September 30, 2017

 This morning I woke up early because I went to bed at eleven o'clock. Once again, it is nice not sleeping through the entire morning. When I got out of bed I went out to the living room and read from a couple books for awhile. And then I played Terraria, because that's what I do now.

Eventually I got ready and ate lunch before heading to the convention. I realized shortly before going that I had forgotten all of the outreach stuff, like brochures and flyers, at the library. Whoops. Kind of defeats the major purpose of an outreach event. But I remembered the Makey Makey and the potatoes, so that's something. I think I was so focused on not forgetting that stuff that I forgot the other stuff. It even briefly crossed my mind yesterday but then I got distracted by something else. Oh well.

Despite not being the most vocal or obvious representative of the library, I would say the event went pretty well. I was right by the door (and also a trash can, so it smelled like old McDonald's the whole time). I briefly spoke with a librarian from out of town that is setting a gaming thing up at his library, so that was work related, and overall there were thirty-two people at my table, most of which played the game. If only I had remembered the outreach stuff.

I was there for three hours and afterward I picked up a sandwich at Jimmy John's and a drink at Sonic before heading home. I was there just long enough to load up my laundry and head to my Mom's house. And then I did laundry. I looked are the internet. I think I found the planner I want to buy. I want to keep better track of my work stuff and I think it would be helpful if I could write everything down in one place. I'm not a fan of trying to keep track of everything digitally because it always seems to be in a million different places. I would like to find a 2017 version so I could finish out the year and see if it works for me, but this late in the year that seems to be difficult. I'll keep looking.

In internet news, my sister is pretty great. She was annoyed with the service I got yesterday so she got on Twitter and got in contact with them. And now I have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow between 3:00PM and 5:00PM. That is way better than the information I got on the phone. I just hope it ends up being a problem on their end and not my router, because it will cost me $75 for the service call and then I would have to buy a new router on top of that. That would suck. I just want it to be something quick and simple so I can get back online. It's annoying paying for a service and then not getting it.

Now I'm going to go home and probably play Terraria. Because that's what I do now.

September 29, 2017

 This morning I would have liked to sleep a little longer. But I couldn't, so I got up, got ready, and went to work. I had almost a perfect run to work, with only one or two traffic lights, so I got there almost ten minutes early. This meant I finished all of my opening stuff quite a bit earlier than normal. I also sharpened all the remaining pencils. I might need to steal some from circulation so I have something to do the next time I open.

I edited my article today based on the suggestions I got from the three people who read it. And got some more suggestions on the latest draft. I'm a little worried that because I have it done so early I'm going to forget to send it to the paper next week. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Most of my day was spent coming up with my displays for next month. I have the DVD cart and the upstairs display. It took me awhile to come up with ideas but for the DVD cart I'm going with “Cheeky and Creepy” and the upstairs display is going to be “Costumes and Creatures and Cooking: Oh My” (or something like that, I can't remember the order of the words). I wanted to go with a Halloween theme for both and apparently I was having a very 'C' day. I also think I'm going with a similar design for both. Above the title I have Pennywise's eyes from It and underneath I have a dog with glasses for the DVD cart and pumpkins for the upstairs display. At least that's the idea for now. I also came up with a long list of books for the upstairs display. It is overkill because that display only checks out a handful of books each month, but I'm prepared nonetheless. It would be a good idea to use again on a more popular display.

Other than my article and the displays, I helped the occasional patron and talked to my coworkers. It was another fairly quiet day. Not a bad way to end the week.

I had a two hour lunch so I went home. And all was well until I arrived and found that my internet was out. I tried resetting it but that didn't help. So instead of watching YouTube videos or livestreams I played Terraria. Not a bad tradeoff but I still like the internet.

When I got home after work the internet was still out. I called technical support and got someone who sounded like it was her first day. She wanted me to reset the modem and I told her I did that right before calling but she wanted me to do it again. It didn't work. Then she wanted me to reset the router. I tried telling her that I have a combination router/modem so there wasn't anything else to reset, but she seemed a little flustered and insisted, so I repeated what I just did. Surprisingly, it didn't work. She then told me that the next available tech wasn't until Monday evening. I have no idea what my schedule is next week so I said I'd just call back to schedule an appointment.

During dinner I watched some old YouTube videos I had saved to my computer. I found the first three videos Lewis and Simon (of the Yogscast) made for Terraria when it was still in its alpha. Made me a little nostalgic. After dinner I headed over to my Mom's house because I needed the internet to get stuff ready for the outreach event tomorrow.

I downloaded the two games I told them I was thinking about trying, just in case. Then I made an improved cardboard controller. I left longer tails on the wire buttons and I completely covered up the wire on the back so I didn't have to worry about them touching each other or myself touching them and activating more than one button at once. I also taped a piece foil to the back where my finger naturally rested so that I could connect the ground wire to it. I then tried Race The Sun, Ragdoll Runners, Pac-Man, and Tetris. They all worked out well so I'm hopeful all will go well tomorrow.

While I worked on that stuff I watched episodes of the original Star Trek. They were... unique. Still a fan, though.

Now I'm going to call this good because it is ten o'clock and I want to go home. It would be nice if the internet would greet me, but it won't, so I might just record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm tired and have a headache.

September 28, 2017

 This will be a short entry because today was very slow at work. Most of my morning was spent working on my article. I only had a little bit left to write but I ended up spending a lot of time looking at potential books that I could mention. I wanted to add another book in the same vein as Ready Player One but I ended up not using any of the ones I found because I after I added in my concluding paragraph I didn't have enough room. I even had to cut other stuff. When I went to lunch I gave a copy to one of the librarians because she proofreads all of my articles, thanks to her English masters degree. The new librarian also has an English masters degree, so she looked at it as well. And I'm having the head of technical services read it because she used to be an English teacher. It should be pristine by next week.

This afternoon I went out with one of the assistants to deliver books to a few of the places around town where we leave books for people to read and take if they want. Today we went to the health department, an apartment complex, and the airport. I drove and we made pretty good time because I think I chose a pretty good route.

When we got back I had an hour left and I was on desk. I spent that time editing my article and talking with the teen librarian. Earlier in the day I also reading a couple issues of Library Journal and talked to one of the librarians about mental health. And I helped a patron a lot copying and pasting stuff at one of the computers. But that was pretty much my day. It was a very quiet day at the library, and that's fine with me.

After work I stopped by Walgreens to get a birthday card and gift card for my sister, a congratulations card for my friend who just got a job, and silver markers so I can sign the magazine I'm sending her. And then I headed home for a little bit before going to my Mom's house.

We went to the Chinese buffet for dinner, because that's where we go for birthday dinners. It wasn't my best experience at the restaurant but it also wasn't the worst. The roasted potatoes were good, so there's that. We stayed there for awhile and talked before heading back to my Mom's house for cake and ice cream. My sister and Mom ate local pumpkin ice cream but I'm not a big fan, so my sister got me Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. I've never had it before but I thought it looked good. And it lived up to my thought. Very tasty. I kind of feel bad eating ice cream, and my body isn't always the biggest fan, but it still tastes really good. After that we sat around and talked and watched TV until about nine o'clock, at which point I headed out.

When I got home I set up my air compressor, which arrived today. When the temperature goes up or down more than a few degrees my tire light comes one and it is annoying. I get tired of bugging my Dad or sister to use their air compressors and I refuse to pay $0.25 or whatever it is to use the air hose at a gas station. They've gotta make enough money on their jacked up food prices to cover free air. Anyway, I bought my own compressor so I can be more self-sufficient. Setting it up took nearly half an hour because I wanted to read through all of the instructions, and figuring out all of the attachments was a little confusing. When I finally turned it on I left it for a little bit and the pressure dial wasn't moving so I looked around and discovered the drain valve was open and all the air was just running out. I felt really smart. I turned the compressor off, shut the valve, and then filled up the tank for real. I think I need to figure out the output pressure because it filled the tires way too quick and it seemed like the compressor was turning on more than it should. I need to ask my dad because I think this is the same compressor he used to have. When I was done I went through the steps to get the air out of the compressor and good grief. Releasing the safety valve was ridiculously loud. I need to start wearing ear protection when I fill my tires. I may have also stood inside my house when the compressor was filling just in case something went wrong. I wanted at least a wall between me and it in case it blew up.

It is now almost 10:30PM and I am going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I'm tired and I open tomorrow. I still need to lose an hour for this weekend and was given the option to come in at nine o'clock so one of the other librarians could open (because she wanted to) but I already had my heart set on taking a two hour lunch, so that's still the plan. And it means I'm still opening. At least I'll be off at five o'clock.

September 27, 2017

 This morning started the same as most and then I went to work. I had two free hours and then walkthroughs, so I spent most of the morning upstairs. The convention outreach was accepted by the assistant director today so I'll be going to that on Saturday. I confirmed the details with the lady I spoke with last weekend and I'll be there for three hours in the afternoon. I think the leftover potatoes will still be good which means I won't need to buy new ones. I just need to modify the cardboard controller I made so hopefully it is more playable. I'm also tempted to take my own laptop so we can try some steam games and I won't have to install them on the work laptop. We'll see.

Throughout the day I worked on my article off and on. I made progress. I'm very close. Well, maybe not very close, but certainly close. I think I can finish up my current paragraph and then knock out a conclusion and I'll be good. Or at least good to edit it.

And I kind of feel like that way my day at work today. It was a quiet day that really flew by. I also got off an hour early because of the weekend thing. I'm also getting off early tomorrow and I'm going to take a two hour lunch on Friday. I'm looking forward to the two hour lunch.

Oh, I also registered for the conference next month. I got the okay either earlier this week or sometime last week but I couldn't register because I couldn't reset my password. I could have signed up as a non-member but it would have cost the library and extra fifteen bucks and I have already paid for my association membership so I might as well get the one perk out of it. Today I heard back about the email I sent when I couldn't reset my password and a couple emails later, I got that sorted out. And now I'm registered for the conference. The only thing left is to figure out what I'm actually going to say during my presentation. That's kind of an important thing to figure out.

After work I picked up Qdoba and headed to my Mom's house for dinner. The food was alright but it was in the weird space of being too little to split in half but being too much to eat in one meal. So I ate it all in one meal and ate fewer chips. My interest in Qdoba is waning. After eating we watched videos and talked for awhile and then I headed home around 7:30PM.

I am now in the middle of watching YouTube videos. It's only nine o'clock so I think I'm going to record my audio journal and then play Terraria for a little bit. Not a bad way to end the day.

September 26, 2017

 This morning I woke up at eight o'clock. I kind of woke up a few times before that but my alarm was set for eight o'clock so I just rolled back over. It was nice. When I finally got up I played Terraria for awhile before getting ready, eating lunch, and going to work. I like when I get to bed early enough the night before a closing shift that I can actually experience the morning before a closing shift. It's nicer than waking up with just enough time to get ready and eat lunch. I need to remember this when I slip back into the habit of staying up late and sleeping in.

Most of the first two hours of work was spent getting ready for my brief talk at the youth services department meeting. I learned when I got to work that I probably wouldn't have much success mirroring my phone on the big TV in the boardroom. My original solution was to just use a laptop. In my help ticket the IT guy suggested using our iPad but we were having a tech class at the same time as the meeting and it was over iPads, so that wasn't going to work. But then I remembered that youth services has a couple so I went down there to borrow one. After coming back upstairs I realized I needed to download an app and didn't know the password to do that, so I went back downstairs. The teen librarian got it for me and while I was there I ended up taking a call for our next adulting class, because the teen librarian wasn't feeling well, and then I covered the childrens desk for a bit, because the teen librarian wasn't feeling well. Thankfully the childrens room is quiet over the lunch hour so I didn't have to answer any questions.

When I got to the boardroom for the meeting we sat and talked while we waited for everyone to show up. Youth Services meetings seem to be a little more laid back than ours. Or maybe they're just more prone to tangents and sidebars. I don't know. I'm not saying ours are uptight but there is a different vibe to both. I'm not entirely sure how helpful my information was because they had all used either one or both of the services I talked about, but I think there were a few things in there that they found useful.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I talked with my boss and fellow librarians about various things throughout the day. I probably did some things as well. I do know that tonight I started working on my newspaper article. Based on the work count I'm about halfway done but I still need to figure out the rest of it and then go through and do some major edits. I've got a week left so I'm feeling good about it.

When I got home I ate pretzels and watched YouTube videos. And now I'm going to record my audio journal because I'm yawning and want to go to bed.

September 25, 2017

 Another note-taking kind of day, one where no notes were taken.

This morning I woke up and ironed all of my pants for the week before getting ready and going to work. I was off desk for the first couple of hours and most of that time was spent running around doing stuff. I returned the speaker and the big Makey Makey wire board to IT, and I went all over the library trying to track down our backpack with our laptop in it but the head of youth services ended up bringing it down to us. I also restocked my inspirational display because it checked out a lot of books over the weekend, and I tried to catch up on emails. And I messed around with our chat program on the iPad but couldn't figure out why the sound wasn't working. I also discovered that using it through the browser wasn't ideal because if you switched away from the browser or opened a new tab it would close the chat. It looks like there may be a mobile app option, which we may already have set up but I couldn't find it.

This afternoon I started working on my newspaper article by compiling a list of possible books to write about. The theme is books where characters escape to different worlds, like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Peter Pan. Through my searching I discovered that it is a pretty popular go-to in literature. I could write an entire dissertation just on books based on Alice, either ones using the storyline or ones set in the same world with the same characters. I didn't realize how many there were. But I'm going to go broader and focus on several different books that allow the reader to escape along with the protagonists.

We had a birthday thing for the new librarian today that came very close to not happening. I brought popcorn, but that appeared to be all we had. The one-on-one tech person said she was bringing chips and salsa but she had already gone home for the day. Another librarian was on vacation last week so she didn't know it was happening, the other librarian opted out of bringing anything because she always makes stuff and we seemed to have things covered, and our boss said she was bringing Coke but she didn't work today. When the new librarian went on her walkthrough we were supposed to set up for the celebration but the other librarian and myself talked about postponing it because it looked like it would just be my popcorn. But a few minutes later our boss showed up with the Coke and she pulled some candy out of the kudos container, and we got out all of the decorations. We made it with several minutes to spare and the new librarian seemed very surprised when she got back to the desk. So it all worked out.

A patron came up to the desk this afternoon and told us she really loved her personalized reading list but was going to wait until she had finished everything on it to turn in the feedback sheet. Unfortunately I didn't get her name so we don't know who actually made the list. On the plus side, until we find out, we can all pretend we made an awesome list.

And we'll say that was pretty much my day at work. There were some other things in there, like helping patrons, and messing with the telephone wire a little bit, and trying to once again to reset my KLA password unsuccessfully. I covered the main stuff, though.

When I got home I had leftovers for dinner. It does not seem that my brown rice and broccoli patties cause food poisoning, but I read it could take a couple days to hit, so I'm not going to give it the all-clear just yet. I will continue to tempt fate though because I've got two left, and they're tasty.

Tonight I spent over a thousand dollars on my mortgage and other bills. That's always fun. I also watched a few YouTube videos, the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, and played Terraria. I'm not sure how I feel about Star Trek: Discovery yet. I don't really like the lead actress. I think it might be her roll in New Girl as Winston's girlfriend/wife who was really into pranks. That was an annoying character. So now my default response when I see her is to be annoyed. We'll see if I can get past that. I also don't know how I feel about the Klingon design. They look so different. There are theories as to why this is but for right now I will choose to not like the look. It would also be nice if they would switch to speaking English the whole time so I could play a game and not have to worry about subtitles.

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

September 24, 2017

This morning I kind of slept in and it was nice. And then I did stuff for awhile. I know I played a little bit of Terraria, just to add a few more mods, but other than that I'm not really sure. Eventually I got ready, which was a little too slowly for my Mom because we were going to move a couple chairs over to my house and as the day progressed it became evident there was a deadline. She did not communicate that fact, partially because it didn't exist in the beginning, but also because she assumed I would get over too her house sooner. In the end we got it all sorted out and now I have two recliners in my living room. I need to do some rearranging because my current setup isn't going to work.

After the chair thing I did laundry and read a book. And took a nap because why not. When I got home I washed dishes, because I've been neglecting them, and then I made dinner. I tried the brown rice and broccoli cakes recipe that I've been thinking about for a week or two now. It was kind of a pain to make but in the end they tasted pretty good. I'm not entirely convinced I won't end up with food poisoning, though. One of the eggs I used had a hole in it, which I didn't see until after I cracked it in the bowl of food. I had gone too far at that point so now I'm just hoping for the best. The vegetable broth had also apparently been open and sitting on my shelf for who knows how long. It's been a long time since I used broth. So yeah. Fingers crossed.

With the rest of my night I played Terraria and watched Transformers: The Last Knight. It was really funny. The action is still cool but now I've come to expect it from a Transformers movie. But they nailed the comedy. At some point I need to go back and watch the others and see if the story makes any sense when you put it all together. At least with my memory, the story is always out-shined by the action. Oh well.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal because it is nearly eleven o'clock and I'm yawning.

September 23, 2017

 This morning I woke up with enough time that I could ready at a leisurely pace and get everything packed up for the faire. And then I headed out.

I got there a little early, just in case parking sucked, but it didn't, so I hung out in my car for a little while. The head of youth services ended up parking a couple spots over, which worked out nicely because she was able to help carry all the crap I had.

We got things set up and then rearranged things because the laptop was in the sun and you couldn't see the screen. Throughout the day we had to repeatedly move the canopy and the tables to keep ourselves in the shade. We also had to occasionally hold onto the canopy when the wind picked up so it didn't take the canopy with it. There were a couple times when it was pretty close.

As for the faire itself, I think it went pretty well. There was a bigger rush of people in the morning but things tapered off in the afternoon, mostly likely because it was really hot today. For the Makey Makey I ended up staying mostly with the whack-a-mole game because it was simple to learn and everyone from little kids to seniors enjoyed it. I also stuck with the potatoes because the kids really got into it and the two bananas we put out there got destroyed pretty quickly. I originally put up the piano but switched over before the faire actually started because I didn't think it would be as fun. I also let a couple kids try Pac-Man but they were getting frustrated by it because it wasn't as responsive as they wanted and the controller I made could have been better. The clips kept touching on the back of it which messed things up. But whack-a-mole was good.

The bracelets also went over pretty well. One of the other librarians came up with a bracelet design that was much faster and easier for kids to do. I don't think the bracelets were as cool, but I'm biased. That design made the bracelets more accessible so in the end it was a good thing. Except when it came to all of the instructions I printed out. Very few people took them because they weren't making that design so they had no need for them. That is unfortunate.

I was kind of forced to take a lunch break so I went to Jimmy John's. I only got a sandwich and water because I didn't want a cookie and I didn't think eating salty chips was a good choice for standing outside all day. And with only having a sandwich, it was really hard killing half an hour. But I managed it.

Throughout the day I talked to the principal at the school I used to work at and one of the second grade teachers, who I haven't seen since I left the school. I also talked to a couple of the university librarians, including my conference partner, who stopped by with muffins. She said they were from a barn-warming party she had just come from. She didn't make them but it is the second time she has run into public library people and brought us baked goods, the first time being when we came to the university library to sign people up for library cards. She said she doesn't always bring people baked goods but right now she's two for two, so we'll see. There was also a lady who recognized me from the magazine article. That is the first time someone I don't know has mentioned it, so that was kind of cool.

At four o'clock we tore everything down and I ate a complimentary doughnut, which was good but also very messy in the hot sun. We ended up not having to go back to the library to unload stuff, which was nice, mostly because it meant I wasn't going to have to figure out how to make that time back. As it was, we got done by 4:15PM. We were scheduled until 4:30PM but unloading would have taken us longer than that. And, it took me about fifteen minutes at the grocery store to pick up the bananas and potatoes, so now I'm even.

It was one of those slow/fast days. Time passed by pretty quickly but it also felt like it was dragging. But I survived. The top of my head got a little red from being in the sun too long even though I wasn't directly in it for too long. I can kind of feel it throbbing now, but that might not be related to redness. I probably should have worn a hat. It would have been nice if I could put sunscreen on the top of my head but I've still got some hair up there so I can't quite do that yet. If I do it again next year I'll probably say screw it and wear a hat, if the hair is still an issue.

On my way home I stopped at Sonic and got a Route 44 diet cherry limeade. I haven't gotten that size in years but it was needed after today. I drank water throughout the faire but not nearly enough. And it was amazing to drink large amounts of a cold liquid after a long day in the hot sun.

When I got home I watched some YouTube videos and then ended up taking a short nap on my couch. After that I continued watching YouTube videos and looked into mods for Terraria. The last time I got into the game was when the Yogscast guys did a series on it. And now they have started up another series and I once again got the urge to play. Turns out mods are super simple for Terraria, at least a lot of them are, because you just need to download a mod loader and put in the game folder. Then when you open the game you can browse all of the mods currently available and install them from within the game. It is super handy not having to got all over the place to find different mods. One mod that I want to try that isn't a part of the mod loader is one that turns Terraria into an RPG, with new NPCs and quests and buildings and things. It looks pretty good.

I watched Baby Driver tonight. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't think Ansel Elgort was the right fit. I haven't seen his previous movies but I don't think he pulled off the lead in this. I also didn't like how quickly the romance happened between him and the waitress. Or at least how quickly it appeared to happen. It was hard to get a sense for the passage of time in the movie. The animosity Jon Bernthal and Jamie Foxx seemed forced. I also didn't like the story arc of John Hamm and his lady. I would have liked them to be the nice criminal couple that road off into the sunset. But it was an alright movie, if not a little awkward because of Ansel. I did think it was cool how in the coffee scene after the first car chase, that lyrics from the song appeared as graffiti throughout the scene.

It is now far too late, so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. Tomorrow I unfortunately have to do laundry, so I can't veg out at my house all day.

September 22, 2017

This morning I was a little slow getting around. I slept in a little bit and then I just didn't have much urgency. I'm okay with that. I did take a shower almost immediately after waking up but then I think I got a little lost on a random internet tangent. I eventually managed to update my address for my driver's license online, as well as update my voter registration information.
Around ten o'clock I headed down to pay for my car tag. There was a lot of people waiting and it said the average wait time was ten minutes. But that was apparently for other services because I was probably sitting there for less than a minute when they called me over. It was a nice surprise. They must have really wanted my two-hundred dollars.
When I got out of there I got a text from my aunt about lunch. I drove back across town to maybe go to the grocery store before lunch but the place was packed so I kept driving and went back to my house to grab a couple copies of the magazine I'm in for my aunt and grandma.
And then I drove back across town for lunch. My grandma wanted to eat at Olive Garden and I got an eggplant sandwich. I've always been curious about eggplant so I decided to go for it. And I'm still curious because I still don't know what eggplant tastes like. It was breaded and/or fried and covered in cheese and marinara sauce. So it was tasty but it could have been anything in there, not just eggplant. Lunch was good though, as a whole. After we ate we sat around and talked until about 1:45PM.
I then went back across town and went to the store to buy bananas and potatoes for the faire, as well as a few things for myself and some bagged popcorn for a birthday on Monday. I had just enough time to drop my groceries off at home, sit down for about two minutes, and then I headed back across town for my meeting with my conference partner.
She was running a little late which gave me some time to jot down things I needed to get/do before the faire tomorrow. When she arrived and got settled down (because she was juggling a few things due to our meeting being in the middle of her workday), we talked about conference stuff. We came up with a basic format and discussed a bunch of random things related to library school and work. It turns out she is also kind of stressed out with her job at the moment. And a little unsure about librarianship as a whole. Our goal is to not turn our session into a giant therapy session where we just complain about our jobs. I think we can manage that. I'm feeling a little better about the presentation but there are still a lot of details to iron out.
We called things good around four o'clock because she had a thing to go to, which she invited me to but I needed to get things together for the faire. We then ended up talking for about a half an hour near the entrance to the library before parting ways. I headed to my Mom's house to pick up wire and I grabbed a few tools.
When I got home I started writing a note to my friend to include in the magazine I'm going to send her. The idea was to finish it and get it mailed before the UPS store closed but when it became clear that wasn't going to happen I switched over to faire stuff. I think I got everything I needed to play Ragdoll Runners on the flash drive. I copied over the game and most of the Steam folder but ran out of room to get the last few things. I also copied the Steam installation program, so if it comes to it I should be able to download Steam onto the laptop. After dinner I cut out several rectangular pieces of cardboard and made six wire “buttons” by twisting the wire in a flat spiral. I then punched holes through the cardboard with a needle and inserted the buttons. I hooked it up just to try it out and it worked pretty well. I only made one set of buttons but I cut out several backup pieces of cardboard in case the first one gets warn down. I'm also going to take extra wire, just in case.
I watched It tonight because my friend said it was good. I want to read the book but it is huge and in my brief experience with Stephen King, his endings have been disappointing. I thought about looking into the audiobook instead but it is forty-five hours long. That is really long. So I watched the movie. I liked it. For the most part the casting was good. It can be hard finding a group of kids that can carry a movie but they did a pretty good job. The opening was shocking, I was expecting the kid to just get sucked down the storm drain, but nope. And spoilers, I was also a little surprised all of the kids made it. But do they? Because this was only part one.
It is now eleven o'clock and I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long, hot day. I am interested to see how it goes but I'm not looking forward to being outside my comfort zone for such a long period of time. It'll be a long day.

September 21, 2017

 Today was an interesting day. Waking up sucked but that's fairly normal. When I got to work I was able to safely deposit the wire I untwisted last night because my boss was running late. I then did all the usual stuff.

I was on desk for two hours when we opened and a lot of that time was spent messing with Makey Makey stuff. The goal was to get stuff working offline so I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not we would have access to the internet at the faire. I started trying to go way too hard with it, looking for ways to save Scratch programs as an executable file. That was all very convoluted. I ended up just saving the Scratch files to a thumb drive and I can open those with the offline Scratch player, which I downloaded onto our laptop the other day. I found a piano and drums, and I found a few different games as well. I also had the thought of playing Ragdoll Runner. Turns out the keys work out and I was able to play the demo of it using the Makey Makey. I'm going to try saving Steam and the game to my thumb drive and see if it will let me play it from the thumb drive. Originally I thought of Clop, where you control the legs of a unicorn, each leg with a different keyboard key. But the keys don't match up to the Makey Makey and I don't want to spend the time figuring out how to get it to work. Ragdoll Runner is the same concept but with two legs.

When I was off desk I had walkthroughs, I refilled a couple displays, I printed out two hundred bracelet instruction sheets and cut them with the big cutter in the basement, and I did other stuff that is slipping my mind at the moment.

I took a slightly longer lunch because I was supposed to leave a little bit early but that would have left our assistant alone, which isn't a thing we do. I wish our lunch breaks were longer than an hour, especially because I end up having maybe thirty minutes if you figure in drive time and walking to and from my car.

This afternoon I did more things. I came up with a checklist of things we need for Saturday and sent it out to everyone who is going to be working at the faire. I checked off the things I would be taking home tonight and mentioned what I thought everyone else would be getting and what was left, just so everyone was clear and there wasn't any confusion. I didn't hear back from anyone so I assume they weren't working or they didn't check their email.

I heard back from my conference partner and I believe we'll be meeting tomorrow afternoon. She got back to me right before I left work with times that would work for her. I suggested the mid-afternoon one but didn't hear back before I left so we're going to assume that works.

We're also not going to tell my boss that I was at work until almost 5:30PM, when I was supposed to be off at five o'clock. I had to quickly print and cut some more adulting fliers, so that added some time. And then I had to take one load of stuff out to my car, and then move my car to the library parking lot so I could run in and get the big Makey Makey board and the really big canopy. I don't know how much the canopy weighs but it is over five feet tall in the bag and really dense. The new library at work is into lifting weights and after I struggled with it a little bit when it was first brought to us, she grabbed it and lifted it with ease. It was ridiculous. I'm weak.

When I got home my new pen and ink arrived. It was not love at first sight with the pen but I am loving the ink. It is such a good green. It takes awhile to dry but it's worth it. As for the pen, I like the look of it but it doesn't have much flex to it, it squeaks when it writes, and it feels like a five dollar pen, not a forty dollar pen. There are ways to adjust the feed and nib, which should improve the flex, and maybe get rid of the squeaking, so at some point I might try that. I wrote with it before dinner a little bit and then again afterward, so I'm going to give it some time to grow on me. I think I need to stick with sub-thirty dollar pens, preferably sub-twenty dollars. The price of this one was so high because of the handmade features and the small size of the company making it. I need to stick with mass produced pens that have a pretty decent grasp on quality control. My daily pens are my two Pilot Prera pens. I'm also a big fan of the Platinum Preppy pen, which is super cheap. A lot can be said for inexpensive pens.

Other than playing with the pen, I watched YouTube videos. Because that's what I do. And now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. The list of things I want to do tomorrow is long and it would be good if I could get most of them done.

September 20, 2017

 Today was a good candidate for taking notes because it was kind of an odd day. So of course I didn't take notes.

When I got to work I was on desk for two hours. I do not recall what I accomplished in those two hours. It's a total blank. When I was off desk I did a walkthrough and then I went upstairs to talk to the PR lady about the faire on Saturday so we could sort out all of the details. I'm feeling better about it. I'm still looking forward to it all being over. After that conversations I called my homebound patrons before heading downstairs.

After lunch we went out for homebound. Our first stop was actually a movie theater to pick up a gift card. It was the first time I've been in the new theater and it is huge. It also smelled like popcorn and was covered in neon lights, so I was instantly not a fan. Flashbacks to unhappier times. At some point I'll need to go see a movie there. But not any time soon because I'm not a fan of spending money on movies. They're very overpriced in my opinion.

We then delivered all our books and went back to the library. When I got back to the desk I threw together a tutorial for making the telephone wire bracelet. I remember now that one thing I did this morning was start a new bracelet, taking pictures of it at the various stages, so that I could make the tutorial. I think it turned out pretty well, I managed to squeeze it onto a half sheet of paper, and I only have a could things I want to change. The idea is that we can print them out and take them to the faire so people can take it home and finish the bracelet. I don't know if we'll end up printing it out because there will potentially be hundreds of people stopping by, but we'll see.

Right after I finished the first draft of the instructions I went on a walkthrough and ran into one of the youth services people who will be at the faire. I tried to show her how to make the bracelet the other day but ran out of time because I had to set up for my program. I went up and grabbed a copy of the instructions and some wire because she had time and I figured it would be a good test of the instructions. She kind of jumped the gun a little bit and ended up with an entirely different version of the bracelet. I left the instructions and some wire in case she wanted to try again but then I had to leave because it was time for me to go home.

Before I left the teen librarian gave me a whole bunch of wire that the tech center people had brought over to the childrens people. This morning one of the other librarians and I had start to untwist the wire. It isn't twisted pair wire but the wire is lightly twisted in pairs. I thought it would make things much easier on Saturday if we untwisted all of the pairs. We started this process but our boss hinted that it wasn't the best use of our time so we took a bunch of it down so the people working in the tech center could work on it. But when they finished with what we gave them they took it over to the childrens department because I guess they thought that's where it came from. The timing worked out though with me being down there and the teen librarian passing by. I ended up taking some of the wire home to untwist it and one of the other librarians did as well. We will hide the fact that we did this so we don't get in trouble for working outside of work but we wanted to make sure it gets done before Saturday.

After work I picked up Qdoba. It was actually edible tonight, so that is a vast improvement over last week. When we were done eating we watched YouTube videos and then I reset my Mom's sprinkler system. I think I did it right but I have thought that in the past so we'll see.

When I got home I watched YouTube videos and untwisted wire. It didn't take very long, and it is one less thing to worry about. I then watched more videos and clicked around the internet for awhile before writing this. It has taken me too long to write this and I am going to miss my eleven o'clock bedtime again. I'm failing this week.

September 19, 2017

 This morning I woke up at eight o'clock and I think I slept fairly well last night. I can't remember either way, so it couldn't have been that bad. With my time before work I did things. I couldn't tell you what, but time passed, as it does, and eventually it was time for me to go to work.

I had two walkthroughs when I got to work, one at noon and one at 12:30PM, but I managed to pull books for my last patron before I was on desk at one o'clock. I also put up a whiteboard in the atrium advertising our drop-in.

We had one person show up for the drop-in, and she was early, so we hit the ground running. She had several questions about her iPhone and iPad and I think I was able to answer all of them to her satisfaction. We also briefly went over our ebook resources. So it went well.

When she left I left the other librarian in the room in case anyone else showed up (but they didn't) and I went to hang up a poster in the lobby about the adulting class tonight. We then spent the rest of the drop-in time trying to figure out the schedule for the rest of the week. The faire this weekend is really throwing a wrench in things. For a brief period today it looked like we would have to get there at eight o'clock because that is when the electrician would be there to get our electricity needs set up. So we would need to get there an hour and a half earlier than we had planned on so an electrician could plug in our extension cord. It seemed a little ridiculous but I understand why large events need to be highly organized. We figured out that I could do it but I would need to lose two hours next week to make up for it. But then the head of youth services said that she could go early. So all is well. For now.

After the drop-in I went to dinner and when I got back I was on desk for an hour. And then I started setting up for the event tonight. We didn't have any ice in the entire building so I ended up getting the lemonade and water ready and then putting it in the refrigerator for awhile. I don't think it helped but it's the thought that counts. We ended up only having four attendees. One of the registered people didn't show but the assistant manager of circulation was off tonight and she came, so we're counting it. The presentation itself was really good. The two librarians had given the presentation several times before, so they had their stuff together, and they had updated their news sources as recently as this afternoon. I was impressed and really appreciated them coming to present. This is the class I was looking forward to the most and I only wish more people had come because I think it is one of the most important classes.

We talked for a little bit after the class and then I rushed around to get everything picked up. And I managed it with about five minutes to spare before we closed, so not bad.

On my way home I stopped by the grocery store to pick up the stuff I need to make brown rice and broccoli cheddar cakes. I don't know if that actually sounds appetizing without a picture accompanying it, but I thought it had some potential, so I'm going to give it a shot. I also used the self-checkout for the first time since my sister took me grocery shopping for the first time. I keep avoiding it because of all the produce I get, but they really do make it simple, so I might need to try it more often when there are lines at the regular checkouts.

When I got home there were two cars in my neighbors driveway. I can't tell if it has been sold of if these are the previous neighbors or new realtors trying to fix things up to put it back on the market. I think the last realtors sign went down after their contract ran out because there was never a sold sign added to it. I also don' t know if either of the cars I saw tonight were the same as the ones I saw the weekend before last. New neighbors are inevitable, but I have enjoyed not having to worry about how loud my music is.

After I put my groceries away I watched a few YouTube videos and ate a snack. And now I'm writing this. I have already missed my eleven o'clock bedtime. Now we're shooting for midnight. We'll see how long I ramble in my audio journal.

September 18, 2017

 Waking up this morning kind of sucked but I did it. When I got to work I did all the opening stuff. I didn't sharpen nearly as many pencils this morning but I completely filled the pencil box and the small basket we keep pencils in. It is so much better than when we were barely keeping even.

I was off desk for the first hour and spent that time pulling books for homebound. I managed to get all but the one patron who only reads large print non-fiction. I was then on desk for two hours and I was able to check out all of the books and update my spreadsheets. I also helped several patrons but it was a pretty quiet morning. It was only me and my boss because two librarians were off today and the other didn't come in until noon.

I went to lunch at one o'clock, instead of noon, and the other librarian said things got a little nuts in the hour I was gone. She had multiple people in person, in the chat, and on the phone all at the same time. Those periods are typically rare but they can be overwhelming when they happen.

I think the afternoon was fairly quiet. It was also kind of short because I got back from lunch at two o'clock and I was off at five o'clock. One of the IT people brought up a board with wires taped down with conductive tape that they had used for the Makey Makey before. I spent some time setting that up and messing around with it. I didn't have any fruit, so I was having to just touch the wires, but I think it will work out a lot better than having everything arranged on the table. I just need to figure out when to buy the bananas (and possibly potatoes) and I need to get the piano and some other stuff downloaded so we can use it offline.

I showed one of the other librarians, who will be there next weekend, how to make the wire bracelets. It is exhausting on the wrists and my right thumb. I can still feel it.

I was also able to make/print all my homebound bookmarks, put them in the books, and got them bagged up. Tomorrow I should be able to pull the last set of books and get everything finished. In theory, anyway. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow with a tech drop-in and the next adulting class. So hopefully I'll have some free time.

When I got home I made a couple small frozen pizzas for dinner. I have had them in my freezer maybe since I bought the house. But I decided to cook them in the oven and I think that made all the difference because they turned out pretty tasty. The plan was to go to the store tonight after dinner but that didn't happen. I ended up taking a nap instead. I was freaking tired. I can go tomorrow night after work.

I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and playing a little bit of The Happy Hereafter. I think I'm done with it because I've unlocked everything and maxed out a lot of the stuff. Time to move on.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal and watch a few more YouTube videos before bed. I can sleep in tomorrow if I want but I'm tired now and I want to get back to the earlyish to bed, earlyish to rise thing.

September 17, 2017

 This morning I woke up at eight o'clock. My alarm went off at seven o'clock but I wasn't feeling rested enough so I gave it another hour. When I finally got up I played games. I thought about reading and about tidying up my house but I ended up just playing games. I decided that I was going to ignore the need to feel productive for one day and play some of the games that I have been wanting to play for awhile.

I started with Oxenfree, which was a lot of fun. I really liked the art style of the game, and the dialogue and voice acting was really good. The game as a whole reminded me of a mix of The Goonies, Scooby Doo, and Stranger Things. At some point I need to play it again because there are multiple endings. I don't know how drastic the endings are but I'd be curious to find out.

Next I played The Stanley Parable, a game I have been wanting to play for a very long time. It easily lived up to my expectations. It is another game that has multiple endings and I played through it enough times that I got to see the majority of them. The game has a very humorous narrator that reminds me a lot of British comedies (because the narrator is British) and the movie Stranger Than Fiction. It's a game I would play through again just to listen to the narration.

The last game I played (and I'm still playing) is The Happy Hereafter. It's basically a resource management game that reminds me a lot of Warcraft but without the fighting. You're just trying to collect resources and grow a town to make it nicer for the dead people coming to live there. It's got a fun art style and it's simplicity is very addictive. I got totally sucked in and I have been playing far too long now. But I'm getting very close to an end-game situation. I have upgraded all of the buildings and houses, and then I just need to unlock all of the decorative stuff. And technically I just beat the game, I guess, but I still want to max everything out.

My day of games has kind of screwed me over for the beginning of the new week. It is now after midnight, so I've missed my eleven o'clock goal, and I have to open in the morning. I foresee it being a rough Monday. On the plus side, I have now upgraded everything in The Happy Hereafter and now I just need to max out everything in my warehouse. Totally doable. But not tonight because good grief, I need to go to bed. After I record my audio journal.

September 16, 2017

 This morning I initially woke up at five o'clock. I then slept on and off for another two hours before deciding to get up. I'm not quite sure what the issue was there. When I got up I went out to the living room and read for awhile. I had eggs for breakfast, watched a few YouTube videos, and then took a short nap on my couch. I'm a fan of couch naps.

After I loaded up my car I stopped by Target on my way to my Mom's house. She needed dog food and I needed a few things myself. I needed a cart for the dog food and it felt really weird pushing a cart around. I only use the small ones at the grocery store and the ones at Target are humongous. I'm not a fan.

I planned on reading while my laundry was going but I ended up just watching Night Court and taking another brief nap. Night Court is a great show. I remember watching it every now and then when I was a kid and now I have found a channel that plays reruns. The same channel also plays The Drew Carey Show, which is another show I watched a little of years ago. Both shows I appreciate now that I'm older.

On my way home I picked up a sandwich from Jimmy John's and got fries and a mini blizzard at Dairy Queen. Tomorrow I'll have the rest of my leftovers and I'm not sure what I'll make on Monday. I have fallen into a bit of a food rut. I need to step out of my comfort zone again and try new recipes.

Throughout the evening I watched several episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise and I played a little bit of Elite Dangerous. I continue to explore in my new ship but I need to spend more time in it while in VR. It's still difficult to do the exploring thing while in VR because I can't check the list of planets I'm using to explore.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal and watch another episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Maybe two. I think with the naps it will be a little difficult getting to bed by eleven o'clock, but we'll see.

September 15, 2017

 This morning I woke up early because I went to bed at a decent hour, and I had an hour to do whatever before getting ready for work and eating a nice ten o'clock lunch.

My day at work was pretty much filled with working on my homebound lists. It took far too long but I was able to finish by the end of the day. It is very time consuming trying to come up with new and interesting books my patrons might like each month. I didn't get to the pulling portion so I'll need to do that on Monday and Tuesday and hope that the books I have picked will still be available. I'm pretty good at choosing books that are checked out by the time I get around to pulling them.

I went to dinner today at three o'clock, which was fun. Lunch at ten o'clock, dinner at three o'clock. Living the dream. Later in the day my boss mentioned that she didn't know why she had me down for a three o'clock dinner.

And speaking of scheduling, our timesheets were due today and it came out that I hadn't taken an hour and a half off the week leading up to the weekend I worked. I tried to make the excuse that I didn't have to do any work-related stuff during lunch that Saturday, so really I didn't work nine and a half hours that day, just eight and a half hours. That didn't work out, so now I have to make up time and a half for an hour and a half, which means I'm going to lose two hours and fifteen minutes next week. That's annoying.

My favorite moment of the day was when we were talking about a mouse in the basement and the possibility of getting a library cat. I immediately said I couldn't change the litter box because I was pregnant. The women I work with did not believe me. Something about being a man or something.

My second favorite moment was the local magazine coming out with our adulting article. We didn't know it was coming out today so it was a surprise. Another surprise was that there was a full-size picture of me helping a “patron” (who was actually one of the other librarians), as well as three other small pictures with me in them. The photographer took a lot of pictures that day but I wasn't expecting to be so prominently featured. I'm just glad we weren't on the cover. That would have been overwhelming. Right after they showed up at the library I got a text from a friend about the magazine. This is like my fifteen minutes of fame, but only among the people I already know. No one outside the library or my friends and family are going to recognize me from the magazine. I'm okay with that.

When I got home I made some popcorn and watched YouTube videos. I also started writing this and it was a mistake to do it while watching videos because it has taken me far too long to write this. But now I am done so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. It will again be after eleven o'clock by the time I get to bed but it won't be too much later.

September 14, 2017

 I got another full night of sleep last night and woke up on my own a little after seven o'clock. I had several cool dreams last night but I can't remember any of them. If I had a superpower I would like to be able to recall any dream and to go back to it whenever I wanted. I think that would be cool.

It was nice having a morning before work. Usually I wake up with enough time to get ready and eat lunch on the days that I close. I was able to do random things and I also played more Papers, Please. It was good times.

When I got to work I spent my time on desk reading articles about Papers, Please. I also helped the occasional patron but I was mainly focused on learning more about the game and coming up with possible things to talk about.

Without any desire on my part I became a little too close to a patron today. When a patron needs to use a phone, we direct them to the one next to the secondary computer at the reference desk. As they use it, they are usually standing right on the other side of that computer's monitor. So you're pretty much just sitting there, trying to focus on your work and ignore the phone call happening right in front of you. I can usually do that, or I at least quickly forget the conversation. But today the woman was calling to find out if there was a warrant out for her arrest. That is apparently a hard thing to find out. I find that interesting. She called to police departments, a courthouse, and a lawyer. She thought the court date was tomorrow but it was actually yesterday. She has three kids, one of whom is still nursing, and she was trying to figure out if there was a warrant so she would know if she needed to find someone to take her kids. And she was worried she would have to pump milk in a jail cell. It turns out the court date had been canceled or something so she wasn't in trouble.

When she got of the phone she was super happy and reached her hands across the desk. She obviously wanted me to hold hands with her, so I did. She acknowledged that I probably heard everything and I think she wanted to express her happiness at finding out she wasn't in trouble. She also apparently felt the need to over-share. It turns out the court date wasn't for her, it was for her husband, who has PTSD and is on trial for vehicular manslaughter. That took a turn real quick.

After dinner I was on desk and continued to work on stuff for the workshop tonight. I made a handout (that I don't think anyone took) and a survey. On my walkthrough I stopped in children's because the person on desk is going to the faire with us and I wanted everyone to be familiar with how to make the bracelets. She wasn't busy so I said I would go grab the wire and show her real quick because I had time before I needed to set up for my workshop. Unfortunately when I got back she was helping a patron and after waiting almost ten minutes I had to abandon the effort.

I was going to immediately go to the auditorium when I got back upstairs but the assistant asked me when she was supposed to take her break if I was going to be busy the rest of the night. I hadn't even thought about that because I don't take breaks, so it didn't cross my mind. Also, the other assistant automatically takes one early on the nights I have an event. But the new assistant is new. So instead of going to setup I covered the desk while she took a break.

I was a little stressed, as I am with the unknown, so putting off the setup until fifteen minutes before made me a little anxious. And then there were some issues with the logistics, because all the cables were attached to the podium. We ended up getting it figured out, so all was well. Three out of the five people ended up coming, and I think it went pretty well. I didn't check the surveys but they seemed to have a good time and I think we had a good conversation throughout.

Last time we played Never Alone and I threw out questions throughout the session. This time the game involved a little more focus so I tried to keep my thoughts and questions until the end. But whenever something came up related to the themes of morality, ethics, empathy, or whatever else I would try to engage it and get them talking. I am happy with my choice of game. I think it would have been a much different experience picking a game about border control and immigration if we had a big turnout, but it was perfectly manageable with such a small group.

By the time I got everything picked up I had about five minutes to get downstairs to close. That ended up working out pretty well because I was able to do a walkthrough, put a few books and DVDs on display, and talk to some of the people in circulation about the video game discussion.

When I got home I ate a snack, watched some YouTube videos, and now I'm finishing this up. I'm really feeling the fact that I've been up since seven o'clock. It's almost 10:45PM so I'm going to hopefully record my audio journal quickly so I can get to bed as close to eleven o'clock as possible. I don't go in until eleven o'clock tomorrow but I want to try and keep this eleven o'clock bedtime going. I'm liking it.

September 13, 2017

 This morning I didn't feel as rested when I woke up but I still got a full night of sleep.

I came up with a random librarian comeback today. My boss said I couldn't use it on patrons. We'll see. The comeback is “I read books, not minds.” I think it's pretty good.

When I got to work I decided to keep track of how many pencils I sharpened. The final count: Seventy-seven. That's a lot of pencils. It felt very satisfying.

I was on desk for two hours after we opened and I did things. I think I ended up spending most of the time filling out a request form for the conference next month. It's kind of a formality because I'm presenting, so I kind of have to go, but it was a pain in the butt. Mostly because I had to pick other sessions at the conference that I want to go through. None of the sessions really sounded that appealing.

I also got really sidetracked by trying to figure out if I am still a member of KLA. I'm pretty sure I still am because I renewed my membership early this year for the last conference I presented at, but I determined that based on an old email. No matter what I tried I couldn't log into the site. I first had to reset my grad school email password (by going through the school website because I couldn't do it through Gmail). Then I tried resetting my KLA password but the reset link they sent me just linked me back to the login screen. I tried it multiple times and got the same result. It was frustrating and an incredible waste of time.

Before I went to lunch I worked on my tutorial a little bit. I think. I can't remember.

When I got back from lunch I had a meeting with my manager. It was our monthly catch-up meeting. I downplayed the amount of stress I am currently feeling. Because that's what I do.

After that I started working on the wi-fi tutorial. I'm not done with the event tutorial yet but I was avoiding it, and why not avoid it with another tutorial. That one is much simpler so I should be able to knock it out pretty quickly.

We had our department meeting this afternoon and it went well. I need to get better at writing kudos for people. In the beginning I wrote one for everyone each month. I have slacked off in recent months. The sit-down meeting ended a little before four o'clock but then we were supposed to spend the next hour merchandizing the stacks. Which meant straightening books and making sure the layout followed our guidelines. I did that for about ten minutes but then the teen librarian, who was covering our desk, had to go cover the desk in the children's room, so I took over the desk. It sucked a little because I could spend hours straightening books on the shelves and making everything line up nicely. I would make a kick-ass circulation page.

But instead I had to sit at the desk while everyone else got to straighten books. I spent most of my hour reading more about Papers, Please. I need to come up with some good discussion questions. And maybe play the game some more. Right now I'm watching the old Yogscast videos when they played an early version of the game. I'll be ready by tomorrow but I'm not there yet.

I also helped a patron find some books about grass, answered a few phone calls, and replied to a few emails. It was a productive hour.

After work I picked up Qdoba and headed to my Mom's for dinner. In terms of the food, dinner sucked. I split the bowl in half, because I only eat half (when they give me enough to divide it in half). I then ate about half of that (so a quarter) before I threw the rest down the sink. They had charred the diced veggies to the point that they were hard and crunchy. It wasn't good and I couldn't finish it. It was worse than nuts in brownies. I ate chips instead.

We watched videos after dinner and talked for awhile before I headed home. When I got home I ate some food because I was hungry, and then watched YouTube videos. It's just after nine o'clock and I am going to record my audio journal. Then I'll do some other stuff before bed. Possibly read up on Papers, Please. Possibly other things.

September 12, 2017

 Today was a pretty good day. I woke up feeling rested even though it was six o'clock because I made it to bed by eleven o'clock last night. It would be nice if I could do that on a more regular basis.

When I got to work I did all the opening stuff, including a bunch of pencil sharpening, and then I waited until it was time to go to our outreach event. I met up with the circulation manager and assistant manager, we loaded up the car, and then we headed out. I dropped them off as close to the university library as I could so they wouldn't have to pull the outreach wagon that far and then I went and parked in the parking garage and walked back to the library. I helped do the last bit of setup for the table and then we waited. I knew the two academic librarians who helped set up this outreach opportunity and got to talk to them a little bit, and the librarian I am presenting with next month stopped by so we got to talk a little bit as well. We're going to meet next week and start formulating a plan.

As for the event itself, I would say it went really well. I was there until noon and we signed fifteen people up for library cards, which isn't bad. In the last three hours they signed up an additional forty-two people. That is way more people signing up for cards than we have ever had at an outreach event. Not bad. The university library did a lot of promotion for it and put up two big whiteboards in the library to let students know we were there. And they gave us each gift cards for coming. It's to a coffee shop I won't ever go to because the owner is a dick, but that was still a really nice thought.

I went to lunch a little late because I had to drive back to the library, but all was well because my boss covered the desk for a little bit so I could take an hour. When I got back I was on desk for two hours and that time flew by. I helped a few people over the phone, had one or two chats, answered emails, and helped people in person. One of the people I helped in person was someone I helped get a library card this morning at the university library. An immediate success. I also had a little bit of time to work on my latest tutorial. It's going to take forever.

In the last hour of work I finally returned the car keys for the vehicle I drove this morning, filled out the form to be reimbursed for the parking garage because I had to use my own credit card, I refilled the bestsellers display, and I refilled the large print inspirational display, and then realized I do not have the large print inspirational display this month, I have the regular print inspirational display. Whoops. I'll refill my actual display tomorrow maybe.

When I got home I read for a little bit, took a short nap, and then had dinner and watched YouTube videos and a livestream. It was a fairly typical night. Someday, I will do what I always talked about, and be more productive with my evenings. I want to be one of those people who work a full day and then go home and work on their favorite hobby. At the moment I go home and do nothing. It's not great. But I'll figure it out eventually.

This is the second day in a row that I have been on top of the journaling thing. It's only a quarter past nine o'clock right now and I'm already wrapping this up. I think I'll do a repeat of yesterday and go record my audio journal and get in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise before bed.

September 11, 2017

 This morning I woke up and ironed my pants for the week before getting ready and going to work. It was an interesting day at work and this will be a short entry because there's not much to write about. One of the other librarians left some bananas at the desk over the weekend specifically for the purpose of me trying the Makey Makey. That was fun. I made bongo drums and a piano and played Tetris and just experimented with it. I think it will go over pretty well at the faire. I also might try making a guitar or other peripherals in case something horrible happens to the bananas.

I came up with possible questions for the firefighters and police for our class next semester. They wanted to know the topics we wanted covered, so I did my best to think up random questions that they could answer.

I was on desk for two hours later in the morning and I can't really remember what I did with all of that time. I know I did things that took up the whole two hours, and I don't think I was ever bored, I just can't remember what happened. Oh well.

This afternoon was kind of strange because I had one walkthrough and the rest of the time I was off desk. I decided to spend that time upstairs so I could do things without being distracted. It also allowed me to listen to music, which is an enjoyable way to work. I worked briefly on my latest tutorial but ended up getting sidetracked by reading a chapter from the book we're finally getting back to during out next department meeting. I remember very little of the previous six chapters, and I probably won't remember much of the seventh by the time we have our meeting on Wednesday, but at least I read it. I also answered a chat and some emails and redesigned a form because it was annoying me.

When I got home, the same old things happened. I ate dinner (my rolls are still good), I watched more episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, and now I'm watching YouTube videos. Yet another exciting evening.

September 10, 2017

 This morning I woke up around eight o'clock, which is really early considering when I went to bed last night. But I got up so I could experience more of the day. I don't know that I made good or bad use of that time but I did things.

I made egg sandwiches for breakfast. I also dropped an egg on the floor. It didn't survive. I read books. I watched Dave Chappelle's two comedy specials on Netflix. I took a nap after lunch, not necessarily because I was tired but laying down on my couch and listening to music sounded nice and I inevitably drifted in and out of sleep.

I played Elite Dangerous and bought a bobblehead because I reached my sixty-hour goal. It's pretty cool and I would say it was worth it. I also downloaded the trial version of a popular voice command software that people use to do basic commands while playing Elite Dangerous in VR. I didn't actually try it out today but I did start training the voice recognition program for Windows. Apparently the more you read the training text to the computer the better it gets at recognizing your voice. It's interesting.

Tonight I made stir fry again because I had a yellow bell pepper, jalapeno, zucchini, half a red onion, and some carrots that I needed to use before they went bad. I never got around to making white bread in my bread machine this weekend but tonight I made simple yeast rolls using my food processor to make the dough and then popped them in the oven. I somehow managed to time everything perfectly and I finished the stir fry right before I took the rolls out of the oven. Both were very tasty. I was kind of surprised by how well the rolls turned out.

After dinner I played several different VR games. I got them in a cheap bundle, so I wasn't expecting much but only one of them was a bit of a dud. I still have a few more to try but I would say it was worth the three or four bucks I spent on the bundle.

I also started watching Star Trek: Enterprise tonight. I'm only three episodes in but I am enjoying it. I used to watch it when it was on TV and it was my favorite series since Next Generation. I'm hoping I can make it through all four seasons. Each episode is forty-five minutes long, so it is more of a time commitment than a half hour show, but I think I can do it. It would be a good show to watch while playing Elite Dangerous.

I've had a headache all day so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. Laying in a cool, dark place with my eyes closed sounds very appealing right now.

September 9, 2017

 Today was a pretty laid back day. I slept in, read a book for awhile, did other stuff I can't remember, and eventually went to my Mom's house to do laundry. I watched Star Trek, took a nap, and played Papers, Please. I'm a little worried about the learning curve of the game. It's basically a spot-the-difference and memory game and there are an increasing number of things to check. The hard part is that the play area is so restricted that you are always having to move stuff around to check different places, which takes time, and it is a timed game. Hopefully I can get comfortable with it by Thursday for the discussion.

After leaving my Mom's house I went to Target and then headed home. I ended up driving by my house the first time because there were several people standing in my neighbors driveway. It is connected to my driveway because it's a duplex. I was not prepared for the inevitable wave and possible social interaction, so I drove right on by, and did a loop through another neighborhood so I could prepare myself. It ended up just being a wave, and I survived, so all is well. I definitely have anxiety.

When I finally got home, I played Elite Dangerous for a little while before eating dinner. After dinner I played more Elite Dangerous and messed around with the VR program that lets you have a window inside the VR space, so I can have a website open or watch a video while in my virtual spaceship. It took a lot of finagling but I eventually got it to work. It is far from perfect, the fps was super low on the movie I was watching, and it could use more adjustment options because I couldn't quite get it in the position I wanted, but I'm also using the old version when it was still free. I need to look into the paid version and see if they have made improvements or if they just put a price tag on the last version of the free one.

I ended my night by laying on my couch and watching three comedy specials on Netflix. I needed to write this but I was feeling very unmotivated. Sometimes I view this as a bit of a chore, or even a burden. One that is completely self-imposed and possibly not even worthwhile. But here I am, writing yet another entry. Mostly with my eyes closed because I'm still lounging on the couch and I am still very tired. Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I believe today is the 252^nd day of the audio journal. That's pretty good if I do say so myself.

September 8, 2017

 It is after midnight and I am tired so we'll see how well this goes.

Today was a pretty slow day at work. Most of my time was spent working on tutorials. I added a few more tweaks to the tutorial I finished yesterday. The most time-consuming one was adding links to all of the Table of Contents items. In Publisher you can create hyperlinks to other pages in the document, and those remain when you turn it into a PDF, and that is exactly what I wanted. But it turns out you can't copy and paste hyperlinks in Publisher. So instead of adding the hyperlinks on one slide and then copying them to all the others, I had to individually add the links on all fifty slides that have the Table of Contents. It took awhile. I also added little green arrows in the bottom corners to navigate back and forth. Those also required hyperlinks but that process seemed to go much faster. Lastly, I added a tiny progress bar under the currently highlighted section in the Table of contents. So as you go through each section you can see how close you are to finishing that section. It's not really necessary but the idea popped into my head and I think it's kind of cool.

I took a slightly later lunch so I could call the HOA management company because the guy said he would be back in his office by 1:30PM. He was not. I left a message with his secretary. Another strike.

I got a start on my next tutorial. It turns out I really need to make three, not two, for the tech training thing because it doesn't make any sense to put the room reservation stuff with the event stuff. I got several slides into the new tutorial but kind of got sidetracked near the end of the day and didn't make it too far.

I feel like that was pretty much my day at work. I woke a patron up and helped a few other patrons, but that was about it. My favorite patron today was a lady who came up to the desk and said “I need a book.” I responded with “We've got a lot of books.” She laughed and said she needed that. Winning the hearts and minds.

After work I went to my Mom's house, ate a quick dinner (which was my third meal of the day involving peanut butter), and then we went to pick up my Mom's friend, who is also one of the kindergarten teachers we used to work with. She lives out of town, so it took awhile, but once we had her we headed back in town to see a comedian. She was hilarious. There weren't any opening acts, it was just her for over two hours, which is impressive because I couldn't talk that long. She didn't seem to have much of a structure to the act, it was very much a stream of consciousness thing. A lot of time was spent talking to three different couples and a college student. Which might sound boring but it was hilarious. I'm just glad our tickets weren't in the front row. One of the ladies was a librarian and that made it all the more funny. At one point during it I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was one of the university librarians I interviewed in school and shadowed during my practicum. We both acknowledged we were glad not to be up front.

It was a really good night. The comedian was funny and I got to catch up on some school gossip with the kindergarten teacher. It made me kind of glad I wasn't at the school anymore because things seem to have changed quite a bit. But I do still miss it. Working with kids was pretty fun. Now I pretty much just get old people. And loud teenagers.

I got home around 10:45PM and took forever to start writing this. And have now taken an hour to write it. That is way too long. I keep taking long blinks which are getting harder and harder to recover from. I'm going to attempt to record my audio journal and then go to bed.

September 7, 2017

 This morning I woke up and went to get my hair cut. I need to get my hair cut more often. I feel so much better when it is at the proper length.

When I got to work there was a note that I had a package in the mail room. It was the telephone cable. I caught up on some other stuff and then I spent at least two hours working on the cable. I started by measuring it and putting a mark every five feet. I then used my small multi-tool scissors to cut through the casing at each mark and used a small pair of wire cutters to cut through the wires, eventually leaving me with ten sections of cable. The center of my palm is now soar from using the wire cutters. We borrowed them from the children's department and it would have been nice to have a bigger pair, but I forgot to grab mine. I even had the thought last night because I knew the cable was coming today, and then I forgot. Oh well. Once I had the sections I used my small scissors again to cut the casing off. If I got it just right I could do that wrapping paper thing where you just push the scissors and the slide along quickly. When I had about a foot or so left I was able to slide the casing off. I then went back and trimmed the ends of the individual wires that hadn't been cut cleanly in the initial segmenting. I got a little help on this from another librarian and I was able to finish the project by before my dinner break. It feels good knowing that part of the project has been taken care of. At some point I think everyone that is going to be working at our booth should pick a wire and make a bracelet so we can show off the final product.

When I got back from dinner I had a walkthrough and then read journals. Eventually I got around to working on my tutorial and I think I finished it. Or came very close. The final product at the moment is a PDF and I want to see if there is a way to make internal links on a PDF. My slides have a table of contents and it would be cool if people could just click the content they want and jump right to it. I'm fairly certain it is a thing but I don't know if it is something I can do after it is a PDF or if I need to do something before it is a PDF.

I heard back from my co-presenter for the conference today and we're trying to set up a time to get together. I will actually be at the university library during one of the times she mentioned because we're doing an outreach event, so we might have a little time to talk then. The best time will probably be on a day I don't work, which is fine with me as long as my boss doesn't find out. I think I may get paid for the conference because my boss sent out an email today saying she wants to send two people each day of the conference. Promising. But that also means my presentation would probably count as a work thing which would mean I could only work on it during work hours. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut if we end up having a meeting on my day off.

I also heard back from the HOA guy. He wants me to call him tomorrow after 1:30PM so I might see if I can go to lunch a little later so I have plenty of time to call him. Hopefully that goes well. It would be nice to find out I'm able to have the yard re-graded and that I wouldn't be financially responsible for it. I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

Tonight went out with a whisper at the library. I don't know about downstairs but upstairs there weren't any patrons left after the five minute announcement. It was kind of nice.

When I got home I ate some bread, because I'm still trying to finish the dense loaf of wheat bread I made. While I ate that I watched YouTube videos and caught up with internet things. And now I'm about to finish this so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day because after work I'm going to a performance with my Mom and one of her friends, who is one of the kindergarten teachers at the school we both worked at. It should be pretty good but it's still going to be a long day.