Success, I think

Listening to: 'These Hard Times' by Matchbox 20

I used the recorder for its first game and recorded over six hours of material with the battery just going down one bar out of three (but it's rechargeable) and things are pretty clear even though a fan is blowing in the room. There was some lawnmowing at some point outside the window, so it should be interesting to see how well things were picked up by the recorder. I took notes as usual, though, so this is just supplementing them, although there were a few spots I didn't get down everything, so I'm glad for the backup. Speaking of backups, I put a copy of the file onto the computer since I do actually take the recorder around due to the music player function and listen at my desk at the hospital, etc.

Tomorrow I'm going to Danville to visit my grandmother, mom, and aunts/uncles/cousins who have come into town. Wish me luck. When you have a car with 252,000 miles on it, even an hour-long trip can be a little daunting.

By the way, you may have noticed the 'Twitter' widget on the left side of the screen with postings. Twitter is a type of mini-blogging--you only have 140 characters to eke out your message with, but it's incredibly easy to update. You can tweet from the web, from a phone/text message, through instant message, etc. I use a widget on my iGoogle page called 'BeTwittered', so I don't need to leave my home page if I don't want to. I've found sometimes I'm just too tired to blog here, but I'll put something on Twitter, or maybe I see something silly that isn't worth a post, and make a quick note. (One post was of seeing the first lightning bug of the season the other day, for example).

You can follow other people on Twitter. I started out following the MLA national conference and now I'm following a general MLA one, several librarians, and several Lexingtonians who seemed interesting and update regularly.

Today one of the librarians I follow posted a RIP message for her dog. I couldn't send her a direct message (she has to be following me to do that), and there wasn't a link at her blog, but I was able to send her a message of condolence at Facebook. I think I'm finally getting the hang of these Web 2.0/social networking gizmos.

Well, I guess that's it. That last part may not be comprehensible to non-techie types. Sorry about that. But I should go on to bed. I need to get gas and check my oil in the morning and for some reason it always takes longer to get out of Lexington than it should; when half the family is diabetic they take a dim view on you running late and throwing off lunch. :) Good night.

More hours mean more pay

but it was still nice not to be working at the store today, the only day I've had off during the work week. Tomorrow I do my regular Saturday shift, then Sunday I'm off for the game, and then I work Monday. But I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday.

At some point I need to reschedule a cancelled dental appointment for two fillings. I'm having some pain and I'm not sure but I may have chipped a molar. I have such large fillings in most of my molars that it's pretty easy to break a tooth. That may mean another crown.

Today was spent doing interlibrary loans, putting literacy project books on the cart for the clinic, printing off patient surveys, and generally preparing for our big open house at the hospital. I don't go (I did once. I discovered I'm uneasy around crowds and clowns. I never had trouble with clowns until I was surrounded by about seven the one time I volunteered for the information booth. They wanted a pin I had. The lack of personal space and creepy old men in face makeup really unnerved me. I know they meant well, but still....) That is actually one real hazard of my job. You never know when a clown is going to insist on hugging you.

I also spent the day being harassed by ants in my cubicle. It's rained quite a bit and they're coming in one by one. I picked up some ant traps from housekeeping, so maybe that will help.

I'm going to have to go into work early on Wednesday because they're having a free birthday breakfast for those of us with recent or upcoming birthdays. The directors serve the food and our administrator makes omelets. Considering that's the day before I get paid and my food situation is already looking sad, it will be welcome.

Speaking of food (or lack thereof), I weighed myself, and I have officially lost 20 lbs since about September. I weighed 291 at my heaviest; now I'm 271. Go me! Go lots of peanut butter! D said I could be the spokesperson for the Peanut Butter Diet much like the Subway guy is for healthy sandwiches.

I've been playing a lot with iGoogle this evening. It's a personalised form of Google that allows themes and various widgets where you can choose the content you want displayed and customise everything. I have Twitter, Google Docs, Google Talk (a chat client), Google Calendar, a picture-of-the-day from National Geographic, my Gmail account, my Google Reader feeds, a to-do list, a clock, and some miscellaneous stuff, just on the main page. There's other tabs for games, news, politics, etc. My theme changes according to time of day (the sun is shown during the day, at sunrise/sunset, it turns orange, and at night it shows the moon. Anyway, it keeps all sorts of applications that I use daily at my fingertips (and no, I don't twitter at work, since it is in essence mini-blogging).

The picture to the right of this post is of my Yahoo! Avatar. I played with it a bit and have been using a square icon of the face for some of my profiles, such as at Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Okay, it's almost 12:30. Time to go to bed early for a change. Good night.

Yay! I finished my class!

On the mashup section I came across a nifty site called Weather Bonk. It overlays Google Maps with weather information, gives you access to webcams, and displays forecasts. Try it out.

Also, I found a wonderful etiquette blog whilst searching about the white shoe rule the other day. It's Etiquette, Charm, and Beauty for the Woman of Today by Hildegarde Fillmore.

Also, if you haven't tried iGoogle, you should. It's a personalised web page that can be set as the home page that allows you to bring a variety of modules into play, such as Gmail or Google Docs. I have a nifty theme on mine that changes as the sun rises and sets and the moon changes phases. You do have to sign up, but it's free, and if you already have an account for other similar projects then you should be okay. In addition to my documents and mail, I also have a virtual fish tank and National Geographic pictures.

Okay, definitely time to go to bed.