Yes, the rumors are true. I recently took a job at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library. The Macaulay Library is a multimedia library housing the largest collection of animal behavior recordings in the world. As you can tell from the number of zoo visits I’ve described, an animal behavior library is the place for me. I’m their new interface designer, and despite my being the only staff member with a “library” degree, these folks are the most amazing collection of biologists, digital archivists and multimedia geeks I’ve ever come across. Seriously, this place is amazing in scope, ambition, and accomplishments. Expect big things. Big!
Geese in the Sludge
There’s a sludgy pond thing up front where you occasionally see frogs and snails and snakes and water plants. The water is about three inches deep and is covered with a viscous green slime. Anyway, this morning there were two geese swimming around in it, revealing in them a general lack of concern for quality or depth. There’s a perfectly lovely lake about ten feet away, but these fellows were just cheerfully dragging themselves through the slime. Of course, as far as I can tell, geese eat slime, so it might be like a big bowl of Cheerios as far as they’re concerned. What the hell do I know? I make websites.
Testing out this thing…
As of now, you should be able to leave comments on this blog. Go on, try it out. Tell me what you really think. Go ahead. I’m sure I won’t be able to figure out who you are from your referral page and IP address. Just let loose.
Obsession…
You may have noticed that I can’t stop talking about things I’ve seen on The Barn Owl Cam. And like all good obsessions (obsession! obsession!), It’s addictive, and I’ll give you the first one for free…
Make sure you check out the hot bird-on-bird action in the archive. There are also some pictures of fuzzy little owlets swallowing entire mice and looking VERY CUTE. Obsession!
March on Washington
You know, for awhile there, I kept meaning to start a new weblog. My job and life has changed so dramatically (for the better) that it really deserves a whole new thing. I’m no longer in the mystery department, I’m settling into Ithaca, we’re getting this great house, and tomorrow, I’m going to hop on a bus with a hundred other activists and go tell the Bush administration that I don’t enjoy having certain cells in my body with individual rights. Screw the new weblog. This works. I’ll post here more often. Hi everybody. I’m back. See you this weekend in DC.
Moving, changing, constant rearranging
It’s official now, and I can finally talk about it here. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, yes, yes, yes, I’m buying a house. Well, it’s a theoretical house at this point, just a glimmer in the mortgage-lender’s eye, but someday soon, around the end of June hopefully, I will be an actual homeowner. It’s a big deal, but I think I’m handling it well. I’ve limited my panic attacks to one a day, and am reading this very helpful book called The 106 common mistakes homebuyers make, which is totally helping my anxiety.
Oh, and I’m changing jobs.
Starting February 23, I’ll be a web developer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Yup. Leaving librarianship for I.T. Not a huge surprise to those who know me, but possibly controversial considering I run a website called Librarian Avengers. The good news is, I’ll still be working in a library. The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds holds the largest collection of bird recordings in the world. As their web developer, I get to create an interface for the stadium-sized database holding their digitized collection. It’s a big fat moose of a challenge, and I’m looking forward to getting started. Among other things, it means that this weblog is getting archived along with the one I wrote in grad school, and will be replaced with something new and appropriate.
I was kind of nervous about announcing this job change here, because I didn’t want to deal with any “say it ain’t so, Joe” emails in my spam-riddled inbox from hardcore librarians who think I’ve betrayed the profession by jumping ship for a mostly interface design position. To you, I say: Buck up. There are still plenty of good, stylish librarians out there. I may not be a librarian in real life, but I’ll continue to play one on the web. And, hey, there’s more than one way to serve an information need, buddy.
Hey! Look! More Snow!
Hey! Look! More Snow!
I’ve been back at work for a while, but have been too exhausted from my vacation to write about everything. Here’s a little recap. But first, this:
Cell phone use was apparently a problem at some point here in the library. I can’t imagine why, since the giant slabs of asbestos prevent anything resembling decent reception. Anyway, the main stairway has been designated a “Cell Phone Zone” where, supposedly, students and staff are to stand enjoying echo-y conversations amplified and overheard by six floors of potential eavesdroppers. Today on the way upstairs I noticed a bit of graffiti above the cell phone zone sign. In grand geeky college tradition, someone has designated the stairway the “Self-Hone Zone.”
Which would be great, of course. There should be more of this. The library could establish a whole suite of self-improvement locations. Meditation rooms built off of the lunchroom, consciousness-raising areas outside of circulation, friendly councilors scattered throughout the stacks. The self-hone zone is only a beginning.
Right. Anyway. So over the break, I drove the eight hours to Flint, spent a restless night in my drafty old high school bedroom surrounded by the ham radio equipment and computer magazines that have taken my place, then flew down to Austin, TX for xmas with my boyfriend’s parents, who are majorly sweet. I met him on his layover in the Detroit airport and we flew down together. Apparently the flu had struck him in the airport shuttle, and by the time we met up, he was a tired, feverish pile of carry-on bags. Christmas was spent in the Austin Emergency clinic, waiting for an antibiotic prescription.
I was felled a few hours later, and most of my stay in lovely lovely warm not-snowy-at-all-Austin was spent in a darkened room drinking tea and comparing thermometer readings. We did make it to San Antonio on our last day, and ate at a famous Mexican restaurant where the entrees consisted almost entirely of lard. At the San Antonio zoo, I met the Giant Anteater and spent almost an hour hanging around outside his habitat, which was probably the most ant-free spot in Texas, watching him sniff around with his giant ant-sniffing nose. He came up and sniffed me a couple of times, which pretty much made my week.
After Austin, I flew back to Michigan and hung out with my parents for a while. My friend Erin was in town from San Francisco, and not wanting to get hit in the crossfire of a Flinttown New Years Eve, we hopped in my car and drove to downtown Chicago, where we were much safer. I spent two solid days at the Lincoln Park Zoo, which you may think is a bit excessive, but I do not. On both days, I was pecked by an ostrich. Or rather, the glass that I was standing in front of was pecked by an ostrich. The ostrich would walk by, see us standing there watching him, come over and peck the glass in an irritated way, then walk off. This happened several times. After awhile I realized that the ostrich, having a rather short bird-memory, probably thought that each time it pecked at us was the first. He was trapped in an endless loop of “La de da, here I am, walking, HEY! Get out of here! HA! Take That! La de da…”
Hey, for any of you designers out there, the American Ostrich Association (AOA) really needs a new website.
Anyway, after Chicago, Erin and I drove back to the Crater that is Flint, spent some more family time, and I drove home.
New Year’s resolutions include:
Getting to work earlier. Which, of course, means leaving work earlier. It was getting pretty depressing leaving at six and six thirty. I’ve started coming in at 7:30 with the secretaries, and I think I’m getting more work done in the quiet.
Gym getting-to. This too has been quite successful. My friend Kim and I have a pact. We go every day at lunch rain or shine. We’ve had to miss two days due to dangerously cold windchill (-25F! Come to Ithaca!), but other than that we’ve been faithful. I’ve felt really great doing this. It’s like having recess in the middle of the day. And it is much more memorable than curling up with a book in the lunchroom.
More cooking, less of the conveniently located Indian restaurant. Say no more. Mmm, saag paneer…
Snowed In!
Three feet of snow rolled into town yesterday. Two of them landed on the ground, and the other foot is just blowing all over the place. People are walking backwards by my window because of the wind, but from my indoor perspective next to an overactive heat register it’s just beautiful. I’m going to bring my sled in to work tomorrow and sled home.
Today is the annual Holiday party. I’m going to have to go home and change, because I forgot and wore jeans today, which isn’t normally a big deal since the only humans I see at work are also in jeans, but in the context of a university-wide soiree, might be seen as a bit skuzzy. The thing is, what with the three feet of snow and all, I’m not sure what else to wear. I’m not one of those women who owns sixteen pairs of lined woolen slacks. I was planning on doing a bit of work clothes shopping after the break, but right now its either jeans, cargo pants, or a skirt. And the skirt is right out. Do other people have these problems?