End of July

I can hardly believe it is the last day of July, summer is flying. Now if we could just get January to pass this quickly wouldn't that be great. Oh each of the seasons has it's beauty here and I guess I would miss the changes we see each year if I moved to a warmer climate; however, I still must tell you, summers seem to pass the fastest. Perhaps it is because we try to cram so very many activities into such a short period of time.

Missing my blogging

I have had such a busy week so far that I have not had time to blog. I find I miss it. When I started 23 things on a stick, I would never have imagined myself to be a blogger, but somehow that is exactly what has happened. Thanks 23 things on a stick for pushing me, to expand my horizons. We all need a "nudge" once in awhile.

I have been rewriting my notes for my adult beginning computer class. They need to be updated because we have changed the software on the computers to Microsoft Office 2007. The great thing about being a beginner with computers is you do not have to forget all the old stuff you learned that is no longer current. lol Wish me luck!

X-Dream follow up

Well the good news is the X-Dream finished the race from San Fransisco to Hawaii, all on board are safe and sound. I received the call from Charles Bohlig's parents Monday, to let me know he made it to Hawaii. The X-Dream did well, they finished in 4th place for their division. Congrats!

Cute Story of the Day

We are having a scavenger hunt this week at our library. The children need to find letters that are hidden around the building and then unscramble them to get a tootsie pop. The clue on the sheet is "What is Minnesota's un-official state bird?"(answer: Mosquito). I had two young girls working on it today and finally they came over to the desk and said can you give us another clue. I said to them well, its something that flies and bites you in the summer when you go outside in Minnesota. One of the little girls starts jumping and says very loudly "Alligators"! I smiled and said to her, we don"t have alligators in Minnesota. She leans close to me and says," We do have alligators in Minnesota, they just have not found them yet". I explained to them that the correct answer is the Mosquito, but because they worked so hard on it they both received the prize.

Beware everyone, of Minnesota's un-official state bird, the flying alligator, while you are enjoying your weekend. =D

We have a sucess story

Graphic novels, don't get me started on my opinion of them, however, I wish to report a success story. One of our teen patrons, who has been reading non stop only graphic novels, today surprised me and checked out 3 non-graphic novels, (yes real books). I said wow, nice choice of books today, and she said to me "Yeah, the manga are getting boring". Words of joy to my Librarian's heart. (Doing the Librarian happy dance!)

I will tell you what I have told countless worried Mom's and Dad's, when they come in the Library and say to me, how do we get our kids to read good books instead of junk. I always tell them be patient, and happy that they are reading, in time they will move on to bigger and better things.

2008 Pacific Cup Race

For the last week we have had a couple coming in each day to check the progress of the boat their son is on in the Pacific Cup Race. They are not good with computers so I have had the privilege to be the one helping them get to the web site each day. I have found I too am cheering his boat on, must be the enthusiasm of his parents.

The Pacific Cup Race is a sail boat race from San Fransisco to Hawaii. The Bohlig's told me it will take about 10 to 11 days for the boats to reach Hawaii. The expected arrival date for the boats is July 26.

Their son, Charles Bohlig is on board the X-Dream, in Division D. When we checked today, the X-Dream is ranked 5th in D division. GO X-DREAM!

For more information on the Pacific Cup Race, go to http://www.pacificcup.org/. to see a picture of the X-Dream go to http://pacificcup.org/08/entries/pc08-yacht_bio.php?yacht_id=60

Cook Books

I love cook books, in fact I have a large collection of them. This week I found a new one that I really enjoyed reading. It's called "Eating Royally, recipes and remembrances from a palace kitchen", by Darren McGrady. Mr McGrady, for those of you that don't know, was the private chef to Princess Diana. It's a lovely book, it was a joy to read. The Recipes are great, I have tried a few of them. Warning: they use a lot of butter and cream. LOL

Thanks to Joe Moore

Thanks Joe for leaving a comment on my blog, what a wonderful surprise that was. I love your books and can't wait to read your new one "The 731 Legacy". I have read all the books in your series of Cotton Stone Thrillers. Keep them coming Joe, they are great reads. =D

Fruit Salsa

One of our staff made fruit salsa and cinnamon chips as a treat for us today. It got rave reviews from everyone and so I asked her for the recipe. She gave me the web site she found the recipe on and so I am passing it along to anyone out there that would like to try it. The web address is:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Annies-Fruit-Salsa-and-Cinnamon-Chips/Detail.aspx

Warning about Facebook and MySpace

I was reading msn news and found an article called : "Don't Drink and Drive, then post on Facebook", by Eric Tucker, Friday, July 18, 2008. Places like Facebook and MySpace have become places detectives, prosecutor's, as well as employers are gathering information on people. Photos as well as statements you post on Facebook, MySpace and other social sites can be used in a court of law, and by your employer as character references.

The article talks about teens drinking, partying and driving; then posting the photos of the drunken party's and unfortunate statements. These teens were in auto accidents and their comments online as well as the photos were used in court.

Yes Virginia, you have the freedom of speech, however anything you blog, or post online can be used against you by your employers as well as in a court of law.

Free Counter

I just wanted to thank Ms Peterson for the link to a free counter to add to my blog. Blogger lets you see how many people have checked out your profile but this way I have a count of how many times someone just stops in to read the blog. Adding the counter was very quick and easy to do.

Rain

What a glorious day, it's been raining for several hours now. While a lot of people would think rain is not a glorious day at all, I have to say I enjoy a good rainy day. We need the moisture around the area and it makes the air smell so wonderful. You can almost feel the earth rejoicing!


I have been curled up on the couch with a cup of earl grey tea and my latest book, "The Hades Project ", by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore. It's a good novel, dark, suspenseful with apocalyptic horror thrown in, how can you miss with that. Nothing like a mystery on a rainy day. =D


I watched "Sweeney Todd" starring Johnny Depp last night. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised he has a rather good singing voice and did a wonderful job of playing Sweeney Todd.
I had watched the Broadway performance long, long ago. What a morbid idea for a musical! A perfect choice for Tim Burton to make into a film.

Well the rain has seemed to stopped and I have two dogs that are insisting on going out to play fetch.

Teen Blog

I have been sharing my newly discovered tools with my colleagues at work. I have made a few suggestions for ideas such as setting up a blog for our teen book club. There seems to be a bit of reluctance at the moment, one objection was it would take too much time to maintain. I will continue to nudge the idea along slowly. I have tried to explain to them that maintaining a blog is not a difficult chore, and I believe the teens would welcome it. I was inspired to suggest this from reading a blog by a high school library in the USA, that started a blog and have made a connection with another high school library that was blogging from Australia. How cool is that?
Wish me luck in convincing them blogging is good. =D

Monday

Monday has come and gone, it was a dilly of a day. Mondays always seem to be the busiest day of the week here. We had a steady stream of patrons all day. The Internet computers were book solid by 1pm.

Summers bring us a variety of interesting people, we are on the edge of the lake area of Minnesota and have our fair share of tourists stopping in to both look at the building and e-mail home. One gentleman was bicycling across country to Seattle, stopped in to blog about his trip so far. Another lady was from British Columbia and needed to e-mail home, she was visiting relatives here.

We are also the closest library to Camp Ripley and get a lot of Army personnel coming in. It warmed my heart to see one of our young guards come in to see us today. He lives in our area and we were the second place he went after arriving home yesterday from Iraq, the first being home to visit his family. He has been coming to our library for years and is a familiar face around here. He laughed and said he had to stop and see his second family, the library staff.
Everyone was happy to see him home safe and in one piece.

The summer reading program is moving along nicely we had several children finish today. Hooray! We always have at least one activity per week for the kids to do, this week we have a mystery box with two holes for your hands, inside there are 6 items from the kitchen that you need to id by feel. One young man worked on that for 30 minutes, now that is determination.

At closing time tonight, as we were locking the doors, there was a little boy about 8 standing outside the door. He was waiting for his parents to pick him up. I always worry when parents are late to pick up a child. We talked to him awhile and asked him if he had called his parents and was sure they were coming to get him. He said yes, but he seemed a little scared. Rose and I talked a bit and she said she would wait in her car until his parents came, he seemed a bit relieved to know he was not there alone. Sometimes parents forget, that when you are small, it's very frightening to wait alone and wonder if they have forgotten you. Children are not little adults they are children.

Road Construction

It must be summer in Minnesota, road construction is everywhere. The Little Falls area now has road construction to the North and East. I live East of town and will for the next few months be enjoying the lovely swamp trail detour. Let's hope the water levels don't rise to much, I have not yet found a boat route to town.

Is it just me or dose it seem to you too that no matter where in the state you want to go during our short but lovely summers, you can't get there from here, without a detour somewhere along the way. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there, slow down and enjoy the trip. =D

Storm Damage 2

Storm Damage
Originally uploaded by CNS2008

This is a picture of some of the strom damage in my back yard. We were fortunate no trees damaged the house. Some of the trees were uprooted completely. I have been told we had wind speeds of up to 65 mph. It will take a while to clean up my yard, but it's not all bad, we have a great start on firewood for the winter.

There was no damage to the library, which was good news. We did however have a screen from someones house laying on the front lawn and a few wet books in the book return from the rain being blown in the book drop slot.

Little Falls is still cleaning up the mess and many people are still without power this evening.

Storm Damage

The Little Falls area was hit with high winds and heavy rains last night. I was at home at the time and at one point you couldn't see out of the windows it was like someone pointed a fire hose at the house. There luckily was no damage to the house, but we lost several trees. I will be cleaning up for awhile. I counted 11 trees down just in the yard, I have not ventured into the woods yet.

Nokassissippi

Nokassissippi
Originally uploaded by CNS2008

This is one of my favorite spots, but hard to get to. You need a four wheel drive and nerves of steel, but worth it for the view. Great spot to picnic.

Boomers Go Home

While I was exploring blog sites online for Libraries I happened upon one http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/ . There is a lot of anger there, but what caught my attention was the plight of the new MLS grads that are angry at us boomers for still working, while they are unable to find jobs in the field. It was sad but funny at the same time. This is one of the comments that was posted on the section called "Those Darn Boomers":


Minks said...
First, I want to state that what I am about to talk about is what I have seen. You can tell me what I have seen all you want, but that will not alter what I have seen. Keep that in mind when you all start flaming away. =PThere are a lot of problems with a significant number of old librarians that everybody is afraid to touch on. They fact they they will not retire is just a simple solution, not really the problem. I will explain it all in far more detail in my next blog,, but in summary...1) They tend to not have relevant skillsets needed to function properly in todays libraries. 70% of our librarians over 50 are pathetically under skilled in technology. Including, but not limited to, computer use (burning CD's for example), internet searching, powerpoint, excel, database usage, online commerce, and online content technology/delivery. In comparison, about 90% of our under 50 crowd have it down just fine (very few support calls from them). Am I bitter? Yes. Why? The same percentage of my "I need help calls" are generated from these two groups. Learn it or Retire is becoming my mantra.2) They do not want to learn the new skills. Like you said AL, they never get fired (or rarely do). They know full well they can coast for a freaking decade. And do. Boy-howdy they do. Would not happen in the real world. They would get fired or forced to retire. But in the wondrous fantasy world of libraries they just keep on hanging on.... making their support calls.... to me.3) They can not learn the new skills. They just cant. We had one here, bless her heart, just could not grasp the stuff no matter how much training. She was quite willing to try and train. Just.... well... could not manage. Other staff swore senility was kicking in.4) They set up a bad example in the marketplace for librarianship. People come into the libraries and see these geriatric technophobes and make little mental notes. The notes have to do with the desirably of librarians. The stereotype if you will. This type of stereotype is not helping the demand for librarians.Now, we have one librarian here that is almost 70 and actually pretty darn good. I am not saying ALL librarians over 50 are negligent in their skillsets. I am saying 70% are. 3 out of 10 are just fine. No need for you guys over 50 to lecture me on how good you are. Odds are, if you are reading and posting on a blog and you are over 50, you are one of the 3. =)

SAY WHAT! LOL Well I know we are a little slower then we were when we were 30 but please don't tell me that we are senile geriatric technophobes lol. Sometimes my humor is too much to contain, I just have to keep that phrase to use someday again "senile geriatric technophobes". Try to say that ten times, fast, lol. I feel the inspiration for a poem lol.

Too many irons in the fire

This is the first time blogging was at the end of my list of things to do. It has been a very busy day. I had a paper to write for my religion class I am taking online and today was my day to work until 8 pm, so that cut down on the time. No worries, I managed to complete the paper on time. My poor brain is on overload so I am calling it a day.

Splendid day

Greetings everyone, wow what an absolutely splendid day we have. It's a warm 87 degrees and sunny. I hope you are enjoying it as much as my family and I. My quote for the day for you is one of my favorites:

Psalms 118:24 "This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

PictureTrail revisited

I went into PictureTrail to add a few photo's to my creation. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that editing it was very, very easy. I m finding that Flickr has so very much to offer and is so wonderful to work with, it is one of my favorite tools. In fact it has inspired me to take my camera out more often.

Happy 232nd Birthday America!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Fourth of July! While I was reflecting on it today, and thinking what I could blog about, I decided to add a little bit of history. I remembered reading part of a letter John Adams had written to his wife Abigail. It took a bit of searching but I managed to find it : "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.["

In case you are wondering about the date 02 July 1776 in the above quotation, July 2, 1776, was the day when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a Resolution of Independence. After voting for Independence the congress debated and revised the Declaration of Independence, and gave it final approval on July 4, 1776.

The largest celebration of America's Independence Day outside the United States takes place every year at Rebild Bakker, Denmark. Danes and Americans of Danish decent gather at Rebild National Park each year for public speakers, bands and fireworks as they have since 1912.

Congratulations Drill Team

Congratulations to Great River Regional Library's Book Cart Drill Team, for winning the mayors award in the Granite City Parade! That was exceptional book carting! Keep up the good work.

Heading picture

Well after a bit of trial and error I have managed to add a photo to my Heading. I may not keep it but at least I know how to do it now. My very dear best friend told me once, the best way to learn something new on the computer is just do it, and don't worry if you mess up a few times.
I have learned that he was correct, we learn from our mistakes.

Cheeriest Place in the World

I just read an article online for the cheeriest place in the world, amazing as it seems I had it right on my first try, DENMARK! Was it a lucky guess? NO. Growing up with a Danish background the answer was "elementary my dear Watson". I never have met a happier person then my own Grandfather, born in Denmark, but grew up in America.

Though his life was far from easy, he always had a smile on his face. He was a farmer for most of his life, spent time working in logging camps up North, Graduated from the University of Minnesota, raised seven children on his own after the early loss of his wife. Worked hard up to the last day of his life at age 88.

He taught me to milk cows by hand when I was 5, the secret is to lean your head on the cows stomach and sing to it. lol It always seemed to work.

He told us the biggest, whopper stories you have ever heard, and would have us laughing until we cried. An art that he learned from his father, and working in those logging camps. One of my favorites was: "In Denmark they have the best farms in the world. The cows give such rich milk that when the farmers make butter they have to pile it in the yard. When someone comes to buy a pound of butter from them, the farmers wife has to climb up a ladder to the top of the butter hill, she tucks up her skirt and slides down the hill. Every thing you scrap off her bottom is a pound of butter."

What he taught us was, never take life or yourself to seriously. Life is short, enjoy everyday of it. A smile is the best gift you can give anyone.