Librarian Avengers

I visited my local Bernal Heights library branch this afternoon, in search of a place to sit and read. It turned out to be one of the last weeks the building is open before it closes for an extensive renovation. On a kid-filled sunny spring Saturday, the current building gives the impression of being a community center rather than a library, with more conversations, computers, and chaos than visible books.

I’m looking forward to the new design. The neighborhood obviously is drawn to the location, which swirls with families out walking dogs and babies.

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Things I’m currently researching…

• Wedding venues in the Detroit area that are:
  • Non-religious
  • Interesting-looking or unusual
  • Cheap, cheap, cheap!
• Things to do in Brighton, UK
• Search Engine Optimization
• Cat grooming (did you know you can use baby powder to make your cat less itchy?)
• Better WordPress plugins (I’m playing with a new Twitter sidebar)
• Management jobs in SF for my sweetie Chuck this summer

Binders of field notes sit in the common area of the Macaulay library, the audio/video library where I spent three years working as a software interface designer.

These are all digitized now, but the collection goes back to the 1950’s so these books are the last line of defense in case of a digital preservation catastrophe.

lyse Sewell came in second place on America’s Next Top Model. I know this because I spent two solid days watching it on YouTube this winter while battling the flu.

Why should you care about Elyse Sewell? Well, she’s funny, she has a livejournal, she’s smart as hell, and she visits libraries for fun. Libraries like the François Mitterrand Library.

Enjoy, and remember: Librarians can be hot and models can be smart.

And vice versa, probably. But we don’t talk about that here.

ff to Vancouver, BC for the week. I’m stalking the sea otters at the Vancouver aquarium.

I get in tonight. If any CUPE 391 members want a beer, I’m buying. Organized librarians rock.

got my New York Public Library card in the mail today.
Anyone who lives in New York state is eligible for a card, so I now have access to the library’s impressive collection of online resources.

I spent the morning refreshing my Spanish at the NYPL’s Online Language Learning Center. It uses the Rosetta Stone software, which now has a place on my desert island list of media resources, along with the White Album and the entire first season of The Dog Whisperer.

If you haven’t used or seen Rosetta Stone, it is Language learning software with the remarkable ability to hack your brain and force it to actually understand and remember all of those verb conjugations you had to memorize back in college. The lessons are reinforced with audio, video, writing and images, so it imitates an immersion experience more than a typical grammar-based language course. There’s even a module that has you speak into a microphone and shows you a waveform comparing your speech with someone who doesn’t suck.

I haven’t explored the other web resources, but I’m tickled at getting access to this one. The software is in the $300 range, and Cornell doesn’t have a license, so I feel like I’ve gotten my taxes worth this year. Thanks NYPL!

f you have six or seven hours to dedicate to dinner and post-dinner drinks, you will discover the delightful absence of hangover or hunger the next morning. No wonder Parisians take so many vacation days. They are needed to eat properly.

Gentlemen take note: Gui brought roses to all the women at dinner. I’m just saying.

won’t detail the series of bureaucratic ineptitudes that led to Chris missing his Air India flight, and the rest of us being transferred to a different airline without permission or warning that our flight would leave TWO HOURS early, but we did spend the flight singing the famous South Park song: “Blame Air India”.

Just to be clear: Do Not Fly Air India, no matter how cheap the tickets or how intriguing the meal selection. Avoid this carrier at all cost, unless you can somehow guarantee that you will be transferred to a different airline.

Paris is beautiful. I’ve been eating like a horse. But hopefully not eating actual horse.

Snails, however, are quite good.

• Man with a gun wrapped in a newspaper
• Diner called “The Usual”
• Brooklyn brownstones waiting to be demolished and replaced by a mall
• City dogs, patient and tolerant
• Fashion victims, many and hideous
• Deli salad bars with better food than most Ithaca restaurants
• Rat-like dog
• Dog-like rat
• Four drunken librarians
• One Contemptuous waitress
• Parents lugging strollers down the subway steps
• Ice skating in the NYPL backyard
• Park Slope, “where New York goes to breed”
• Excellent hats, knitted by Alexandra
• Anorexic woman doing extreme yoga in a store window
• Giant whale

Tonight, we fly to Paris on Air India. Stay tuned!

omorrow morning I’m getting on a luxury Cornell bus to New York City (the place I don’t live, despite everyone’s impression when I say I’m from New York State) for a week long vacation. Yes, I said vacation.

For possibly the first time in years, I’m traveling for non-work reasons. I’m meeting my librarian buddy Kara at the Newark airport and we’re going to spend four days hanging out with friends and being tourists, damned tourists.

We’re gonna shop, ice skate, lunch, and work on our French. Because midweek we’re jumping on a plane to Paris.

See, I found these $350 tickets on Air India, and my French friend and Cow-orker Gui knows this guy who runs a hotel, and he’s having a big birthday bash, and well, the stars just aligned.

So, moo ha ha, everyone. I’ll write some more on the bus tomorrow. I love everyone’s comic suggestions, by the way. That’s why you are the librarians and I am just the librarian-poseur who works on websites.

Off to pack my toothbrush and slinky red dress.

Did I mention Moo Ha Ha?

’m alone in the University of Michigan Science Library, enjoying free wireless (thanks to my alumni account) and a wealth of power outlets. I’m sitting in a window-alcove that overlooks campus, level with the green copper towers of West Hall.

During school, I came here to watch the University’s resident Peregrine Falcon as he perched on the tile roof and disemboweled pigeons.

It’s snowing in Ann Arbor, and I’ve got a big cup of mint tea. Below, a stream of overdressed undergraduates walks to class, wearing Uggs and fashionable backpacks.
photo credit: kwei

There are things I want to accomplish, but the luxury of a full day stretches ahead. Snow drops past the windows that surround my table. My favorite professor has her office hours this afternoon. I’d like to tell her that her two geeky research assistants are getting married.

I enjoy Ithaca, but it’s good to be in a place that feels more like home, if only because of the frequent sleepless nights I spent here churning out papers and code. I might run errands today and call old friends. I might just put my head down and sleep on this table.

I wish you all a peaceful snowy morning, full of potential.

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ps. SI alums: The door scanner on the DIAD is still pissing people off after all these years. Good to know some things don’t change.