By the way

The seminar I attended yesterday as part of our Kentucky Medical Library Association meeting, 'The Librarian and the Evidence: Our Role in EBHC', was excellent. The instructor was Lisa Traditi of the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Library. I knew very little about Evidence-Based Practice (aka Evidence-Based Medicine aka Evidence-Based Health Care) and it was a good overview of what EBP is and how librarians can be invaluable to clinicians. If you have a chance to see her speak, do so. She is very engaging and made the material rather fun.

One of the things she did to break the ice was give out catalogue cards (see, a use for obsolete cards!) and have us write three things about us on the back, two of which we thought would be true of everyone in the room, and then one that we thought would be unique to us as individuals. Then she had everyone stand as she read off some of the cards and then sit down when something wasn't true about us. One thing we discovered is that not just one but two people in the room were down in the mud pit at Woodstock. :)

Well, I'm ready

but it took me a little longer than I expected, so I can't make it to the bus that would have gotten to the consortium meeting early, so I'll catch the one that should be right on time or maybe five minutes late, depending on how long it takes me to walk to the library from Euclid and Woodland. On the other hand, at least I don't have to waste time looking for parking, right? :)

Home at last

I took off from the hospital today to run some errands and go to an exhibit on Flinders Petrie's excavations of Aegypt that's wrapping up at UK by Sunday. I thought it would be $10 to get in, but it turns out that it's free to alumni, but you don't have to be in the Alumni Association or anything. Petrie, unlike other excavators of the time who were interested in carting off treasure as quickly as possible, saw archaeology as a science and approached it very systematically. These are items from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, some never displayed before, and with my interest in Aegyptology, I wanted to take advantage of it. Although I've read quite a bit about Aegypt's history, life, and language, I first heard of Petrie from Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries. Peters is a pseudonym for Barbara Mertz, who holds a phD in Aegyptology.

The exhibit was very nice and spanned most of Aegypt's pre-Islamic history, including items considered classically Aegyptian but it also had Ptolemaic, Roman, and Coptic artefacts. It was well-attended. There was a group of elderly men and women and two women with their pre-teen children, among others. The exhibit runs through the 14th (Sunday), after which it returns to England. Hours are 12-5 except on Friday, when it is open till 8, and although it is $10 for the general public, it is free on Friday from 5-8, and also free to students, staff, and alumni of the university.

After that I went to my friends' house and painted shelves and did some work around the house for them. I stopped at the gas station on the way home to pick up a PowerBar for dinner, then walked home through a steady rain. Now I'm glad to be home. I did manage to go to the pharmacy in the early part of the day and got a lace-up support for my ankle, although it's a devil to get on. :)

Tomorrow I have a consortium meeting over at UK's Young Library where we'll have a continuing education class. I think it's on evidence-based medicine. I'll have to leave a little earlier than usual to make it there on time by bus. Then it's over to the store for truck night from 6-10.

Saturday I work from 10-6 [not by myself!] and then there's more painting to do (the last of this project, though). Sunday is the game. Monday I have my appointment with the podiatrist in the morning, and then I work at the hospital, staying a little later since I'll come in late. Tuesday and Wednesday are long days, working at the hospital and then working at the store from 3-10. On Thursday I'm getting the car fixed. It's also our employee appreciation cookout, so I'm torn as to whether to take the day off and hang out at the repair shop or go back in to work and then pick the car up afterwards. I'm taking the car in by 8 am, so it hopefully will be finished fairly early. Whew! It's going to be a busy week!

Brr...i-i-it's c-c-old...

Today I participated in a web seminar on how to do podcasting put on by the Greater Midwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. It was fun, I enjoyed it, and I know a lot more than I did (which was almost nothing) of what podcasting can do and how to make them. My only complaint is that being in an office with several other cubicles, I couldn't just put my phone on speaker but had to hold the receiver to my ear for an hour and a half. I'd rather use some sort of conferencing software that just played the audio over the computer that I could listen to via headphones.

One nice thing about the meeting was that none of us had to travel. In fact, the instructor was doing the presentation from home using an iPhone. Considering it was the Midwest Region (even though Kentucky is really part of the South, it tends to get lumped into the Midwest often), people traded temps outside and one lady was somewhere where it was -35 degrees Fahrenheit. I so could not live there. I might be conflating but I think she was the one who walked to work and didn't see why they closed the schools. Those Midwesterners are a tough lot.

After work I took a couple of friends around for errands. Then one of them and I did what any sane person would do when it's 6 degrees outside--we took three dogs to Incredipet, a local pet store with a dog wash area, and bathed them. Don't worry, they got good and dry between the towels and the drying cage (one really, really liked that, which is surprising, as she's the one that doesn't stay in place much, but she just kept going back in when we tried to get the others to). One whinged all the way to the store because it was dark and the aliens might get her. She's the only dog I've ever known who was afraid of the dark. The largest dog is usually hard to get up the ramp and into the sink, but she was a real trooper and surprisingly went right on up. When all was said and done (and they'd had treats as a reward), we went back to their home, and I was the one in wet clothes freezing in the weather, although it's amazing how warm a car can get with the heater on and three dogs in the backseat steaming up the windows. Yes, it was an adventure.

But now I'm home and ready for bed. I've caught up on news and on mail. My schedule changed for the store tomorrow so I will be working 10 hours rather than five, which sort of sucks, but hey, it's extra money, which I could really use.

Oh, I got my W2s from the hospital on Thursday. I hope the store's are on their way, although since I didn't file a new W4 until late in the year, I'll probably have to pay extra again this year rather than get a refund. I also got paid Thursday and I found out that with the raise and the higher flexible spending account deduction I pretty much evened out and I'm making just a few dollars less a pay period than I did last year. But I've got over $3,000 to use for medical expenses, so that will help.

Thursday I also paid my rent, and managed to get a break because neither I or the leasing agent can do math. I figured up the late fees twice and got two different amounts, so I called her for the official total before getting a money order, and she gave me the lower total. Later, she said not to worry about the extra five dollars I did owe since she made a mistake. Yay for getting to live indoors for less! And I didn't have to pay as much as I have the last two months, so maybe I can finally get caught up. We'll see.

Well, that's enough for now. I'm going on to bed and plan to get up fairly early to take care of some things around the house. I really need to do dishes and take out the trash, for example. Good night.