phone calls, a few purchase requests, and I think I helped someone with the printer. It was so slow.

After lunch I had two free hours and nothing to do so I watched a webinar on negotiating in the workplace. It was kind of awful and not really helpful. It was presented by a mother and daughter team and it felt like they were just trying to sell a book. They kept using acronyms that they had obviously made up. I almost fell asleep multiple times.

We have moved our adulting classes back to Tuesday in the Spring, which means we'll avoid Valentine's Day and messing with my department's scheduling. There was a conflict on one of the days with the book sale but I got it sorted out so we're good to go. Six months from now. It's ridiculous to know what's happening six months from now. And technically I know what's happening next May, which is nine months away.

When I got home I ate dinner, watched videos, and played a little Tera. Then I went to the grocery store. I didn't really have a game plan and didn't make a list, which I don't think I'll be doing again because I felt very lost. I like having a set goal. I wanted to switch up my peanut butter sandwich lunch with different sandwiches but I didn't really accomplish that. Next time maybe. As I was walking to the checkout I passed two girls who were looking at blueberries and then the bag exploded and blueberries went everywhere. The look on their faces was priceless.

I played more Tera after I put my groceries away. The last five levels are going to take awhile. The dungeons now suck. I queued forever to get into a few different dungeons and they were pretty short and I didn't get a significant amount of XP out of it, so definitely not worth it. I've gone back to doing story quests and I slowly made it from level sixty to sixty-one. It would be much faster if I were a Brawler and could just tank and grind through mobs.

It is now after one o'clock in the morning. Much too late. Tomorrow I'm going to do laundry and then there is a work thing that I might go to. If I don't accidentally take a nap because it is way too late right now and I am still typing. But I'm stopping now.

August 24, 2017

 I'm going to forget most of today.

This morning when I got to work I finished writing a Thank You note for our budgeting presenter and then I had a meeting for the maker faire. It was me, another librarian in my department, and someone from youth services. It was nice to finally throw around ideas with other people. I think we have pretty much decided to do the wire bracelet thing as a hands-on take home thing, a Makey Makey banana piano as a demonstration, and possibly a pop can box Jenga set for kids and the 2x4 Jenga set for adults (if I make one). I am feeling better about things and much less alone.

I came up with a title and brief description for my keynote presentation in November. I haven't come anywhere close to actually starting on the presentation but for the description I tried to focus on the idea of what I want to cover. Hopefully that works out for me. I think the description sounds pretty good so it would be nice to come close to it.

The teen librarian and I came up with the adulting classes we'll be doing in the Spring and picked the dates. We're thinking of moving the classes to Wednesday, which might end up screwing up the scheduling for our department so we'll see if we stick with it. Just in case I put the classes on the calendar so we won't miss out on the reserving the room.

I started making a cheat sheet for circulation with all the tech classes and workshops coming up. I probably should have finished it but got sidetracked by my coworkers. There is always tomorrow. I also taught the new assistant a little bit about connecting to the wireless. The idea is easy enough but there's a trick when it isn't working, so we covered that and I told her how to give IT her phone information so it will automatically connect to the wireless when she's in the building.

And we'll say that was my day because that's all I remember.

For dinner I made pasta. I was going to go to the store after dinner but then I didn't. It's really hard to leave the house after coming home. I will probably go tomorrow after dinner. It would be nice to go on the way home but everyone has that idea and I'm not a fan of crowded grocery stores. So hopefully the motivation is there later in the evening.

Tonight I played Tera and I was feeling good about hitting max level because I went from level fifty-six to level fifty-nine in a single dungeon. Then I waited forever to get into the next dungeon and only barely dipped into level sixty. I'm a little afraid these last five levels are going to require a ridiculous amount of XP. It's been so long since I maxed out my last character that I can't remember how long the last levels took. I've still got some time so I'm not too worried yet. Also, I haven't gotten the code for my mount for playing Kritika. Part of me thinks they'll wait until after the event is over before sending codes. The the other part of me hopes the first part of me is correct, because I don't want my playing of Kritika to have been for nothing.

And it is now almost midnight so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm tired.

August 23, 2017

 I sharpened so many pencils this morning. It was nice. And I wish I hadn't run out of time because I could have kept going. Once we opened I went upstairs. I talked to the teen librarian and the PR lady for a little while and then I went to our cubicle so I could make phone calls.

I started by calling the patrons who have not picked up their summer reading prizes. I skipped the guy who I thought was a wrong number because I said “Brian” instead of “Ryan” (or the other way around) and had the teen librarian call him. His prize has expired and he knew that so I'm just going to let it go. I left another voicemail for one lady and I talked to the other lady, who I spoke with before but I'm not entirely sure her memory is all there. We'll see.

Then I called the technical college and left a message for the auto tech instructor about teaching the car class. He called me back a few minutes later and said he was in. He said he emailed me a couple weeks ago and thought it was strange he never heard back. And I said I never got an email, which I didn't, not even in the junk folder. So that is weird, but we got it sorted out. He and the other instructor should both be able to come and they're also going to cover registration and insurance, which I hadn't even thought about, so I'm pretty excited. It was also an instant load off my mind and the stress has been lifted. There's still all the other stuff on my to-do list, but I'm taking the victories as they come.

I came up with our Spring tech schedule before our programming meeting this afternoon. And then it ended up not really being that necessary because the tech classes and workshops didn't even come up. I made a few smart remarks throughout the meeting but other than that I just sat there for an hour and listened to everyone else throw around their ideas. It was actually kind of pointless for me to be there but it's nice to know what's coming up. And now I have until the end of September to come up with descriptions, so it's nice that I was forced to come up with the classes, even if it was technically unnecessary. I also got all the room reservations done. The Fall classes haven't even started yet and I'm almost already done with Spring classes. It's kind of ridiculous.

And that was pretty much my day. I also helped patrons and refilled displays. And did other things that I can't remember.

We are postponing family dinner night until next week so tonight I had the rest of my leftover pizza, watched YouTube videos, and made it into the fourth season of New Girl (which looks noticeably different and I'm not sure if it is higher quality or if they're just doing more close-ups or if I'm just making it all up). I also made it to level twenty in Kritika so I should be receiving a code soon for the Tera mount. And, in Tera I did a couple dungeons and leveled up a couple times. Ever closer to level sixty-five.

And it has now been almost half an hour since I wrote that last paragraph because New Girl. So I'm going to pause that and record my audio journal so I can go to bed.

August 22, 2017

 This morning I woke up and thought about reading a book because I have several checked out at the moment but instead I chose to go back to sleep. I'm okay with that decision.

It was back to business as usual at the reference desk today, which made it seem oddly quiet because we didn't have a million questions about the solar eclipse. It left so much time for other activities. But I didn't really accomplish much with that time. I worked on my tutorial throughout the day but I'm really just at the slide making phase so it doesn't really feel like much is happening.

We got probably the best reference question today from an old man in his 80s. He had a really loud voice, which made it better, because half the library could probably hear him. He walked up to the next with his walker and practically shouted “I have a question you wouldn't believe... anal penetration.” And then crickets could be heard as the librarian on desk and myself waited to see where he was going with that. It turns out him and his friends get together a few time a week to, as he put it, “drink coffee and lie to each other.” One of his friends brought up how turkey buzzards [vultures] eat dead animals by going through the back door, and the patron didn't believe it so he came to the library to ask us. I had to go on my walkthrough but the librarian at the desk looked for a solid ten or fifteen minutes and didn't find anything conclusive. Only at the library.

Tonight we had our first adulting class and I think it went pretty well. We had twenty-two people registered and fourteen showed up, and we're going with an overall attendance of sixteen because the teen librarian and myself sat in on the presentation and took notes. I think the presentation may have been a little broad and a little too technical at times, but overall I think it was good and the patrons seemed to get a lot out of it. Now I just need to find someone to teach the next class.

When I got home I ate a snack, watched YouTube videos, and started writing this. I open tomorrow, and that always sucks after closing, but I should be able to make it to bed by midnight if I don't get sidetracked before recording my audio journal. Last night I fell down an hour-long beatboxing championship rabbit hole. It was worth it but good grief.

August 21, 2017

 Oh boy, eclipse day has arrived. I got up slightly earlier than usual so that I could drop off a pair of eclipse glasses for my sister at her house. And my timing was perfect because I got to work with a couple minutes to spare.

I was on desk for the first two hours of the day and I answered a bunch of phone calls, but surprisingly only half were about eclipse glasses. It was nice having some legitimate reference questions. When I got off the desk I did a walkthrough and then went to lunch early so I would be back before the majority of the eclipse happened.

Unfortunately for us, there was pretty much solid cloud cover.

When I got back I went to the auditorium to see if I could help with their technology issues. I did eventually get the laptop working but it was after the eclipse, so it didn't really matter. The idea was to have a livestream going on the projector. They hadn't been able to get the laptop working, and the iPad wasn't connecting, but one of the other librarians was finally able to get her phone connected. We never really had that many people in the auditorium but we also had a livestream going in our other meeting room and it was pretty packed in there.

Around sometime we left the room and there were people standing and looking up through the atrium for awhile before we all moved outside. Thanks to the clouds we only ever got peeks here and there at the eclipse but it was still a cool social experience, standing outside with everyone and talking about the eclipse. The change in light was also a little overwhelming, someone pointed out that it was more like the precursor to a tornado than dusk thanks to all the clouds, but all the street lights came on, so that was pretty cool.

After the peak of the eclipse passed we went back inside and I sat in the auditorium with a few of my fellow librarians and watched the livestream. We got to see two totalities before I went back to take over the desk. Overall, I had a good time. The cloud cover made the eclipse itself a little disappointing, but it was still a good event. We think we got around eighty-five people, which isn't bad. We were worried that either no one would show up or that we would have hundreds. I think it would have been different if the clouds hadn't been out, but eighty-five is a pretty good number and we didn't have too many glasses left over (we gave out 1,984 glasses in the past few weeks), so it all worked out.

The end of my day is a bit of a blur at this point. I was on desk for awhile, then off desk for awhile. I restocked displays and printed some “no food or drink” signs for the computers. It was my first time using the new copier and I'm already not a fan. There was a lot of beeping and the administrative assistant ended up coming back to help because he was probably tired of listening to all the beeping. I eventually got the signs to print and the color quality isn't as good as the old copier. I'm interested and a little worried to see how our display signs print.

In the last thirty minutes or so I looked at a Library Journal, got some ideas for things that I think would be cool to do, and then it was time to leave. When I got home, it was the same old thing. I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, watched a livestream, and played Kritika. Through all the repetitive gameplay I have made it to level eighteen, so I'm feeling pretty confident about reaching level twenty in the next ten days. Piece of boring cake. And I'll get a pink wolf mount in Tera. I have absolutely no idea what is happening in Kritika because I have yet to read any of the quests or pay attention to any of the story. I don't think that would improve my opinion of the game though. It's just a button masher in the form of an anime MMO. I do like the art style, so that's a positive, but it is also super sexualized. It can be a little ridiculous in Tera but it is way over the top in Kritika. I'm looking forward to hitting level twenty so I can go back to games that I like. Tera can also be very repetitive but it has a much larger world to play in. Kritika is basically just a collection of small dungeons that you have to play over and over and over again until you level up and unlock another tiny dungeon. But good grief, I need to stop talking about it.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed.

August 20, 2017

 My laptop fan is really annoying. It's gotta be reaching the end of its life. I'm worried the new one won't arrive in time for the video game discussion workshop, because I plan on using my laptop to play the game. I don't need it crapping out completely in the middle of the workshop.

This morning I read in bed for awhile and then played more Kritika. I don't really like the game, not even a little bit, it's to repetitive. And I know all MMOs are repetitive but this one has me playing the exact same areas over and over again because I have to be a certain level to unlock new ones, and it is taking forever to level up. I'm only sticking with it just for the hope of reaching level twenty so I can get the Tera mount. I'm doubting my ability to do that before the end of the month but I'll keep trying. Maybe.

This afternoon I looked into a better rotation for my Tera character and tonight I tried it out. The guide I found was for a max level character, so I can't do everything yet, but I think it's better than what I had before. Progress. Also, dungeons are definitely the best way to level up. I did three or four runs tonight and I'm up to level fifty-three. Ever closer to level sixty-five.

Along with the games I watched videos, listened to music, and continued watching New Girl. Such a good show.

Before dinner I took a nap because I love crawling into bed in the afternoon, turning on some music, and just lay there. It's pretty much the greatest. It does screw with my bedtime a little bit but we'll see if I can fall asleep before midnight.

August 19, 2017

 This morning I kind of slept in but not really. Then I played Tera for awhile because getting ready and going to my Mom's house to do laundry. I spent the afternoon reading, watching The Rundown, and taking a brief nap. I had Papa Murphy's for dinner, watched Baywatch, and played more Tera. I ended up doing a dungeon run where three out of the five party members disconnected during the middle of the second boss fight. Luckily the other remaining member was a healer. It took forever to beat the boss because my character doesn't hit very hard but we both stuck with it and eventually beat the boss. Afterward we invited more people to the party and got two people. One kept disconnecting during the third boss fight and the person was kind of there but didn't really seem to be doing much. That fight again took forever but we finished. I'm up to level 48, ever closer to 65. I think I need to just chain dungeons because that's where the XP is and I'm not having to run back and forth across the map. It goes decently fast if there is a whole party.

And that was pretty much my day. There hasn't been much to write about lately. Or maybe I'm just going through a phase of not wanting to write the same little things over and over again. I don't know. Since I started writing a daily journal I have written so much, and my life is rarely exciting enough to actually warrant writing about, but I continue to do it anyway. And I will most likely continue to do it. You never know when something exciting is going to happen. Unless it's planned. Then it will probably be pretty obvious.

August 18, 2017

 This morning I slept in, did the usual things, and went to work.

A lot of my day was spent figuring out my tutorial screenshot issue. That issue being the desire to capture the exact same part of our website but with different menus activated and whatever else. I was having trouble getting each screenshot the same size so that as I went through the slides the screenshots wouldn't jump around the page. Today I came up with a solution using two Chrome extensions. The first allows me to take a screenshot of only what is visible inside the browser window, without the bookmark bar and all all that stuff. The second allows me to resize the window to a specific size. This allows me to resize the window so it shows exactly what I want, and then I can save those dimensions and automatically got back to that size if I need to take more screenshots. It makes things much easier than just trying to eyeball things.

Other than that, I answered the phone many times and told people we didn't have eclipse glasses, I finished reading one of the many magazines I still need to get through, and showed our new assistant how to close upstairs. And I think that's pretty much my day. I also did walkthroughs and refilled displays and other random things I'm forgetting.

When I got home, I watched YouTube videos, clicked around the internet, responded to a couple Bumble messages, and then took I took way too long to write this. And now I'm going to record my audio journal and maybe play a game for a little bit. We'll see.

August 17, 2017

 This morning I slept in, did things, and eventually went to work. Pretty much just like every other day I close at the library.

The requests for solar eclipse glasses continue to roll in with an aggressive frequency. Tuesday will be nice when it's all over. Except for the people who don't realize the eclipse is on Monday and continue to call. I would say 90% of our calls today were about glasses. I had one from California because they'll be coming to the area for the eclipse. Circulation had one from New York, thinking they had called NYPL, but they were still asking about glasses. It's a very interesting experience.

When I was at my Mom's house last night I grabbed some wire that I had salvaged from an old ethernet cable years ago. At work today I unwound a couple wires by attaching a stapler to either wire, and started spinning them. I found attaching weight and spinning the wires to unwind them is a lot easier than slowly unwinding them by hand. Then I figured out how much wire I actually needed to make a bracelet. I first tried three feet but that was not enough. Next I jumped up to five feet, which I think is just about perfect. I had eight inches left over which I think is a good margin of error for bigger or smaller wrists.

Throughout the day I worked on deleting duplicates from our summer reading program. Some of them were obvious, others not so much, but I think I got it all taken care of. Which is good because now final reports can be run and overall totals can be calculated.

I taught our new assistant about interlibrary loan today. I covered a lot of information and ended up keeping her a couple minutes after she was supposed to leave. A lot of the stuff I covered is only rarely used and stuff I usually have to refresh myself on whenever it comes up because I can't remember something I only do every six months.

Tonight I finished up the duplicate thing but that was about all I accomplished. My Mom stopped by for a thing in the auditorium and then came over to the desk and we talked for a little while. I was also closing with another librarian so we ended up talking about a lot of different things. A decent chunk of which were library related.

I emailed the high school automotive tech teacher today about teaching the car class at the library. I haven't heard back yet but I'm really hoping it works out so I don't have to keep searching. We already have seven people signed up for the class so it would be great if I could find someone soon so I can get past this stress.

I think that was about it for my day. When I got home I ate some snacks, watched YouTube videos, clicked around the internet, and wrote this. I close again tomorrow so I'll get to sleep in a little bit if I can get to bed soon. I like sleeping in.

August 16, 2017

 This morning I woke up and started ironing my pants. In the middle of that I thought I heard something, but it turned out to just be a plane. Then I thought I heard something again, but it was just a lawn mower. And then, the rain came plowing into the back of the house. I immediately went down to my basement, set a chair in front of the window, climbed up on said chair, and shined a flashlight out into the window well. Despite the sound of the rain, there were only a few drips of water coming off of the tarp covering the window well. A good sign. I checked again after getting ready for work when the rain had stopped and there still weren't any signs of water coming in. Victory. For now.

At work I came really close to taking notes. But I didn't. I called my homebound patrons not too long after getting to work. I sent an email to someone who working in the basement to see if they could teach our car class because he used to be a Driver's Ed instructor. Turns out that was a long time ago so he didn't feel like the best person for the job. I also thought about a craft project for the maker fair. I still really want to make a giant Jenga set. I had the thought today to make telephone wire bracelets. Many years ago when I was a kid we made them at a summer program. Several years ago I took apart an old ethernet cable that happened to have similar wires inside, and I was able to make the bracelet again. I don't know how that could be related to the library in any way, but it's an idea and I think it fits in well with the idea of a maker fair.

After lunch we went to deliver books. The forecasted rain never materialized but it was a little cloudy and there was a nice breeze, that kept the humidity at a more bearable level. The deliveries themselves went well and I think we got done in record time. When we got back we pulled out all the bookmarks and got the books ready for processing by circulation. Then I replaced my DVD display sign with the second one I made and I pulled more books for my large print romance display.

I was on desk for the next hour (and kind of the hour after that because I just stayed on the computer). I started inputting feedback from my homebound patrons into their spreadsheets but I spent most of the time showing the new assistant things at the desk. I was only supposed to show her phone stuff but that ended up spiraling into other things and I think I probably showed her way more stuff than I probably should. I told her that she was probably going to forget most of what I was telling her and it really wouldn't be relevant to her until she actually needed to do something, and she agreed. I figure it can't hurt to plant the seeds though, so maybe she'll pick up on something quick in the future when she is presented with an issue. At the very least she'll have an inkling of a memory that she has heard about such-and-such before.

I had a long reference phone call today from an old Vietnam vet. He immediately started off confused when I answered the phone and mentioned Adult Services. He was a little worried he had dialed the wrong number and called a risque establishment, not a library. Once we got that sorted out he got to his question, which was about books put out by the military, back when he was in the service, that gave brief histories of countries all over the world. We didn't really get anywhere with that because it was a fairly broad request and I couldn't track anything down. I should have gotten his name and number so I could keep looking. I did tell him about the World Factbook from the CIA and gave him the number to the university library because I thought he might have better luck with their collection and access to other academic libraries. I hope he finds what he's looking for.

I ended up working fifteen minutes past six o'clock because a patron came up with a question with about seven minutes to go and his question segued into other questions and everyone still working kind of disappeared on me. I got out of their eventually and I can take a longer lunch tomorrow or Friday to make up for it.

After work I picked up Qdoba and went to my Mom's house for dinner. We ate, talked, and watched YouTube videos. Same old family dinner night, same old good times. I'm okay with that. And when I got home, it was the same old thing. Watched YouTube videos, clicked around the internet, and eventually got around to writing this. It's taken awhile, as per usual, because distractions. But now it is almost midnight so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I close tomorrow so I can sleep in if I get to bed soon enough.

August 15, 2017

 This morning was interesting because I woke up when my alarm went off at six o'clock, laid there for a minute or two, and when I looked back over at my alarm clock, forty-seven minutes had passed. The quickest forty-seven minutes of my life.

When I got to work, there was all the usual opening stuff, including the sharpening of a bunch of pencils. It is so nice now with the new sharpener. And I know it's not going to last so I'm going to enjoy it while it does.

I don't feel like I accomplished much today. This morning I caught up on emails from yesterday and new emails sent to the reference desk. Then I had a meeting with one of the IT people to learn how she deletes duplicate patrons from the summer reading program. I was volunteered to do this next summer. I'll have to relearn how to do it next summer, but it's good to at least get the frame of reference in my head.

This afternoon one of the other librarians and I did an outreach event at an international student fair on campus. It was a hot walk pulling a heavy box of outreach stuff uphill to the outreach location. The humidity was ridiculous. Even though I was hot and sweaty for the majority of the event, it went well. We talked to around sixty people and there was a lot of excitement for the library. One thing we had to keep emphasizing was that all of our services are free. There were a lot of non-believers. But I think we made a pretty good first impression for a lot of the new students.

When we got back I was on desk but I had a few things to do so the other librarian covered for a little bit. That allowed me to return the credit card (which we needed for the parking garage), give the PR lady our headcount sheet for the outreach event, and I gave a notebook to our new assistant. Oh, by the way, our new assistant started today. I only spoke with her long enough to hand her a notebook, but I think I'm supposed to teach her things sometime this week, so there will be plenty of time to welcome her to the department.

I got off at five o'clock and when I got home my driveway was fill with cars. My Dad, sister, and brother were all there working on my window well. They had actually just finished working on it. It seems like the drain in the window well is a lot cause because it is completely packed with clay. My brother dug out the rock and dirt in the corners of the window well by the house, reattached the window well to the house, and put a line of silicone between the metal and the house. There was a lot of dirt and silt coming in that way, so that should at least keep more crap from coming in and clogging the drain even more. The next step is to get a proper cover and to contact the HOA to find out about some modifications to the yard and who would be responsible and what I'm actually allowed to do. My window well is pretty much at the low spot in my yard and it would be best if we could knock down a couple rises in the yard and use that dirt to build up around the window well so water runs away from it, not to it. We'll see what the HOA has to say. I have yet to have any contact with them and haven't paid any money, so we'll see.

I basically had the same dinner as last night night, minus the potato salad, and spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and clicking around the internet. An uneventful night.

And now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I'm tired.

August 14, 2017

 Taking apart my laptop last night didn't help. The fan still sounds awful. It sounds alright if I tip laptop up so the lid is on the table and the keyboard is upright but that is impractical. I've ordered a new fan and hopefully that will solve the issue. And hopefully it doesn't take a month to get here, which is the outside window.

I think it was close to three o'clock in the morning when I finally made it to bed. And then I was wide awake at eight o'clock. I acknowledged how ridiculous that was and refused to get out of bed. It took awhile but I eventually fell back to sleep until eleven o'clock.

I loaded up and headed to my Mom's house at noon to do laundry. While laundry happened I finished two books, A Cool Moonlight by Angela Johnson and Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. A productive reading day. I also watched The Goonies. I wanted to watched Get Smart but the guide on the TV lied to me and the channel played Driving Miss Daisy instead. Haven't seen it, don't want to see it. I also watched several episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. And I took a nap because why not.

When I got home I made an egg sandwich for dinner, watched YouTube videos, continued watching New Girl, and played more Tera. It is taking an increasingly longer time to level up. Tonight I was only able to go from level forty-four to forty-five. Chipping away.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I don't know if I'm actually tired enough to go to bed but I have to open in the morning, so I'm going to be laying there even if I can't fall asleep.

August 13, 2017

 Good grief. It's 12:30AM. I started this an hour ago and then I got sidetracked.

This morning I slept in, read in bed for awhile after waking up, took a short nap, and then got ready. After lunch I headed to work. It was an uneventful day. The first part of the day was spent finishing up homebound stuff. Turns out I didn't get very far with the spreadsheet updating yesterday, so that took a little while, and then I did the bookmark thing and stuffed the books in bags. And that was pretty much the end of my accomplishments for the day.

There was a big meeting in the auditorium today and they ran out of chairs so I had to find some more. I found some old ones that turned out to be solid metal. They looked like they had a metal frame with a plastic seat and back, but nope, everything was metal. And they were freaking heavy. They were also really dusty because they probably haven't been used in a decade. But they got the job done. Thankfully, when it was all over, the guy in the tech center helped me stack them back on the tower of other chairs.

I kind of worked on my tutorial thing today but got hung up on the screenshot aspect of it. I want to show consecutive shots of the same page with different menus showing, but I don't want to show the whole screenshot, just the webpage, and I want each one to be the same size so they don't jump around the page as the menus change. I couldn't come up with a decent solution so I didn't really get anywhere. I gave it a decent try.

Less than five minutes before we closed I helped the patron from yesterday with another prescription drug thing. And then after we closed we were a little bit late because one of the employee entrances wasn't locked and we had to figure out how to lock it. Surprisingly tricky.

On my way home I picked up a sandwich from Jimmy John's so I didn't have to make dinner. I spent the rest of my evening watching New Girl (getting into the second season) and playing Tera. I'm somewhere in the 40s on leveling my character. Progress.

While I was at work my Dad and brother looked at my window well. It sounds like they came up with a plan of attack so hopefully we can get that ball rolling. It will be nice going back to not worrying about my basement flooding.

When I first turned my laptop on to write this the GPU fan was loud as hell again. So I opened up my laptop again and figured out how to pull the fan out. The fan looked fine but when I pulled it out there was some dust next to the heat sink. It doesn't seem like that would be enough to cause the weird noise but we'll see. It doesn't happen regularly, and it hasn't happened in at least a week or two. Time will tell.

And it's now 1:45AM because I have been watching New Girl while writing this. Good grief.

August 12, 2017

 This morning I got up and ready with plenty of time before work, which is weird because it was really early. I was even on track to be at work five minutes early, but it was not meant to be. There was a race or something on the main street that I needed to cross to get to the library. It is a thing that has happened before but with my old route to work I was on the correct side of the road. My new route screws me. I ended up driving parallel to the road on a side street and the whole freaking thing was blocked. I then drove around the mall and the exit I wanted to take was also blocked off, so I had to turn back around and take yet another route. In the end I was two minutes late. It was very frustrating.

Despite that beginning, I had a productive day. I made a tiny sign, I finished homebound lists, pulled all of the books, checked out all the books, updated most of my spreadsheets, put up the weekly newsletter thing around the building (which was very inefficient because one of the elevators was turned off and I had to backtrack multiple times), and I helped patrons. I helped one find prescription drug information and I helped another one find something on microfilm in the last ten minutes before we closed. She really appreciated it and couldn't believe she only owed a dollar and gave me five dollars instead. So now I have to break the five and figure out where to put the other four dollars. One option would be to turn it into quarters for the desk when people are short for printing. We'll see.

All-in-all, the day seemed to drag a little bit but by the end of the day it seemed like it had flown by. I'm okay with that.

When I got home I did all the usual stuff. I finished the last of my leftovers and I'm not sure what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow. I want to try a new recipe but I also don't know what I want that recipe to be. I'm also very tempted to pick up a pizza because pizza is delicious and easy.

I started/continued watching New Girl tonight. I started watching it awhile ago but only made it a few episodes in before getting sidetracked. I started again a couple days ago and continued tonight. My goal is the same as it is with every marathon I start, to finish the series. I had the same goal with Friends but that has since fizzled out. We'll see. My more realistic goal should be to finish the first season. While I watched New Girl I played Tera and leveled up a few times. Progress.

It has now taken me far too long to write this because I'm watching New Girl. Luckily there isn't a lot to talk about so the audio journal will go quickly. And then I can sleep.

August 11, 2017

 This morning I woke up at eight o'clock, which was way too early given the time I went to bed. Regardless, I got up and read a book on my couch. And then I took a nap on my couch. Such a good napping couch.

After waking up from my nap, I eventually had lunch, got ready, and my sister came over to help me put a new downspout on my house. Not the whole setup, just the bottom part. Now the one behind my house drains out into the yard, not right next to the house. I would say that is an improvement. She also brought soft pretzels, which I have since eaten way too many of. They are so good.

Following that, I went to Target to buy things. I think after at least five years of eating Cheez-Its almost every day for lunch, I need a break. I bought knock-off Wheat Thins and Triscuits instead. We'll see how that goes. I could also forgo the elementary kid lunch and move toward a grown-up lunch, but I don't think I'm there yet.

With the rest of my day I watched a few YouTube videos and then switched to listening to the audiobook version of Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, read by Aziz Ansari. While listening to that, I played Tera. They are doing another leveling up event this month, so I'm trying to max level one of my characters. I started with one of my characters yesterday or the day before but I didn't really like the play style of that class, which is why I had previously abandoned it. Today I switched to a different character/class that I created however long ago but never leveled up past a certain point. The Brawler class is still my favorite, and so far all the other classes I have tried have not lived up to the Brawler, but I think I might make it to the end with whatever class I'm currently playing.

It is now midnight and I have to open at the library tomorrow morning, but I only have a half an hour of Modern Romance left so I'm going to be up at least long enough to finish the book. And to record my audio journal. But then I'm going to bed.

August 10, 2017

 Last night I didn't get to bed until one o'clock or so because I made the mistake of updating my laptop before I recorded my audio journal. Instead of being a quick update it took just shy of forever. And then it completely screwed up the settings on my computer. Some things were too big, other things were too small. I had already waited so long for the update to happen, everything broke, and then I couldn't fix it in a reasonable amount of time so I just got more and more pissed. I ended up having to record my audio journal on my desktop. At some point I'm definitely going to forget where I have recorded various videos and be unable to upload them to YouTube. We'll cross that bridge later. The whole thing turned what should have been a relatively early night into a late, pissed off one.

This morning I slept in, read a little bit in bed, got ready, ate lunch, and headed to work. I would say I had a fairly unproductive day. All week has kind of felt that way. I updated chat stats and refilled displays. I added DVDs a couple times throughout the day, added a lot of books to the large print romance display, and added several books to the audiobook display. I helped the occasional patron. I missed a meeting with one of the IT people because I put it on my Outlook calendar last week but didn't get a notification today. I am annoyed by that because I don't like standing people up.

My main accomplishment for the day (which is sad) was writing a post for our staff blog about the two staff members who got the staff prize for summer reading. I'm happy with how it turned out but I spent way too much time on it. It involved talking about the box people put their tickets in, announcing the winners, and providing a virtual participation ribbon for everyone who didn't win. I spent a lot of time making the participation ribbon and it isn't obvious. Most of my evening tonight was spent picking out a GIF to put at the beginning of the entry. I looked at so many GIFs. Some would say too many GIFs. But it is hard finding the perfect GIF that is also appropriate for such a wide audience. In the end I think I did a pretty okay job. It was not necessarily the best use of my time, but the final product is decent.

It was another night closing with another librarian, not an assistant, so we ended up spending our time talking about random things and occasionally working on stuff. It's definitely not a habit we could maintain because we'd never get anything done, but it is nice every now and then to just talk. Not only tossing around library ideas but also just going off on random tangents. I think it's a necessary brain break.

When I got home tonight I watched a livestream and then a bunch of YouTube videos. I also signed up for a new dating app because why not. The other one has turned into a bit of a game for me, trying to figure out which girl in the group picture created the profile. The new one has actual gamification in it, letting you earn currency for logging in every day and using the app. They also restrict the number of girls they show you a day, so I won't get trapped swiping out of boredom. I've got a little too jaded with the first app, only having one interaction with a girl, so it really is more of a game with no real world consequences. I don't know how I would handle actually matching with people and getting to the point of potentially meeting someone in person. That is way outside of my comfort zone. I like the potential of a dating app actually working but I don't know about the reality.

It just started raining again. It looks like a pretty small pocket of rain thankfully. I'm not ready for another downpour.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Hopefully I can do it on my laptop but we'll see if the game looks right. I'm not holding my breath.

August 9, 2017

 I have been yawning all day. Turns out sleep is not overrated.

I sharpened so many pencils this morning. It was awesome. It makes me wish I could open every morning for a week or so and get through all the unsharpened pencils. I ended up stopping after the new sharpener got really hot and I could start to smell it. I don't want to burn out the new sharpener.

My morning ended up being a little different than expected. I emailed the PR lady last night about a maker faire and she emailed me this morning and asked if I wanted to go to a meeting about it forty-five minutes late. My boss said it was cool and someone was able to cover the desk. Five minutes later the PR lady was no longer able to go to the meeting but I still went with someone from our library system. I'm in charge of coming up with something for the faire for our department and the meeting helped me get a better idea of what the faire is all about. It still kind of feels like I'm joining a big project in the middle of it, much like summer reading, but I'll figure it out.

I showed one of the other librarians how to use the giant paper cutter in the basement. Always fun to bring people to the dark side of cutting large amounts of paper at one time.

This afternoon we had a staff meeting. Before the meeting I helped one of the other librarians decorate the boardroom because it was the one-on-one tech lady's birthday. I'm not much of a decorator but I think I did a pretty decent job.

The meeting went well, we talked about a bunch of different things, laughs were had, and then it was almost time to leave. I spoke with my coworkers, including the teen librarian. I had her call the guy I called yesterday and asked for Ryan when his name is Brian. It was nice avoiding that awkwardness.

After work I picked up Qdoba and headed to my Mom's house for dinner. We ate food, watched YouTube videos, and talked about things.

When I got home I emptied the dehumidifier and turned the fans on in the basement. It's supposed to rain again on Saturday, hopefully not as bad as last weekend. But just in case I have no plans of doing anything with the carpet. I think at the very least I'll be waiting until I can get the window well drain unclogged.

I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and livestreams, and clicking around the internet. I also briefly fell asleep in my chair. I'm so tired. It might be a good thing I haven't gotten a more comfortable office chair.

It's now eleven o'clock and it seems like it should be way later than that. I close again tomorrow which means I get to sleep again. I'm looking forward to that.

August 8, 2017

 This morning I slept in and did not get up early enough to read. Well, I did wake up early enough, but I like laying down in bed with my eyes closed so much.

When I got to work I made a spreadsheet, went on a walkthrough, met with my boss, and then the teen librarian and I picked the winners for the summer reading prizes. For the first half I set up the random number generator, the teen librarian pulled the ticket, and I filled in the spreadsheet. Then we swapped for the second half, just to keep things interesting.

I called the first half of the adult patrons before I went to dinner and the second half after dinner. For the majority of the patrons I had to leave a voicemail, which does not surprise me because I don't answer my phone if it's a number that isn't in my phone. The best call was when I called an older patron and the husband answered the phone. I started with “Hi, is Joy there?” and the old guy's response was “I can tell you she's here but you should ask to speak with her.” Well played, sir.

I got one “wrong” number but after verifying the number by finding another drawing ticket from the same patron, I realized we wrote the name down wrong. When I called I asked from Ryan and the person who answered said I had the wrong number. Turns out his name is Brian. Really? I would think having a name like Brian you would get used to people calling you Ryan. Although you may also get tired of it, so there's that. I think I'm going to have the teen librarian call him back tomorrow to avoid the awkwardness.

Tonight I got very little done because I ended up speaking with the other librarian and the guy from the tech center most of the night. I managed to figure out the Ryan-Brian thing and I finished editing a brochure, but that was about it. I'm not proud of it. That is one problem with working with another librarian instead of an assistant. I did get into super sidetracked conversations with the assistant who recently left but we were good about getting back to our own things. Most of the time. With another librarian, that is harder. We are generally at least talking about something work related but it can go off into tangents, generally because we're both trying to avoid something else. But it keeps us sane, so I'll roll with it.

After work I stopped by my house to pick up the trash bags with the wet carpet pad and took them to my Mom's house because tomorrow is trash day. I also picked up some seasoned pretzels that I am going to take to work tomorrow for a birthday thing. On my way to my Mom's house I was genuinely shocked by seeing the moon. I was coming around a bend in the road and the moon popped out from behind a house. It was huge and orange and I was not expecting it at all. It was pretty cool.

When I got home I emptied the dehumidifier and turned on the fans in the basement. I'm pretty sure everything is dry at this point but better safe than sorry. And the dehumidifier is still pulling moisture out of the air, so I'm not in any hurry to call it good. I'm tempted to clean the carpet while it's still pulled up so I can dry it out more easily and make sure it isn't wet underneath.

With the rest of my night I watched a livestream, a few YouTube videos, and now I'm writing this. Tomorrow morning is going to suck because it is almost midnight, I still need to record my audio journal, and I open. Sleep is overrated.

August 7, 2017

 This morning I woke up, ironed pants, got ready, and went to work.

At work I did things. Today went by really quickly it seems. I caught up on prize tickets that were turned in over the weekend. We got some more during the day but I'll grab those tomorrow before we do the drawings.

I had a meeting with the one-on-one tech trainer to talk about the class schedule for the Spring. It feels ridiculous because the Fall classes haven't even started yet. The thing I realized today is that there are more classes in the Spring than the Fall, so we're having to come up with ten classes. We got a decent start but I still need to come up with a few more ideas.

I called the insurance company today but that was pointless because they don't cover damage due to water runoff. Great. They suggested calling a restoration company. Not that helpful.

This afternoon I was on desk for awhile, helped patrons, did a walkthrough or two, refilled displays, and maybe did some other things I'm forgetting. Oh, I started working on a brochure for our classes that I can take with us to an outreach event next week. I like designing things but it would also be nice if we had a full marketing or advertising department that could handle that sort of stuff. Our PR lady is in charge of most of the design and templates but she's a single person for an entire library, so it's not ideal.

I left work half an hour early to make up for the weekend. On my way home I stopped by a mailbox to mail my jury duty form, and then swung by my Mom's house to pick up a dehumidifier for my basement. When I got home I pulled the carpet up in my basement and tore out the carpet pad. Luckily the carpet pad was split down the middle of the room and the water stopped right before crossing to the second piece. Once that was done I set up the fans to dry out the carpet and the concrete. Throughout the night I moved the fans around and I think the concrete and wall are possibly good so now I just need to focus on the different parts of carpet. It's a bit tricky trying to arrange it on chairs to get the fans in the right place, especially because the carpet is still attached at the closet. I'm getting it worked out.

I didn't really do anything with my night other than the basement stuff. I clicked around the internet, watched YouTube videos, and watched a couple livestreams. I need to get better about doing things with my free time.

It is now after midnight and I am going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I don't go in until noon so maybe I'll wake up early enough to read. Or maybe I'll wake up early enough to go back to sleep for a little while.

August 6, 2017

 I said I was going to go to bed last night but I ended up going back down to the basement and used the carpet cleaner until four o'clock in the morning, sucking more water out of the carpet.

I woke up this morning a little before eleven o'clock and went back to the basement. I used the carpet cleaner and listened to an audiobook. The audiobook thing really wasn't successful because there was just too much noise. A little while later my Mom came over with a box fan to help with the drying process. Throughout the day I continued to go down there, move the fans, and use the carpet cleaner. I think I've gotten to the point where there is nothing left that can be sucked out of the carpet. It is still wet though so the fans continue to blow. Tomorrow I'll call the insurance company and we'll see what happens next.

For dinner I roasted Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli. I also made stir fry sauce and mixed that in with brown rice. And I made some eggs, because why not. While I ate dinner I watched The Circle, which is basically showing us the future of Google and Facebook. Or maybe it's the present. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

I didn't really accomplish much today. Except may the nap I took this afternoon. I feel pretty good about that. I really didn't have any motivation to do anything today. The events of last night kind of wiped me out.

I have discovered a new favorite game thanks to the dating app. It involves trying to figure out which girl made the profile. So many girls put up group pictures, so you have to try and pick out who is in all of them. Some of them can be pretty tricky. The goal is to figure it out before getting to an individual picture.

August 5, 2017

 Well, today could have been better.

It started off well. I slept in, read books in bed when I woke up, and then made a big egg sandwich for breakfast. This afternoon my Mom picked me up and took me back to her house so I could do laundry. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading books, watching Star Trek, and taking a nap.

I got a call from the mechanic that my car was ready. The battery ended up being bad so they replaced it, and they were able to do an oil change as well. Altogether it was nearly three hundred dollars, but now I shouldn't have to worry about my car not starting.

My dinner was a repeat of yesterday but with cold potato salad, which really wasn't any different than the warm potato salad. It still isn't for me.

After dinner I decided to go to the basement to play a little VR. I did that for a bit and then I installed Minecraft because I wanted to try out the VR mod. I wasn't able to finish that process because being a grown-up and owning a house took over.

There was a lot of rain tonight and while I was sitting down in my VR room the sound of rain changed to something else. I went and looked at the window and the water was about two inches high on the window. The window is in a window well, so this meant the window well was filling with water. And that water was not only rising, it was starting to come in through the window. I ran upstairs, grabbed a bunch of towels. That was incredibly insufficient. It was like trying to put a bandaid on a severed limb. Before anything else I moved all my computer and VR stuff off the ground. Then I grabbed a big plastic container, tried to position the towels in the windowsill so they would run into the container, and pushed the container lid against the wall to try and catch some of the water than was running down the wall and reroute it to the container. There was so much water. At this point it was at least six inches high on the wall and it cascading down the wall in a torrent. It was all a little overwhelming.

I called my Mom and she suggested putting something over the window well. Some big piece of particle board came with the house so I used those. I also fixed the downspout thing because it was off and that may have been part of my problem. After that I called my Dad. Maybe half an hour later my sister came over with her high powered fan, and shortly after that my Dad and step-mom came over.

By the end of it, I used the shop vac to get all of the standing water out of the window well. There is a drain in the center of it but it is obviously clogged because it wasn't working. My step-mom used a carpet cleaner to suck the water out of the carpet because that worked way better than the shop vac. My Dad and I also adjusted the downspout so it would drain farther from the house, and we covered up the window well with some borders and a tarp. I also pulled a bunch of weeds and realized how many weeds are actually in my back garden area. I need to do something about that.

We called it a night sometime after one o'clock in the morning. My step-mom got a lot of water out of the carpet but so much water came in through the window. She left the carpet cleaner so I could keep going over the carpet and my sister left the fan. I was going to do more of the carpet cleaning thing tonight but it's three o'clock in the morning right now and I need to go to bed. It will still be there in the morning, unfortunately.

The really annoying thing is that I just got all my new computer and VR stuff set up in that room. It is also very fortunate that I was down there tonight because if I wasn't there would be all this water just sitting in my basement right now. Or rather, way more than there currently is. So I'm unlucky but also really lucky at the same time.

And now I'm going to go to bed. I'll have to record my audio journal tomorrow because at the moment I am way too tired to even attempt to form a complete thought with my words.   

August 4, 2017

 I actually had a little extra time this morning and didn't have to run around before work. That hasn't happened in awhile. Especially on a day I open.

At work, not a lot was accomplished. It was very much a Friday for everyone in the department. For most of the day it was just me, one other librarian, and the boss, and we were all doing all we could to do as little as possible. I think we were pretty successful.

My greatest success was being the first person to use the new pencil sharpener. It is the same model as the old one but it is quieter and sharper, more than likely because it's brand new. It still has a tendency to miss part of the pencil and I had to use my pocket knife to whittle that bit away. It also sharpens the lead in more of an oval-shaped cone, instead of a regular circular one. It's interesting.

I caught up on writing numbers on the last stack of prize tickets I had pulled. I also organized all of the staff prize tickets. For those I decided to try my idea for next year and I only wrote numbers on every twenty-fifth ticket, marking that ticket with a post-it note so they were easy to find. It was much faster to do that and even though we may have to count a little bit when a number is picked, it is still way faster than writing on every ticket.

Last night I opened up the library homepage and used my mouse to write “HELLO ME!” by tracing it across the page. I couldn't see it at the time but this morning I opened up the site that we use to record usability videos. One of the features is that it leaves a traced line wherever the mouse moves on the screen. I have always thought it would be funny if someone wrote a message, but patrons don't know about it, so I decided to write a message to myself. I thought it was pretty funny. And it turned out pretty well.

I read a few articles about the coming eclipse. One showed some of the earliest known pictures of a solar eclipse. The other was about NASA's suggestions for photographing the eclipse with a smartphone. I learned some things about my phone's camera.

I filled my DVD display a few times. Before I left I made sure it had thirty DVDs on it. I doubt it will make it through the weekend but hopefully someone will refill it. The audiobook display is still holding strong.

I talked with my coworkers a lot, mostly about work-related things but Friday sneaked in there every now and then and we talked about other random things. I also talked to the girl I think the teen librarian and one of the other people in the childrens department think I should go on a date with. She actually talked to me because I avoid talking to strangers. She stopped by the desk during one of her walkthroughs I think. Turns out she used to be roommates with someone I worked with for years at the theater. Small world.

When I went to lunch my car wouldn't start, once again. Thankfully I was able to jump it. After work I drove to the mechanic to see if they had an openings tomorrow. They didn't think they would have time for a full service but said they could probably check the basic things in between their other appointments. Better than nothing.

It was a bit of a mess getting out of the parking lot due to the traffic because it was around five o'clock but it ended up working out. In my frustration I ended seeing Freddy's and deciding their black bean burger was going to supplement my potato salad. I haven't had one in at least a year or three. I got two so I can have one tomorrow also, but I'll probably avoid them for another year or three because they are ridiculously expensive. It was over eleven bucks for two burgers. No thank you. I need to look for some good black bean burger recipes. I made them once but there are better recipes out there.

As for the potato salad, making it was a success but I was unimpressed with the recipe. On the plus side my house smells very zesty. I am hoping that day two will be better when I try it as a cold potato salad.

After dinner my Mom met me at the mechanic so I could drop off my car. Originally I was going to do it early in the morning but it made way more sense to do it tonight. Good call on my Mom's part.

I wanted to play games tonight but that hasn't happened. Dinner and car stuff take up a lot of time.

I may go down to the basement after I record my audio journal.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure what's going to happen yet. My Mom could pick me up at noon so I could do laundry at her house. If I hear good things from the mechanic before noon, maybe I can drive myself to my Mom's house to do laundry. Or if it's later, maybe I stay home and do laundry on Sunday. Time will tell.

August 3, 2017

 I set my alarm for nine o'clock this morning, it went off, and I ended up going back to sleep until ten o'clock. I guess I needed nine hours of sleep.

At work today I did things, as always, and I didn't take notes because I felt pretty certain I didn't need to. As always. But now, who knows what I did throughout the day.

I caught up on stat stuff for the different email things we send out. That much I remember. There's no way that took me four hours though. I sent some emails. Wrote numbers on some prize tickets. And most certainly did more things that I am forgetting.

When I got back from dinner I watched two hundred recordings of people using our website. I am now caught up with June and July and I started the recordings for August. The goal is to actually watch the August recordings in August.

With the little bit of time I had left I wrote numbers on more prize tickets. Minus the ones that were put in jars today, I only have one more stack to write numbers on. It's a decent sized stack but shouldn't take too long.

After work I stopped by my Mom's house because my Amazon stuff arrived today. When I got home I set up my new monitor. First impressions are it has a good size (27”), there aren't any dead pixels, and I think it is going to suit my needs. I also got a new mouse, which I like. It is nearly a clone of my current mouse on my old desktop but about half the price. We'll see how I feel about it when I actually have some time to use it.

I watched a TimTheTatman livestream tonight and he was playing Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? And it was hilarious. That is a major reason why it is creeping ever closer to midnight and I am still writing this. The other reason being I can't remember what I did at work today. I'm going to have to go back at some point and rewatch the whole stream because I came in on the tale end of it.

Tomorrow I open, which means I'll be getting less than six hours of sleep. That will make for a long day. But I get off at five o'clock and I'm going to make potato salad when I get home. I don't know what else I'm going to have for dinner. I haven't actually thought that far ahead. My eyes are on the potato salad prize.

August 2, 2017

 This morning I didn't burn myself and my car started, so it was automatically a better start to the day.

I didn't take notes but I did things today. I finished messing with the web stats spreadsheet. I got all of the charts to work and I also colored the cells in the table to show if there was an increase or decrease in views from month to month. I started doing this using conditional formatting, and it worked, but I was having to do one row at a time and it was taking forever. It was much quicker to do it manually and change the color myself. Using the colors ended up showing some interesting information, like how two of the pages dropped in views every April (and maybe another month) for as long as we've been keeping track of stats.

We were slow for the first hour or so of work and then all of a sudden we were inundated with patrons in person, in chat, and on the phone. It was strange, like the bat signal had gone up, except one made for patrons.

I worked on prize tickets today. By the time I left I had all the tickets pulled out of the jars and I was completely caught up on writing numbers on all of the teen tickets. There are still a decent number of adult tickets to write numbers on but I'm getting there. We will still probably have people coming in, and I printed out another two hundred tickets just in case, but I am hoping it won't be too crazy. I think if we do the same thing next year it might make more sense to count them out and mark every twenty-fifth or fiftieth ticket. After we pick a random number, out marked tickets would get us in the ballpark and then we could count up or down from there to find the winning ticket. It would be a lot quicker and achieve the same purpose.

I refilled the DVD and audiobook displays, both seem to be doing well. I also took down the large print inspirational displace and pulled books to make it the large print romance display. It's a little harder to tell large print romance novels by their spines compared to regular print romance. That made things a little trickier than I thought. I need to keep track of authors, I think, rather than focusing on individual books.

This afternoon when the teen librarian was at the desk we talked about books and work stuff, but we also talked about pens and PTSD. Those last two were different conversations. Both equally interesting but thankfully separate.

This all doesn't sound as hectic as the day felt at times, but I think I covered everything. Well, not everything, but enough to get the highlights.

After work I picked up Qdoba and headed to my Mom's house for dinner. After dinner we watched videos, which went over well, and then my Mom gave us a few things she got for us on her recent vacation. The coolest is a little wooden frog that has a little stick with it, and when you run the stick over the ribbed spine of the frog, it sounds like a frog. Pretty cool.

I got home around 9:30PM and have kind of been trying to write this for almost two hours now. Good grief. It's not quite midnight but thankfully I can sleep in tomorrow because I don't work until noon. I always look forward to sleeping in.