September 7, 2016

 Today kind of got away from me. I started my day working on an outline for one of the upcoming tech classes. That led me to play around with Prezi and Canva to help me brainstorm how I would teach the class. I'm not entirely sure about Prezi yet but I think for Canva I'm just going to follow the video tutorial I made. No sense in reinventing the wheel.

Then the rest of my day was spent creating a sign for my Tidbits display. We actually got rid of four displays today and Tidbits was on the cutting block. I already pulled all the books for it, though, and I really like the idea, so I decided to keep it. My Autumn display hasn't checked out a single book in the past week so I am going to get rid of that one and replace it with Tidbits. Hence the need for the sign.

My first thought was to just put a picture Jack Webb from Dragnet because he famously only wanted the facts, which is what the display is all about. But it was decided that Dragnet was probably too obscure of a reference. Instead, I went with just a bunch of facts all over the sign, each one in a different font. My first several attempts were in Publisher but trying to put text boxes close together, or overlapping, in Publisher is a test of ones sanity. And in the end it looked like crap because the default fonts in Publisher aren't very impressive and I'm not allow to download new ones. I switched to Canva and that ended up looking a lot better. The only annoying thing is that the exported text is slightly blurry, but I think I'm going with it because I wasted way too much time on it already.

After work I went and picked up Chipotle. It didn't go well because I ended up being that person at the register that holds up the entire line. My mom gave me a buy-one-get-one card that she got at school but the girl at the register was going to fast or something and it didn't work. She thought it had but the total was my regular total so I asked and when she double-checked the receipt she was convinced. The real struggle came trying to correct it. She went and talked to her manager and then tried to put the money back on my card but that didn't work. She ended up having to just give me cash back. It was due to her mistake but I felt bad for holding up the line and all the trouble it caused the girl.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and played Just Cause 3. Tonight I just went around and liberated bases. For the last two I got in a tank and that made it a lot more fun. I am liking the game more but I still need to get better at the controls. Transitioning from parachuting or grappling or whatever else is still awkward and I feel like I end up just flailing around and mashing buttons. Oh well.

Now I'm going to go to bed. It's late and I like sleep. I don't go into work until noon tomorrow so I'm looking forward to sleeping in, even just a little bit.

September 6, 2016

 Last night I was up way too late and it looks like I'm not doing much better tonight. The goal is to be done with this and in bed by noon. Shouldn't be a problem unless I get distracted.

This morning I got up, got ready, and went to work. I spent most of my morning putting some final touches on the website I created for the tech classes because the first practice class was this afternoon. I liked how the site turned out. For the class today I was able to embed the Google Form I made on the website, which I think worked out better than having people have to open another tab or window. For the future classes that don't have content yet, I put links to the registration page for each class, which was suggested by one of the other librarians and I thought was a pretty good idea.

I just got distracted.

After the class the idea was brought up to see if it was okay that I made this standalone website that wasn't attached to the library's site. I asked the PR coordinator and she said she would like it to be apart of the library's site and that we should see if that can be done. So I emailed her, my boss, and the head tech guy so we can all be involved in the process. I am learning that in the real world even the simple things can be quite complicated. I don't know that I like it.

Two or three times now I have helped this one man with genealogy stuff. He says he's working on a book of his family history and I have helped him find information on particular people and find pictures of different family crests. This morning he came in to tell me he's moving out of town but he wanted to stop by and personally thank me for all the help I gave him even when I didn't have to. That was pretty cool.

The air conditioner in our section of the building was apparently broken today. Everywhere else in the library was as cold as it always is but our area, the reading room, and our meeting rooms were all pretty stuffy. We ended up putting a fan behind our desk just to make it a little more bearable. I've experienced far worse, like when it was 100 degrees in projection or when the air conditioner would malfunction in the computer lab at the school, but this was far from enjoyable. I don't want to complain too much, however, because it was the first day my hands haven't been freezing cold while working the desk. That part was kind of nice.

I also did some other things today but nothing worth noting. Or at least nothing worth remembering because nothing specific is really coming to me.

Tonight I ate leftover pizza for dinner and then did things. I watched YouTube videos and clicked around the internet for awhile before jumping into Just Cause 3. I did a mix between the keyboard/mouse and controller and it was somewhat better than just keyboard and mouse. The driving and flying in the game still kind of sucks because the handling of the vehicles suck. The land vehicles don't steer well and I think aiming on the helicopters is inverted because every time I try and shoot things I always start by aiming up when I want to aim down, and vice versa. It's the equivalent of playing an FPS with the wrong settings and shooting people in the feet instead of the head. And there doesn't appear to be a way to change the controls specifically for aiming weapons in helicopters. Unfortunate. I'm having some fun with the game though. I unlocked the ability today to steal cars and bring them to a garage so that they become available to call in. Collecting vehicles is my favorite part about GTAV and it was my favorite thing about the Saints Row games.

Now it is 11:52PM. So I made my goal. At least I will if I stop typing. Which I'm going to do now.

September 5, 2016

 Last night was much better in the basement. I should have slept down there the first night and maybe I would have gotten a decent night of sleep. Lesson learned.

I got up this morning and my friend made breakfast burritos for us. While those were being made I took a shower, got ready, and loaded my stuff in my car. Right after breakfast my other friend and I headed out so I could take him to the airport. We drove one town over so I could get gas and then it was a fairly straight shot to the airport. And it was almost an uneventful trip. There came a point where we needed to take a certain exit but it was labeled weird and it was an exit within an exit. So you there was an off-ramp and then an exit halfway through. Because it was labeled weird we drove right past it and got back on the highway because the off-ramp immediately became an on-ramp. It was odd. I will add that this happened because my friend decided to use his iPad for turn-by-turn directions, deviating from my printed out directions. But that ended up being a good thing in a way because the iPad immediately updates with new directions, which my paper directions would not have done. We took the next exit, crossed the highway, and got back on going in the other direction. And then we missed the new exit. So we took the next exit and ended up driving on a couple side roads for awhile, which led to the road we wanted. And then it was smooth sailing.

We got to the airport a little before 12:45PM. Originally my friend thought his flight was at 1:47PM, which put us right at the one hour early recommendation. But right after we pulled up my friend checked his phone and saw that his flight was actually at 1:25PM and that boarding was starting at 12:50PM. So really, our slight detours got us to the airport exactly on time. My friend texted me that he got through security and to the terminal right as boarding began. Not bad.

Before heading home I stopped at a nearby gas station for quick bathroom break and then I headed out. My printed directions did not fail me. I nearly missed my first exit after leaving the airport because there was a big truck in front of me that was going for the same exit and turned late. I couldn't see the exit sign until the truck turned and I wasn't expecting it because it was a 'B' exit and I never saw the 'A' exit. But I had just enough time to exit. For the first part of the interstate drive traffic was pretty bad and the flow was going 85mph so that's what I was doing just so I wasn't being a hazard.

I wasn't really keeping track of time but I made it back in pretty good time. I messed up yesterday on my miles because I was looking at the wrong trip counter, which is something I just realized. So I'll have to look at my actual mileage later, but I think today I went about 280 miles. And today should have been farther than my trip down there. I'll have to check on that tomorrow. If I remember.

Hanging out with my friends the past couple days reminded me why it is nice having friends to hang out with. It's just good times and I don't really get that anymore. This was the first time in at least a few years that all three of us have been able to hang out and that kind of sucks. We need to make it happen more often but it is a little difficult with the two of us here living three and a half hours apart and then the third one living in California. Yay for adulthood. Maybe in a few years my friend will be out of the NAVY and maybe he'll settle down a little closer to home. That would be convenient.

When I got home I did laundry and watched YouTube videos. For dinner I went and picked up Little Caesars because pizza is delicious. After dinner I eventually got around to playing Just Cause 3. I wasn't immediately into it. I like the idea of it but the controls aren't as intuitive as I would like. I might try it with a controller next time and see if that is any better. If I could just figure out all the movement systems (grapple, parachute, wingsuit) I would feel a lot better about the game. Maybe I'll get there. Or I'll move onto something else. We'll see.

September 4, 2016

 It felt like for most of the night last night I didn't sleep very well. I think it was mostly random noises and the occasional dog. And then the dogs were let outside super early. But then I was able to fall back asleep for a couple hours and that was probably the best sleep I got.

When I decided to call it quits on sleep I got up and read in my book for awhile until my friend woke up and then we went down in the basement to play Xbox. We used to stay up super late playing the Halo games on the hardest difficulty and that was always a lot of fun. This morning we played through one of the Spec Ops missions in CoD: MW2 on veteran difficulty. I vaguely remembered it but it has been years and it took us forever to finish it. It's the ones where you're just hunting snipers and it is pretty hard. At some point our other friend woke up and came down to join us. We ended up playing a few different games until after two o'clock when I finally went up to take a shower.

Sometime after three o'clock we went to eat lunch at a local Mexican place that was pretty good. After that we dropped my friends girlfriend off at her car (where we left it last night when I drove everyone home) and then my friends and I went to Braums before heading to the local campus to walk around for a bit.

When we got back to the house my friend who lives here ended up falling asleep on the couch while my other friend and I watched cooking shows on PBS. That lasted for quite awhile before we decided it was time for dinner so we packed up and headed to the grocery store. We got vegetables there but they didn't have the chicken my friend wanted so we went to Walmart for that. There were a couple failed attempts at finding a liquor store that was open before we headed back to the house so my friend could get the chicken started. After getting it all prepared and ready for the rotisserie he discovered he was out of propane, so we got back in the car and went to another Walmart. While he got the propane my other friend and I went to look for wood because my friend wanted to have a fire tonight. That ended up being a fail because Walmart apparently doesn't have wood until the weather starts getting colder. Then my friend decided he would just get some beer. This was also a fail because after standing in line for about five minutes behind a single customer, the guy at the register said he couldn't sell us beer because it was after eight o'clock on a Sunday. He not only said it in a really douchey way, but he could have told us that when we first got in line instead of waiting five minutes, only to dismiss us like we were idiots. Just because you're not happy with your job doesn't mean you can take it out on the people you are supposed to be serving at your job.

Dinner consisted of a mix of baked vegetables, roasted red potatoes, and chicken. I did not have the chicken but everything else was good. The mixed vegetables included carrots, red onions (which were really good, even though I don't really like onions, because they were sweet), red peppers, and Brussels sprouts. For dessert we had birthday cake, because today was my friend's girlfriend's birthday. We were also going to have rotisserie pineapple but it fell off the hooks and didn't rotate. Oh well.

After dinner we sat around for awhile and listened to a comedy playlist on Spotify, which we also listened to during dinner. Then we watched PBS for a little while before heading down to the basement to play some local multiplayer Black Ops 2 against bots. We didn't get done with dinner until 11:30PM and we probably didn't make it downstairs until maybe 12:30AM. So we only played for about an hour before calling it a night.

Last night I slept upstairs in the living room but tonight I am going to try sleeping in the basement because it should be quieter. There is also a lot of white noise, which is what I'm used to when I sleep. The only downside is that I can't sleep in that late tomorrow because we're leaving at ten o'clock in the morning so I can drive my friend back to the airport. I'm debating not taking a shower so I can sleep longer, and then taking one when I get home. We'll see how I feel in the morning.

September 3, 2016

 Last night I ended up going to bed super late and this morning I woke up way too early. I'd say I got a solid four hours of sleep. I could have done better.

Work was fairly boring. I got my Whimsical & Witty display put up this afternoon and by six o'clock three books had checked out. In a few hours, that is almost half of what my Most Popular display did all last month. Kind of sad, but I knew going in that the Most Popular display wasn't going to do well. I've got high hopes for Whimsical & Witty.

I also added books to my Tidbits list and was able to pull those today. I need whoever had the display area before me to take down their display. But I'm in no hurry because I have no idea what to do for a sign. Well, I have two ideas. One is just a bunch of random facts in different fonts and the other is a bunch of question marks, because the idea is that people will learn something new from the books on the display. We'll see.

This morning I made a personalized reading list for a patron and this afternoon I helped an older couple figure out ebooks on their iPad. So overall it was a pretty successful day.

After work I went home, ate a quick dinner, and then packed up my stuff. At work I made a list of what I needed to pack (and printed directions) so the packing went fairly quickly. I only almost forgot stuff several times. And then I had a false start leaving town because I got five minutes away from my house and realized I had forgotten something. In the end I didn't leave until 7:30PM.

The drive went well. I didn't make a single wrong turn and I made it in just under three and a half hours. When I parked in the parking lot the trip ended up being exactly 250 miles. I think. It's late and I'm tired. The only issue I had was that at night it is hard to read directions printed out on paper. But I powered through. I actually like driving at night better than during the day, so I'm glad I decided to come down tonight rather than waiting until the morning.

I got to town right as the concert was ending so I met my friends at a bar down the street from where the concert was (which was actually in the middle of the street. They closed down the street and put up a stage in the middle of it). We stayed at that bar for a little bit and then went to another one across the street for awhile. Bars are pretty much bars anywhere so it wasn't too exciting. After that I drove everyone to Taco Bell and then we came back to my friend's house and called it a night. I'm on the couch right now and as soon as I stop typing I'm going to crash. I think sleep will be instant.

September 2, 2016

 I did things today but not nearly as much as I should. I slept in and then read for awhile before getting out of bed. That is how every day should start.

I played more of the Battlefield 1 open beta and I'm still bad at the game. I managed to kill a few people but spent most of my time running around getting killed. And occasionally getting frustrated by lag. I don't see myself buying the game for the multiplayer considering how quickly I seemed to stop playing Battlefield 4. I am interested in the campaign, however, so we'll see how I'm feeling in October or whenever the game comes out.

I went to the bank today to deposit a couple checks, one of which I got in May for graduation. I'm awful at depositing checks.

I tried out the three ink samples I got yesterday, making little test swatches for all of them, along with the bottle of ink I got when we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Despite being overpriced, the Harry Potter ink is a pretty nice green. Two of my samples were Diamine's Meadow and Diamine's Kelly Green, both of which are pretty much the exact same color. There might be a subtle difference but part of me thinks they actually are the same color and any perceived differences are just my mind playing tricks on me. The third sample I got was De Atramentis' Adular Blue, which is the one I decided to put in my new Pilot Prera fountain pen. I originally got the greens because I thought it would be cool to have ink that matched the pen, and both of the greens matched perfectly, but I really liked the blue and it complemented the color of the pen nicely.

Tonight we went out to dinner for my sister's husband's birthday (which was yesterday but they were doing stuff with my Dad yesterday). The food on the buffet might have been the best it's ever been. I think the green beans have been better but everything else was really good. Part of it may have been the recent addition of covers on all the food, which seemed to be especially beneficial to the potatoes, which created a steam effect that kept them from drying out. I ate way too much, which is to be expected at the Chinese buffet.

After dinner we came back to the house and had my sister's cherry cheesecake for dessert. I had it last night at my Dad's and it was just as good tonight.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos, practiced my handwriting, and did a load of laundry. I needed to do more laundry but the day kind of got away from me. I also didn't pack for my trip out of town tomorrow. I'll regret that tomorrow when I'm running around trying to get everything thrown in a bag after work.

And now I'm going to go to bed because it is after midnight and I have to wake up for work in the morning. And then go on a road trip after work. I'm already tired for tomorrow.

September 1, 2016

 It's after two o'clock in the morning right now so let's hope this goes quickly.

This morning I slept in a little bit and then got up and read two or three chapters out of one of the several books I'm trying to juggle right now. I completely forgot I was going to try out the Battlefield 1 open beta, but I remembered in time to get in one and a half games of Rush. It was good to find out that I'm still awful at Battlefield games. I killed some people but as per usual, I spent more time being killed by people. I plan on trying it out again tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully better but I'm not expecting miracles. It has been awhile since I've played an FPS and I've got to get back into it. I also want to go back and finish the campaign for Black Ops 3. There are too many things to do in life. It would be nice if I could pick a single thing and be happy doing just that. It is frustrating at times being pulled in so many different directions.

At work today I did things. I think I came up with a display idea. Right now the title is Tidbits but that may change. The idea behind it is books with a random bits of information. I created quite the list tonight so hopefully it goes well. The real trick is coming up with a sign for it. My only thought is to just have a bunch of random facts written across it in different fonts. It's a work in progress.

This afternoon my boss and I had a meeting with one of the IT guys and a lady would works for the library system in our basement to talk about tech class ideas. I would say it was a productive meeting and it got me a little bit excited for the potential we have. I don't think we're going to actually try anything until the new year but now we've got some things to think about.

This evening I went out and pulled the books for my Witty & Whimsical display. I got fifteen non-fiction books and fifteen fiction books, just to mix things up. Thirty books might be too much but I got on a role and I am excited about the display I hope it does well.

After work I went over to my Dad's house because today was his birthday. My sister and her husband were able to go out to dinner with him and the family but because I had to work, I only got dessert. Things could have been worse. Following dessert my dad opened his cards and the two presents I brought. I got him two of the 0.25 pens that he liked and I got him a Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen. The same all black one I got for my first pen. He grew up having to use fountain pens in school and he seemed to really like it.

My low tire pressure light came on yesterday or the day before so after dessert and the presents my brother and I went out to fix that. One tire was fairly low but they all ended up needing at least a little air.

My sister and her husband ended up leaving around sometime but I ended up staying until nearly one o'clock talking with my Dad and step-mom about random things. Which is why it is now nearly three o'clock and I am still up tying this.

That and my latest Goulet Pens package arrived today. I got three ink samples and a extra fine Goulet nib to replace the nib in one of my Jinhao pens. I really like the pen but I'm really not a fan of the Jinhao nibs. I've got three different Jinhao pens now and the nibs have prevented me from using any of them regularly. So I got the Goulet nib to change that, hopefully. It was around twice as expensive as the pen I think because the pen was super cheap during a buy-one-get-one sale. Anyway, I pulled out the old nib, which ended up getting ink all over my fingers because the pen was still inked up. But I didn't get any on my clothes, so I'm considering it a success. It took quite awhile to get the ink flowing but when I finally managed it I was not disappointed. The Jinhao nib was a medium, so even when I could get it working it was thicker than I like. Also, the pen is black and the new Goulet nib is black, which looks really nice with the pen. I'll definitely be using it more often now.

And now I'm going to bed because my sleep deprived mind keeps getting distracted by things, namely houses because the one around the corner from the library went on the market today and one of the places I've been looking at since the beginning recently went back on the market for $10,000 less. I need to go to the bank to see how much they'll give me so I know what price range I should be looking at. But good grief, it's after three o'clock in the morning. I'm going to bed.