Insert Paul Simon and/or Marc Cohn lyric here

I spent the better part of my 5.5-hour layover in Memphis this afternoon at Graceland. Photos are online. (The last few are from the Memphis airport.)

More airport security weirdness

Today I was informed (indirectly as I actually overheard this) that children under 12 don't have to take off their shoes when going through airport security. (At least at the Des Moines airport.) Hey terrorists, if you want to set off a shoebomb, put it in your kid's shoes.

Dr. Who: Grace

I'll admit I've seen the first episode of the new Dr. Who series (titled "Grace", the name of the new companion). No, it hasn't been broadcast in the US yet. My opinion: Spectacular! (Very funny too.) Here's some snapshots of the episode.

Iowa photos

My photos of Ottwuma and Pella, IA have been posted. Most of them are from Pella.

Paranoia in the heartland

I was sitting outside the Pella, IA public library earlier this morning waiting for it to open when I saw a cop come out of the police station across the street. He held in his had something that looked like a golf club, a long stick with a bend at the far end. I sat there as I witnessed him walk down the street behind all the parked cars (on-street angled parking) and poke his stick under each car and look down. It seems that his pole had a mirror on the end and he was checking the undersides of all of the card on the street. Witnessing this just creeped me out. Town cops walking down the street and randomly looking under parked cars. I realize that this was probably legal since the cars were parked on a public street but the only thing that would make this practice less creepy (or maybe more creepy) is is this cop had a reasonable suspicion of some nefarious goings-on.

Dalek 'attacks' Parliment

Armed police sprang into action after spotting a dalek outside Parliament.

Parting is such sweet... Thank God that's out of here!

I shipped off the full revised draft of the XHTML/CSS book today. 767 pages weighing eight pounds. Of course, the publisher wanted two printed copies so with the box, the package weighed 16.5 pounds. Now on to the revision of the Blog/RSS book. (Those revision are not nearly as extensive. Mostly just clean-up.)

An error to end all errors

There's nothing like opening up a Web page and getting an error message. Especially when the error you receive is this one.

Another reason I want to move to Tempe, AZ

It seems that the city is set to go WiFi citywide. Nothing like making a useful service available to your users. Now, if I could just get WiFi at my local library...

National Library Week eCards

American Greetings has free ecards for National Library Week
via LibrarianInBlack

Important Changes to Your Citizenship Agreement

Did you know that your US Citizenship TOS have changed? Better check out the updates as soon as you can. Don't forget to retain a copy for your records.
via Copyfight

The James Madison Papers

The American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress has added The James Madison Papers, a collection of over 12,000 documents. Especially interesting are his ciphers.

Airport rules change

I juts got home form Des Moines and noticed a new sign at DSM stating that beginning April 17th (or maybe the 14th, I can't remember exactly) lighters will not be allowed in carry-on luggage. Bout darn time! I've been complaining about the logic of this one for a while now. (Remember, the "shoe bomber" who tried to ignite his sneakers with a lighter. He's the source of the shoe removal in airports but they still continued to allow lighters. Go figure...)

Bill Sauers, world traveler

My father just got back from three weeks in Germany, having been called up to help administer a NATO training course. Here are his photos from the trip.

CIL Memories

From Michael Stevens' photoblog. I'm the one in blue. Here's the rest of his photos.

Clippy

I just noticed that in Office 2003 Microsoft offers sample searches you can perform in the help system. Check out this one:

The end of CIL & getting home

I've decided to post my final CIL entry here instead of on my CIL05 blog since it's way long and I though it would be of interest to those who read this blog and have not been reading the other one.

7:39am Chicago O’Hare International Airport

When last we left the Travelin’ Librarian… Wait, I have absolutely no idea when I last blogged. (I’m not online as I write this post; I plan on posting it when I finally get home.) I think it was sometime around Friday morning, and I was in DC at CIL. Then again I could be wrong. Here’s what’s happened since then...

I did my Bookmarklets Cybertour and it went well. Several people hung around after the presentation to ask some very good questions. (There are photos, taken by Amanda, in my CIL ofoto album. Karen, Amanda and I decided to head off to find some lunch on 18th street and Karen suggested that we "bag the rest of the afternoon" and go to the zoo. I was done with anything required of me at the conference and had never been to the national zoo so I thought this would be a wonderful idea. We found some Mexican for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo. (Zoo photos also in the previously linked album.) Finding ourselves at the far end of the zoo and exhausted the three of us walked back through the zoo and caught a cab back to meet up with the bloggers dine-around at Thaiphoon at 6pm.)

As dinner was starting I received a text message from Katrina who I’d met on Wednesday evening at the speaker’s reception and sat with at the Dead Technologies presentation. Having no specific plans for the evening we decided to meet up at 8:30 for some coffee.

We met up at the appointed time and went out for some coffee. Two hours later we decided to vacate the coffeehouse on Connecticut and head for a different one (Tryst) on 18th. Finding Tryst mobbed and the music (although good) very loud and not conducive to conversation we decided not to stay. (How the students there were getting their work done I’ll never understand.) Heading back down the block, Katrina spotted a hookah bar and said she’d hadn’t done that since her last trip to Israel. Always wanting to try new things, it sounded like a wonderful idea to me. (See photo on moblog.) At 2am we decided to head back to our respective hotels.

Back at the hotel, I opened up my laptop to discover that some significant screws had come loose and that the lid/screen would no longer close without splitting open. Did I have a screwdriver small enough for these screws? Of course not. Eventually I broke off the metal pocket clip from a vendor’s swag pen (they’re good for something) and used it to retighten the screw. Meanwhile Katrina and I had made plans via SMS to meet up for breakfast before out flights home. I set my alarm for 7am and went to bed. It was 4am.

I woke up promptly at 6:15, showered, turned off the alarm and headed out to wonder about the neighborhood to kill some time. At 8, Katrina and I met up again, went back to the coffee house of the previous evening and had some breakfast then walked around DuPont circle. Eventually, we ended up back at my hotel where SuperShuttle picked me up at 10:15 to get me to Regan National for my 12:45 flight to Chicago, to be followed by a 2:55 flight home to Denver. Katrina was scheduled on the 2:45 flight back home to Chicago. (Ah, the best laid plans...)

I got to National, checked my one bag with my clothes, cords, etc., and got through security without a hitch. I’d been placed on standby for the 12:24 flight since it had been oversold. Sensing an opportunity for some company at the airport, and since she wasn’t feeling well and not looking forward to her flight, I asked the gate agent if I could be moved to the 2:45 flight to Chicago, then booked on to Denver. At first she said no since my bag was already checked on the 12:45 flight and that I needed to go with my bag. (It’s a security thing.)

At 12:15 they started boarding the flight and calling names from the standby list. When I didn’t hear my name in the first group called I re-approached the gate agent and offered to move to standby on the 2:45 flight. This time it was no problem. I was put on standby for the later flight, and again put on standby for a later flight from Chicago to Denver. Katrina arrived at the airport; we got some ice cream and settled in to wait for our flight. I got on the 2:45 flight; we exchanged a seat with another passenger (luck him as Katrina’s seat was up front with the premier executives), and continued our conversation on the way to Chicago.

We got to Chicago on-time and proceeded to the gate for my Denver flight. We got to the gate and we informed that the flight to Denver was oversold by 30 seats and there were an additional 15+ standby passengers. Getting on this flight did not look good. At this point the gate agent said that I wasn’t on the flight that I’d just gotten off of. What!? According to the system, I’d flown to Chicago on my original 12:45 flight. This made absolutely no sense. 10 minutes later I got a complete story, sort of. It seems that I’d been assigned a seat on the 12:45 flight, i.e. no longer on standby, and that I’d "volunteered to give up my seat" on that flight. (This was news to me.) Since this was my "choice" I was now on perpetual standby for the rest of the day. Katrina said I could stay at her place for the night so could I be guaranteed on a flight on Sunday morning? The answer was no, because this was all my fault. I’d have to wait until I’d not gotten on the last flight out Saturday night as a standby passenger before being moved to standby mode on Sunday morning.

We left the gate and headed for customer service. Luckily, Katrina flies United enough to be a premier executive and was able to get me into the Red Carpet Club where the line for help is nonexistent. (This was my first time in one of these clubs. Unfortunately I now know what I’m missing.) The customer service agent confirmed the story to me. So, we started to discuss options. Could I purchase a new ticket home in on Sunday morning? There was one available for $320. (Ouch!) Could Katrina use some of her frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket home on Sunday. Yes. A business class seat for 40,000 miles. (Thanks for the offer but I felt very uncomfortable accepting such an offer.) Could I change my Denver to Des Moines flight on Monday morning to a Chicago to Des Moines flight? (Had everything worked out as originally planned I was to be home for 41 hours before leaving on another trip.) I figured that I could cover the $100 change fee and hopefully get my bag with appropriate clothing (which was by this time on its way to Denver) to meet me in Des Moines. Well, take the original ticket price, subtract the $100 change fee, and then add the difference for the new flight and the total was more than $450. (Double ouch!) My best option was to accept Katrina’s offer of the miles, despite all of the associated guilt.

We asked the customer service rep to do this for me when, like Mighty Mouse swooping in the save the day, a seat opened up on the Sunday 8am flight to Denver which they could switch me to at no charge! (I had used a previously-earned free flight coupon to go book this trip, and the available seat fell into the category allowing this change without charging me anything.) Problem solved.

Sort of.

I had a flight out in the morning and I had a place to stay. All my clothes were in Denver at this point. Washing machine in Katrina’s apartment, here we come. On top of that, my cell phone charging cable had been packed in the Denver-based bag. Send off a few quick txt messages to let people know I’m o.k. but not home yet (this is your explanation folks, a little long for a 160-character txt message) and turned off the phone for the night to conserve the 40% of the battery that was left. Get Katrina’s bag, head for the El, and into Chicago we head. It’s now 6pm on Saturday.

Drop off the bags, dinner at a great Indian/Tappas restaurant (can’t recall the name), and back to the apartment for laundry (don’t ask what I ended up wearing in the meantime…), True Romance (the movie), and more conversation. Set the alarm for 6am so I can take the El back to O’Hare (I’m already checked in and my luggage is in Denver so all I’ve got to deal with is getting through security), and get some sleep. It’s now 3am.

Wake up Sunday morning (in case you’re not keeping track I’ve had a total of 6.25 hours of sleep since I woke up Friday morning), say goodbye and a very big thank you, take the El back to O’Hare, get through the short line at security (I didn’t even have to take off my sneakers), and to the gate I head, stopping off at a Starbucks for some much needed caffeine. At the gate they’re in an oversold situation again. (Why is everyone suddenly trying to get to Denver?!) This time they’re asking for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for a free flight voucher. The temptation was just too great.

It’s now 8:21 am on Sunday and I’m sitting at gate C24. I’m on standby for the 9am flight to Denver but it’s unlikely that I’ll get on the flight. I do have a confirmed seat on the 11:55 flight which will get me into Denver at 1:45pm, approximately 18 hours before I need to be back at DIA to catch my flight to Des Moines. But, I’ve also got a free flight voucher in my bag.

I wonder where that little blue slip will take me

9:13am

Since I’m writing this, you can correctly assume that I didn’t get on the 9am flight. I didn’t expect to, but it was actually close. It turned out that two people didn’t show up for the flight and there was a group of five ahead of me on the standby list. (Lucky me!) Unfortunately, they asked the leader of the group of five if they were willing to split their party (send two on this flight, and the other three on a later flight), and they too the offer. That left me shuffling off to gate C19 to wait for my 11:55 flight.

At least now I’ve found a working outlet so I can actually get some editing done of the XHTML/CSS book. The presence of working outlets, (or outlets at all for that matter,) seems to be sparse in O’Hare (with the exception of in the Red Carpet Clubs). I’m currently sharing an outlet panel with a recharging people car. Then again I might try to get some sleep. Maybe I should pack an emergency DVD from now on.

11:29

I'm on the plane but alomst passed on another flight. At the last minute they announced that they were looking for voulnteers again. This time for a free trip voucher and a business class seat to Denver. I considered it until I learned they'd provide the upgraded seat on the 5:15pm flight. I decided that another 5 hours in O'Hare just wasn't going to allow me to keep what little sanity I have left.

3:01

I'm home after stopping by the office to pick up some materials I need for the Des Moines trip tomorrow. I actually slept for the whole flight to Denver, an unheard of occurrence for me. I guess I needed the sleep. (Current total now 8.25 hours in the past 57 hours.) I've also returned some overdue library materials and found out that the dry cleaner's isn't open on Sunday. All my devices are plugged in to recharge (laptop, cell, iPod) and the first load of laundry is in the wash. My held mail didn't get delivered yesterday so I don't have to deal with that, however much I'd like to. Maybe I'll try to take a short nap.

Son of SushiDisk

Those wacky folks at Solid Alliance have released four new Food-based jump drives. Fun-looking (though the one seems a bit large physically) but at only 128MB they're not fun enough to be worth it.

Out with the old, in with the... old?

I'm not sure why I want the iTube but I do. Maybe just because it looks cool. I'm afraid to look for a price on this gadget though.
via Gizmodo

Mixing the old with the new

I'm not sure why I want the iTube but I do. Maybe just because it looks cool. I'm afraid to look for a price on this gadget though.
via Gizmodo

A job in the desert

I'll admit I'm looking to move to the desert but this Head of Reference position in Cairo is a little too desert for me.

But would you want to?

The central question for the album Double Standards by Lea Delaria is "can you make jazz out of Jane's Addiction or Patti Smith?" My question titles this post.

Photoshop Phunnies

Farker's take on the poster for Episode III.

There and Back Again

According to this BBC article Peter Jackson may do a film version of The Hobbit but it'll be at least four years before he'll even start it.

Computers in Libraries

Tomorrow morning I'm on a 6:42am flight to DC to attend the Computers in Libraries 2005 conference at the Washington Hilton. I'll be presenting two cybertours (Data Visualization on Wednesday at 3pm and Bookmarklets on Friday at Noon). I'll be meeting with folks from Neal-Schuman and Information Today about my XHTML/CSS and Blog/RSS books respectively, along with potential future projects. The flight home on Saturday will be spent finalizing the editing process on the XHTML/CSS book.

More importantly, this will most likely be my only conference-related post on this blog. I've set up a group blog for the conference at cil05.blogspot.com and will be posting there, along with several others, during the conference. If you're attending and would like to post, drop me a line and I'll add you to the system.

Quote

"I can't save you from anything. But I want to. I would if I could. Does that help? To know that someone wants you to be happy?"
— Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant

Rest in Pieces, Mozilla Browser Suite

Today the end of Mozilla as we know it was announced. No big deal since that allows them to focus more on Firefox and Firebird.
via BetaNews

New Harry Potter cover

Amazon.com is now displaying the cover for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Build your own Death Star

Not only does this look like fun but also quite complicated as it's the incomplete Death Star. There's also a Millennium Falcon that would be a lot of fun to build.

XHTML/CSS book update

Everything's on schedule for a March 15th ship-off date. My pet linguist has turned chapters 1-2,10-12 back to me and I've made all the chages. I should be receiving the rest on Saturday and making those changes through Sunday. Then one last tech edit of the Forms & CSS chapter and off it goes.

New 'Doctor Who' program leaked online

It looks like the premier episode of the new Doctor Who series has been released online. No comment from the travelin' librarian as to whether or not he's got a copy...

Classes I wish I could teach

Aaron has his list and so does Jessamyn. I'm not sure but I think I could successfully teach all of their suggestions with about 24 hours notice.

IE and Standards

Chris Wilson (of Microsoft, not Good Charlotte) speaks on IE and Standards. I'm not sure my opinion has changed due to this but it doesn't hurt their side either.

The Mapping of a Cat's Brain

After reading the mapping of a cat's brain I'm not sure I still want a cat... (Just kidding.)

It's not fair!

I've recently purchased a new ser of red dishes. This knife block would look perfect on my counter. Trouble is, you can't buy it!

A weekend of royalty

This past weekend just left me stunned musically. On Friday night Laura and I went to see The Queen of the Blues, Koko Taylor at a small bar that held maybe 150 people. There's no experience quite like standing not 10 feet from a 70-year-old woman singing Chicago blues. Then, to make the weekend even more amazing, on Sunday night Laura, Shane, and Gwynneth (Laura's 11-year-old daughter) went to see The King of the Blues, B. B. King with maybe 1500 people. This was in a concert hall and we were in the 13th row, just off center. A few hours with King, currently 79, singing Delta Blues was a spectacular contrast to the music of Friday night. Top this all of with the fact that it was Gwynneth's first "real concert" and I got to buy her her first "concert t-shirt" I can't say I've had a better weekend in quite a while.

John Cleese's Letter to America

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.
John Cleese

iPod Photo in 3D

Thanks Matt

Quotes from the weekend...

"Spontaneity isn't random."

"...in command but out of control."

Writing, writing, writing

I know I've not blogged much recently but I've got a good excuse. I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing my XHTML & CSS book for the past week. The good news is that it's almost finished. I've got Lisa reading over the chapter on CSS & Forms because something is wrong with that chapter but I just can't figure out what. Considering how many time I've looked at, and read, it myself I figured having someone else look at it from a fresh perspective will spot the problem. The other thing I need to do is get the grammar edit from Laura tomorrow. (There's nothing like having a best friend with a masters in Linguistics willing to edit 800 pages in just under two weeks. I just can't thank you enough!) From the sounds of it, I'll be spending the better part of next week cleaning up from her bleeding all over the manuscript. Once those two items are taken care of, off it goes, just in time for me to head off to CIL'05 in DC.

Guess the Dictator or Sit-Com Character

Why these two categories are in the same game I've no idea, but the Guess the Dictator or Sit-Com Character site is highly accurate.
Thanks Louise

The Big Cartoon DataBase

Trying to figure out the name of that hairy red monster that appeared in just two Bugs Bunny cartoons? (Gossamer) Check out The Big Cartoon DataBase
Thanks Steve

Wallace and Gromit Trailer

Woo Hoo! A Wallace and Gromit movie! Here's the trailer.

What's that song? (John Hiatt edition)

Here's a fun game: What's that song? (John Hiatt edition). Other artist versions are also available.
Thanks Steve!

File not found!

I know I've seen this before but I don't think I blogged it. Be patient as this 404 error message does take a few minutes to read but it's worth it.
Thanks Stephanie of LU