May 8, 2018

Another night of not sleeping very well. I think it is directly related to the heat. It's fine without a blanket over me but I can't sleep without something over me, so it doesn't work out.

I had two hours off desk when I got to work. My main focus was updating the webpage for this afternoon's tech class. It was pretty simple because it is a class we have done before so I just copied and pasted the old information onto the new page. I also messed with the classes on the calendar a little bit, because for some reason every time I update the maximum number of attendees to ten, it resets back to the old limit, which was fourteen. I've lost track of how many times I have reset it, maybe it will stick this time. While messing with that I overrode the descriptions for today's class and the next class. For today's class I just copied it from a previous class, the other one, however, hasn't been done before, and it has been so long since I wrote the description, I couldn't remember it, so I had to make up a new one.

I also finished tweaking the tornado button design and printed it out, added a book to the audiobook display, and ran upstairs to put away the personalized reading list I finished yesterday. And then I was on desk for two hours.

I started by cutting out one of the button patterns and making a button. This took a little while because the button machine wasn't working. I ended up figuring out that if the first little holder wasn't rotated in the correct position, then the press wouldn't go down all the way. Good to know. I also printed out the handouts and sign-in sheet for the tech class, helped the occasional patron, and probably did some other stuff.

When I got back from lunch I was the backup for the tech class. I threw in a few tidbits of information but I think the main benefit of me being there was troubleshooting the random monitors that kept going black. I think it happened to five or six different computers and it happened multiple times on those computers. I'm not sure what was causing it but I put in a help ticket so hopefully it can be figured out by the next class. The same thing happens to our staff computers from time to time, almost like we're trying to do too much at once and they just freak out and go black. I'm sure there's a technical explanation for that.

The class lasted the full two hours, after which I was on desk for an hour. My friend's sister and her little son stopped by the desk for a little bit because she had never been upstairs. I explained the giant plastic sheet hiding the construction and we talked for a little bit before she went and wandered around. I also talked to one of our regular patrons for a little bit. At one point it got onto hoarders and I said they were just waiting for trends to come back around so they could make money. He summed it up beautifully by saying hoarders are just antique speculators. Other than that, I helped a couple patrons and messed around with another button idea (a cow wearing ruby slippers in front of a tornado).

For the last hour I was off desk and spent that whole time talking to one of the other librarians. Literally the whole time. I didn't even log into the second computer at the desk. It might be a new record. But there was some library-related stuff in there so I don't feel too bad.

When I got home I made the sweet potato and black bean enchiladas recipe. I've also been referring to it as Mexican lasagna. That's gotta be a thing already. Anyway, it took about two hours to make, which seemed excessive, but I think it turned out pretty tasty. It involves an unhealthy amount of cheese, and took two hours, so I don't foresee myself making it too often, but I can see it happening again at some point in the future.

After dinner, which didn't leave too much time, I watched videos and clicked around the internet for awhile. I also briefly talked to the academic librarian on the phone, because we had been texting and she was going to go to bed and wanted to end the conversation we had been having via text. And now I'm writing this so I can go to bed.

I am hoping I sleep better tonight because I finally turned the air conditioning on. For the first however long it sounded like there was someone in the basement banging on the air ducts. When I finally went down to check because it wasn't going away, I discovered a decent amount of air flow is happening in the bottom part of the furnace (enough to suck the bottom panel to the furnace). I hadn't put the panels back on after messing with it, but after putting those back in place, the banging stopped. Mystery solved.

Now I'm going to go to bed. And hopefully I will sleep soundly.