I really believe in this cause--it's a great niche and really needed

I am off the cane, by the way, and I'm glad I can drive again for a slew of reasons, but I've been looking forward to this and was hoping I could go in time; I'd contacted their secretary a month-and-a-half ago about when it would be. I had some bottles ready for the last time in June, and that's when I fell off the porch into a rosebush, so I was in the ER during the dropoff. Hopefully, this time it'll be less eventful this time, as I've got quite a lot saved now. You can drop clean pill bottles and lids off at the Beaumont, Eastside, and Northside Branches of the Lexington Public Library, or the Scott County Public Library in Georgetown, from 1-2 PM on October 4th.  They're usually in a spot in the back parking lot so that you can just line up and hand over the bags/containers. Thank you to the ladies of the University of Kentucky Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and their Alumnae association.

This is so refreshing

I was lucky to have an education in history and classical studies, and I participated in the Honours Program at UK, a Great Books programme, not quite a major, not quite a minor, it's just on my diploma as a separate course of study, which included not just great literature but the gamut of philosophy from ancient to modern times. Add library science into that, and you've got critical thinking, critical analysis of sources, and expertise in finding resources in various media, as well as cataloguing them in ways to make sure they can be found. So...this is really refreshing in a world of AI and short videos where teens challenge each other to eat laundry pods. He's really right. What the world of business needs is not automatons who can do cookie-cutter tasks that can be replaced by technology; they need people who can think outside the box and think better than a computer...and that means they need to analyse things better than artificial intelligence as only a human mind can. That you get from things like, you get it, the humanities, philosophy, all those majors that get no love. Or, for that matter, just reading wonderful books. We have all the knowledge of human history practically available at our fingertips on the internet, and we use it for the stupidest things. Any of us can educate ourselves and become well-read, and it's a shame that so many people take absolutely no advantage of it.

As CEOs predict AI will rival humans in 5 years, Shark Tank’s Daniel Lubetzky tells Gen Z to get off TikTok and study Greek philosophers to get ahead

:(

I have been thinking about one of my beloved professors, my undergraduate professor and my graduate advisor in the mediaeval history programme at UK, Dr. E. Randolph Daniel, all this past month. I knew him all told for about fifteen years. Of course that was many years ago, and I knew he was quite elderly and today I put in his name and 'obituary', and sure enough, his memorial service was earlier this month. He'd died on February 23rd.  I am so sorry I missed his service. He really stood up for me in the department when I was having problems due to undiagnosed health issues, as well as a nasty marriage and the resulting divorce. Many years ago I sent him a card thanking him, but I hadn't spoken with him since shortly before he retired in 2000. But he taught me so much and he put up with a lot from me, and I so appreciated it. Requiescat in pace, Dr. Daniel. Here is a link to his obituary. 

 

WARNING for you all in Lexington

UK issues warning after campus libraries accidentally handed out fake eclipse glasses

I'm intrigued

I was looking up a historical figure (James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, a Scottish general who was hanged, beheaded, and quartered for supporting Charles I during the War of the Three Kingdoms in 1650)--Battlefield Band has a song called 'Montrose'. Going down that rabbit hole, I found a book by John Buchan [novelist and former Governor General of Canada] called Witch Wood, which sounded promising and put it in as an interlibrary loan request with the Lexington public library. Montrose only makes a small appearance in it, but the story sounded compelling, the story of a clergyman who discovers Scottish witchcraft/paganism being practised and suffers from ensuing politics in the 17th century. It'll probably come from the University of Kentucky, as their library has it. I have a UK library card, but for residents of Kentucky, they expire after a year, and mine is likely expired. The thing I'm most interested in is that in the over 300-page story, a lot of the dialogue is in Scots, which I am interested in, having a lot of Scottish ancestry.

Sigh

It's been a long while. I've posted almost 12,000 times on this blog for over 20 years, but I haven't felt like writing for some time. That makes me sad. I've gotten caught up with life and I'd been relying mostly on my phone for Internet interaction, and it was just harder to do that, for one.  I have a laptop though now AND I just got a folding table big enough to write, read, do crafts, etc., on, rather than having a computer on a stool and being uncomfortable in my chair because I had to put a leg on either side.

I do post a lot on Facebook, and that's for people I'm friends with, and almost all of them are people I know personally, with the exception of a few librarians.  I guess I feel safer there in some ways than over-sharing to the great world beyond.  I know, that hasn't stopped me in the past. But I'm 55 now and a little wiser than when I started.

So let's see...I think I last wrote in February.  We got a puppy then and she was so tiny at 8 weeks that she could go between the slats of the picket fence.  Now she's nine months old, and she's nearly 50 lbs.  She finally has a big girl bark, is very tall and long and lanky, and generally is getting very big.  My roommate thinks she's part Lab (that part is obvious, as she has webbed toes and Labrador waterproofing) and part Doberman, much like the dog he had when I first met him over 30 years ago.  I'm leaning towards part Great Dane with her build, but he is probably right.  She's a joy, very enthusiastic, loving, and a good companion to the other dog, who is a Lab/Pit cross and now much smaller than her.

Healthwise I'm dealing with ageing.  I've lost 50 lbs. since early November and 28 of that was from late December on.  (I was put on a different diuretic in November and I swear 20 lbs. came off because I am a sponge.)  I'm on medicine now called Ozempic for my diabetes, but it helps with weight loss and I'm doing pretty well on it, despite early side effects.  I just went up to the maintenance dose.

I do need to lose weight because I have chondromalacia, which is a loss of cartilage in the joint.  My knees are to the point of being bone-on-bone and I need a bilateral knee replacement, but I need to lose another 40 or so pounds.  They'd like my BMI to be under 40, but 45 is a hard stop and I'm 48 now.  So I need to work harder because I'm in a lot of pain and it's very difficult to walk very far.  I do have an ADA placard for out in the community.  I had one at the university but they only gave me a temporary one as they couldn't read my GP's handwriting. I had him redo it and resubmitted it, but they denied my request.  I have a couple of weeks to submit records, which I've requested, and perhaps I can get one on appeal.  You can't just park in a spot on campus without their specific hangtag, you see...my state-issued placard doesn't do a thing.  And they're pretty tough.  One of my former co-workers used a prosthetic leg and they made him send over records, and he finally got it. I've had it all summer, though, and it's been a godsend.  Without it I'm going to have to walk probably a quarter of a mile from my car to the bus stop and back, and that is very difficult and painful.

I'm also most likely going to have my gall bladder out soon. I go to a surgery consult the first week of September.  They'd found gallstones on an MRI of my liver but I was asymptomatic until I had fried fish and was in extreme distress for a week.  I'm a little leery of this. Even with the weight loss, I weigh about 280 lbs., so lots of visceral fat and higher mortality chances with any abdominal surgery.  Hopefully, it will be laparoscopic, as I don't want to miss much work.

Next week will mark the five-year anniversary since I moved in with my roommate.  All in all it's gone very well, surprisingly well, actually. Neither of us were particularly sure about the move and living together.

At work, headquarters took over my surgery and outpatient visit authorisations, leaving me without a position, but my boss (who's only been here a few months) really went to bat for me, and they did a lateral move into a position I've had before that is technically a few rungs down, but because of the way they did it, I didn't lose my pay, although I'm on the high end of the scale for this one.  I'm back in checkout.  One day before I moved I had a panic attack, because when I did it before, I was alone for the better part of a year, did the phone and e-mails, and generally had trouble keeping up.  Now there are two people at checkout (although my work buddy, who is very bubbly, is moving to registration, so they're trying to hire someone for the checkout position that's open), and one person who's job is to schedule phone and e-mail requests, letting me focus on the patients and families for the most part.  So it's actually been nice.  Not as much pressure and I get to interact with families and see the improvements in patients' lives. I do, being an introvert, get drained by too much interaction, but I also find it satisfying in this case.  So everything's going much better than it could have.

I've been working every day on a series of exercises to help keep my mind sharp.  There's Wordle and Latin Wordle, plus I'm studying languages on Duolingo.  I'm trying to brush up on my rusty Spanish, German, and Latin, plus I'm taking Irish and Welsh.  I was going to try to learn Modern Hebrew (I've studied Biblical Hebrew), but that wasn't going well, as the characters were very small, and it just wasn't clicking. I'm going to take my Biblical Hebrew and do some work on that instead and then go back to the modern after I get a grip on the ancient language.  But I'm getting through the ones I've studied before pretty quickly and understand more than I thought.  My grammar is actually still pretty good, it's just the vocabulary that I'm having to pick up again.  German is extremely easy, even though I haven't had it since 1985.  Latin is my most-studied language (5 semesters, including Mediaeval as well as the normal Classical, plus a little Humanist), so it's going well, although there are a lot of angry parrots in this one. (To be fair, Hebrew had a dove that liked warm wine--you can see why I was having trouble).  I've already used a little Spanish to check a person out at work without having to use the video interpreter, and I asked one of the in-person interpreters what the word for 'stickers' is and put it on my bulletin board because the kids love those.

Okay, I guess I'll sign off for now. I'm on vacation. No plans, not going anywhere, but I took the week off between now and Labor Day.  I'm hoping to get some rest and work on some new hobbies and actually do some reading.

And for some reason my neighbours are setting off fireworks for no discernable reason.

What a glorious day

It's a beautiful sunny Saturday, with the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window, which is nice, as the plants (and we) have had to endure several days of gloomy, rainy weather.  Our area actually moved trick-or-treat from Halloween to Tuesday due to inclement weather.  So the kids were out on a sunny evening that had mild temperatures and then the next day it was pouring and would have been terrible for them.  And since then there's been wind and rain.  So it's nice to see the sun.  Plus the kitten is playing with the sunbeams in the hall.

I slept 12 hours last night, even with being up in the middle of the night for about an hour.  It was good to get some rest.

Halloween was an absolute success.  Many of us dressed up in the hospital.  I got a co-worker who gets up at an ungodly 4 am each day so she can work out and get ready to call me at 4:30 am so I would have plenty of time to do the makeup, etc.  I left home at 6:30 am and arrived at UK's lot at 6:55, and at work about 7:10 am, so I was a little early, but not much, and there was time to chat with others, play a bit on the laptop I brought, and take pictures.  Thankfully, I was not the only person on the shuttle to wear a costume; Mr Incredible was there as well, although the guy lamented that the pyjamas that he was wearing (they were cheaper than the costumes with the muscles) had no pockets, and therefore he was carrying his phone, keys, and badge in his hands and had no idea what he would do with them during the day.  :) Welcome to the world of women, who rarely have pockets and if so, they're never deep for anything of note.

I had street clothes, the lightest I could find, as I knew I'd be hot, underneath mine, although they were polyester so that probably defeated the attempt at staying cool.  And I had no pockets.  But once I clocked in, I put my badge on my pants waistband so I'd have my keys and badge with me without ruining the effect of the costume.  Granted, the whole point is to ID someone, but I was more concerned with the fact that our badges unlock various areas of the hospital and I didn't want to get trapped anywhere. :)

Here are some pictures from that day:

At home, after finishing the makeup

In the break room

Up in our department

Also in the break room

So I think it went really well, it delighted the kids, and we had great fun.  Today I'm going to pack it away and take it, along with the summer clothes that have been sitting in my room in a couple of tubs, to storage.

I have a lot to do today:

1. First, get caffeinated and ready for the day.
2. Go to the pharmacy for YKWIA when he gets up.
3. Get gas for the car.
4. Drop off the summer clothes and the Maleficent costume at the storage unit.
5. Do a couple of shelves (dusting) in my room. I do two shelves every Saturday to keep all the books in the house clean, on a rotating basis.
6. Launder the bedding.
7. Go on a grocery run.
8. Do the game notes.  Last week we barely survived an evil witch and yes, I called it, Cthulhoid faeries.
9. Do some cooking.  We're making pumpkin beignets, among other things.
10. Straighten up my room.
11. Read more of The Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington.
12. Make bread.
13. Water the plants.
14. Watching more of 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' on Netflix; we've watched four episodes and it's really good.

What I do not plan to do is go anywhere near the University of Kentucky, the stadium--Kroger Field--or downtown.  There is a Kentucky-Georgia home football game that determines who goes to the Southeastern Conference tournament, and Kentucky is usually incredibly well, bad, at football, and a season where they've lost 1 out of 8 games is almost unheard of.  We are well known for our basketball programme, but football?  Anyway, the fans can be a little intense, which is why LEX 18 (the local NBC television station) posted this on their Facebook page:

I personally don't get the appeal of sports. I don't get that sort of fervour at all.  But hopefully, win or lose, it won't come down to that sort of thing.  Since the last major incident was a car being flipped on the street next to us at work, the police are using our gated lot as a staging area to keep order.

Cross your fingers

Although I enjoy my job (and having insurance after being unemployed and on COBRA), I haven't given up on being a librarian. Today I applied for a job with the public library which, while a bit of a longshot, I'd enjoy immensely, and I feel I'm qualified for. Wish me luck! There's another position, at the university, that I need to apply for in the next couple of weeks, too. Both pay well and would really go a long way to having some financial stability after the roller coaster of 2017.

No game today

Brenda's still got the crud, so we're taking another week off.  It's been a pretty relaxing weekend. I've spent some time on Facebook and Twitter (I'm also never actually on Twitter, to be honest, and I tweet and retweet rarely, but I did today).  YKWIA's done a lot of reading, and I've done a little. I got a free e-book for subscribing an electronic newsletter, and it turned out to be Ellis Peters' A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first Brother Cadfael mystery.  It includes maps and a guide to Welsh pronunciation.

I've also requested some seed catalogues, one from Burpee's (a staple), but most from heirloom, sustainable, non-Monsanto sources (and that's harder to do these days).  Most of them are available in PDF form, so I just downloaded those rather than have them send me a paper one in the mail.

Now I'm doing one super-mega-large load of laundry, and was rewarded for doing so by $12 falling out of my trouser pockets as I was going through them.  I've been out twice this weekend on the roads after the snow, once to go to the grocery for soda, and then today to take YKWIA to meet with someone over lunch, and then to stop by the gaming store The Rusty Scabbard and to get a few things at the store that weren't there yesterday post-rush.  The produce section yesterday looked like Armageddon was on its way, all for about 1-2 inches of snow, but they were resupplied today.

Tomorrow I work, as we do not get off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  The University of Kentucky does, however, and so the parking shuttles aren't running, so we've been told that we can park in the adjoining parking garage, although they wouldn't guarantee we wouldn't be charged.  So that $12 might come in handy.  Seriously, though, I suspect the gates will be up tomorrow.

Now I'm listening to some music. I was listening to Blue October's Home album, but it's made it past that on Windows Media Player and so it's Bonnie Tyler's 'I Need a Hero' right now.  Have you ever seen the music video for that?  I will not post it here.  It is...terribly creepy and inappropriate, running right across the boundary of sick and wrong, to be honest.  It's set in a young men's school (as in teenagers) and she plays a teacher. Enough said.  How did we not see that back in the 80s?  I still love the song, though.

Okay, I'm going to sign off here for awhile. YKWIA is taking a nap, all is quiet, save for the music.  It's still about an hour-and-a-half till the animals need to be fed (although one is right by me, hoping to be).  The laundry is drying. I am considering lying down for a bit while that tumbles.

Ooh, we've made it to The Box Tops' 'The Letter'. :)

Well, that was an adventure

I got up early again today (well, 6:45, which is not all that early in the grand scheme of thing, but better than the 8:30 or 9 I was doing). I got up, got ready, had breakfast, took my meds, called the parking office, realised I had books due at the library yesterday (so I got the list of them and put them in a bag to take back before they opened, so they wouldn't be overdue). I then drove to the library, put the books in the book drop, then drove to UK. The drive was pretty light, and I got there at 8:30 or so. Most of the parking was already taken, it looked like, so it's good I'll be going in at 8 in the morning rather than later. The lady at the office had said there was metered parking near a construction zone, but made it seem like it was in the parking garage on Press Street itself, just like they are, and so I went through the garage, didn't see any, and was about to leave and see what I could find when I saw the meters, outside, by the construction fence. Without thinking, I shifted into reverse (I'd encountered no one so far) and promptly ran into the front of the car behind me. I got out, then got back in and move the car slightly forward so we could inspect, but there was thankfully no damage. I apologised, we said goodbye, and I pulled into a meter space and put a quarter in.

Getting the actual hang tag was pretty easy. I paid for the full 12 weeks, and a little more, through August 31st, because I wasn't exactly sure when this will end. So now I have a hang tag, and can park Monday morning when I go in. I also picked up some information on parking, a map, and a Valvoline $15 coupon off an oil change, which I need. Some of my co-workers park in that garage, others in the Orange Lot off Cooper, where there is a shuttle. Either is a fairly short walk, maybe 10-15 minutes for most people, which means 20-25 minutes for me.

Having escaped the office, I proceeded carefully down the street, past the medical centre and the Orange lot, through the roundabouts on Alumni, and over to Kroger on Chinoe, got a couple of things, and made it back before it started raining--and had the forethought to take one of the umbrellas in the car (there are four) with me. It is now raining really hard, but it's coming in onto the window boxes, so I'm fine with that--it was time to water them again. Still, I don't think I'll be going to the pool any time soon.

My plan on Monday is to get up at 6 am, be parked by 7:30, and then work my way to the medical centre and report for duty by 8. I need a short orientation and then I need to fill out the paperwork they're preparing. I don't need a TB skin test--I'm good till the autumn, and they have that record. I need to find out what exactly is the dress code for the department, as it varies. (Clinic was never supposed to have open-toed shoes, for example). It's not direct patient care, but it might have that. Also, most of the people in the department wear scrubs or T-shirts and scrubs, but I doubt they'll have me buy scrubs for the short period I'll be there. I think my normal office casual things should be okay, it's just a question as to whether I can wear sandals, really. And I need to make sure they're still doing the jeans on Fridays. :)

Wow, we're actually getting a little thunder. I can barely see through my screens, they're so wet. Nice. I've been so intent on typing and the rain, I forgot my TV was still 'connecting' to Pandora, and I had some sort of morning show running in the background. Got that fixed, anyway. Okay, I guess I should continue to be productive, although I don't have anything I have to do at the moment, so I may just take a break and watch the rain. :)

Only here...or maybe in Texas

Bold steer's escape foiled by university's rodeo team member

University rodeo team member lasso[e]s runaway UK steer that briefly became a social-media star

1. Despite the fact that Kentucky has more cattle than any other state east of the Mississippi, this fellow escaped from a research facility at the university, just in case you were wondering.
2. I had no idea we had a rodeo team at the University of Kentucky.
3. I first heard about the steer when Lex 18's application on my phone notified me of a bovine on the loose and where. When I went to the story on Facebook, some poor soul had made a comment asking what a bovine was.
4. At first I did have to wonder if this was an early April Fools' prank. Wouldn't you?

[PS YKWIA was of the opinion that the research involved was obviously something akin to Flowers for Algernon, where the steer's intelligence was modified greatly and he realised they were sending him off to slaughter. We were of the opinion that the wily steer should be retired to a farm somewhere. I mean really, where is PETA when you need them? We were also of the opinion that depending on what research was really done, we're glad we don't eat meat, because I'm not sure I'd like to eat research animals who had been sent off to the abbatoir to be made into steaks. Just saying.]

Am I just getting old?

Today I visited with my friends and reconnected after the trip, watched UK beat Auburn in the SEC men's basketball semi-finals  with one of them, and then took him to the grocery, and now, less than 24 hours after getting home from Chicago, I am already ready for a nap, even though I've done nothing strenuous and I've walked about a fifth of what I did Thursday. Now granted, on the first week of Daylight Savings Time, I've bounced back and forth between two time zones, really exerted myself over the course of three days, flown twice, etc., but still, I thought one good night's sleep would get me back to normal.  Of course, come to think of it, I was up for an hour in the middle of the night because, well, that's what I tend to do--I wake up and it takes awhile to go back to sleep.  So maybe I didn't sleep quite so well.  But I did dream vividly, something I don't remember doing at all during my trip.

I've been away from the university for almost fifteen years

and the red tape is still annoying me. They got my account fixed, and I was able to bring up the right tab, but it will not give me an unofficial transcript, claiming no programs found. Sigh. Maybe it is because I started 30 years ago--I was at my dear alma mater for many years working on three degrees (getting two of them) and I think when all was said and done, I wound up with three undergraduate majors and a minor, with one class lacking for a fourth major. Oh, well. I may have to go the official transcript route for the next time it's requested by a prospective employer.

Well, phooey

I just got in from class a little while ago and was trying to use my new University of Kentucky online account that was set up today to get my unofficial transcripts to apply for a job at a local college by Friday (I just learned about it yesterday). Unfortunately, something wasn't submitted when they built my account and I can't access the transcripts at all, and won't be able to until at least a couple of days, meaning I'll miss the deadline. While I could pay $10 and get an official transcript, I'd still have to wait till sometime tomorrow or Friday for that because the older transcripts are on microfilm, hence there needs to be someone at the office who can scan them and send them to me, and technically the HR department at the college had requested a mailed résumé, cover letter, unofficial transcript, and three professional references, although there is an option to upload a résumé and cover letter on their website. While I certainly could do the job, I suspect they have an internal candidate in mind, as it wasn't posted the last time I checked a few days ago, and so I'm going to chalk this up to an omen that the job wasn't going to pan out, get my access for future use, and go on my merry way. Still, it's the first job in awhile that would be a good fit, and I really like their library; I interviewed there years ago. So anyway, I think I missed the boat on this one, and that's my fault. I should have been more vigilant about looking, although in my defence last week I was mostly preoccupied with the snow storm, cold, and just getting to my current job.

I got my airline and hotel confirmation for the Chicago trip today, and went by Office Depot and got a padded lightweight bag with an over-the-body strap for my laptop at a price less than the sleeves alone, which I plan on taking on the trip. I'm so hoping everything like weather, etc., goes off without a hitch. I should have time the first day to go to the Field Museum of Natural History, and then there's the morning of the second day before our seminar for a little sightseeing. On the third day there's a morning meeting and then I'll have to head straight to the airport. But the idea this time is to definitely see a bit of downtown Chicago.

Okay, I have a CT scan of my sinuses first thing tomorrow morning, and should see if I can find the paperwork in case it's needed. I've already pre-registered and paid for my part (which was a bit of an annoyance, because I'm within $47 of my out-of-pocket maximum for the year but had to pay $127 over the phone yesterday. I just couldn't make the clerk understand that I shouldn't pay that amount, and if I did, they might owe me a refund.

I also have to take a friend to an appointment tomorrow, so I've taken off from work for that day. And afterwards I need to go by the pharmacy because another friend got only a partial fill of his medicine and needs more. I am in high demand this week. Friday there's another appointment and Saturday I'm taking two other people, three dogs, and a cat to the vet--in a Taurus. That should be fun. :) But it's nice to be needed.

Okay, on to finding that paperwork. I've never had a CT scan. There doesn't seem to be much to it, but I did want to read their recommendations and make sure everything was as planned. Good night!

My new haircut

I've spent thirteen hours over at my friends' house, watching 'Haven', 'Hart of Dixie', and 'Fringe', watching UK football with A, watching their cat play with the koi on my phone's live wallpaper and make the water move, and then helping YKWIA make a cake and frost it--chocolate with a bit of espresso powder in both. The cleanup is done. I am now home. I should be working on the game notes now, but I'm tired, so I'm heading on to bed with the idea of getting up very early to take care of the rest of the notes (of which I've gotten only about 1/3 finished), get gas for the car, go to the store for string cheese, crackers, and soda, and then get there by 9 am. Which is in 8 hours. Oh, and I need to remember to bring a blank CD-ROM for tomorrow.

Good night.

I'm over at my friends' house

and while it is raining cats and dogs down at the stadium, but it doesn't seem to be raining here. We're all in the living room watching the dogs play. There's a few minutes left in the game with UK leading. We're going to the store soon and then there's 'Doctor Who'. Having a nice visit so far. Okay, A wants me to check something on the queue for Netflix. I'll write later, probably.

Fireworks are going off in my neighbourhood

I can only imagine what sort of celebration it is near the University of Kentucky, which just won their Final Four men's basketball game against Wisconsin down in Texas. So they'll play the University of Connecticut Monday. There are a lot of happy people here, I'm sure. Even I, who do not follow sports, turned on the last few minutes of the game, and it was a nail biter. Now it's time to turn that off and go back to game notes. Remember folks, celebrate with class. No couches need burn for your happiness. Good night.

We had a good Cthulhu game today

We're in the investigative stage of things, which is often fun. We don't know much so far, but we have a mass murder-suicide to contend with along with an archaeological dig whose results may have driven people mad and a possibility of flooding the Nile. See, fun. A was happy, too, because the University of Kentucky (the alma mater of both YKWIA and me, but not A, who merely worships at the temple of basketball there) managed to defeat Wichita State (with was undefeated up to that point) and progress to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA basketball tournament. (He'd chosen that in his brackets, actually, which, since he's playing by himself, doesn't matter in terms of winning money, but he'd doing pretty well so far, he said).

I'm home now and my back is killing me. It was fine up to the point I stood up and started walking after about six hours of (mostly) sitting. It wasn't bothering me when I was cleaning house earlier. Unfortunately, one of the first things I had to do when I got home was fill the big aquarium with about 15 gallons of water, in three bucketfuls. I did that, though, and reconnected the pump, light, and heater in that tank. I'd had it all shut off, the heater because the water had gotten so low, the pump due the loss of electricity the other day. But I couldn't keep them in that position too long, and it's been a couple of days. So now they're happily swimming about, happy with the food I gave them and the new, clean water. I also added most of a 2-litre to the small fish tank (the betta's, which is only three gallons), and he seems happier, too.

I'm propped up in the bed listening to Pentangle's version of the Lyke-Wake Dirge. My neck and back hurt a good bit. I think I'll take some ibuprofen and stretch out some. Here's the song for you to listen to, if you'd like. It has a haunting quality, which is rather appropriate.



Good night.

Cool

UK Digital Library chosen as one of five nationally for pilot project

As any researcher knows, it's easier to click a mouse than burrow through paper archives, looking for one piece of paper.

At the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Digital Library has worked since 1997 to aid that process, slowly transforming huge historical collections from UK and other state universities — including old newspapers, family papers, photographs and oral histories — into digital content.

That work was recently recognized when the Kentucky Digital Library was chosen as one of five digital libraries nationwide to form the hub of a pilot project to make that information even more available: The Digital Public Library of America.

One of my first jobs years and years ago (the late 1980s) was a work-study position in micrographics where we ironed newspapers and microfilmed them from all over the state as part of the Kentucky Newspaper Project. It was a first step in preserving and making the information in them accessible. Now, the University of Kentucky has gone beyond that and that's great. Here's a relevant tidbit:

The launch of the Digital Public will take place on April 18 at http://dp.la. The Kentucky Digital Library can be accessed at http://kdl.kyvl.org.

I hope the workers are served as well as the students

I worked my way through college largely through the University of Kentucky Food Service department, from 1986 till about 1997, working in the Student Center Wildcat Grill, Blazer Hall's cafeteria and store, over at the Commons cafeteria, and one summer helping make meal cards when they still had those non-integrated IDs. So I read this with some interest:

University of Kentucky considers privatizing dining services

The University of Kentucky is studying the possibility of outsourcing its dining services, a move that could affect 243 full-time and part-time employees and 501 student workers.

UK has hired a consultant for $55,524 to explore the issue and prepare a request-for-proposal document that will go out early next year. However, UK officials have said the university's dining department could be one of the bidders for the project.

The University laid off about 1% of its workforce in June. I'd hate to see these folks lose their jobs, too.