Blogging Programs and Biking to Work

I rode to work on Tuesday! I was running late when I left but I made it on time. I rode along the Burke Gilman Trail on the way there; the canal section was beautiful and I love seeing the big, orange Wall of Death. I couldn't stop to take pictures, but hopefully on Thursday. I rode home too, but went along the North end of Green Lake that time. I think it took longer, but it is hard to say. The hills weren't as long, but they were pretty steep. The new bike is working out very well. It is nice and light, I don't feel hunched over and it is comfortable. My hands get a little numb, but it was less on the way home, so maybe I just needed to get used the the new posture.

I had a blogging class yesterday. I only had one teen, but an adult came and I had my directed fieldwork student and my teen volunteer there, so it didn't feel too lonely. I talked about online identity, compared blogging sites and types of content. A student from the UW came and talked about Puget Sound Off--a local social networking site for teens interested in social issues and change. By the end, my voice was fading, I had talked so much.

Today's class may not go too well if I can't get the internet to speed up. Last weeks class had to switch from modifying MySpace to building a simple web page using Notepad and Explorer--not on the internet. We still had a good time, but the younger kids didn't like it as much.

Another beautiful day in Seattle. Who would have thought we were even going to have a summer a month ago? I love 70 degree weather.

A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

My computer class yesterday went well, with 5 attendees. I taught one teen how to build a basic webpage from scratch, with HTML and CSS. We had some trouble getting the computers to connect with the internet, but eventually it started working. Of course, everything worked perfectly over at my other branch on Tuesday, where no one came to the class... Next week's class is on blogging and likely to be less popular.

Amazon has been having some amazing (heh) deals lately. I barely missed the gold box deal on Buffy--the entire series for $89. I was so sad. But today I got all three seasons of Veronica Mars for $20 each and yesterday I got the entire series of Angel for $62. Somebody needs to take away my clicking privileges.

The gaming tournament on Thursday went great. We had about 5 participants, with a couple more kids showing up late. We got our two teen winners, but only one under 13 winner, but he was a champ. He had never played DDR before, but by the end was getting a ton of perfects. I had two older teen volunteers there and they were wonderful help, along with our Directed Fieldwork Student. I have a hard time delegating in these situations, but all three appointed themselves tasks and really followed through. I will need them even more at the finale.

The garden is looking great. I thinned the lettuces today, so we will be having a baby lettuce salad later on. I wish I had some tomatoes ready, but they will be soon.

I finally got a bike, despite being thwarted by Bike Nashbar. I even got something a little more sturdy and reliable than I would have. It is the Trek 3700 Three Series:

Now I need to start riding!

We tried to go see North Twin at the Sunset last night with my friend and her dentist husband. The music didn't start until 10 (which should have been a bad sign to this old fogey anyhow), so we all chatted at my place for an hour or so before. We watched the first band, which were ok, the second band totally ticked me off. I think they got a little too tipsy, took about 45 minutes to set up and do their sound check, so they didn't start until almost 11:30. This meant that North Twin wouldn't be going on until after midnight. I also didn't like the second band, so we left without seeing the headliner. Quite a disappointment. I finally got my old butt out of the house after 10 and I didn't even get to see the band I wanted to see. Guess I am just not as hard core as others.

Etiquette

You know how there is that one person who emails you all the weird email jokes, or spiritual messages, or political rants/funny stuff? I have one of those. First it was semi-racist anti immigrant emails. I put an end to that. I emailed him back to let him know we didn't see eye to eye on that, and he answered that he totally understood and stopped sending them. I didn't get any emails from him for a while, but they slowly began to trickle in until it is up to one or two a day. At first they were just silly, funny or inspirational, but now they are political. He evidently doesn't like Obama, and sends every piddling inflammatory thing my way. And everyone else's way from the look of the email list. I should just tell him that I am not interested, but I have gotten to the point where whenever I see his name (in all caps...) I just delete the email. I hope he never sends me an actual message, because I won't get it. I wonder if I could just label him junk mail--I am sorely behind in learning how to sort my email box into useful categories.

The conference is done. I learned a lot, got very little sleep and still have a day and a half here. Shoot, I really want to go home. I tried to change my ticket, but no luck (unless I want to spend a couple extra hundred). Guess I will just have to suffer it out by the pool. And I am having lunch with a co-worker.

I did have a great time networking and seeing my cohort. Libraryland is still as cliquey as it was when I was in school, or maybe everybody is just so awkward that they don't know how to communicate. There was someone here that I used to work with, whom I thought I was on pretty good terms with, but had taken a job in another system, so I don't see her any more. However, every time I saw her (only twice), I would wave and she would look right at me and keep going. Like I was an animal at the zoo and I couldn't possibly be communicating with her. And an animal that she wasn't particularly interested in either. Luckily, this doesn't bother me as much as you might think. Since I posted about it, it must hurt, right? Well, not really. I have enough friends and coworkers that do seem to like me that I can shrug it off. But I still wonder, "what the hell?".

A couple of updates:

The bike that I ordered won't be coming. It got back ordered, then canceled. I still need to call them to express my displeasure. Deep displeasure.

My p-patch is still alive, even with the lovely 90+ weather Seattle has gotten while I was gone. My surrogate waterer's have done a lovely job keeping things hydrated and even given me little updates. Yay, surrogates!

Schwinny, where are you?

This is going to be my new ride. I got a really good deal at Bike Nashbar.com. They are having a 15% off sale. So now I just have to wait for it to get here...I hate waiting for shipping, don't you? We have this great system of instant gratification with the whole point and click thing, but then it totally lets you down with the follow-through.

I had a gaming event yesterday and it was a lot of fun. I had my only regular teen attend and we spent the 2 hours figuring out Dance Dance Revolution. Of course, I am still terrible at it, but I had fun jumping around doing the lessons. For some reason when my set of arrows are next to another set of steps, I get totally confused. We had a great time and laughed a lot. A couple of younger kids joined us a bit later and helped mix things up a bit.

I have used the word totally twice (3 times...) in this post. That doesn't bode well.

I really miss Dr. T right now. He is about 300 miles away and I haven't seen him in over a week. The Boy and I are heading that way this weekend to visit him and the family. Sis and her man are going to be there too, along with (gasp!) my mother and grandmother. We are doing a big birthday shin-dig bbq since about half of us are born in the month of May. August must be a slow month for us. We will also hang out a bit with Dr. T's family while we are there and they will meet The Boy. I met them when we were there for xmas. Wow, that was 5 months ago.

Lots of shake ups around libraryland. Somebody is interviewing for a different position, my manager is going to manage other people for a while, and, well, I guess that's it, but really that is plenty. Change is the spice of life...I think my stew has too much pepper right now.