What's going on in the Rabid Librarian's World (just in case you were wondering...)

1. The copier inservices did rather well. There were no takers the first day but we had a good session on the second day. I love our new Lanier. It does practically everything but talk to you and copy in colour. Hoody-hoo! One of my favourite bits was when the guy came from the office supply store to train me and I had already pretty much figured out the copier--I could show him things he didn't even know existed. When he asked me where I learned all this tech stuff I was able to say, "Library school." "Really??" Oh, yeah, there's not much difference these days in terms of what you learn about technology in getting a Master's in Information Science or one in Library Science. Some programmes do both. We have to learn about databases, thesauri, programming, user interfaces, internet searching too, you know. We just have more emphasis on getting information to the user. And we learn about the traditional information routes as well." :)

2. Speaking of tech abilities, I have some changes to make to the website and I think I impressed my fellow team members by producing a packet ahead of time that they could review easily. They see me as the editrix, basically, and seem to be confident in the job I'm doing. It's always nice to show people that librarians are flexible and useful. :)

3. Today is HIPAA D-Day, at least in terms of privacy. That means that everyone who uses or has access to protected health information in this country had better damn well be in compliance regarding the privacy aspects of the act by today. I am hearing lots of cursing of the name of HIPAA, but really, we started working on this a long time ago and are in very good shape. Many organisations that just didn't realise they were covered have been scrambling to comply.

4. Tomorrow is tax day and I've already got my refunds back from the state and the federal governments. I went to the Co-op and Kroger this weekend and laid in some basic supplies, especially rice and spelt flour and bread yeast, some fresh and canned vegetables, and various things I can eat on my restricted diet come may. Periodically I go vegan temporarily as part of a religious purification (think Lent), and this time I'm also cutting out wheat, which I'm allergic to. It'll run from May Day to summer solstice, so I wanted to make sure I was good to go. In the meantime I got some ice cream that I can eat for now. :)

5. Tonight I'm going to rearrange my living room. Right now I have books just piled almost to the ceiling and I really need to move them into the study. At some point I really need to find some tall bookshelves (maybe 8 feet tall) to put things on. I think I'm going to weed some of the books while I'm at it, though. One of these days I want to build stackable barrister bookshelves (the type with glass doors on the front) for easy storage/moving. But you really need a garage/workroom for that, and if I had one of those, I'd probably have more room for books anyway.

6. It's beautiful outside today (it's supposed to be in the 80s), sunny, lovely. I ate outside at lunch. It's perfect weather to open up all the windows and get things done, but I love sleeping in sunshine, too, and part of me wants to just curl up with the cats in a sunbeam. :) And I want to go over to Home Depot and get some more potting soil and start some of my seeds. My Golden Egg plant from my birthday has a couple of sprouts and I got a little mini greenhouse the other day--it's only about three feet tall but it has room to start flats and a heavy plastic cover to keep the cold out. It's basically a cold frame, but still, I can put it to good use.

7. I got to play in our game for the first time in a couple of weeks yesterday, and it went so well I think it's contributed to my mood. Two of the characters were killed last time we played, but the wonderful thing is that with science fiction there are often ways around such things. Since the characters had gone to the future to save the world (remember, I blogged about this at the time) we were able to pull one of those Back to the Future things by writing a note warning them when and how it would happen. One character was still unable to dodge at the crucial time, but another one lived. It happened to be the one that my character was partnered with. In the ensuing celebration, my character became pregnant, which is always a complication when you're a holy warrior ninja for the Light. Still, it made all the silly romantic bits of my personality go ping. I guess virtual romance is better than no romance at all. I guess all the bribes I brought (Terra chips, veggie jerky, etc. helped put the powers-that-be on my side.) If this sounds totally weird think of the it this way: I've been participating in an ongoing, interactive story for twelve years and I'm just really happy with how this chapter went.

8. In terms of the real world, I'm really glad that the missing POWs were found, and I'm sure their families are ecstatic. Here's hoping that the US doesn't push things and start getting involved with Syria, too, or I don't think anyone's going to convince the Islamic world that we are not pushing some new form of crusade. Besides, there's still plenty of work to do in Iraq for there to be peace and stability. I got an e-mail today where people are planning to wear red in support of the troops on Friday. I don't have much red (it's an awful colour for me), but I was thinking of going along until I read the organiser's remarks about those who rally for peace being un-American. Why is it that people just don't get that you can be against war and still support those who happen to be fighting it? When has it ever been un-American to question your leadership or debate the future of the country? Our country was founded on the freedoms to do just that. Gee. I just don't get some people.