just a bit of pondering

I am not-so-patiently waiting for Dominican’s summer schedule to be posted.  I’m a planner.  I need to know.  ‘Nuf said about that.

 On a different note, in the public library where I work (which I love) there is a big push right now to enforce the cell phone rule of only using the cell phones in the lobby.  The new objective is to make sure this rule is being enforced uniformly – i.e.  telling the adults as well as the teenagers.  That’s all fine and good and all people should be treated equally, but I have such a problem with enforcing it at all.  I personally think that people should be able to carry on a cell phone conversation at a respectful volume, just like they carry on conversations with each other at a respectful volume.  If they are disturbing others while on or off the phone, THAT is the issue.  So, as an employee, what am I to do?  I have a responsibility to enforce the rules, and yet I cringe at telling a quietly speaking person that they have to turn off their cell phone or move to the lobby.

I was held captive by Boondoggles

Boondoggles.  Now that’s a great word that I don’t get to use often enough, even though I experience them more than I’d like.  Sometimes life is just like that.  Now back to more meaningful pursuits…

I’m embarrassed that I’ve been gone so long.  We’ve had a lot of stuff going on at Casa Library Yarns, culminating with a rather traumatic incident this evening.   My daughter made the cutest snowman ever.  Seriously.  She worked so, so hard on it, and put a hat on it that she and my son had worn when they were tiny.  Precious stuff.  You know where this is going, don’t you??  Some wicked snowman killer came into our yard, beheaded the snowman, broke it’s arms and stole the hat.  Who would do that to a little kid’s snowman???  My daughter was devastated on multiple levels.  She couldn’t believe someone would be that mean and she mourns the hat.  All I could think of to tell her was that in memory of the snowman we must make it our mission to spread goodness in the world  so that the snowman killers and the evil that lurks in their icy hearts don’t have the last say.  She said she wants to bake cookies tomorrow and give them to somebody who needs to be happier.  So, we’ll start there.

Alrighty.  Now here’s something I thought was interesting.  In the March 2007 issue of Muse magazine, there is an article about Internet pictures and how their labels are often inaccurate.  A guy named Luis von Ahn came up with a way to give these Internet pictures more accurate names…using a rather addictive game.  It’s called the ESP Game.  Here’s a quote from Muse:  “To play von Ahn’s game, you sign in at his Web site and get paired with another visitor.  The two of you see the same image.  Each of you then types in a word or phrase that describes the image.  If the words match, both of you earn points.  If the words don’t agree, you can keep on trying or switch to a new image.  Your score is based on how many matches you get in 90 seconds.”  Google liked the idea and has their own version of the game.  The popularity of these is incredible and the games are helpful to the Internet community.   What a great idea!