November 20, 2017

 I got seven hours of sleep last night but I think I needed eight because it was a struggle getting out of bed. Despite that, I got up and around and made it to work on time.

I spent the first couple hour at work researching and sending emails to potential instructors for next semester's adulting classes. Depending on the responses, I think we at least have options for all the classes we want to do. Fingers crossed.

I was on desk four two hours after that and my main accomplishment was composing a Thank You not for the gaming convention group that brought their tabletop games to the library for International Games Day this weekend. Later in the day I emailed him to get his address (I looked in the directory but there were two addresses and it wouldn't have been right to look up his account) and in his response he mentioned wanting to donate some games, which is great.

I also talked to my coworkers and the library director about Thanksgiving food. It made me hungry for Thanksgiving food. I'm really looking forward to green bean casserole and too many mashed potatoes.

After lunch I had a walkthrough and I pulled books for our Staff Picks display. On my second walkthrough I got in a fight with an audiobook. Turns out head-butting the edge of hard-case audiobook is not a good idea. I was pulling them to restock my audiobook display and as I reached for a book on the bottom shelf I slammed by head into a really big case on the stop shelf. I think it was a language set maybe because it was at least twice as long as a normal case. I now have a one inch scratch on my forehead but thankfully it didn't break the skin. I just had to put up with some crap from my coworkers. I was then on desk for an hour and accomplished nothing. And then I had another walkthrough. This time, I refilled the Mystery display and managed to not slam my head into anything. I preferred that to my previous walkthrough.

I ended the day working on my wi-fi tutorial. I still haven't added any text but I added more screenshots with the help of one of the other librarians who has an iPhone. Overall, it was a weird day. It went by quickly but it didn't really feel like I accomplished much.

When I got home I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and then played CoD: WW2 multiplayer. I busted out the sniper rifle for several games and it was a lot of fun. It is super satisfying getting one-shot kills. It is still really annoying when there are camping snipers but it is less annoying when you are one of them. I'm not sure how many kills it takes to get all of the camos on the rifle I'm using but that is my main motivation now for using the sniper.

Tomorrow is going to be rough because it is almost midnight and I have to wake up at six o'clock in the morning. I need to go back to listening to music while I write these, not watching livestreams that are incredibly distracting.

Oh, and one last thing. There was loud music coming from my neighbors house. The one no one currently lives in. I thought it was just going to be a game house but maybe not. And they must have the whole week off because it's Monday night, not a typical party night.

November 19, 2017

 I got seven hours of sleep last night and woke up sometime after nine o'clock. I thought it would be much later. Most of my morning was spent watching YouTube videos and the second season of The Good Place, and playing Starbound. I confirmed my vague recollection that the map in Starbound loops, so if you keep going in one direction you'll eventually come back around to where you started. So I have circumnavigated my first planet. I'm still liking the game but I need to upgrade my stuff so I don't feel so vulnerable every time I see a mob. It would also be nice if the bow and arrow mechanic worked better.

After lunch I mixed my own trail mix. It has: almonds, pistachios, cashews, peanuts, raisins, and dark chocolate chips. I was only going to mix half of what I bought but the container I used was big enough so I said screw it and made it all. I now have 115oz of trail mix. That's a ridiculous amount of trail mix. I might need to freeze some. But, I just did the math and I saved a decent amount of money. Overall, compared to the trail mix I was buying before, I saved $23.19, and that comes out to $0.20 per ounce, which I think is pretty good.

I moved four bookcases into my house today. I put two in my bedroom and two in my office. I still have three in the garage but I'm not sure where I want them yet. Now I need to start bringing books over from my Mom's house. I still don't have nearly enough shelf space for all of my books but it's a start. I managed the bookcases alright but I could feel it in my back when I moved my small routing table. I'm hoping I wake up tomorrow morning and I'm not in pain when I go to sit up in bed.

For dinner I made my stir fry recipe, substituting the brown rice with pad thai noodles. I think I needed to at least break the pad thai noodles in half because in the pan they just created a big rats nest of noodles. Everything turned out alright though and my dinner was tasty.

While I ate I finished catching up on season two of The Good Place and after that I played more CoD: WW2 multiplayer. I prestiged my Infantry division again and I'm still not entirely sure of the purpose other than being able to level it up again and getting a new calling card or something. But I do it because I like leveling. My actual level is forty-one, out of fifty-five, but each level takes progressively more XP to complete. I just looked up a leveling table and it looks like I'm just over halfway to max level. If things continue and I maintain interest in the game, this might be my first time prestiging in years. The problem with prestiging is that you start from scratch and have to unlock everything all over again. And if you're kind of over the game at that point, I don't know that it's worth resetting everything because it would be more fun to jump back into it later if you still had the loadouts you like. I don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

It has now once again taken me far too long to write this because I keep getting distracted by a livestream. But now I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm looking forward to a

November 18, 2017

 Last night I got eight hours of sleep and then stayed in bed a little longer because my room was cold and it was warm under the covers.

I got out of bed around 8:45AM and then watched YouTube videos, clicked around the internet, and played a little bit of Starbound. I have wanted to play that game for years and just recently picked it up in a Humble Bundle. I feel like the controls are overly complicated when it comes to the hotbar, but other than that I am liking it.

This afternoon I went to my Mom's to do laundry. While that happened, I watched Tommy Boy and a little bit of Happy Gilmore. I haven't seen either in years and Tommy Boy reminded me of how funny Chris Farley was. It's such a shame he passed away so young.

I did a little research on washers and dryers because at some point I need to get my own. Turns out they're still expensive. Affordable, but still expensive. I also made a grocery list. I went through the local grocery store's website, adding stuff to my cart, and when I got to the end they said pickup wasn't available at that store (because I thought I would try the curbside pickup thing). It is available at the store across town but it wasn't available today. One of the other grocery stores in town also has it but I wasn't going to go through the process again just to find out it wasn't going to work. So instead, I went with the old fashion paper and pen list.

And on my way home, I went to the grocery store. It was six o'clock, which is earlier than I would normally go, but they actually had produce, so that was nice. Among other things, I got Cheerios (Honey Nut and original) because I was have a craving, pad thai noodles to change up my stir fry recipe, and the individual ingredients for trail mix. I'm pretty excited about the trail mix. Hopefully it turns out alright.

Following the grocery store, I stopped and got gas, and then headed home. While I ate dinner I started watching the second season of The Good Place. I wasn't sure how I felt about the beginning of the second season but I'm back on board now. I enjoy the show.

Later on I played more CoD: WW2 multiplayer. I really like the addition of the War game mode. It's a nice change of pace from the other games. This CoD also doesn't have Demolition, which I really liked, but War has some of those elements. Plus, it doesn't count deaths, so there is more incentive to actually play the objective for people who are usually more concerned with their K/D than the objective. I played several different game modes tonight, had one match where I didn't have the most points but did have the most kills (which is a first), and had a match where I had the final play of the game. There is probably some algorithm for figuring that out (I think it used to just be the final kill cam) but more often than not it is a sniper play. But the stars aligned and somehow I got it, even if it wasn't the best thing I've ever done.

Tomorrow, I'm going to sleep in, maybe make trail mix, and probably make stir fry for dinner. I've also been playing with the idea of finally moving some of the bookcases from my aunt into my house. They've been in my garage for months now. It would be a better two-person job, however, so we'll see how ambitious I'm feeling. My left knee has been bothering me today and who knows how my wrists

November 17, 2017

 I have put this off far too long. It is after midnight and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.

I got seven hours of sleep, woke up at seven o'clock, got ready, and went to work. It was kind of a weird day at work. I worked on a lot of random things and struggled to find motivation. I have been so focused on doing presentations for the last month or two that it feels weird not having that at the forefront of my mind anymore. Now I'm back to all the random projects I'm working on.

I compiled a list of all the articles and resources I used to make my fake news presentation. That went pretty fast but it involved a lot of typing. And right after I sent it I found another good article. That's just how it goes. I also posted the PDF version of my presentation and my article list to our department blog in case anyone is interested.

I actually took both of my breaks today, which might be the first time ever. Or at least the first time in over a year. I spent both of them working on the perler bead project I started yesterday. By the end of my second break I was able to finish it. And I wasn't even really interested in it because it was for the tech center guy's band. Now I want to make something cool.

I compiled a list of the recommended tabletop games I got from the game convention guy. He sent me a long list with an explanation for why he recommended them. It was pretty cool. I compiled it into a spreadsheet that includes the number of players, type, age recommendation, and price. It should come in handy when we start buying games and building our collection.

After lunch I updated my homebound spreadsheets with the comments I received on the books I delivered last month. I also helped a patron with our law database computers. One wasn't working and the other one was incredibly slow but he was eventually able to get what he needed. I put in a help desk ticket for the broken one, and it has apparently been acting up for awhile, so hopefully that can get sorted out.

On one of my walkthroughs I refilled the Mystery display. It's still one of the best/easiest displays because I just wander through through the stacks and pick books labeled Mystery. I could probably do a better job and look up top Mystery lists, but I'm not. After that I was on desk yet again. I was on desk four hours today. That's a lot. Anyway, I started working on my Wi-Fi tutorial again, which I don't think I have worked on since September. I made a little progress adding screencaps, one of which I ended up just recreating because the text was so blurry. I think now I just need to add the text and call it good.

I also counted the number of links I added to my fake news presentation. The final total was 931. That's a lot of links.

When I got home I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and caught up on internet things. Around nine o'clock I played more CoD: WWII multiplayer. Once again, I'm still enjoying it. I had a couple really good games. There was one point in of the the matches where I was just pegging bad guy after bad guy halfway across the map and it was pretty great. It would be nice if I could play like that more often. The game would definitely be more fun.

November 16, 2017

 Last night I got eight hours of sleep, which was great, and I woke up at 8:45AM, before my alarm went off. I then spent the rest of the morning trying to catch up on YouTube videos, clicking around the internet, and sending a couple emails. It was a nice morning.

I went to work at noon and had two walkthroughs, one at noon and another at 12:30PM. Between the walkthroughs and then afterward I went upstairs so I could listen to music and focus on adding links to my presentation. And it worked because I was able to finish adding links to the Table of Contents.

I was on desk for an hour at three o'clock and used that time to add navigation buttons to each slide. That went much quicker than the other link stuff and I was able to email the final PDF version of the presentation before I left for dinner. I just remembered that I was going to create a reference list for the articles I read. Maybe tomorrow.

After dinner I had a walkthrough, ran into a couple kids from the school I used to work at, and I restocked my audiobook display. And eventually I was on desk for two hours. During that time I helped patrons and worked on creating a mock-up of what it would look like if we had a video display sign in different locations outside of one of our meeting rooms.

At eight o'clock I tagged out with the other librarian to hang out with the patrons who came for the perler beads craft night, including my Mom and sister. I spent my time trying to create a better band name design than the other librarian, for the tech. center guy's band. I didn't have time to finish it but I got close. And it was better than the other librarian's attempt, so I'm counting it as a win.

The last patron was walking out of the room as we closed so I scrambled around to do all the closing stuff (and thankfully the other librarian had done most of the upstairs closing stuff). And we got out pretty much on time. I was surprised, but I also didn't have time to put anything away. I'll have to do that tomorrow morning.

When I got home I ate a little bit and then tried to catch up on YouTube videos from yesterday. I nearly succeeded. I should be able to do that this weekend. Maybe.

November 15, 2017

 Last night I only got six and a half hours of sleep. It was not enough.

I opened with another librarian today so all the opening stuff went pretty fast. I took upstairs and she did the downstairs stuff. When we opened I was on desk for two hours and my main reference question was from a grandma helping find books for her grandson who was working on his final merit badge. She came in yesterday or the day before looking for books as well. The grandson is apparently working on his Eagle project, and yet it seems like his grandma is doing his merit badge for him. It could be completely innocent, and she could just be getting the books for him, but I'm the one picking out the books and I have a sneaking suspicion she's the one doing the reading. I know there were parents when I was in Scouts that did stuff like that for their kids. Even some who did the vast majority of the work for the Eagle project. That takes away from the kid's experience and I don't really think it sets them up for success later in life. It's kind of frustrating to watch.

The rest of my time on desk, and then after my walkthrough, I added links to the table of contents in my presentation. I remembered that I needed to add the links in Publisher, which would allow me to link to pages in the document, and those would save in PDF form. I also remembered that I had to add the links on each slide, I couldn't copy and paste them because for some reason the links don't carry over. So it has turned into a very long, tedious process.

This afternoon we went out to deliver books. I picked up books from one patron and delivered books to three others. It was a slow month for homebound. The other librarian didn't have much to deliver either and I think she had three or four patrons that didn't want anything. After delivering books we went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a few things for tomorrow's program. I haven't been to Hobby Lobby in close to a year. I need to get back into making stuff.

When we got back to the library we dropped our books off at circulation and then I went upstairs to continue working on adding links to my presentation. I made it to slide fifty, out of one-hundred and twenty or so. It would be sweet if I could finish tomorrow but that might be unrealistic. We'll see how distracted I get.

After work I picked up Qdoba and then went to my Mom's house for dinner. We ate, talked, and watched videos. I was also able to finish replacing smoke detector batteries because my Mom bought more batteries.

When I got home I checked internet things and then played CoD: WW2 multiplayer. I played several different gamemodes and had a good time. I'm close to prestiging my Infantry division, and the last thing I did tonight was prestige one of my guns. I can't remember all the benefits of prestiging a weapon but I do know I have to unlock all of the attachments again, which will be a little bit of a pain. But I like unlocking things and leveling up, so all is well.

Now, audio journal, and then sleep.

November 14, 2017

 Right as I was about to go to bed last night I remembered that I had once again forgotten to apply for health insurance. Today was the last day and I didn't want to worry about forgetting again, so I stayed up and applied for insurance. Despite that, I managed to get eight and a half hours of sleep last night. Not bad.

When I got to work I spent the first five minutes or so fixing my umbrella. The button was broken and then umbrella wouldn't open. That kind of defeats the purpose of an umbrella. After a lot of fiddling I finally sorted the button out so we're back in business now. Unfortunately, I missed the rain today.

I had the first two hours free so I went up to the cubicle and continued working on adding subtitles to my presentation. And I read a few articles. Then I was on desk for two hours. I labeled my homebound bags and ignored two of them because the patron called and said she didn't want books until after Christmas. So this month I'm down to three patrons and maybe twenty-five books. I think I used to be in the sixties for books.

After lunch I was the backup person for our tech class, which took two hours, and then I went back upstairs. I was able to finish adding subtitles and now I want to figure out how to add links in a PDF. I feel like I already figured that out but I can't remember.

When I got home I made dinner. I roasted vegetables and mixed them with garlic flavored brown rice and fake meat. It turned out way better than I was expecting. While I ate I finished watching the first season of The Good Place. Now I need to start watching the second season. I'm interested to see if they can keep it interesting.

After I washed my dishes I played a few matches of CoD: WW2. Still enjoying the game.

Now it's audio journal time so I can go to bed. I have to open again tomorrow. Not looking forward to it but I get off at five o'clock, so there's that.