I'm at the first of two appointments today

and I brought the laptop with me, since each may take awhile. Unfortunately, the first used to have free Wi-Fi, and it still shows up even though they moved to a different part of the building, but no one in the office seems to know the password, so I'm using my phone to get online instead, using my hotspot that comes with my data plan.

I catalogued 22 books this morning and processed them. I think I have about six or eight more to go. I would have pushed for those but my blood sugar dropped to 62 so I stopped and went to the cafeteria for some orange juice, and then when I came back went to my normal afternoon tasks since I was missing part of that time. But I got everything that had to be done today finished, yay. The rest of the week should be normal in terms of time; the only other appointment is after work on Friday, and the second appointment tonight isn't till 6:30 pm. I'm going to try to work on the game notes at the next one, which is longer. This one is shorter...in fact, he just came through the door. Better, close up shop for now.

I forgot to mention

Today I processed and catalogued thirty-four books for the library,  did my OR charge  reconciliation,  brought my referral queue down to zero,  and put in my data entry charges.  I also sent several emails,  both to do with the library and the revenue cycle,  got my email organised so there are only two in my inbox,  none in sent,  and my mailbox is wide open in terms of space.  I got everything filed away except for a reminder about Sports Clinic this Friday (I'm printing names on the certificates,  putting them in order,  and putting on the seals) and there's an email for today's surgery/tomorrow's OR reconciliation.   That's it. Tomorrow I'm going to start building a book order to use some grant monies and take advantage of our vendor's spring promotion for a 22% discount. So I'm chugging along at work,  which is good. 

Okay,  I have bread baking,  so I'm going to rest for awhile and get up when it's done for just a little while.  The plan is to get up early tomorrow and do some walking inside,  where it's cool.  Tomorrow in general is supposed to be cooler,  yay. I can dig that.

Feeling better today

Happy and having a good day, but not too high and weird. I went to the pharmacy after work and got some medicine for a friend, and then another friend paid for us to have a meal at Long John Silver's. We watched the movie My Babysitter's a Vampire, which explained the backstory to the series. It'a a fun Canadian kids show that mocks Twilight mercilessly. :) Then I went to Kroger and got a few things, along with some creamer, and talked to a nice Jewish man and his father who was buying pomelos and the strange spiky melon we once tried at the game that was so weird. Now I'm home and listening to Jesus Christ, Superstar again (it's the movie soundtrack), and I'm early into the recording, at 'Everything's Alright'. I paid a slew of bills today, and I'm trying to make every dollar stretch as much as I can so I'm not hungry again, while working in my budget.

Tomorrow there's work, which should be fairly light. I may do some cataloguing and try to get my pile of new books down since I'm about to start back in scheduling. Then my friend has an evening appointment, and then there's 'Grimm', I'm assuming. So far, I don't have any weekend plans. I don't know if we're playing the game this weekend yet. Saturday there will be the grocery run with A. I also may stop by Tire Discounters and have them check my battery cables, as every once in awhile my car cranks slowly, but then if I get it a little rest, it starts right up. The battery's just two months old. I'm hoping it's as simple as a loose connexion, and not something like the starter or alternator.

I think I'm going to get comfy, go into the bedroom, and do some reading, while finishing with the album. Good night. Oooh. We're up to 'This Jesus Must Die'; I love Caiphas' low voice, and his and Annas' voices play off each other, as Annas is a high tenor.

Had a lovely evening

at my friends' house, and YKWIA cooked dinner, which was very tasty. I did very little, just chopped some parsley and chives, and then I loaded the dishwasher and did the remaining dishes. In return for that, A is going to help me with game preparations on Sunday. It was a fish soup, an entrée of fish and potatoes, and a beet salad with dressed eggs and a rémoulade sauce. We had a good visit, both while he cooked and while we ate.

Earlier today I had the bright idea of taking a short walk during my break. My goal was five minutes. I walked around half the parking lot, or about 0.4 miles, in a little over six minutes, and my ankle and back certainly felt it. So I'm glad I was able to sit most of the time tonight. I'm also so glad I have the car; I could barely do the distance I went today; that's the same it would have taken to get to the bus stop, and there's no way I could have done that last month when I needed to get to work.

I've been in a great mood all day. It was sunny, about 50 degrees (hence my yearning to walk around outside). I'd had a fairly relaxing weekend, and had gotten some rest. I did some cataloguing today and ran a comparison of books on the shelf vs. the online catalogue and discovered I'm actually much closer than I thought to completely cataloguing the collection, which is one of my goals this year.

Tomorrow there's more cataloguing to do, plus data a big day for data entry. I don't have physical therapy tomorrow; there was a spine clinic they were running and their hours didn't work with my schedule, but I'm already on the roster for Thursday. Tomorrow I also should get a package--a storage case for the DVDs I got the other day, since they're put in cardboard sleeves that will abrade them over time when used, and a mini SD card for the phone.

One of the things I like about my phone is it's so easy to read everything. My Huawei Comet had tiny print on the texting; this has much larger print contrasted against different coloured balloons. I mainly text with Brandon, but I'm finally able to really get words typed properly without misspellings being saved, plus there's more contrast in the design. The internet is still easier to see on my tablet, but it's readable, and it has multi-touch, something the Comet didn't have (you tapped to make things bigger, to an extent). It has great sound and video quality, takes decent pictures, and all and all I'm loving it. I showed it to one of my co-workers who has an iPhone 5. Apparently the Samsung Galaxy S III is bigger than one of those. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. One of the nifty things on it are these 'hidden' back and menu buttons that show up on what looks to be the front casing, only when you need it. Otherwise it looks completely like there isn't anything there.

I think I'm going to turn in for the night. I hope you had a good start to your week. Good night.

It took nearly an hour and three alarms

(Listening to Natalie Merchant's 'The Living')

to get me up from an almost 12-hour sleep. I was up briefly at 2, and took my Neurontin (I'd taken my insulin before I'd gone to bed, it just was too early for the other). And somewhere around 10 there was a phone call. But otherwise I slept. The Neurontin is working wonders with the foot pain, and I got some distilled water so my humidifier on my CPAP could run, so I was set and comfy. I realise now that when I was sleeping so much in the past, I wasn't really sleeping that much in all that time, because of the pain. It was keeping me in this light, dreamless sleep where I woke up all the time. Now I'm sleeping much better, dreaming again, and although I'm not quite sure where the need for the long sleep came from, it was nice to get. I'm not groggy like I used to be upon waking, either, although I'm a little congested and coughing. I've noticed I've been having some trouble breathing very deeply lately, so I'm going to ask them to check me out at my appointment Tuesday. I haven't felt sick or anything, nothing beyond the ubiquitous allergies. But it may be my asthma kicking in. I had an actual episode during the dog attack where I needed my inhaler, and that happens something like three or four times a year, my asthma is so mild. I really have trouble breathing if I bend over, but I think that's just because I'm fat.

I am not up early enough to do any laundry, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Fortunately it is jeans day and I have just enough clean clothes to manage that. As far as tomorrow goes, we're going to try to iron out the problem with my pharmacy and flexible spending card not meshing, and the guy I know who works there is actually going to come pick me up and take me across town to the pharmacy so we can talk to the company together and then bring me back, saving me maybe three or four hours on the buses, which I really appreciate. At some point tomorrow, I'm also going to go by the grocery and get, if I can find it, vegetarian oyster sauce for a friend, as well as some groceries for me. I also need to stop by the library briefly.

Today we're supposed to have clouds followed by a rain-snow mix later in the day that should cause things to be, well, miserable in terms of getting out and the commute home. I've got a ride, thankfully. My aim today is to catalogue as many books as possible. I did 45 the other day, and I've done 149 in the last few days. It's not full-blown cataloguing--I'm using LibraryThing, where you type in or scan the ISBN and it populates it from other sources. I then put in the tags and the National Library of Medicine classification number, for that is what we use on our shelves. So it's basically copy cataloguing with a little additional work.

It's been a long week, and I think people are ready for Friday. Our accrediting agency was at the hospital for three days doing a survey, and I gather it went well. They never came to the library, but I was ready with my codes and acronyms for dealing with crisis situations, as well as what we as the library could do in the case of computer or utility failure, so I felt fairly confident if they were to come in. In the fifteen years I've been there, I don't remember a surveyor asking about the library, but it could always happen.

Speaking of work, I should probably start getting ready. Hope you have a great end of the week.

Listening to Natalie Merchant and chilling out

I've been doing a lot of cataloguing this week, trying to finally get all the books online. This is the third time I've done it, as there was an Access database at one time and then on LibraryWorld, which gave me a horrible export when I left. But LibraryThing works well for our small collection (I have more books at home), do it's a lot cheaper. What I do is put the NLM (National Library of Medicine) classification scheme numbers in the comments field, which can be displayed when browsing.

Now you ask, why do this when the collection is on a timed schedule to be dismantled? Well, for one, it helps to know what we have now. And it will help later. And so I catalogue.

So far today

I've catalogued nearly thirty books on LibraryThing, taken the bus to Taco Bell, gotten a couple of 7-layer burritos for lunch, walked over to Kroger, picked up my Lantus (insulin) and some groceries, and ridden the bus back/walked home. Now the string and cream cheese along with the Lantus are all in the fridge, I've got a cold drink, and I'm contemplating game notes. Oh, and taking some ibuprofen, since I forgot to this morning. But first, maybe a short nap. :) Really, a short one.

PS Last night was the first in three weeks where I could put my pillow on my left arm (the one that's okay, and the one I normally sleep on), and put my right arm (the one that's been hurting) on top of the pillow next to my head. Since I sleep better on my side, this is great, although I'm still treating things a bit gingerly.

I'm wet and cold and ready for bed

A friend of mine works second shift, so the best time to make the every-two-weeks grocery run is midnight, and it usually lasts two hours. Tonight was normal, except it's raining pretty hard. Don't get me wrong, we've been in a drought and need the rain. But with loading two cartfuls into and then out of the car, I got pretty wet. And even though it's in the 50s, it is a cold rain.

Now I'm home and have changed clothes. My mood has been somewhat mitigated by a lovely tangerine, the first of the season that I've eaten. I picked them up because they looked nice and were a very good price, then shared some with a friend, since I won't eat a whole bag fast enough.

It's been a good day. I found out that I passed the inspection. They thought the apartment looked very nice. Yay!

I got home early tonight (8 pm) and tried to work on notes, but just couldn't focus. I guess it's not close to the deadline enough to panic and get some adrenaline. I really have to get over this procrastination. So, instead, I'm getting up early tomorrow to work on them (or at least, that's the idea).

I applied for a job at the branch of the public library that's down the street (within walking distance) of me. It's a reference position that pays $33,000-$52,000 a year. I think I'm pretty qualified, and I have my certification now, so that won't be a problem. The only stumbling block I see is my misdemeanour record when I was having trouble with cheques I'd written. I addressed that in my cover letter. The application says that it isn't necessarily a disqualifier, and of course, I think a felony would be far more a problem, but I didn't get the job at Jessamine County because of that record. The nice thing about the job is although it's primarily reference, it also has got a cataloguing component, which is what I actually specialised in school. I miss cataloguing. It also deals with authority control, which is what I did as a graduate assistant. I have to admit...I love authority control. There's something very satisfying about correcting incorrect entries and making them uniform, bringing order from chaos. :)

Good night.

PS I found my old webcam and tried it out, getting the above picture. It's not great quality, but it was still fun to play with it. Somehow I don't see me going onto YouTube anytime soon, though. :) I definitely need to get my hair cut before I go on any job interviews, that's for sure, to give it some body.

I'm thinking about getting a lifetime membership

to LibraryThing. You get to put in 200 books for free but I have substantially more than that. It's $10 per year or $25 for a lifetime membership for individuals.

I'm also considering putting my library catalogue there, for $15/year. I was using LibraryWorld but with everyone these days worrying about stretching budgets, the $365/year fee is just too much.

I've got more books personally than the library has books. Most of our collection centres around our journals. Between the medical library and the family resource centre, I think we have about 1,600 books. I've probably got about 3,000. A friend has far more, but I think he'd rather have an old-fashioned card catalogue rather than a database.

Speaking of cataloguing software for personal collections, Libra is an interesting program that displays your books, CDs, DVDs, etc. on shelves graphically. It's free for non-commercial use and easy to use, and it automatically looks up the item based on identifiers just like LibraryThing and most programs do today.

I geeked out (quietly) in the library yesterday

when I visited this link:

Kyle Banerjee's Cataloging Calculator

You type in a name and it automatically calculates the cutter number in a variety of styles, including Library of Congress. Yipee!

I was trained as a cataloguer under Dr Lois Mai Chan, who literally has written the book on LC cataloguing and classification. So, you've got to figure I'd like this. Since I was surrounded by students and co-workers, I had to contain myself. But I so geeked out. :)

Thanks to Kyle Banerjee for making this available and to Stephen Pomes for the link.

Heehee

Unshelved--March 8, 2007

Today's strip was hilarious. I have a friend who has long advocated cataloguing/shelving books by colour. And no, he would never put pink near puce. It would be anathema to his gayness.