Party entertainment

My two grandnieces, sisters Erin and Emma, had their birthday party on
Nov. 10th...yes two parties on one day! But don't feel too bad for the parents, they had Auntie Janet for the party's entertainment. Here we are having storytime fun.


While Auntie Janet entertained the children...the parents found their own ways to entertain themselves!

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All in all everyone had a good time especially the four cuties, Erin, Emma, Morgan and Austen

The End!

I have finished and have to say it has been worth the time and effort. I may not be able to explain all of the technology I have viewed, but at least I know what it is and a bit about how to use it.

I found working with Wikis most useful. I have begun to set up a Wiki for the system training that I do, and look forward to making it available and interactive for staff.

What surprised me the most was how much interested me....can't say I understand all of it, but see the usefulness of what I explored. It also made me think about where technology is going and how it may or may not impact the library. I would most definitely participate in another program like this.

I guess if I were to put this all in one sentence it would be that ..."There is more to internet technology that is useful to librarians than meets the eye." I would never have tried many things, things that I will/can use for my job, like Wiki. It is fun working with my Blog and have used it to pass along to friends and family events in my life.

Thanks for offering this...I would never have tried or looked at most of this had it not been for this program.

Week 9

Found this on u-tube...very funny!
Monty Python Camelot Lego Animation http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=99174057823861673
I could not embed it because the file was too big but give it a try it is worth the look.

I use downloads, rather than pod-casts, all the time. I find downloads better for me as I listen to them at my computer while doing other things. I alsol often listen through my computer speakers while doing things around the house. I could send them to my ipod but it is more cumbersome carrying the IPod and earphones around while working in my house, Here is an audio feed I listen to that is also available as an pod-cast. APM: Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett
Home > Search > APM: Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. I also regularly listen to Steven Colbert Colbert Report Pod-cast Home > Search > Colbert Report Pod-cast. This comes on the same time as David Letterman which I tape. It is easier to listen to Colbert as a download because it is in short segments.

I love downloads for many reasons, but really like the radio downloads as I often can not listen to them when they are on and you can't tape them!

E-Books. I am not a big fan of E-Books. If you travel much I can see where this would be useful. Most of the time I listen to books or read the hard copy. My sister travels a lot and does download E-Books and finds them good for planes. I find the ipod screen too small for viewing. I also read recently that e-books are not doing as well as everyone thought they would....this does not surprise me as most people I know would rather hold a hard copy of a book in their lap than their laptop! If e-books were to provide books no longer available I think they would do better. I would download an e-book I could not buy or get at my local library. One note about World E-Book Fair, you have to join (and it appears) pay $8.95 a year. That isn't much and most would join if they wanted to use it, but I couldn't fine where you could try it without login and joining. (Full Text Search of 500,000+ PDF eBook Titles in 100+ Languages. • Membership Required for Access to eBooks. http://www.worldebookfair.com/Join.htm) I feel it is a bit deceptive to say World E-Book Fair is free when the only thing free is the access to to articles. I tried some of the other sites, but most require pay....which makes sense, but honestly if I am going to pay, I'll buy it or borrow it in hard copy,

Austen's 2nd birthday

My grandneice had her 2nd birthday party on Sat. The bouncy castle was a big hit and a dog, (her uncle) wandered by to say hello. It was a party fit for a princess.

Vacations

I went on two vacations this summer.
The first one was a mix of vacation and work.
The work part of my first vacation was the Children's Institute at Simmons College in Boston. The Institute was remarkable. The basis of all their summer insitiutes is to examine children's literature as literature. The theme this year was Food Glorious Food...the role of food in children's literature. Giving talks were the likes of David Macauley, Natale Babbitt, Polly Horvath, Robert Sabuto (one of those amazing paper engineers) and many more. The most scholarly talk was from Jack Gantos who compared Oliver, Chocolate War, and Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Marc Aronson was to speak but he was sick. He sent a rough draft of his talk which in rough draft form was betten than most finished products! I have a link to this talk if anyone would like to see it. He is one of the premier non-fiction writers. All in all it was one of the most satisfying programs I have attended.

The vacation part was great....but how could it not be with these cutes.





While there my nephew helped me buy a new IMAC.

Here my 4 yr. old niece is showing me how it works!



My other nephew and family live near Boston. His wife, Holly, and daughter Morgan drove me into Boston for the institute and then they all picked me up. For a thank-you I took them to tea at the Four Seasons. It was very nice. We then went to the "Make Way for Ducklings" pond which was coviently right across the street! And yes we saw lots and lots of ducks!

My sister Heather provided my before and after housing. The one of many things you experience while at my sisters is good food. We had it out in restaurants (went to Xaviors, run by one of the best chefs in the country...he beat Bobby Flay at Iron Chef!) and in at her house as she is an amazing cook...she actually likes cooking!

She and I then headed down to Cape May, NJ to join Susan Deeney, her daughter and friend and my nieces family. Later Heather's son, Zack, and his girlfriend and Heather's "friend" , Joe joined us. Besides the beach and shopping we ate at some mighty fine places. This is one of our favorites, The Black Duck.

Austen especially enjoyed the ocean...looking only! She would shout with glee when anyone said "Look Austen the ocean" but was not so enthusiastic about actually going in the ocean!

She did, however, love one of the shores great treats....ice cream!
So that was part I of my summer vacation

Part II came at the end of Aug. when I went on the MLA cruise to St. John and Halifax in Canada. Until the last day, long sad story, I had a great time. Phyllis G., Susan D. and Barbara H went as well. Both cities are unique and fascinating in their own way.

St. John is a working town filled with character and one of the wonders of the world....a reversing river. Here the St. John river empties into the Bay of Fundy. Due to the geology of the bay, when the river tries to go into the bay it is forced back by the bay, thus the reversing action. So instead of the river flowing into the bay, the bay pushes it back....the river never gets to empty into the bay. It is an amazing site!

Halifax is more sophisticated and Peggy's Cove is clearly one of the most beautiful places in the world! Margaret's Bay is just amazing. It doesn't take a photo genius to take great pictures here!


One of my favorite things about being near a port is seeing tug/work boats.

Of course the ports were great but there is so much more to a cruise than just the ports. The ship was very colorful

and relaxed and civilized
We had two days coming and going to explore and enjoy the ship and all it had to offer and we took advantage of it all!

Then after playing all day we were greeted with a bedtime friend

But in the end one must go home and home we had to go.......

Week 8

I am trying this....lets see if it works. I am going on a cruise to Halifax and St. Johns. I hope it is cold and cloudy...two of my favorite things. I used Google Docs to write this.
______________________________________________

Explored an award winning web site and found information on knee surgery (I'm having surgery Sept. 20th!) in this site: www.healia.com/healia

And something for after the surgery in this site! http://www.cocktailbuilder.com/

bailey's chocolate martini
3 ingredients
11 part of baileys irish cream2 part of stolichnaya vodka1 part of creme de cacao (or other chocolate liqueur)combine in cocktail glass and stir gently. garnish with a cherry.

Now I just need someone to explain what I read in the first site and make what I found in the second!

Week 7: Wikki

I am beginning a Wikki page for various trainings that I do. First up: Boys and Books. Click for more information.
http://hcpl.pbwiki.com/Boys+and+books

I also linked to MD Libraries Sandbox.

Week 6.5

July 14th

Thoughts on the future of libraries and 2.0:
I think there are institutional uses for libraries and the future of 2.0, but not ready to say if those uses are all good. Seems some of the technology is a bit too much “busy work” and not enough real use. My outlook may be too narrow, but is a new technology really always better? Is it not sometimes like the person who tries to make a better can opener…might be fancier but is it any better?

Week 6

Just set up a del.icio.us account and posted some favorites with tags....interesting. I can see how this would be useful for access sites from different computers without having to bookmark them all...one stop shopping is for me!
http://del.icio.us/search/?fr=del_icio_us&p=food&type=all


I explored Technorati and really don't want to enter the blogosphere. If there is a site that I like and has a blog section (new for instance) then I'll just blog on that. I do have a few blogs I check into like Top Chef http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef_2//index.shtml and Keith Olberman http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ but I only read others blogs...am not inclined to write one!

As for the tags....I am not really interested in tagging.


July 14th
Thoughts on the future of libraries and 2.0:
I think there are institutional uses for libraries and the future of 2.0, but not ready to say if those uses are all good. Seems some of the technology is a bit too much “busy work” and not enough real use. My outlook may be too narrow, but is a new technology really always better? Is it not sometimes like the person who tries to make a better can opener…might be fancier but is it any better?

Week 5

Working with the on line imager Generator Blog was very frustrating. I could only get it to embed by saving it to my hard drive picture file. Then when I imported it from my picture file only the code showed up in the edit field. This made it look like a mistake. I went to blogger help and followed their directions and that was a nightmare. I went back and forth on this for over 1/2 hr until by dumb luck I found out that the image does show up on the blog, not the code as shown in the edit box. I will never use a generator blog again!


Here is my Rollyo: http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?q=news&sid=299158

It is a great concept....looking in one place for many of your favorite websites. I will have to add more!

Week 4

Week 4.....I explored Merlin and set up a blogline account. Very interesting. I like can see I'll have more use for the blogline than Merlin

Here is my blogline: http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

I did like the Library Link of the day and did subscribe. I like the resources and will use that section most often. http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/sources.html

New Technology

Whoever invented the ipod must have had grumpy relatives. When doing boring or difficult tasks at work I can get grumpy. When that happens I plug into my ipod and life is oh so much better!

Week 3

Could there be a better picture to import than this picture of the cutest girls in the world!














I also used Flickr to import the picture at the top of my blog. I was very easy to use.
Felix and Smiledon were jealous so I had to add their pictures!

Week 2

I volunteered to set up my blog at tech fair so I got it up and running on day 1...leave it to me to put the cart before the horse!

Week 1

It begins! One week 1 down....22 more to go!

The easiest lifelong learning point for me is "Begin with an end in mind" I always look forward to the end and usually know what that is and how to get there.

The hardest lifelong learning point for me is "View problems as challenges" Problems are problems and I usually see them as a "pain in the neck" challenge which I suspect is not what they are thinking of when they say "challenge!"