Stuck

What happens when the escelator stops?

Christmas 2006

Since several people have asked me, I realized that I've not yet blogged about my experience getting home for Christmas. Well, I ended up originally getting a flight that got me into Rochester, via Washington Dullas, at 11:00pm on Christmas night. On Saturday I went to look at my updated schedule online and didn't find it. So, I called United back (was on hold for only an hour this time) and confirmed my Monday flight. During that call the agent asked me if there was a different city I could fly in to. I mentioned Buffalo and she found me a flight that got me into Buffalo at 6:15pm Christmas Eve. I snagged that one fast. The only hitch was that it took me through Kansas City (which finally has facilities inside security!) and Washington Dullas. On Sunday I ended up getting up at 4:30am, getting to the gate at 6:30am, and leaving Denver at 8:30am. I ended up getting to Buffalo roughly on time, but for some unexplained reason my luggage stayed behind at Dullas.

The baggage clerk "found" my bag at Dullas ans said that it would be arriving in buffalo at bout 11pm. Unfortunately, I needed to get to Rochester and didn't want to impose on my parents any more than I'd already done by making them pick me up about 70 miles from home. The clerk told me he had no more drivers for the night but that he'd have my bag delivered to me in Rochester the next day, Christmas.

Christmas day was fun as the photos can attest. We were able to keep my earlier arrival from my brother and his family so that was a nice surprise for them. Around noon I started wondering where my bag was so I tried calling the automated baggage claim phone system. I wouldn't accept my claim number nor would it recognize "sauers" as a last name. I tried transferring to a human but every time I tried that I was told that the "transfer had failed" and that I could try the automated system or "call back later". It's interesting that instead of being put on hold, I was, in essence, being hung up on by the system.

About 2pm Christmas day I got the call from United confirming the delivery address for my bag and informing me that it would be on the 6pm run. Finally my bag showed up at five to midnight.

Now I'm hoping I don't get stuck in Chicago on the way back home on Saturday as I hear the snow is starting again in Denver and they're expecting another two feet of the stuff.

The A.D.D. Shopping Network

Flight update

Two hours on hold and I'm now getting to Rochester at 11:00pm on Christmas day.

Harry Potter 7 title announced

Snowed In

Well, I went to check in for my flight to Rochester, NY at 11:30am tomorrow and found that it's already been canceled. I've been on hold with United for the past 1.5 hours with no human in sight. Updates as warranted.

JPG Magazine

Fan video

Stumbled over on YouTube. A fan video for the Barenaked Ladies' Wind It Up. (The puppets are the best part!)

More Snow

This time out in Elizabeth, CO.

Snow

This video was taken out my office window about three hours ago. It's gotten worse. More to come.

Mad Library Skills wanted

Just posted to Web4Lib:

Instructional Design Librarian - - Mad Library Skills Wanted
K-State Libraries November 2006
K-State Libraries ( www.lib.ksu.edu ) seeks applicants for the position of Instructional Design Librarian. Entry-level or experienced librarians are welcome to apply, especially if you want to join progressive colleagues committed to pushing the edge of student learning. We are looking for someone who thrives on the generation of ideas through discussion, but has the self-discipline to execute these ideas ndependently. Reporting to the Coordinator of Library Instruction, this position will have primary responsibility for creating online learning resources and environments for library instruction. Coursework, employment or other relevant experiences should demonstrate your qualifications. This is a tenure track position and appointment will be made to Assistant or Associate Professor according to qualifications and level of experience...

Billy Idol: Jingle Bell Rock

I was just informed by a co-worker that Billy Idol put out a holiday album this year. (How did I miss that!?) So a quick Google search sent me to Billy's MySpace page the fruits of which I share with you here:
Jingle Bell Rock

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Winter

Yes folks, winter has arrived in Aurora, CO. This is supposed to last through tomorrow. That should make flying out on Friday morning an adventure.

Zudeo powered by Azureus 3.0

I've started playing with the new 3.0 version of the Azureus BitTorrent client and their Zudeo directory/store of legal Torrents. Here's the first thing I found, Batman: Dead End, an amazing fan short-film pitting Batman agains not only the Joker but also a Predator and an Alien.

CSS Turns 10

Sunday was the tenth anniversary of CSS. So, why isn't your library's Web site using it yet?

Disposable phone numbers

I've used services such as Mailinator in the past to get a temporary, disposable e-mail address when I didn't want to give out my actual e-mail address. But what about when you don't want to give out your phone nubmer? Well, Craigsnumber is a service that will give you a phone nubmer that automatically forwards to your real phone number and expires after either one hour, day or week (your choice).

Why use a service such as this. One suggestion is when you're trying to sell or give away something on Craig's List and you don't want people calling you after the item is long gone. This is probably something I'll be doing in the next two months in preparation for my move to NE, so I'm thinking I'll give it a try. I'll report the results when I have them.

PaperCuts & Horror

Every time I present on blogs I give a shout out for Paper Cuts, the blog from the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library describing it as "the single best public library blog in existence." Today, the post about Evil Reborn by Douglas Clegg made me add another reason it's so great to my list, one that I had in the back of my mind but hadn't verbalized before: someone there likes the horror genre.

I realize I'm in the minority, but a growing one, that likes horror books. I'm not talking just your old King and Koontz standbys, but also Clegg, Lee, Garton, Laymon, Lumley, Ketchum, Sarrantonio, and Hutson. Sometimes, the more outrageous and the bigger the splatter radius the better. The fact that someone at PaperCuts is even aware of the Harrow House series just flat out impresses me. Yes, I'm biased, but ask yourself this, what is your library doing to promote the horror genre other than the annual Halloween display of vampire novels.

Staff Meeting... in Second Life

The Library Management Team of the Kansas State Library held a staff meeting in Second Life. Go Christie!

SWILSALibs

Karen at the South West Iowa Library Service Area is at it again. This time she's created a mashup using MapBuilder.net resulting in a Google map of libraries in the SWILSA region. She's also including data from RSS Calendar on the SWILSA home page.

Library Website Hall of Fame

The Library Success Wiki has a Library Website Hall of Fame section. Two BCR region libraries, Denver Public and BYU, have made the list. None from Nebraska though. I'll put that on my to do list.
Thanks Rosario

Google home page

Circa 1960

Price goes down, get your refund.

RefundPlease.com

"There are a number of online retailers that offer to credit buyers back cash on past purchases. For instance, if the product you purchased at Amazon.com within the last 30 days has dropped in price they will credit you back the difference.

"That's great news!

"The only problem is that you have to check the latest prices and then notify them in order to get the credit.

"We simplify the whole process.

"After you make a purchase, visit our web site and enter the purchase information into our database along with your email address. We do the rest. We'll check the prices everyday and send you a message if the price has dropped. In the message will be a link right to the place where you claim your credit.

"You can track any kind of item: cameras, clothes, consumer electronics, computers, software, DVDs, well, anything! Just enter the information into the database and we will track it for you!

"Currently, we only track prices at Amazon.com, but we have identified a number of other online retailers that we will be adding to our system in the days and weeks ahead."

Unbelieveable deal on a 4GB jumpdrive

Tiger Direct is offering a SpeedDrive 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Flash Drive for only $14.99 after two $30 mail-in rebates. Even with $6.99 for shipping that's just $5.50 per GB. Mine's on the way!

Commercials on YouTube

AOL posts some commercials for their new search service and an Apple customer posts a commercial for the iPhone which doesn't even exist. Read the comments: compare and contrast.

Amazon.com does wikis

Amazon.com now has product wikis allowing customers to contribute content about the products they've purchased.

Exit Strategy

I Have That! Leave a note!

Here's a fun new flickr group: Flickr: I Have That! Leave a note! The creator describes it as "I Spy meets a Scavenger Hunt!" Check it out, post your photos and leave your notes.

Slogan Generator

Women love The Travelin' Librarian.

Slogan Generator

Social color schemes

kuler is a new online color-picker from Adobe Labs. What makes this one different is that by registering with the system you can rate, tag, and comment on the color schemes created by other users. The fist image (below) is the home page and the second is of my first attempt at using the system.

kuler home:

creating with kuler:

House sale update

A serious offer has been made on my house!

Scary Marry

I always did find Marry Poppins a bit creepy.

Turn your blog into a book

Use Blog Slurper to turn your blog into a printed book. (Something I'll actually investigate once it supports Blogger.)

The Denver Public Library is running a contest for teens using YouTube. Now that's a library 2.0 idea!

Wiccanomics

Wiccanomics
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

On the flight home from Cedar Rapids the other day I was deep into Wikinomics when the woman sitting next to me, looked up from her bible study book, looked at the cover of the book I was reading and asked "What's wikinomics?" pronouncing the "i" in wiki as an "a". Not knowing how much she knew about the Internet I stated my explaination with "It's about how new Internet technologies are effecting businesses and the economy..." At this point a relieve expression came over her face, she smiled, and said "Oh, I thought it was about witchcraft."

My father's favorite W. quote

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we"
Washington, DC
Aug 5, 2004

House showing

I did get a call saying that my realtor would be showing my house to a potential buyer this afternoon. When I got home different lights we on/off from when I left town so I know it happened. Of course, I'll post if anything comes of it.

Wikinomics

Here's a idea from Wikinomics as rephrased by me:

Think of Wikipedia as an informational barn raising.

Doctor Who: THe Runaway Bride

Here's some bits from the forthcoming 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special:

Teaser 1:

Teaser 2:

Four Minutes from the episode:

Technology to Michael: "You're not the boss of me!"

I'm in the Eastern Iowa Airport (Cedar Rapids, IA) using the free WiFi to get caught up from this four day trip to Iowa City, IA for two days of BCR workshops and an afternoon speaking to the staff of the Iowa City Public Library about the Social Web as part of their in-service day. Today went well and everyone enjoyed it including myself. The previous two days however, if it could go wrong it did. Cases in point:

• For the blogs class, Blogger finally decided to send everyone creating a new blog to the beta version. This meant that many of my handouts didn't match what they were looking at on the screen, didn't match the screen I was projecting and there were new/changed features that I wasn't prepared to discuss.
• In the RSS workshop, FeedXS finally convinced me that it's useless for class purposes and I was pretty much forced to just tell everyone to skip it and ignore that part of the handouts.
• I taught my podcasting class for the first time and, instead of ending up with a short list of things to tweak for the next time out, I need to redo about 50% of the workshop and change the focus for the second half of the class. And, the BCR FTP server decided that it kept wanting to drop my connection so I couldn't upload the students' MP3 files to the server to get to work with the software I was trying to teach them.
• During the wiki class I instructed all eleven students on how to create a Wikipedia account, something I've done many other times. This time, six of them were able to create accounts while the other five got error messages informing them that six accounts had already been created from that IP address and no other new accounts would be allowed for 24 hours. Turns out that to the outside world all of ICPL's computers are represented by one IP address. Great for the network architecture and for security reasons but it causes problems with Wikipedia's security. A good portion of the class was from that point on a demo instead of hands on.

Needless to say it's been a long week and I need a few solid nights of sleep before getting back to the office on Monday and updating the material for those classes before teaching them again in January.

Customize 'Cappuccino'

Wikinomics

Wikinomics
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

I got my copy earlier this evening and it's going to keep me up tonight. It's simple: Find a copy and read this book.

Napoleon Dynamite Wallpaper Generator

My other, other blog

Hey, I'd totally forgotten about my Satellite Libraries blog. How about sending in a link to yours?
Thanks Rosario

Tomorrow: The Social Web

Tomorrow I'm presenting a one-hour talk on "The Social Web" to the staff of the Iowa City Public Library for their in-service day. For those interested, here's my slides:

I Blog, You Blog, Weblog

Hello from my blogging workshop at the Iowa City Public Library in Iowa City, IA. Right now everyone is writing their first blog post.

And my last day is...

Happy Go Lucky 269
Originally uploaded by Repoort.

BCR and I have worked out that my last day both in the office and on the payroll will be February 15, 2007. This blog and my travelinlibrarian.info e-mail address will continue to work after that date for anyone wishing to contact me.

My other blog

Did you know that my best friend and I have another blog? It's titled Linguistic Obsession and it's about grammar and other related things. (Really, she's the grammar geek, but I surf more than she does so I get to contribute when I find something worthy.)

Sometimes Google's too smart

While in Salt Lake City last week I was looking for an address for the Market Street Grill. Cell phone in hand I sent the following SMS to Google (46645): Market Street Grill, Salt Lake City, UT. Typically a search such as this will provide you with addresses as a response. Here's what I got:

Looking for map of 'Market Street Grill, Salt Lake City, UT'? Sorry, map information is not available via Google SMS.

Did you guess the problem? It's the works "street" in my search. Because of this one word, Google thought I was looking for a street and therefore a map, not the address of a business with "street" in the name. A revised search for Market Grill, Salt Lake City, UT retrieved me the answer I was looking for.

Arches National Park

I finally got my longer video of driving through Arches National Park uploaded to Google Video (it was too long and to large for YouTube) for your viewing pleasure.

Another flickr photo "sale"

Someone doesn't understand plurals
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

I put sale in quotes this time since I was asked to license this photo for use in software for autistic children ("It would be used as a tool to teach words with meaning. The program your photo would go into would be 'Going on an Airplane'.") but was not offered any payment. I've agreed but asked for a free copy of the software in return.