geniusunderconstruction

Ship Trip for 6 weeks

2008-06-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

You will not see me in the Library from June 12 to July 16 because I will be on the container ship, H.Buss. Please click on link to see where I am going.
H. Buss to the West Coast of South America
I am leaving from Port Everglades about June 14th. The ship is a working ship which will be in each port 18-24 hours to load and unload the containers; I may or may not be able to disembark in any of those countries.
I began planning August 2007 for a January 2008 departure which sold out long before I came along. After nearly a year in the planning, list making beyond belief, shopping, seeking advice from people and travel books, getting medical clearance and a yellow fever shot, I have 3 suitcases packed.
You know where I am going, but I am often asked, Why? and, Won't you be bored? and, Aren't you afraid for your personal safety?" let me tell you, dear reader, why.
A life-long personal goal is to see the open, endless sea, to approach the land by boat, to see stars without city light pollution; also to experience in life what I have read about in dozens of books, seen on TV and movies, a discovery voyage with wild animals and birds, the mechanics of a large, working ship and sail the Panama Canal (twice). 35 days of doing what I want even if that means doing nothing but gazing at the horizon.

Facebook and my Summation

2007-10-30T14:17:00.001-07:00

These 2 young men, Jean and Evener, are my favorite faces, my best friends, the people to whom I can give the keys to my house for 3 weeks and then I can walk away without a worry. They graduated from Boca High this past June, the first in their family to do so. They make me feel a lot of pride because maybe I helped them a little these past 5 years. Who do you think was the only one in the crowd who knew how to knot a tie?

Facebook will be great to keep up with the people at work, if they choose to reciprocate my request for facebook/friendship. Honestly I embrace the new technology and I will continue to mess around with it in the months to come.

Virtually and actually, the people who have an impact on my life day to day are fragile, delicate, easily upset and others are tough, resilient, unflappable. Am I the high strung queen? Am I ready to cope with face-to-face and virtual communications flawlessly, faultlessly, and fabulously?

I truly wonder whether facebook, flicker, blog, email, yadda yadda will ever give me a comparable warm fuzzy feeling that my old Ms Peru (20 year old calico street cat from Regjerings Gade, Charlotte Amalie, St.Thomas, USVI)gives me when I open the apartment door at night. Yeah, a type of companionship, maybe, but different.

Podcasting without Libraries

2007-10-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, how frustrating can one exercise be?!! I used podcast.net and looked up many, many podcasts but they had no RSS feeds. Finally, at last, thank god, I found one on lung cancer patients breathing techniques. A real party. I am not fortunate enough to have lung cancer but I do breathe and have trouble doing so on occasion.

Youtube, I just love it

2007-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

At first I thought Youtube was only about silliness; Watch this silent video on the tea drinking cat.

Then I found a 'usefullness' for it when I wanted to learn how to spin yarn.

Bad day for web sites

2007-10-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

What happens if I don't like any of the award-winning sites for thing 18?
[Excuse me while I change my attitude and try again tomorrow.]

Zoho is a so so no go

2007-10-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Zoho is a mix of stuff I already know (superficially speaking) so why learn another thing that does not look as substantial? Also the templates are lousy, I looked for a dozen or so and found none.

The blue car is similar to mine, doppelganger? imposter? Cars can be like software, then, imitation is flattering but not the genuine article.
READ MY NEWLY UPDATED PROFILE MOST OF WHICH IS TRUE

2007-10-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I looked at the Book Lovers Wikipedia from Princeton and the Bull Run Public Library wiki also. The first showed short, nicely written book reviews divided by genre. I would use this as a collection guideline, I looked at non-fiction, as well as personally to see what other people are reading. The Bull Run Public Library had a great opening page: right off you could search their catalog, a logical first step, but the right-hand column and for several screens below it was quick and easy to find news, fun stuff, events etc. Very informative for many kinds of queries.
For the nsulibs wiki I added a favorites: Favorite Florida Short excursions.

Library 2.oh

2007-10-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

My thoughts on Library2.0 after having read Icebergs, To a temporary place in time, and the Wikipedia stuff: Thing 15
1 -- we just don't know yet (if it's good, great, horrid, or krapp)
2-- good arguments can be made to support both print collections as well as an entirely virtual collections. Some drivers are happy with any old vehicle while others need high end torque under glossy exteriors. They both get you from Point A to Point B. Who is right, better, smarter, more eco-stinking green? ISN'T THERE ROAD ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE?
3-- There are those persons who are just as happy with a virtual friend as with a flesh-blood-air friend. Imaginary playmates are nothing new. Mental fantasies are faster than any machine, in a race, your thought is always going to outrun the machine.
4--In all this lovely talk we often forget that 90% of the world's population doesn't own a phone; many are hungry, need clean water, medical care, housing, the list is endless. I can't worry overmuch about the techno-starved upper classes when I see human and animal suffering that I can do very little about.

Technorati

2007-10-17T10:02:00.001-07:00

Yick! Technorati is people looking at what other people are doing and hoping that someone is looking at what they are doing. This is boring voyeurism combined with mind numbing non-thinking generating more tiresome mental poo.
At this moment 1:05 pm October 17th I can't upload a picture to this blog post.

Delicious

2007-10-17T09:02:00.001-07:00

I am falling behind in the 23 Things. It seems I have lots of good company in the tardiness sector at NSU. Delicious has reference potential. On the occasions when several dozen students have the same assignment this would save successive shifts of librarians from re-looking for stuff. Also this list can be shared with circulation because they get the same questions as well. The potential for the federal income tax-time deluge of the repetitive questions, too.

Rollyo Assignment

2007-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

My opinion about Rollyo for libraries? I don't have one yet. When I do I will post it here. As of October 18th I still search in vain for an opinion.

Another Newly updated personal Profile -- I remain fascinated with myself

2007-10-09T12:05:00.001-07:00

Woman who lived alone with her music

2007-10-05T11:06:00.001-07:00

TRY ANIMOTO.COM AND MAKE A VIDEO CLIP. FUN AND EASY. LIKE ME.READ MY NEW PROFILE.

2007-09-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

John Peter is 12 going on 23. He plays football and can run faster than anybody I have ever seen in my entire life. JP is attending the high school graduation of his brothers, Evener and Jean Fevrier.

2007-09-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

My first use of an image generator to produce this disgusting sign.

On a completely different topic...

Go to http://www.ironfrog.com/ to read about PUSS IN BOOKS: ADVENTURES OF THE LIBRARY CAT, the story of cats who live in libraries and their good deeds.

2007-09-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

Foreboding clouds but no rain. Technology does this as well. Deceive.

I have been reading fellow blogger's profiles. Why are they so skimpy, so dull, so rational? The PROFILEs not the people certainly.

I completely rewrote my online profile; sniff another slice of my personal pie.

Chuge Chihuly Churly Q's

2007-09-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

With help from blogging winner, Hypografia, I posted my RSS feeds to this blog page. Please click on View My Complete Profile, My Web Page: this connects you to the fascinating topics I chose.

2007-09-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

RSS Feeds
Ambivalence is my assessment of the assignment. Do I want even more information thrown at me? I am dissatisfied with the choices I have made but nevertheless I will read them for a few days before I erase and start over.

2007-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hugo is a rescued greyhound adopted by my niece Jill who lives in Arlington, MA. Jill is an artist who has learned graphic design, a union of technology and art, especially well; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston employs her as their graphic designer. She is pictured with Ruth.

Libraries could use Flickr to add pictures to their publications. Text without pictures is a disappointment for the reader plus the author misses an opportunity to convey additional details to her story. Am I wrong to want a few dancing books, a can-can of scissors, a librarian sailing up the stairs on an elephant folio-sized atlas?

2007-09-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

The view from my office.

2007-09-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

The irony of using technology, in this case a web link, to view a craft as old as time itself, hand spinning, expresses my personal view that a really smart lady will incorporate and blend a satisfying life on her own terms. Satisfaction is elusive. Handspun yarn, wool or cotton or alpaca, is one of the most beautiful things that can be made by hand. Click on the link to see what I mean.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/faerietail/45797030/in/set-72157600758215440/

Privacy is a luxury item. Famous people want it, sometime, and when they want it they will even buy an island such as Mustique (owned by wealthy Brits) to procure it.

The public library is a living irony of the public and the private coexisting. We open the doors to all there is on our shelves and yet very carefully obliterate borrowing history. The library is both famous and private, in a way.
Flickr exists also in this ironic environment where anyone can post an image that reveals something about themselves or their views on society while at the same time retain any image that gives away too much, in that person's view. We self-censor.

The library does not tell a reader how to use a book. Just ask a circulation clerk about the books that have been returned after having been used as dog chew toys or drink coasters. Do we ask if the borrower has read the book? No.
Flickr then is another non-print option for readers. Sure, we can post delightful pictures of the last booksale but we can't make anyone look at them.

2007-09-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."

Dolly Parton

Topsy turvy doll

2007-08-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Topsy-Turvy design dates back to before the American Civil War, when many of these dolls were actually mixed race – white on one side, black on the other. Often they featured a well-turned mistress of the house, backed by a raggedly dressed black servant. According to expert collector Jamila Jones, some of these dolls were sold with the slogan, “Turn me up and turn me back, first I'm white, and then I'm black.” (Siek, 2003).
While some historians believe that the dolls were cleverly concealed toys for slave children who may not have been allowed to play with black dolls (which were illegal during apartheid), others like Jones believe that they were given to white children to serve as maids to the other dolls. Either way, they reflected the striking contrasts between the two roles and the disparities in the treatment each received.
Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, a professor with Emory University, points out that the apartheid ban on black dolls signaled the political and moral potency of the doll in its time. She asks, “Why would you ban a doll if it wasn’t so powerful?”, suggesting that the oppositional characters helped children to learn their own roles in society (Siek, 2003).
Wallace-Sanders is also exploring the possibility that the Topsy-Turvy dolls were actually made by black mammies to represent the two categories of children they cared for: the sons and daughters of their masters, versus their own flesh and blood. Interestingly, after the Civil War, the design of the doll shifted somewhat and the dual identity became that of a white child and its black mammy caretaker, indicating that some conceptual difference had taken place in the minds of its creators.

2007-08-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

This puppy expresses perfectly my day at home yesterday.

2007-08-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

The tree on the right is a baobab. There are many very old, very large baobobs on St.Croix, brought by ship and planted during slavery days.

2007-08-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

A quote for Friday:

"There is nothing so unwanted as unasked for advice."

2007-08-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Today is an angry day for me.I am angry because I have lymphangioleiomyomatosis.

7 1/2 habits -- The hardest one is not on the list. The most difficult learning challenge is believing there is a future for which learning anything will be worthwhile.

2007-08-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

I have stage fright and cannot write today.