Resolutions

It's that traditional time of year when people make resolutions. I generally make a resolution that I think is actually achievable, not some grandiose, completely impossible goal that will be completely abandoned by January 8th (or sooner). For example, I never resolve to lose 50 pounds.  Although losing 50 pounds may be a good idea and possibly a good goal, I think I would abandon it by January 29th or the start of the new semester, which ever comes first.

A few years ago I resolved to use less plastic shopping bags. This required that I always have a shopping bag in my bag (which means I have to carry an ample size tote and not a cutesy tiny purse). I bought a ChicoBag. It's made of nylon and squishes into a little pouch when not in use. It's about the same size as those cheapo plastic bags that you get at a grocery store, Target or CVS (or anywhere else that has plastic shopping bags). It's been so well used over the past few years that I've reinforced the seams with my trusty sewing machine. In addition to the ChicoBag (I actually have 2 now because I got one for free from an exhibitor at the ALA mid-winter meeting last January -- Thanks DK Publishing!) I have several cloth shopping bags that either stay in my car or leave the house with me when I know I'm going shopping. This is where it's all about learning a new habit. You know you're going shopping, right? You've got your list all ready? Grab some shopping bags on your way out the door. Put them in the front seat right next to you. When you go into the store, take them with you. Use them.

This was working pretty well for the first year so I decided I'd make that my resolution for the next year. You know, improve upon the first lesson. And it worked so well, that I repeated it for a third year.

Just want to let you know that this had less to do with saving the environment than it had to with the fact that we have WAY too many plastic bags in this household because we live with other people. I'll never ask them to stop using plastic bags but at least I can contribute less to the accumulation of plastic bags in our house.

This year, I've set, what I think, is an attainable goal for the month of January. Baby steps! I confess that I got an early start on Dec. 26th. My goal is to exercise every single day for the month of January. So far, it's DAY 10. I've either been to the gym and done 20 minutes on the stair stepper, or walked 2 1/2 miles through mushy snow (that's quite a work out!), or gone to a yoga class (turns out  that I'm somewhat flexible but don't have much strength in my thighs -- but I knew that already. PLUS I've got these 2 large melons that get in the way of some poses.)

Most of this is prompted by an article I read in the January 2011 "O", the Oprah Magazine. The blurb on the cover said, "Weight Loss Made Simple: the only tip you'll ever need (page 126).... so I was so excited and thinking this was going to be some super-secret, super-easy thing like eat more chocolate, drink more wine, take this supplement (vitamin)... etc., and the answer was, you guessed it, EXERCISE.  So, it seems that EXERCISE is the solution to most of the problems that I've been having for the past 5 years or so once I turned 40. I don't sleep well - at least twice a week, sometimes more. I want to lose weight -- sure, of course! I want to look better -- who doesn't? I have joint pain - not so much but I had this injury from 2007 when I slipped and fell at work and could no longer sleep on my left side comfortably or sit cross legged (used to be called Indian style) without my left leg wanting to be considerably higher than the right. But when I started going to the gym last January, within weeks I could sit cross legged again. Good stuff, exercise and stretching. So, I resolved to exercise on a more regular basis.

Why the gym? Because I can think of a million excuses NOT to go for a walk outdoors. It's too cold, it's too hot, it's windy, it's too sunny, it's raining, it's snowing, ... the list goes on and on. At the gym it's climate controlled and, believe it or not, there are people of all shapes, ages and sizes. It's just great. I fit right in. They offer all kinds of classes that are free with my membership and I can just drop in for one class and try it out and never return if I don't like it. They have very convenient hours - 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays (not that I've ever considered going to the gym at 4:30 a.m. but it's nice to know they are open), and similar convenient hours on Saturday and Sunday. They've got womens' locker rooms with showers, a sauna and a steam room. (mens' too but I've never been in there) It's about 3 miles from my house.

As my life gets busier when the semester starts at the end of the month I know it'll be a bit more difficult to get to the gym every day but I'm hoping that if I plant this seed now it'll be easier for me to find the time, and I'll want to get regular exercise. At that point I may have to make a new resolution for February.

Delicious!

If you thought I was going to write about something tasty I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm here to tell you about Delicious bookmarks, an on-line social bookmarking service. We don't always access to our own computer or laptop so it's really nice to still have access to all of your favorite websites, or resources that you never want to forget. If you're like me and you don't have a memory like an elephant, you may like Delicious bookmarks.

I was introduced to Delicious in spring of 2009 when I took LIS 407 AKA Reference for Information Professionals. I bookmarked, tagged and annotated all of the resources we studied (over 200), and when it came time to take the open "notebook" timed (75 minutes) 75 question exam at the end of the semester, I used my Delicious bookmarks to get me through and got an 96 on the final (out of 100). Yay for Delicious bookmarks!

In the Fall of 2009 when I took LIS 484 Literature of Science and Technology, which is sort of like Reference for science librarians, I used my Delicious bookmarks again to bookmark, tag and annotate the new resources I was learning. Thankfully there was no final exam at the end of the semester.

I've continued to use Delicious bookmarks in my career as a library school student because we're always learning about new resources that we may want to refer back to and it's nice to be able to keep them all in one place, annotate and tag. Most recently I installed the Firefox Delicious plug-in and, wow, it's going to make adding bookmarks and tags even easier than ever before. There's a side bar that you can open and have access to all of your bookmarks.

Thank you Firefox and Delicious!

This Post is Overdue

I met author Marilyn Johnson  at the recent NELA (that's New England Library Association for those non-librarians out there) conference in Boxborough, MA. She's author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save us all. She's also a friend of my friend and fellow GSLIS student, Sasha. They worked together at Life magazine back in the day. So, I actually got to talk to her for a few minutes, not just shake her hand and have her autograph my book which is what usually happens when you meet authors. I forgot to bring my book with me! But I think we'll meet again so I'll be sure to bring my copy along with me. She's a super nice person.  I made the horrible faux pas of admitting that I'd [only] read half of her book. She asked me if I liked it and I said yes and then had to come up with a quick excuse for not finishing her book. The truth is, I really enjoyed what I read and told her so, however, as soon as the spring semester started I stopped reading it. I got too busy. Her book is fabulous, like a long love letter about librarians. For me, though, she's preaching to the choir. I know how fabulous librarians are. I just hope that non-librarians are reading her book too. Librarians don't often toot their own horns about how we are saving the world (?!) so it's nice to have people like Marilyn Johnson tell the rest of the world how wonderful we are.

If you don't hear from me for a while...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm taking a class called Social Media for Information Professionals and the funny part is, I don't have time for this blog right now. I'll be blogging elsewhere for a while.

Summer School

I'm taking 2 classes this summer and they both started the week of July 12th. One is a 100% on-line class and the other is an intensive (Six 7 hour days in class plus a week-long reading and research period). The intensive class ends on July 29th just in time for me to go to Maine for 2 weeks. The on-line class ends on August 20th. Fortunately for me we have WiFi in Maine.

What is that jumble of words, you say? That's called a word cloud. You can make one for yourself in Wordle. I made that word cloud from an introduction I wrote (about me) for the on-line class that I'm taking called Social Media for Information Professionals. It's taught through the WISE (Web-based Information Science Education) consortium at the University of British Columbia. That's right, Canada, and not just Canada but West Coast Canada. I'm trying hard not to let that interfere with my on-line experience but it already has. I'll spare you the gory details but just trust me, it's been frustrating. As usual, I will "suck it up" and do my best and get all the work done in a timely manner and likely receive a good grade for all that.

The other class I'm taking this summer is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  It's called History of the Book and it's taught at Smith College in the Mortimer Rare Book Room. Our instructor is Martin Antonetti, curator of the Rare Book Room at Smith College. I've been very excited, almost to the point of giddy, about taking this class. Not just because it's at Smith College (a mere 7 miles from home), and not just because it has received rave reviews from other students, but because it's taught in the Rare Book Room at Smith College which is comprised of approximately 30% manuscripts and books written in Latin, 30% in French, and 30% in English and 10% in other languages (like Ethiopian). Plus the room is chock-full of EARLY, like really OLD stuff. It's amazing! The craftsmanship that went into the production of books in medieval times is mind-boggling at times. We've had the opportunity to look at absolutely stunningly gorgeous 15th and 16th century illuminated Bibles. I'll stop gushing about this class because the on-line class pales in comparison and I don't want you to think I'm not enjoying the other class but it's just different in a very 21st century social media kind of way. 

4th of July weekend

After feeling as though I lost an entire week last week due to my misadventures in airline travel, I was really looking forward to spending the holiday weekend in Carver with my pal Beki and her husband Jason. Trevor had a gig in Burlington VT on Saturday night, and was hired to stilt-walk in the Hingham, MA 4th of July parade on Sunday afternoon. I love the Hingham 4th of July parade so I decided to drive to Carver on Saturday and enjoy the company of Beki and Jason and Trevor would meet us there much much later (like in the wee hours of the morning.) Beki and I enjoyed refreshing cocktails on her deck before dinner and got caught up on "news" (AKA gossip). We had a yummy home-cooked dinner and were snoozing by 9 p.m. Trevor arrived sometime around 3:30 in the morning and somewhat surprisingly, went directly to bed.

On Sunday, he was up and out the door by about 9:30 a.m. and headed to Hingham for the parade. We planned to meet him at the end of the parade route and drive him and his fellow guild member and stilt-walker, Henry, back to the start of the paraded route to get Henry's car and Trevor's stuff. We arrived in Hingham square just moments before the route was barricaded and parked at the town beach. Since we were at the end of the parade route it wasn't until almost 12:30 (parade kick-off was 12:15 p.m.) when the parade reached us. Trevor and Henry arrived sometime around 1:30 p.m. looking hot and tired! Since it was a bit of a scorcher on Sunday, Beki, Jason & I decided we'd seen enough of the parade and found Trevor and Henry just around the corner from where we were sitting taking off their stilts and wiping sweat from their brows. We walked to the car and then took a round-about route back to Hingham High School where Henry's car was parked. Loaded up my car with Trevor's stuff and drove back to Carver.

Later on Sunday afternoon we visited Beki's brother Sean and his darling 18 month old cutie-pie daughter Caroline for a short while. Caroline is, without a doubt, adorable! From Sean's house we drove to Fairhaven to Beki's BFF Amanda's gorgeous beach house on West Island to hang out, play Quiddler, watch the sunset (above) and then watch an absolutely amazing display of fireworks across the water. Trevor counted a total of 36 different shows in surrounding towns.

On Monday we drove to Scussett Beach and were disappointed to find the the parking lot was full so drove north back to Plymouth in search of a beach with parking and eventually ended up in Plymouth to see the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock. We drove home that afternoon in scorching heat in my car with no AC.  We all had a such a great time that we hope to do it again next year! Except the part where my car has no AC and beaches were too full.

Horrendous Trip Home

I went to St. Paul, MN for our annual church convention and had a wonderful time with all those fabulous people, some of whom I only see once a year. They're like an extended family to me.

My trip home was absolutely the most horrendous airline experience I've ever had in my entire life. When the Delta baggage agent remarked to me, "Hartford the hard way", he either knew how hard it was going to be for me to get home or he really had no idea how hard it was about to be.

I had a flight on Delta airlines on Sunday afternoon from Minneapolis/St. Paul at 3 p.m. that got into Milwaukee at 4 p.m.  From there I had a connecting flight to Detroit that was delayed due to weather. If I took that flight I would have missed my connecting flight to Hartford. I got on a different flight to Cincinatti with a connecting flight to Hartford. Then it was announced that the connecting flight to Hartford from Detroit was also delayed so I'd be able to get home, even if it was 1 or 2 in the morning so I re-booked for that flight. The plane that was going to Detroit got in and it was announced that the flight attendants had been working 13 hours already and it was "illegal" for them to fly so that flight was eventually canceled. I spent the night in a hotel in Milwaukee. Got a mediocre night's sleep and got up at 3:30, showered and got the shuttle to the airport by  on Monday morning by 4:45 for a 6:00 flight to Memphis and (supposedly) connecting to Boston (not my 1st choice but a decent 2nd). Got to Memphis and on the flight to Boston. The flight was about 1 hour into its 3 hour trip when it was announced that there were mechanical problems and the plane had turned around to Memphis. Landed in Memphis and was re-booked on a flight to DC  (any city on the east coast, preferably where I know someone and there was an Amtrak station was my attitude at that point) with a connecting flight on US Airways to Hartford at 6:30 p.m. that would have gotten to Hartford Monday at 7:45 p.m. The flight leaving Memphis was late and got into DC at 6:00 p.m. There was no ground crew to meet the plane and they were having technical difficulties with the jetway so we didn't actually get off the plane until 6:40 p.m. at which point my connecting flight on US Airways to Hartford had left. There were no Delta customer service agents anywhere so I called the 800 number and within no time turned into an hysterical, crying, sobbing mess. I had been traveling for over 24 hours and was still not home. Had I driven a car from Minneapolis/St. Paul I would have already been home. The next flight for Hartford was sometime on Tuesday via Detroit. There were NO direct flights to Hartford, Boston or JFK. At which point I decided I didn't want to take a chance on getting stranded in another airport and called Amtrak and made a reservation on the next train going to New Haven, CT (2 hours from home).  I took a taxi to Union Station in DC (which is gorgeous, by the way), and got on a train at 10:50 p.m. (leaving 50 minutes later than scheduled) The train got to New Haven, CT ON TIME at 4:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. Unfortunately I had to wait until about 5:10 a.m. for Trevor to pick me up since we thought it was getting in late around 5:00 a.m. He took me to a near-by diner for breakfast and by 6:05 a.m. we were on I-91 North headed for home. Got home at 7:45 a.m. and was in bed by 8:15 a.m. Slept until noonish. Got a call from US Airways at 12:30 p.m. saying they had my suitcase so we drove to Hartford to pick it up.

In total I was on 4 flights in 28 hours and was still not home. I made it as far as Washington DC on Delta. If I stayed on Delta I would have gotten home sometime on Tuesday, having left Minneapolis/St. Paul on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

Amtrak was WONDERFUL! I made my reservation over the phone, printed my ticket at the station, didn't have to go through any long lines for TSA security, boarded the train, found a seat and we were off and moving. The seats are way more spacious than airplane seats, more leg room, more head room, electrical outlets to plug in your phone and/or laptop. Although the train left DC almost 50 minutes late we arrived in New Haven ON TIME! I will definitely consider taking Amtrak on my next long trip.

I will never fly Delta again.