Day 54 - October 31, 2008 - Halloween

Happy Halloween from all of us!


Jon and I had Sean, Mandy, and Drew over for Halloween Festivities tonight.
We decorated our gourds and pumpkins from Eckert's with these crazy push in eyes and such that my mom sent me earlier this month. My mom always knows how to make our holidays awesome with packages full of goodies. She's been sending me stuff since I went to college.
I love you MOM!

Day 53 - October 30, 2008

I was so excited when these little beauties appeared in my mailbox this morning.
Yeah, so they didn't exactly "appear" per se but they did come unexpectedly quick.
Yarn Pirate BLF Superwash Sock. (Buy it here!)
They grey one is Smoke and the green Cassiopeia (and its an over dye! so it was cheaper!)

420 yards of pure gooey delicousness each. HMM!
and the best thing about Yarn Pirate??? She has the absolutely most adorable little boy in the whole world. Read her blog. Its worth it almost just for the pictures of her little H. Not to mention the copious yarn pr0n.

Week #9 - YouTube, Podcasts, Media/Book Downloads

Of course I love YouTube

I've posted so many YouTube videos on this blog already

But just to humor you all, I will post another (and maybe this time it will be more educational!).



The thing I really love YouTube for is the educational/DIY type of videos. Obviously some of them are really good and some are horrible but I am almost always able to find what I have been looking for.

Example -

Just a few weeks ago my friend Mandy and I decided we wanted to make crab rangoons for Jon and Sean but we had no idea what we were doing.

So we looked on YouTube and found this video:







It worked like charm. Gai (or Kai in some of his videos) not only gave us a recepie but step by step instructions for making the crab rangoons.

They turned out great!





Podcasts -

Now, I've been subscribing to podcasts on and off for a while. Well pretty much since I got my first iPod about 5 years ago.

Right now I've been listening to Car Talk (from NPR) and the KnitPicks podcast (its knitting!)

And I love them both. They're great for long distances and don't get as messy on my iPod as audio books (which never have all of the tracks right!)



I think podcast would be great for recording special events at the library and sharing them with the public (video podcasts would be even better!) or as a kind of tutorial.





Downloadable Media -

I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO USE OVERDRIVE WITH MY MAC AND IPOD!

This is my number one greatest wish.



Santa, Please bring me Overdrive that works for Christmas. I promise I'll be good for the rest of the year.

Thank you,

.micki.



I know its all the fault of Apple/Microsoft/the music and audiobook companies but I feel like we are not reaching a lot of our patrons because its not compatable.

I know there are cheap audio players out there. The $40-ish one offered as a prize for this program for example. But I really don't want something else. I want audiobooks on my iPod that I A) don't have to buy them from iTunes or someone else or B) I don't have to physically upload each CD. I don't mind the short lending period, I don't mind downloading new software, I just want it to work with my iPod.

So Santa, please fulfill my request.



And don't even get me started on MyLibraryDV.

Day 52 - October 29, 2008

Here's the birthday boy!
It's Sean's real birthday today. The party we had on Saturday was preemptive.
I feel bad for forgetting his birthday until we were actually at the Upstream. I made a mental note to call him this morning but obviously I'm pretty forgetful.
Well, Happy Birthday anyway Sean. I hope you had a great day!

Day 51 - October 28, 2008

My first real day at Benson was pretty good. No major problems as of yet.
I'll be doing the after school Homework Help program and therefore spending a lot of time with young kids. They are pretty entertaining/fun. I already know some of the regulars.
I think we'll have a great time.

Day 50 - October 27, 2008

Day 50

7.3% done with the year.
And what am I doing?
Forgetting to take a picture all day and then desperately taking crap pictures before we go to bed.
I am a bad person.
On a lighter note, I'm addicted to this game. Seriously..like playing 3 hours at a time...

Day 49 - October 26, 2008

This guy is a freaking genius!

Day 48 - October 25, 2008

We had a Halloween birthday party tonight for Sean. Shannon made these cute looking cupcakes. Aren't these guys great. If I was going to have a spider in my house, I would want him to look at least this friendly.
I dressed up as a moose for the party. Well really, I put on moose ears that I found at Target with a brown sweater. Yeah I know. I'm not very creative in the costume department. Jon's was really funny. We bought one of those little kid costumes that you just slip over their heads. It was Elmo...and it just happened to also fit on Jon's head. Classic.

Day 47 - October 24, 2008

par avion
Royal Mail

Yes, I ordered something from the UK
A laptop bag for our trip to Europe. It seems like I've been buying a lot of bags lately, right!?

This one I bought of of Etsy where everything is homemade. This is a Minus bag. Great service....I would totally buy from him again. Everything is made to order wonderful!

Day 46 - October 23, 2008

Benson.
My new home. I went to visit today and to spend some time with Jason to learn the ropes.
I think I'm really going to like it here.

Day 45 - October 22, 2008

Whole Foods again.
Yes, I know. Jon and I spend far too much time/money there.
But its so great.
Here's a weeks (give or take a few days) worth of groceries.
Baguette, edamame, tofu, cabbage, potatoes, french fries, cucumber, cheese, pasta, onion, juice, broth, and many more things I can't quite remember or figure out.

Day 44 - October 21, 2008

Our backpacks for Europe came today. Aren't they nice. Kelty Redwing. Kelty is a good company. My dad uses them almost exclusively for all of his BoyScouty things.
The straps even zip in so we can send them through our checked luggage. The only problem I can foresee with them now is that they are exactly the same. Same color and everything. We need to get patches or something so that we can tell them apart and so that we can pick them out when we get to the luggage carousels in the airports.

Week #8 - Web-based Apps, Library 2.0

Google Docs -
Especially helpful for downloading documents on your Google email and saving them for later (this really helps when I just can't find that email I was looking for). I have a few things on Google docs. Here's one I've been using. It's a list of the days and day #'s for my 365 project. It really helps me keep track of the day that I'm on (I really don't want to mess anything up!)
The one problem I've seen so far with Google Docs is that they just aren't as robust as the Microsoft (or even OpenOffice) version.
Example - in the spreadsheet above, it would not let me go over 100 rows. So, I couldn't get the whole project on one sheet!
Kind of dissapointing...I think it Google Docs were more robust in this way I would be much more inclined to use them all of the time.
I've made a full version of the list on a Microsoft spreadsheet but it would be nice to be able to have it anywhere.

I really think that Google docs would be great if you happened to not have a flash drive with you somewhere. But I really haven't had a chance to use it like that yet.




More Web 2.0 -
One of the sites that I was very excited to see inthe Web 2.0 Awards was Pandora. I love this site! Not only does it have all the kinds of music I love (mostly indie-pop/rock) but it will also recomend to me other artists similar to the ones I already like and gives me a chance to sample some of their work.
Now the bad thing about Pandora is that it really is a Radio station. You cannot decide what plays next, you can only skip a few songs every hour, and I find these things very limiting. I like Pandora when I am working or working on homework and I am not really paying too much attention to what I am listening to. It's great for background noise but it doesn't replace my iTunes.

Day 43 - October 20, 2008

I hate driving.

Day 42 - October 19, 2008

Being in St. Louis, of course I had to stop at Knitorious best yarn store ever. And of course I had to spend money...lots of money...on wonderful yarns.

I made it out of there with 5 skeins...so I don't think I did too bad, right? :)

This beauty is Ella Rae Lace Merino in the burgundy/magenta colorway. Wonderful stuff. Its going to be the Japanese Vines scarf.

I also sprung for some Colinette Jitterbug (colorway unknown..its black/grey with bits of color) and some Cascade Heritage in 5602..its a nice light grey/blue.

The Jitterbug is destined to be a triange garter shawl or kerchief while the Heritage doesn't have a destiny yet...but it will soon I suppose.

All in all it was a wonderful trip...next time hopefully we can stop by Loopy too.

Day 41 - October 18, 2008

We went to Eckert's Orchard today with Jon's family. We had a great time.
We picked Fuji apples, pumpkins, and I got this wonderful indian corn.
Apparently there was a great pumpkin weigh off between Mike and Andrew. They both picked huge pumpkins in the field and they were under the impression that we would only be buying one and it would be the winner of the weigh off. Mike's pumpkin won of course. But we ended up buying both anyway. Eckert's was really cute....a nice place. I would love to go there again next year. Maybe Jon can arrange that for us. :)

Day 40 - October 17, 2008

Jon and I drove to St. Louis today and guess who was waiting for us on his parent's front porch.
MR. PUMPKIN!
yeah! isn't he cute!

Day 39 - October 16, 2008

Pizza! from Yia Yia's in Lincoln. They don't have a website but let me tell you its worth it to go to Lincoln for this pizza. This slice was called the Atlantic; chicken, broccoli, bacon, and potatoes (!) yeah I know!!!!!
I was there all day today for the NLA/NEMA conference.
The conference was wonderful.....
I feel energized. For my career, for the future of the library, for everything!

Day 38 - October 15, 2008

Usually, we really try not to set books on the floor. But it just happened to be a holiday earlier this week (yeah I know, Columbus Day is really not a great holiday, but hey we get it off because I work for the city).
Whenever Millard is closed for more than a day the book drop over flows and then this happens. We don't have enough shelf space or carts to sort the books for shelving. So they all end up on the floor.

Week #7 - Wiki

Wikis

I love wikis.

In fact I've set up a wiki here...to help us set up a wiki to replace Samepage (MAYBE!!! Don't get all excited yet!)

Wikis are great because they are so collaborative. Anyone can change them (or just the people you want to), they're adaptable, and offer the ability to intigrage other 2.0 technologies.



Let me know what you think about a wiki for Samepage.

Post something to our new wiki, send me an email, or call me.



I'm really excited about all of the possibilities this will open up for us.

Looking at other library wikis has really helped me think about what we would need to implement a wiki in our library.

Day 37 - October 14, 2008

Another concert tonight. Broken Social Scene this time.
This concert was awesome (and we got another set list!)
Jon says "It was off the hook!"
I agree.

Day 36 - October 13, 2008

We went to see Deerhoof tonight but the real highlight of the night was the first opener AU. These guys really know how to put on a show.
The Deerhoof part of the concert was also pretty good. That lead singer was crazy.

Day 35 - October 12, 2008

I was an hour late for my class today. So Jon bought me these beautiful flowers. Pink organic roses. From Whole Foods of course.
I was an hour late today because I had completely forgotten about class. I mean there was really no excuse whatsoever. But Jon knew just how to cheer me up. Yeah JON!

Another Great Video

HalfTime Basketball Creighton University Omaha Nebraska - Watch more free videos

Day 34 - October 11, 2008

Home! Nothing too exciting happened today, so here's a picture of our home. Well at least the numbers for our home. Cute.

I love Edamame and the Japanese

Sean showed me this awesome toy/keychain today.
This Popping Edamame!
Not only is the toy itself wonderful and only $10 but it also has this wonderful Japanese commercial......

Day 33 - October 10, 2008

Pretzels! From Wanda's (A Lincoln company!) We bought them at Whole Foods (we spend waaaaaaay to much time and money there!)

They were amazing!

We made some with the artisan sea salt I bought (another Whole Foods find) and some with cinnamon sugar.

They were so good we had to buy another box.

Day 32 - October 9, 2008

In preparation for our trip to Europe this coming winter I have ordered this. The best travel guide out there is the one you make yourself.

Its full of maps, so Jon loves it. And its a Moleskein, so you know just for that its close to my heart.

And we can write whatever we want for the trip in it. Keep track of hotel address, restaurants, yarn stores, museums, and pretty much everything else.

Day 31 - October 8, 2008

Jon and I went to Dave and Busters today mostly because we were bored. And because we had a coupon. It was a good waste of a few hours and I got this awesome bracelet from one of those claw machines....you know the ones. It was the first time I've ever picked something up out of one of those things!
Here's Jon 'bowling.'
And apparently better than him at deer/bear shooting and motorcycle racing. Who would have known?

Week #6 - Delicious - Technorati - 2.0 Discussions

I'm not going to lie....delicious is pretty cool.

I can bookmark all of those interesting/weird/wild/crazy websites or articles that only I would enjoy. And maybe some other people in this big world.

So I've started one.

It just seems to be another one of those 2.0 tools that I think are a great idea and I really want to use. But in the long run, will it actually work for me?

I can see that it would be really good for people who are collecting articles for a project or for research. You know...like high school debate kids. Or people who just like to collect weird things.
I don't think it replaced my bookmark list on my browser though. I usually use that to remember shopping sites that I like or the web pages that I use for school.

And my feed reader has taken over the job of keeping track of the blogs I follow.

I guess I'm just not sure how much I will use delicious...but I can see how it will prove to be helpful with somethings.








Well, thanks to Technorati I have added a few more blogs to Google Reader...so what does that put me at now..hmmm way to many it seems.

I was able to find things that I liked pretty easily but the site itself was a little funny. There were a few different ways to search for blogs. CONFUSING!
I think it would be helpful if I was really really into reading lots of blogs or see what is new in the blogosphere...but I'm not really.

Library 2.0 Discussions -
In my opinion libraries in the next ten years will be expected to do a lot more with a lot less money. And one of the ways that we will be able to reach more people and do more for them is through the web.
Libraries are expected to not only keep up with the current technology but to be a head of the curve. We need to start now if we want to continue to reach people (especially youth). There are a lot of libraries out there doing a good job but there are many more who aren't doing anything with web 2.0.
I think its imporant to all of us to make an effort. It keeps us relevant












1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing various keyword searches in the different search areas. Do you get different results depending on where you search?
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts by with Technorati tags so they can join tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “PLCMCL2.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.
NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window.

1. Read some of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.
2. Create a blog post about your thoughts on Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

Day 30 - October 7, 2008

One scarf down...three to go.

I've finally decided to finish all of the stupid scarved I have laying around my house. And here's the first product of my labors.

Of course I've been working on this one for a long time. Its DIC smooshy...wonderful stuff...soft springy and great colors!

This scarf is destined to be a Christmas present...probably for fearless leader..but we'll see :)

Day 29 - October 6, 2008

I've had a store credit at Personal Threads for less than a week now...and its been burning a hole in my pocket.

So I got some lace weight Malabrigo in Verde Esperanza (which apparently they don't make in lace weight anymore).

I've decided on the Swallowtail shawl....(I think at least) So I also got some Addis (4s - 24 inches) which will also be good when I finally get around to the Baby Yours (made famous by this cutie) or the BSJ.

Hopefully one of those will be my Europe knitting...as long as they don't take my stinking needles away! God help me if they do.

Day 28 - October 5, 2008

Jon has gotten me hooked! on Entourage.........
We've started on Season 3..but i've ordered the others..

Danm it Jon! Why do you have to do these things to me! I'm already addicted to too many other shows!

ETA: Sorry for the censorship...but I didn't need to be letting the library barcode out :)

Day 27 - October 4, 2008

Some how Jon and I seemed to have ended up in HELL.

and I'm not kidding.

Panty lines, white wash jeans, bad 80's hair, karaoke.....

We are NEVER going to Council Bluffs again.

Day 26 - October 3, 2008

You know...I have to say that the Crescent Moon has to be one of my most favorite places in the whole world.

Day 25 - October 2, 2008

My website. For class.
Starting to look really good. It's due tomorrow so I've been working really hard on it all night.
I really like the way it looks. Its got clean simple lines and lots of my favorite colors! Grey grey and more grey! I can't live without it!

ETA: I just finished my website. Check it out here.

Day 24 - October 1, 2008

Bacon and eggs.
Best costume ever. Too bad its like $40 and Jon isn't a huge fan of eggs. He said he wouldn't talk to me all night if I dressed up as eggs.
Still a great costume though.

Day 23 - September 30, 2008

Yeah! I am so excited. This is my very first display at the library.
It's a display of all of the books I could call in that had to do with Japan. I love the display so much because its so colorful. All of the books I chose had wonderful covers especially the two on the very top; Morimoto's new cook book and one on Japanese gardens.
I love how this display turned out and I cannot wait until I get the chance to do another one.

Day 22 - September 29, 2008

This is THE BEST CHOCOLATE I have ever had. Hands down.
No question. I had a small (bite sized really) bar from Whole Foods a few days ago but I found this wonderful full sized bar at World Market on sale. It is milk chocolate but it has a wonderful tannin flavor that dark chocolate has.
I know that there will be a lot of really wonderful chocolate in Paris and I cannot wait. Hopefully I will find some that I love even more than this chocolate. It will be hard to beat though.

Day 21 - September 28, 2008

Jon and I (mostly me) made this wonderful recipe from the Williams and Sonoma catalog. I was awesome! As you can see it was stuffed chicken breast with pancetta. Instead of the provolone and sage we used mozzarella and oregano.
It was so great! I can't wait to make this for Sean and Mandy some time.