Quiet time
03.30.04 (7:55 am) [edit]45 minutes to go before the doors to the library open. It's so peaceful here. No cell phones going off. No patrons with their headphones blaring their music so that everyone can hear. No kids shouting, running and throwing things. No adults shouting, running and throwing things.
If only it could stay that way for just a little bit longer . . . ;)
Let's see. What else is going on in my life? Family squabbles, child care issues, Grandfather's illness, pinkeye flares up yet again, therapy sessions with my wife, busy at work, busy at home - nothing out of the ordinary there.
Blah, Blah, Blah! Life is too complicated. I need a vacation that lasts for a year or two and then I'll need another one to recover from that one. ;)
Dawn of the Dead
03.26.04 (10:20 am) [edit]was . . . disappointing. Probably because I had gotten myself so psyched up about seeing it. :?
I am such a fan of George Romero's original trilogy - hopefully soon to be a quartet since the successes of 28 Days Later and this version of Dawn of the Dead.
What made them so good was the fact that they were actually character studies. The audience learned about the people and could sympathize with them because they were normal human beings put into an insane situation. In the Romero films, whether due to budget constraints or plan, the casts were kept small. That tighter focus allowed each survivor to have their moment in the camera's eye - to become real (and plausible) to the viewer.
The zombies were a slow moving, relentless force of nature that forced the characters to act in ways that were at times inimical to their normal modes of behavior and also at times brought forward other better aspects of their characters. The survivors were forced to discard many of their prejudices and preconceptions, bonding together for the common good. Those who were selfish in the face of disaster, perished . . . violently.
The zombies in the original films provided a chance for social commentary. The redneck zombie-killing party; the mall-walking corpses from our consumer society; the empathetic "Bob" and the soldiers from Day of the Dead, all forced the audience to think about who and what was "evil" in the films.
This new version jettisons nearly all of that depth for a torrent of gore. There are now 20 or so (it actually got hard to keep track of how many survivors there were) characters in the film, where the original had 4. Many of the new characters are seemingly introduced only to provide fodder for the zombies to attack and kill in, I have to admit, inventively gory situations, or for extremely underdeveloped subplots, or in one case, to provide a brief glimpse of T&A in a 5-10 second sex scene.
I do appreciate the nods to the original and the cameos by original cast members. :)
I guess my main problem with the film was that it [b]was[/b] such an unrelenting torrent of gore. There was no explanation of why or how the zombies kept "functioning," particularly at the rates of speed that they displayed. How can a decomposing corpse still run like an olympic athlete after several days/weeks. What ever happened to rigor mortis? I can certainly understand that a recently dispatched person could get up and move like they did when they were still alive, but after several days of dehydration wouldn't they at least move a bit slower? And the blood? Why wouldn't it coagulate after a relatively short time? At least in 28 Days Later and Romero's other non-zombie but similar film [b]The Crazies[/b], the "zombies" were more just infected humans that had been reduced to mindlessness. The original's stiff-legged weak assaults were much more "realistic" and "plausible" than the gallons of blood and gore from the speed demon assault engines portrayed here.
For a more realistic view of how a world affected by a zombie-plague would be, see my links on the left for the one to the online novel Autumn.
Okay, after re-reading this entry, I'm thinking that my zombie obsession might need psychiatric scrutiny? :wink:
Perhaps it's just that so many of the patrons I deal with seem to be more undead than alive? So sometimes it's not hard for me to imagine myself in a zombie film. :roll:
Open library doors, insanity ensues . . .
03.24.04 (1:00 pm) [edit]Last night I had a guy here at the library blow up at me because he had used up his turns on our automated internet control system and he needed to finish something. He started yelling that he wanted to speak to the city's head librarian about our computer policies - regardless of the fact that she works at the main branch downtown (9-5) and has literally dozens of deputies under her to deal with this stuff. It would have taken him quite a while to work his way up through the chain of command and all for 15 minutes more of [b]FREE[/b] internet time before the computers shut down for the night that he didn't have left anyway because he'd wasted it. :evil:
I, of course, did know exactly how to bypass the problem and fix it for him, but his behavior didn't exactly endear him to me. :twisted: (Time for me to attend Customer Service Training again?) :roll:
So I told him what the policies were and how the software controlling the sign-up system was set up and that there was no way to fix the problem using [b]his[/b] library card to sign on to the system again.
That said, then he wanted me to use my library card to log him on for more time - which I wasn't about to do. :roll:
Why should I, as a city employee, want to break library rules and policies which are designed to give every patron an equal chance to use the computers and, at the very least, bend the city statute that we have regarding the fraudulent use of other people's library cards. Not to mention the fact that if he did do something illegal on the internet, I would be the patron of record who used the terminal. :roll:
Finally, when I managed to involve the manager in this patron's harangue, the manager told me that we have a couple of fake cards for this type of situation - a fact that no one had mentioned to me previously. I should have known that I would be left twisting in the wind. So I had to quickly make it known to the patron that this was not something that was done at my previous library and that no one had informed me that these fake log-in cards existed - which they hadn't. :x
Final Score = Patron happy, ArcadeAttendant pissed off.
Once again it seems that the rules only exist to be broken . . .
Today, in the first hour on desk, I've already had to deal with two crappy patrons - one in person and one by phone. :x
The first one was a guy who wanted to put something on hold from another library, but claimed to have forgotten his pin number for doing the transaction online. I asked for his card, which he then handed to me. The card number didn't exist in the system anymore meaning that he'd probably lost it and gotten a replacement card at one point. I mentioned that to him and he looked at me and said,"This is my little cousin's card." I told him that he was breaking the law by using someone else's card and confiscated it. I told him that the card was no good any longer and had probably been noted as stolen and that if he was over 15 (he looked like a high school kid - which meant I should have kicked him out for being truant), he needed to get his own card at the front desk. He didn't do it, which usually means he has a record and owes way too much money or doesn't have any ID, or is actually truant from school and didn't want to be caught. What he did do was hide in the back of the building and quietly worked on what looked like homework - which is fine. I didn't spot him until almost two hours later, at which point it was close enough to school letting out that I wouldn't have been justified in giving him the boot anymore for being truant.
The second patron was a notorious nutcase from my last location. This lady owns a dance studio and calls the libraries on this side of town looking for music on CDs, but doesn't want to learn how to look things up on her own. She wants to call the libraries and ask us to look up songs on very broad subjects - this time it was "gifts" as she was providing some sort of musical service for a wedding - and then read off the long lists of things that we come up with from the catalog so she can request that some of those items be ordered for her. She also wants us to comment on whether or not we think that each song is appropriate for what she's doing, as if we all know every song out there and can make the decision for her. I had someone waiting in the chair in front of my reference desk and I told her that she would have to come in and we'd be happy to give her bibliographic instruction on how to do the searches herself, but wouldn't do them over the phone in the manner that she wanted. If she wanted more qualified help in her musical selection process, then she needed to go to our main branch where they have an entire department and several librarians devoted to music. That seemed to shock her that a small branch library wouldn't have a music specialist on duty to assist her for what I know from experience would have been a half hour to forty-five minute call. :roll:
Ah well, the day is still young and there are many more crazy people lurking about outside, just waiting to pounce on a poor unsuspecting paraprofessional such as myself . . .
At least I can look forward, after a day of dealing with the living dead, to seeing them onscreen. Yes, I'm going to see [b]Dawn of the Dead[/b] tonight after work with another geeky librarian friend of mine. :D
Unfortunately I've started looking like an extra from that movie again as my pinkeye has started to come back after I'd finished my last course of eyedrops for it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to visit the doctor to cure this with some permanence. :(
The way things are going, I'm sure there'll be more stories later today. :roll:
Given up.
03.23.04 (12:50 pm) [edit]The gift romance paperbacks have finally broken me. :roll:
Someone donated about 500 romance novels about a month ago and I can't stand looking at reviews of them anymore! :roll:
Besides that, I don't have room to add any more of them; especially not Regency romances which seem to make up the bulk of the gift pile here. There are only so many that we can fit into our rapidly growing collection.
So, I'm boxing them up and sending them on to become someone else's problem at our main branch. I don't care if they add them, sell them or trash them. I just don't want to see them again. :roll:
I've never read a romance novel; never had the slightest urge to read one. Don't want to read the male equivalents: westerns & action/spy/military man-romances either.
Unfortunately, the patrons at this branch love romances, particularly historical ones. They love romances and cozy mysteries, which shouldn't come as any surprise because I'm guessing the median age of our patrons to be something like 50 years old.
Sci-fi doesn't go here and especially not Star Trek/Star Wars novels which circulated a lot at my past location - surprising because of the largely Hispanic immigrant patron base there. :shock:
It almost makes me miss my old spot, when I could order all kinds of Sci-fi titles and have the circulation stats to justify it. :)
Just last week, I stopped over there at the old place and grabbed three paperbacks off the rack that I ordered for there (and for me, when I got down to them on my reading list). I'm almost through with the first one (see my current fiction link for more details) and then it's on to Dreampark by Larry Niven and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. After that, I've got I think 2 more waiting for me on the hold shelf - better get crackin'! :o
Two quick last notes:
I saw [b]Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [/b] on Saturday and I have to say that it was one of the best movies I've seen in a long while. I highly recommend it and though I'm definitely not one of Jim Carrey's biggest fans, I think he did a great job in this movie.
I'm going to see [b]Dawn of the Dead[/b] tomorrow night after work. My brother, who's a Zombie film connoisseur like myself, saw it on Friday and said he thought it was as good as 28 days later, or possibly even better. He did admit though that because this version is set in our hometown area, it really enhanced the horror and fright level for him. His actual words were that, "they did a great job of capturing the "brownness" (bleakness) of our region's landscape during parts of the year," so it made it all the more believable for him and hopefully for me as well. :D
Maybe more later . . .
St. Patrick's Day Curmudgeon
03.18.04 (2:31 pm) [edit]I don't celebrate St. Patrick's day.
People have a hard time understanding that, especially in light of my last name: Caughey. They automatically assume that because the name is ostensibly an "Irish" name that I'm of Irish descent and that I was raised in the Catholic church - they also assume that I must be a fan of drinking green beer till I puke, eating cabbage & corned beef (I do love a good Reuben though), dancing jigs, singing "Vaudeville" Irish songs like "Danny Boy," and wearing radioactive green clothing in what I find to be a horrific celebration of an awful ethnic stereotype - something we here in this city get to do more than once per year.
My family and ancestry is "Irish" only in that my ancestors moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland for a couple of generations before they set sail for the even greener pastures of America. We've (my forebears) been here in America (at least as far as my attempts at genealogy have proven) since before 1800 - way before the potato famine that sparked the mass migration of the Irish to America.
My family has been Presbyterian for literally centuries. We've not venerated saints since the time of Calvin, though I don't want to sound anti-Catholic in any way, shape or form. In fact, I went to a Catholic university for a year before transferring for financial reasons to a state university across town. For another example of how little religious distinctions really mean anymore in this day and age: my best friend, who grew up in the same church as me, converted to Catholicism when he got married 2 years ago and his family didn't even bat an eyelash about the switch - though that may have been because they were just so happy that he was actually settling down with someone. :wink:
We've also never needed an "excuse" like a single holiday to drink hard and party in my family, despite the "puritanical" roots of our "Calvinist" religion. The only thing that holds us back from partying more than we do is another family tradition: diabetes. Luckily for me, I was past the college-drink-till-you-dr op stage in my life long before the spectre of diabetes that had been shadowing me for years finally caught up with me.
St. Patrick's Day celebrations used to have a legitimate purpose as a means of protest (against what were, sad to say, probably some of my ancestor's harassment), strengthening ethnic identity and consolidating political power - not to mention venerating an important saint. What's unfortunate is that this celebration has become coopted by the very groups that it was aimed against and perverted into the stereotypical "amateur night" drunkfest that it's become, particularly in recent years.
I'd consider celebrating it if there were other equally offensive ethnic stereotype holidays such as a Polish one where people acted stupid and did things backwards, or a French (not Bastille day) one where everyone had to act snooty, eat snails and drink cheap wine - you get the idea. At least then there wouldn't be one group singled out and something like diversity would appear in un-PC holidays.
I don't need a "holiday" to celebrate my ethnic heritage (real or imaginary), especially not one that cheerfully celebrates how an ethnic group was abused and vilified.
Okay, now that I've probably succeeded in pissing off all 3 members of my audience, I think my work here for the day is done.
Maybe tomorrow, I'll get down off my soapbox and write some actual library-related stuff again.
:wink:
Eyes of Pink
03.16.04 (1:12 pm) [edit]Yes, once again I have succumbed to an occupational hazard: conjunctivitis. Handling filthy library material + staring at a computer screen for extended periods + rubbing eyes, forgetting to take the precaution of handwashing or sanitizer =
So, rather than run the risk of infecting my co-workers, I valiantly called in sick yesterday - facing further possible reprimand for the unforgivable sin of actually using sick leave days. :roll:
I've already been given a warning about how many sick days (6) that I've used in the past year, even though what I've used constitutes only a fraction of the total number I've accumulated in the past 3 years of working for the library system.
What's really stupid about the way that sick leave is counted in my library system; anything more than 4 hours constitutes one incident of sick leave use, but if you stay out for 3 full days, that also counts as one incident. So there really isn't much incentive to come back early from being sick. In theory, you could (if you had enough time accumulated) stay home sick for 18 days during a year and get reprimanded for it the same as if you'd been out for 6 days. :roll:
Also, with the new federal family/sick leave rules, you could be out sick more than that if you can get your doctor to sign something saying that you have a chronic condition. I have an occasional migraine and if I wanted to, I could get my doctor to sign a statement to that fact and then I'd never get reprimanded for being ill. With my diabetes, I could get him to say that as a person with a compromised immune system, I'm more susceptible to catching viral infections, therefore whenever I get a cold, I can stay home and not get in trouble for it. :roll:
I guess I'm just going to have to get over the notion that I'm doing the library and my co-workers a favor by trying to come back early from getting ill - especially when to it seems I'm only penalizing myself by coming back too early.
Hmmn . . . could it be that I'm really discovering where the whole stereotypical lazy public servant image comes from? In the bureaucracy, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. And I'm in the Union Dammit! :wink:
Saturdazed Again
03.13.04 (8:46 am) [edit]
Ugh! Working another Saturday. It wouldn't be so bad if:
a. I had enough sleep last night. The girl was over at my place and kicked me all night long.
b. My back wasn't sore (see "a") and giving me the posture of a 90 year old.
c. I had enough caffiene this morning. I was trying to be quiet getting ready for work this morning and didn't want to make my usual dose of tea, because I didn't want the kettle to wake up my daughter.
Finished reading that crappy zombie novel last night. I wish the cover would have said that it was part one of two, then I would have waited for the second part to come out before reading it. I mean, it wasn't very good, but now I want to know what happens to the main characters since this book literally ended midway through the action. [b]I hate cliffhangers![/b]
Now I'm waiting for another book to arrive from another branch and I feel lost without something to read. Ironic because I work here in a library, literally surrounded by books. Unfortunately, the collection at this branch doesn't reflect my tastes at all. I've had such a hard time finding books to put on our "staff recommends" shelf because I can't recommend anything from here.
At least it's slow here today and we have extra reference staff on duty since we were supposed to provide help if someone at another branch called in sick and no one did. Maybe I can even start to tackle the growing pile of damaged materials on my desk? Probably not. The other librarians have seniority, so their projects get priority.
Time to go on break, so I think I'll just end this pointless caffeine-free rambling here.
Letdowns and Strange People
03.10.04 (1:06 pm) [edit]Last night I just finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I really loved this book as well as the last one of his books that I read, Quicksilver. But now, I'm feeling a bit like one of the main characters of his book, Lawrence Waterhouse. Waterhouse is a mathematician and cryptanalyst in WWII and he loves the intoxicating drive of actually breaking a code and solving a puzzle, but then hates the "mundane" details of actually reading the messages. He's more about the problem-solving than the actual tedious work of applying the solution and that's how I am. Reading these two books were a long and drawn out pleasure, but now they're done and I'm feeling a bit of a void.
Anyway, until Stephenson's next volume of his Baroque series comes out in April, I'm reading more light stuff, like Brian Keene's The Rising. and probably more than one Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms novel. After Stephenson, these ought to be going down about 1 every day or so.
Currently, for my music I'm hooked on The New Pornographers.
The library has been fairly quiet lately, except for the chaos of the Dr. Seuss program on Saturday. I have noticed a lot more religion-based questions lately, which are probably the result of Mel Gibson's film. In fact yesterday I had a man who wanted help finding passages in the bible using a concordance. Then he proceeded to give me an impromptu lecture on crucifixion techniques. Several other patrons have wanted books of paintings depicting the crucifixion.
The scariest information request I've had lately came last night though. It wasn't about religion. A man came up to the desk and asked for technical manuals on biometric identification systems. He told me he loved to keep up on this stuff. Of course here in a small branch library we don't have materials like that. I gave him the URL of a government website that deals with that stuff and he seemed pretty satisfied. There was something not right about this guy, but we have a lot of weird patrons. The funniest thing was that this guy wanted all of these heavy duty technical journals, but couldn't master our fairly simple Internet sign-up software. :roll:
Tonight I'm being sent out for emergency help to one of my old haunts in the library system. I used to work at that branch as the circulation supervisor before being transferred into my current position of reference assistant. It'll be strange to go back there, but familiar at the same time. I know I'll be busier there than I would have been here tonight. Guess I'll just have to surf the net between patrons, since I've got all of my "portable" projects finished at the moment. :wink: It's Murphy's Law though that I'm being sent back across town to work when I've made plans on the side of town I'm currently on for after work. :roll:
On a personal note, things have been getting better between me and my wife. We're more than likely going to get back together, but we're still going to be in therapy for a while. We both have a lot to work on, but I think both of us want to give the marriage a chance again. :)
Slimer Day
03.06.04 (8:53 am) [edit]It's a "Slimer Day." Warmer, but still snowing a bit; gray, with no breaks in the cloud cover. I'm working again today and this is the 3rd out of 4 Saturdays in a row that I've been scheduled to work. This time it was of my own doing though. I needed yesterday off to help move my grandfather's furniture since we had to move him into the medical care unit of his senior living complex. (My back is really sore today :( ) The way things are going, I might get one Saturday off this month before I have to start doing my stint of 3 Sundays in a row and have no weekends to speak of for a while. :?
Our library system is open for about half the year on Sundays, from October through April to combat the suburbs for circulation - it's a long complicated financial mess involving reciprocal borrowing charges.
They keep the main branch and the two most active neighborhood libraries open on Sundays from 1-5 and staff them with "volunteers." The staff service is voluntary, but mandatory, meaning that you have to "volunteer" for a selection of the days they want to be open and tell them which days you'd be "willing" to work and then they choose from the pool of volunteering staff and assign dates. The wording on the date selection form is very ambiguous as they ask, "how many days would you [b]prefer[/b] to work." I and others have gotten in trouble for stating that we'd [b]prefer[/b] to work 0 days. Because as you can guess, they don't want to hear that we'd [b]prefer[/b] not to work on Sundays. The true question is how many total days we'd be [b]willing[/b] to work out of the ones on the list.
As someone with a degree in English, that kind of misuse of the language burns me - especially when the ambiguousness of the text, particularly in a job-related form, can get one in trouble. I don't know what the author of the form's intent is, so I have to go by a strict definition of the terms in the text - even when it's known what the intent was . . . :twisted:
Today we have our Dr. Seuss 100th birthday celebration this afternoon. I would expect that we're going to have over a hundred people attend, if the attendance at the other branches that have had theirs is any indicator. I just saw the cake that's been provided; it's going to take a mathematician to divide it up so that everyone can get a piece and the pieces will be have to be about 1 inch square. :roll:
At least it's quiet for now though and I can catch up on my blogs while I wait for the fun and games to begin. :roll:
Utility player
03.04.04 (3:58 pm) [edit]Here at the "unbusy" library, I've become something of the utility infielder. I keep getting shuffled around from desk to desk filling in whenever someone else needs a break. It's great that they think I have such versatility, but frustrating too when I have to keep jumping up from whatever project I'm working on and move to another spot. :roll: I think I've gotten to actually sit and work at my own desk for less than thirty minutes at a stretch today. :(
Tonight I'm working the children's reference desk, but I've already sat over here two other times today for a couple of short stints to cover breaks, meetings and just plain shortages of reference staff out here on the main floor.
The hardest thing has been getting re-oriented at each desk I've been asked to work, especially when I've had to leave the other staff member logged in on the terminal because they're in the middle of something online (a book order for example). I keep looking for my favorites and end up having to search again for the site I was on for my work (paperback ordering), or wanting to check my email and having to log-in using the web based version of our email program (slower and clunkier).
At the children's desk here, I'm also having to deal with the bizarre placement of the monitor, keyboard, mouse and telephone. Instead of moving the desk in a rational manner to provide the best vantage point for keeping an eye on things, the librarian who's desk this normally is, has placed the CPU under the desk where it's constantly in danger of being kicked; placed the monitor, keyboard and mouse in such a manner as to make the computer impossible to use unless one is straddling the drawers of the desk; and finally, he's placed the phone at the far end of the desk, necessitating a 3 foot lean and grab whenever the phone rings. I feel like a contortionist working here . . . :evil:
No wonder he needs a pad on his chair for his back . . .
At least tonight for dinner, I found out that the Chinese restaurant down the street makes decent
Singapore Noodles (I even found their recipe online in the local paper). :D A little pricey, but great for helping to clean out my still stuffed up sinuses from being sick. :DTomorrow, I'm off again from work, but I have to work on Saturday and were having our Dr. Seuss celebration that afternoon - should be a real zoo, if the other libraries that have had their parties already are any indication of how things will go here. :(
But there's no rest or relaxation in store for me tomorrow. I'm helping to move my grandfather's furniture into storage in the basement of my mom's house because we've had to move him again. This time it's from his assisted living apartment into the nursing care facility at his senior complex. Last time it was from his regular senior apartment to assisted living and that was only about eight months ago. At least now when he goes, there won't be much physical labor to do . . .
Okay, it's official. After writing all this and thinking about the shortened weekend I'm going to have, I've decided to goof off the rest of the night now. :wink:
Birthday Party
03.02.04 (8:17 am) [edit]
As promised, here are some pics from my daughter's 3rd birthday party. Click on the picture to go to the gallery. :D