Rollercoaster World
04.26.04 (3:41 pm) [edit]Even after 37 years on this world, it still amazes me how quickly the wheel can turn; one minute you're on top and the next . . .
As noted by my wife on her blog; we were all thrilled last week at the news that my sister-in-law was expecting. She and her husband had been trying for about 3 years to conceive and had finally just about given up when she took a home pregnancy test because she was late. Ironically this was on the final day of her husband's job as a computer graphics designer, as his company had eliminated his local division. He had a generous severance package from his employer and had decided to go freelance, having several prospective jobs lined up. So, it was a bit of an anxious time for them on both fronts, but an exciting one as well.
Then, a few days later, my sister-in-law began to develop symptems of jaundice, which grew more pronounced with each passing day. Her doctors didn't think too much of it and just scheduled her for an early OB/GYN visit and some laboratory blood work, telling her that it wasn't out of the ordinary and that she needed to rest. She continued to feel worse and worse until late yesterday afternoon when she began vomiting severely and her husband took her to the ER, where she was diagnosed with having an extremely rare and potentially fatal blood disease called [b]Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura[/b], or TTP for short. One of the main triggers for this syndrome is pregnancy, as the pregnant woman's hormonal balance is thrown off kilter.
Up until relatively recently, this disorder was fatal in something like 80% of all cases. Today however, that has changed to an incredible 80% survival rate. The main treatement for it is total blood blood plasma exchange, meaning that she has to have all of her blood plasma removed and replaced by plasma from donors. There are a lot of potential complications due to this process and we don't know if or how it will affect her pregnancy, especially this early on (6 weeks).
Time will tell if she's going to respond to the treatment and if she does, there's a very good chance that she'll be cured permanently. There's also (from the site I linked to about the disorder) at least some small hope that the pregnancy will continue unaffected by this unfortunate occurrence.
My thoughts today and for the foreseeable future will be with my sister-in-law and her husband who've both been very good to and supportive of me, even when my wife and I were having our own difficult times in our relationship.
Just before I forget, there were two things of note here at the library today. One is a kid who comes here every day and asks to borrow a calculator frequently. I asked him why he couldn't bring his own in and his reply was that he wasn't allowed to have one at school. (Are they banned like guns are or something?) I pointed out that he didn't need to use it there and that they cost something like $1.99 at the grocery store. To this he replied that his family didn't own one . . . :roll:
Secondly, we had a young man walking around in here today with what appeared to be a Siberian Tiger tail hanging out from the back of his jacket, as if it was growing from him. :shock: The other librarian on duty and I just stared as he passed us several times, apparently making sure that we saw him and his tail. I casually mentioned that perhaps he was a "Furry," but the other librarian, who must lead a more sheltered life than I, didn't know what I meant. :wink:
Day of Rest?
04.25.04 (1:44 pm) [edit]Thanks to a complaint from someone that I hadn't updated my blog in a while, I finally decided to devote some time to writing an entry. :wink:
Things have actually been so busy for me at work and at home that I haven't been reading other blogs much, let alone writing my own. I haven't had much material to write about either - at least none that seemed blogworthy. I mean if I'm only going to post sporadically, then it should be something more than just the usual "things are fine" or "this crappy patron bugged me today."
But anyway, I did have a complaint from my friend Goofylibrarian that he needed something new to read on my blog, so here it is:
As I said before, things have been really busy at work. I haven't had much time for surfing the web there and what little time I've had for it has been devoted to doing genealogical research. I've done a lot before, but I've recently had more interest in working on my ancestral database because my dad's memorial service is coming up in June. I've got a lot of relatives from his side of the family coming into town for the service and I thought I'd try to do as much work as I can on genealogy before then so I can share the info with the relatives. I really just need to clean up and organize my database, but since several of my web-based sources (Ancestry.com & HeritageQuest) have been adding to their databases recently, I keep finding more and more - particularly from the ever-growing wealth of online census images on those two sites. I won't bore anyone out there reading this with a lot of details, because it's really only of interest to me and my family and sometimes not even to them. :roll:
Yesterday at work, we were scheduled to provide emergency help for other libraries in our system, so we had three librarians (including my paraprofessional self) on duty and surprisingly no other libraries called for help. That meant that I was able to work in the staff area cleaning up some of the piles of damaged items that I've been assigned to deal with. I managed to test a box of supposedly damaged videotapes, replace a bunch of CD cases and labels to get the items back into circulation, bill people for damaging or returning items missing parts and generally take care of about 75% of the crap that's piled up on my desk since I arrived at my current library. It'll probably be another month or two before that happens again. :roll: It was really satisfying to get that much accomplished and to not deal with patrons for a whole day. :)
Last night though was a really fun one for my family and I. First, my wife asked one of her friends to drop by with her new 3 month old cocker spaniel puppy for our daughter to play with. That was a blast, and the puppy was really well behaved - aside from a few little puppy-nips on the hands. :wink: Then we went bowling and had a great time. :D [b]R[/b] had a blast rolling her bowling ball down the lane with the bumpers up and knocking down the pins. After we did three games, we went into the arcade area for a little while and let her play some videogames for tickets that she redeemed for a piece of candy which painted her tongue and mouth blue. :roll: The only downturn to the evening came as we went shopping at Target after the bowling excursion and [b]R[/b] had an "accident" in her pants, causing her a bit of embarrasment and discomfort since she's been so good with her potty training. :oops: And there was one other unfortunate complication brought on by the whole bowling/shopping excursion: [b]R[/b] got so wound up that she didn't get to bed until way late last night . . . so mom and dad didn't get to have any time alone together as planned. :wink:
Today, I'm "voluntarily" working at one of the three locations that my library system has open on Sundays. It's the last one until Fall and it's been pretty crazy here (rainy day outside).
I'm having flashbacks of my last library since there are many people trying to fight for time on very few computers at this location. I've been having to chase kids away from the computers when they aren't using them because it's getting to be like a video arcade here today with crowds of them wanting to watch their little friends play games on the computers. :x
Once again, I'm wishing they could ban games from the computers and reserve them for research only - in fact, I've had several people complain that they needed to get on to do homework and couldn't because of the gameplayers. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it with our current system and policies. :x
Tonight though is D&D night and I'll be able to channel some of my building aggression into slaughtering monsters and verbally fencing with my friends as we roll the dice and drink a few beverages - revelling in our geekdom. :wink:
Okay, is that enough for you Goofy? :P
Crazy weekend, but good.
04.19.04 (11:36 am) [edit]I took a vacation day on Friday so that I could have 3 days off in a row. I couldn't have asked for better weather. :D
It was just a fluke, but all three days were above 70 and sunny, if a little bit windy. Sunday it actually hit about 83 here, while to the North of us, on the other end of the state where one of my sister-in-laws lives, it was only 40. Such is the weather here in Wisconsin in the Spring. :roll: At least it wasn't the other way round. :wink:
The whole family got to shed a lot of the blahs from cabin fever and played outside a lot - at the park and around the house. :)
Saturday was a bit hectic though, as my wife had agreed to babysit for some friends and we had two extra kids (a 2 year old and a 4 year old, to go with our 3 year old) running us ragged for the afternoon. The two year old was a grinning little demon - getting into the toilet water and destroying several of my daughter's books, among other things, smiling all the while . . . :x
My daughter was never that "evil" when she was two, thank goodness. :)
Lets see, what else happened? I cooked brats (bratwurst for all you non-Wisconsinites) on the grill Saturday, made chicken curry for dinner yesterday, watched the movie "Human Nature," played Dungeons & Dragons, worked on my car, and finally managed to convince my wife to watch some of Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (which she started to really get into). :)
All in all, it was a pretty good weekend! :)
Assorted Stuff and An Anniversary
04.14.04 (12:31 pm) [edit]Today is my 4th wedding aniversary. :)
If you would have asked me 2 months ago if I thought I'd be celebrating it, I'd have said you were crazy. After all the problems and the separation, I think both of us have finally figured out where we want to be: together. And I truly believe we're both fully committed to staying that way. :) We still have a long way to go, but we're going to work on it together.
I'm sorry that it took us almost getting divorced to realize that marriage isn't easy or happy all the time, and that there's a lot of crap that has to be dealt with to enjoy the happy times. Most importantly, I think we've both realized that we need to communicate. We've both matured from experiencing the bad times to understand that we both want to work to prevent them from happening again. :)
Now for some less serious stuff:
My easter bunnies. :D
Today started off great. I got to sleep in . . . not as much as the wife did. :P It's sunny and in the low 60's today. :) My daughter serenaded us for over an hour this morning, singing along with her favorite MP3s on the computer. She's a regular song and dance prodigy. The other night, she put on a whole dance routine in the shower to one of her favorite songs. :D Today, she threw a fit because I didn't take my earmuffs to wear to work - despite the fact that it's a warm, sunny day. ;) She makes us laugh so much with her goofiness. :)
I'm going to have to purchase some sunblock to keep in my car for days like this. My new ride has a moonroof and I love to keep it open when the weather permits, as it did today. Unfortunately, with my rapidly balding pate I need to watch out for sunburn on my scalp. ;)
Oops, just got the word that I have to go for emergency help to my old library. I'm sure that means more blogging later . . .
Video rush
04.10.04 (2:45 pm) [edit]It's been a quiet day at work. Things started off really slowly, probably due to the holiday weekend. Most people had their video selections picked out by Thursday because the library was closed yesterday. Now that we're on our last open hour of the day, the desperate slowpokes who never plan ahead are all swarming the video/DVD racks in search of those elusive "good," new movies. :roll:
Other than that, it's been so quiet that I've actually been able to get more than half of my new paperback order done, as well as look at a couple blogs and investigate some camping gear prices online. :)
I'm planning on initiating my wife and daughter into the joys of family camping trips this summer. Unfortunately over the years, all of my old camping gear has either gone missing, been sold at garage sales or fallen apart from age. We're going to have to start from scratch and build up a new assortment of camping equipment little by little.
When I was growing up, we used to go camping all the time, both as a family and with the Boy Scouts. I used to love it and have some really great memories of sleeping in the great outdoors and sitting around campfires into the wee hours. :)
Of course after more than a few years, the memories of how grimy, buggy, cold, wet, hot, and sore we'd be when we were camping have faded to a huge degree. :wink:
Full Moon?
04.08.04 (4:51 pm) [edit]What is it about Thursdays here?
It's been a crazy Thursday again at the library. We had Energy Assistance causing problems - the signup was filled by 5 minutes after opening, causing a parade of angry people past my desk all afternoon. :(
There were lots of kids running around unattended while parents were waiting in the meeting room for their turn. One little urchin climbed up the front of a freestanding signboard, causing it to fall on him and injuring him - not seriously, thank goodness.
His mother was irate however and called the library administration to complain that this happened and that no one from the staff even bothered to inquire as to his status - an out-and-out lie. :evil:
Besides, isn't it her job to watch the little brat and preserve him from harm? I think she was really pissed at him and at herself, and the staff here were convenient targets for her wrath. The administration of the library however took her complaint seriously, reaming out the librarian in charge and directing him to remove this dangerous, crippling, and totally threatening signage - regardless of the fact that this sign (and countless others throughout the library system) have been in use for decades without causing bodily harm to the patrons :roll:
This incident reminds me of the latest flack over libraries in this region not telling parents what materials their kids have checked out. Parents don't want to take responsibility for their kids behavior. Here's an excerpt from one of the letters to the editor of the local paper on the subject:
[b]Parents expect better from public librarians[/b]
[i]The March 27 article describing library checkout policies for children highlighted the disconnect between public librarians and the people they serve ("Many libraries don't restrict what children check out").
The ability of children to check out restricted materials without their parents' knowledge or permission is intolerable. Public librarians fail to note that children are minors, and, thus, parental supervisory responsibility supersedes the privacy rights of children regarding their access to restricted materials.
Free speech and open access are suitable and laudable for adults, but where clearly defined national standards are present - such as video ratings - the libraries should not consider themselves above responsibility. For other items, blurred age recommendations should be discussed and consensus guidelines chosen.
Librarians, with their knowledge and ability to educate, should be leaders in this process instead of allowing fear or laziness to define an open-access free-for-all.
Access to restricted materials should be determined by a positive decision by parents, not a hidden open-access policy that parents must discover and then "opt out." Often, children are escorted to the library during school hours when their parents are not present.
The librarians' unwillingness to take responsibility for what the children under their care are viewing demonstrates their detachment from the community they serve.[/i]
Letters like this one always drive me nuts because no one working for a public library will reply back to one of these uninformed rants for fear of reprisals from their bosses and from the public. We're a bunch of cowards, myself included. :(
I mean really, come on, the children aren't in "our care." We aren't their parents. If they don't want to take responsibility for their children, why should we have to? Free speech and the free flow of information is the backbone of the library's purpose for being. Why should we restrict it for some people and not others, whether they're minors or not? I don't think that standing up for free speech or the free flow of information is caused by fear or laziness. It's a principle that defines librarians as well as the libraries.
As for implying that we're equivalent to teachers, if so then I want the same tax and educational benefits that teachers get. My sister-in-law who teaches has had much of her student loan debt erased through government programs which exclude other educators like librarians. :evil:
Okay, got off on a ranting tangent there but still . . .
Also included in today's fun was a woman who locked herself out of her car with the engine running. She tied up the other librarian's phone for nearly an hour (leaving me to handle all the phone in reference questions) trying to get someone in either the police or fire departments to come out and get her into her car. As I told the other librarian when he explained about the patron's problem, she needed to call a locksmith - which she eventually ended up doing. When I used to work retail a few years back, the cops and fire departments gave up on doing that kind of thing for people due to liability issues from damaging the cars and because they didn't want to be competing with local locksmith businesses. :roll:
At least tomorrow I have off for Good Friday before I'm back for Saturday.
One last note: Saw Hellboy last night. It was one of the best comic book adaptations I've seen yet. 4 stars out of 5. :D
Election Day Parade
04.06.04 (10:27 am) [edit]Today is an election day here. We're electing a new mayor and county executive today. This library is a polling place, so we've had to have our doors open since about 7:00 AM, even though the library was actually closed. I was the only reference staff member here, but other than a couple of quick questions about where to go to vote, no one really bothered me. :o I was expecting to have to deal with a lot of reference questions and people trying to check out materials before we were "officially" open for business.
As far as the election goes, so far it's been mainly a parade of elderly, retired people. I hope that a more diverse section of the population comes out today, especially because who's ever elected mayor today will ultimately be my new boss. Neither of the candidates are really inspiring and there's little to distinguish between the two of them besides color of skin. The only real "deal breakers" for me and a lot of other "undecideds," I think are that one of the candidates has come under scrutiny for many minor questionable decisions regarding campaign finances and he's had some other political gaffes that really seem to stem from surrounding himself with incompetent advisors. I guess if it's going to come down to that then I have to trust that the one who hasn't made the mistakes in the past will be the better of the two . . .
No matter who wins this election, I think there are going to be some major shakeups in the library's administration because the head city librarian is a member of the mayor's cabinet and the new mayor isn't going to want to keep someone who's a holdout from the previous administration.
Fingers & Toes Crossed
04.05.04 (3:17 pm) [edit]It's quiet today here at the lib. Let's hope I haven't jinxed it by saying that. ;)
I had to work yesterday for my first "voluntary" Sunday. It wasn't too bad except for the crazy - truly chemically imbalanced - teen that we had to deal with at closing time. And the old guy who didn't comprehend that I couldn't just send an email for him. The afternoon actually went pretty quick there. :) Got to play D&D last night, so I was in a good mood before and after that. :)
Today, I didn't start until 12:30, so I got to sleep in a bit. :) And the only difficulty today has been that I had to swap out some bad public computers today (3 of them) when I got in. Apparently, we've had a rash of patrons inserting foreign objects into the floppy drives and damaging them; library cards, paper clips, gum. One of the "new" computers couldn't find the network after it was hooked in, so that entailed some detective work and wire tracing back to the main server to get it going. :roll:
I guess it's time to get back to work again . . .
Energy Resistance & Utopia
04.01.04 (4:19 pm) [edit]One of the many things that this branch is "host" to is the Energy Assistance program from our local energy monopoly - "WEenergies."
We only provide the meeting space for their weekly program and yet we end up dealing with all of the headaches and problems associated with them. :x First and foremost is the fact that they're only able to help the first 25 people who sign up to be seen that day. We're instructed by them to put out the sign-up sheet at 10:30AM when we open up on the day of the service. The actual program begins at 1:00PM. There are people outside the library waiting to sign-up on the sheet from almost the minute staff arrives in the morning at 8:30. :roll:
Today, the sign-up was full by approximately noon and from that point on, there was a steady stream of argumentative people demanding to be helped by the one person sent out by the utility for the program. When told that it was full for the day and given a list of alternative sites for the help, most of the people launched into tirades about how they couldn't go anywhere else and how dare we turn them away. They didn't want to listen to the fact that the only real involvement that we had in this was letting the program utilize our meeting room space and that none of us had anything to do with the program beyond putting out the sign-up sheet. :x
Quite a few of the people wouldn't take "no" for an answer and actually tried to "crash" the program by barging into the meeting room and demanding to talk to the utility person - so many in fact that she came out and told us not to let anyone else into the room unless they had signed up on the sheet that morning.
One man in particular got into an argument with the branch manager over the EA program. It seems that he goes to school until 2 pm and can't make it in to sign up for the program here and it's always full when arrives. Well who's fault is that? :twisted: Why should we bend over backwards for someone who is clearly incapable of making small changes in his life schedule for something that's clearly important to him? And especially because he thinks if he yells loud enough we'll somehow magically do something for him that we don't have any jurisdiction over? :roll:
When I saw this man come in (actually I heard him first before I saw him and recognized him by his voice from my past library assignment), I knew he was going to be a problem. He was a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS at the other library and hasn't changed a bit. (I know I've blogged about him here in the distant past, but can't find it in my archives.)
The short version: This guy is an older Indian/Pakistani man with a very thick accent. He's supposedly studying to be a veterinarian. He used to come into my old branch and bully the retiring manager there into letting him take out medical reference books and then further bully her into letting him keep them for months at a time. She hated confrontations with him and would let him walk all over her - or send me out to deal with him while she cowered in her office. :roll: Once, he got upset at me because he couldn't understand a: our computers where not the same as the ones at his school and didn't have his veterinary test practice software on them and b: there was no way for us to get this software for him or install it on our computers. :roll: I also had previously gotten into it with him in my previous role as a circulation manager over fines on other books either checked out and returned late, or not at all. :x
Anyhow, today after the argument over the Energy Assistance, he reported that he lost a book he'd checked out from here and wanted to know the price he'd have to pay us for the replacement. I, unfortunately, got stuck helping him with this - yet again. :roll: The book he lost was out of print, or at least unavailable from our purchasing source, so I found a price listed for the same item in a record from one of the suburbs included in county library system. That price was $10.95, whereas the default price for a trade paperback if the system had generated a bill for the lost item would have been $20.00, so I was being extremely generous to him.
When I told him the price, he started up complaining and trying to get me to cut him a deal - he's a senior; the book wasn't any good; it was a little book (so how could it cost that much?); if he found it in the future could he get a refund? (yes, a partial one as I explained, setting him off on another tirade). It went on and on for about 5 more minutes as he tried to get concession after concession from me and tried to get me to trip up on what I was telling him so he could pounce on that and twist it. :evil:
When he finished and I wouldn't back down, he left and didn't end up paying for the item after all. :roll: Something I suspect he never intended to do in the first place. He was just testing the water so to speak; trying to find a weakness he could exploit to further bend or break the rules. Sigh . . . :roll:
Okay, two more final things for this long entry . . .
Just kicked out two of our regular problem kids for being caught throwing a plastic "egg" full of chewed bubblegum at each other in the library. The one kid denied doing it at all, but before being thrown out he asked the other librarian where he could go to wash his hands because they were sticky. :roll: Auditioning for "America's Dumbest Criminals" perhaps?
"Jeffrey Dahmer" just walked in. He's this crazy guy who looks like the notorious hometown necrophiliac serial killer and who stares disturbingly at our circulation aides and also stands for long stretches in front of a mirrored glass wall separating our work area from the public one, grooming himself in the reflection. We're really not sure he knows or not that he's completely visible to the staff in the back. :?
Okay, I think that's enough for one day. The moral of this story is that nowhere is paradise forever . . .