If You're Happy and You Know It...

I have gotten rather spoiled quickly by my new job. If for no other reason than I have annoyingly regular schedule. I'm not complaining at all, actually. It is nice to be able to go to work at nine or ten and able to come home at five or six, seven on Tuesdays. It's nice to have Friday evenings off, if I want I can do something, I haven't done much with them, though. Its nice to wake up on Saturday look at the ceiling and say "I don't have to go to work today." Saturday night, I usually go to church, mainly because I don't like going to the "contemporary service" they have at my church every other week and I have a hard time remember which week they do it.

Sunday is a great day. If I'm not in church, I just kind of bum around. Right now, I'm in my pajamas, listening to NPR and drinking my second cup of coffee, they just had a story about a singer I've heard of, but never heard before. Ira Glass is now introducing This American Life.

Emma, my white cat, just knocked something off my dresser-- my wallet.

I just poured my third cup of coffee. I'm going to the gym later on today.

I got involved in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It hasn't been easy. Its not easy, its a lot of work, but I'm learning somethings that are helpful. I'm working on my thousand dollar emergency fund. That has been harder than I thought it would be. Its coming along, but slower than I had hoped, but even the tortoise got to the finish line, right.

I'll be paying off JCPenny next month.

Things are going well. Yeah, I am blessed.

Bobbleheaded Talking Heads

I've been listening into the debate between the bobbleheaded politicians we have to pick from this evening. I'm not actively watching it, but I am sort of listening to it. One thing comes across clearly. Neither bobblehead McCain or bobblehead Obama like each other. They really don't.

I think I'm gonna watch a movie.

Researchin Fool

I love research. I really do. I think that's part of the reason I got into the whole librarian thing. I can help others research and when I have some downtime I, too, can research topics that interest me. Lately, I have gotten re-turned on to Confederacy of Dunces. I just reread the novel and I was totally blown away (again) by what a good, well written, funny, tour de force it is. It is a shame that its author, John Kennedy Toole, went the way of Sylvia Plath, and most recently, David Foster Wallace.

The last few days, okay the last two weeks, I have been doing some indepth literature review on what has been written about CoD and its author. At present, I have a big TIMELIFEBOOKS bag filled with books that in some way or another pertain to CoD. I have two dissertations as well as a small, but steadily growing stack of printouts of articles that have been written about the book and its author. I have also mined the works cited of said dissertations, looked for the resources those authors cited and found, ordered and otherwise tried to acquire those sources. I have ordered another dissertation that I will hopefully be able to peruse at some future date, and then photocopy and mine that workscited page.

Thank God for GoogleScholar and the variouis online databases I am able to access from work. I am sure that being able to use those has helped keep my interest and curiosity up. I doubt very much I would have dug through printed resources, but then again, maybe I would have. I can be tenacious when I want to be.

I think more than anything it is the search. Yes, the information is good, but the search for the information is what realy gets my burners going. John Kennedy Toole's personal papers, manuscripts, etc are housed at Tulane University. Anyone want to take a roadtrip to the Big Easy?

Maybe in the back of my mind somewhere there is a thought of using this research as a the beginnings of a masters thesis for a masters program I haven't even looked into, applied for, let alone started course work for. I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess. Let's call this research "personal edification" and leave it at that for the time being.

I can justify doing this research in another way. It forces me to use databases in the library that sharpens my skills with database searching; I can in turn use those skills I've learned to help students with their research questions.

On the Wall

Today's weather is blissful. The softedge of autumn has made a subtle appearance. The sun is hot, but the air that breezes through campus conteracts the late summer rays of dear Mister Sol.

I ate my lunch this afternoon outside. I prefer to do that, it gets me out and about, I can take a short walk and I can see what's happening on campus. While I was working on my masters, I was only on campus on Fridays and when I was on campus to work on an assignment it was often in the evening. So, I wasn't able to really see what happens on campus during the week. The answer: not much. IUPUI is a commuter school. Of the 25,000 or so that are enrolled probably 99 percent are commuters.

After I ate my lunch I went back to the library to deposit my plastic Kroger back on my desk and grabbed the book I'm currently trying to get into. Its not going well. I took myself and said book outside again and sat upon one of the low walls. I leaned against a lightpost and tried to read. My after-lunch-slow-down mental capablities had a hard time keeping up with David Foster Wallace (yes, I'm a ghoul. He hanged himself over the weekend and I decided to check his bookout of the library). The sun was shinging in my eyes, too.

Classes must of let out while I was sitting upon my wall. Suddenly the walkways were awash with pedestrians jocking for position, most with backpack shells strapped to their backs. I feared for anyone who decided to become an eddy in the bipedal stream, disaster might have struck.

Eventually, my attention was caught by a orange flowers in the flowerbed adjacent to my wall. I think they were daisies, but I don't know if daisies come in orange. Yellow, yes, orange, I'm not sure. I noticed in the flowers (daisies) a microcosm of life. In this case: butterflies and honey bees. They worked in tandem. The butterfly would flit from one flower to another and the honey bee would buzz along side. I found it to be almost refreshing to watch this small ecosystem at my feet work itself. The butterfly would alight upon a flower flaps its paperthin wings two or three times and the move to the next.

In some weird way, it struck me as beautiful.

The "Triangle"

My desk is located in the "Triangle." The Triangle is a room that is shaped like a triangle, hence the name. Its not shaped like a right triangle, one could probably say that it is in the shape of an Isosceles Triangle. It is a windowless office. There are four cubicles back to back. Jeff sits at the one on the other side of my little pincushion wall. Shalanda to my back. There is another behind Shalanda, but that one is used as a staging area for sorting journals and has various rechargers (that is also where I hook up my iPod recharger from time to time).

It can get very hot and "close" in the triangle. I am often chased out of the triangle not by coworkers, but by heat and stale air. When I have to be back in the triangle, I try get everything done as quickly as I can so that I can back out, to use a retail term, the "floor," or reference desk. I'd much rather be stationed there than back in the triangle.

I refuse to eat my lunch in the triangle as well. If the weather is nice, I go out, find a table, and eat my sandwich, read a book, people watch, and usually take a quick walk to the Campus Center and roam around the BN there.

The only thing I truly use the triangle for is a place to stow my stuff, my bag, my lunch, etc.

Its still a little strange to have my own desk, my own phone, and my own "space." I've gotten used to it, that took about two weeks, but sometimes I just scratch my head and say to myself "really?"

Thoughts on Keywords

It is an interesting excercise to visit my internet tracker. I check it regularly, not to see how many people have bumped into my little slice of cyber-heaven, but see how they found it. I love looking at the keywords. SOmetimes they're funny, sometimes I scratch my head and wonder how those words found this blog. Its not really important what the words are, because I don't have any examples. I can tell you this, though, gastanks are very important. Most of the hits I have on my blog come from people who are searching something to do with gas or gastanks. These searches include everything from "pictures of empty gastank," to "what happens when there are rocks in gastank."

I also get strange things like "pedal pushing videos," which turns out to be a strange fetish. By definition, though, fetishes are strange, I think. Or at least "against the norm."

I guess I never really thought about that kind of thing when I set up this blog. I don't suppose its a bad thing, per se. Matter of fact, its pretty interesting.

That's about the best I can do for an entry today.

Ready, Set... GO!

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How Many Reams

When did libraries become publishing houses? I am amazed at the amount of printing/photcopying that goes on this library. I'm sure I did it when I was doing my schooling, but certainly not this much, right? The other day someone put 15, you read that right, fifteen reems of paper into our various printing machines... that wasn't enough by the end of the day. We charge .04 cents a page, why? A statisitic: last year the library spent over $50,000 dollars on paper, toner, and printer upkeep. The students get angry that we charge for copying. We have no choice, we don't get a cut from the "technology fee" that the university charges the students. That goes towards computers and internet and all that good stuff.

I found myself, at times, gritting my teeth after the umpteenth "Hi, how do I print..." or "I told it (the computer) to print, but where do I get the printout?" Their eyes glaze when I ask "do you have money on your jagtag?" Jagtag being student id/library card/copy card all rolled into one. It doesn't, pardon the phrase, compute. Then I have to give them a quick tutorial on how to put money on said jagtag and then how to get said printer to do what it was designed to do.

Another great question is this: where's your fiction section. Its tough to explain to a freshman, sorry first year student, that fiction is not in a section like they know in say a Barnes & Noble. Their eyes glaze over, again.

Its funny, actually. So, I shall continue to shake my fist at the whole thing and laugh and just shake my head...

Gravel Voiced Icon to be Missed

The Cinema world is going to be different from here on out. The Movie-Voice Guy, Don LaFontaine died this morning at the age of 68. You may not know who he is, but you know who he is. LaFontaine was that deep voiced "In a world where..." movie trailer guy. It wasn't a movie trailer until you heard his voice. I think he did every movie trailer I ever saw throughout my childhood. He was one of those pop culture icons...

*does his best Don LaFontaine voice* In a world without Don LaFontaine...

sorry, kids... no go.

A Rambling Entry That Touches on Some of the Newsworthy Items of Recent Days*

so i was watching cnn last evening. that's always a fun thing to do. particularly when anderson cooper gets on there and starts over reporting and getting all kinds of dramatic in his one-size-too-small black t-shirt and looking so, i don't know, anderson cooperish. here's to hoping someone pops him inna mouf some day. whatta tough guy. and lookit at his gun show. careful man, with those guns, ya might hurt someone.

well any way, i was watching cnn and they were talking about the republican convention and how this hurricane gustav might affect it. here is the little tag line they had underneath all the talking heads: "bad timing for a convetion." yeah, you read that right.; the republicans saw there was going to be a hurricane in the gulf coast so they collectively said "ooh, lets hurry up and do our convention this week!" an aside, or digression, your choice: can i punch anderson cooper inna mouf? it would make me feel better. really it would. i think the tagline should of been "bad timing for a hurricane." which does beg another question, sort of, but i'm going to ask it any way mainly because i'm sure at least 85 percent of americans are asking the same question: you want to live in new orleans? really? me, not so much.


now, as for sara palin: hotty. or to misquote owen meany, "your mom is cuter than all the other moms." how do i feel about her on the ticket? its ballsy. i feel better with someone who doesn't have much (okay, any) national experience as the vp, as opposed to the presidential end. you know, i think if the democratic ticket was flip-flopped i might be more likely to vote for biden/obama (maybe) as opposed to an obama/biden ticket (pigs might fly and hell may freeze over...) she's got that librarian look that seems to be all the rage right now. seriously, though, i don't know enough about her to decide if i should be please, or fearful of the choice.


so, i'm going to rib fest this afternoon in downtown indy. it is overpriced and the ribs tend to be a bit dry, but the rev peyton' big damn band is playing and i lurve the rev peyton's big damn band . this is my first real day off in a while. i've kind of been bouncing off the wall since yesterday in anticipation. it feels good.

*sings along with the rev peyton cd* wejustgettinba lord, wejustgettinba! wejustgettinba, lord! wejustgettinba, lord!



*borrowed from my diary at opendiary. somewhat expanded, though