Still around

It's been forever since I lasted posted to this blog. So I thought I would put up a quick post to let everyone know I'm still here but have been unable to get to the blog for a while. This is actually the first time I've looked at it in over two weeks.

I recently got back from a trip to Newport, RI. I was there for a Music OCLC Users Group meeting and a Music Library Association meeting. Both were great conferences and I had a wonderful time while I was there. It was very cold and windy, but still beautiful. Next year: Chicago!!

Now I'm back and trying to catch up at work. At home too! We need to sit down and put together our wedding album with the photographer and we still have a few things we want to do around the house. But we're slowly getting into a routine and I'm starting to feel more at home. Also, we got my house up for sale just before I left town. You can see it on this website: www.lbar.com. You can search by the address: 2563 Crusaders Way.

A lot is happening these days!! Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more again soon!!

Blue 2.0: Google docs

Setting up my del.icio.us account was not hard. It was very easy actually. I've heard about it for a long time, but never took the time to find out more about it. Now that's I've used it some, I'm still not sure I would use it regularly. Some of my reasons are described below.

I'm not really sure what the benefit of this is. I already have a lot of sites bookmarked on both my PC at work and my laptop at home. I rarely find myself in dire need of a particular link when I'm at some other computer, which is pretty rare itself. So I'm not sure I'll use this much.

I added the Blue 2.0 page to my "network" on del.icio.us as the assignment required. But when I went to look at my network I see a huge list of all the links they have on their del.icio.us site. So does that mean that if I add more people's del.icio.us account to my network that list of links will get even longer? It seems a little weird to me to have this huge list of ever growing links with the only organization on them being these random tags. The fact that tags can be chosen in any way each user wants doesn't seem like it would be very helpful.

For example, I added links to my three main professional organization's websites to my account. I tagged them "professional." The Music Library Association was saved by 67 other people, so I went to look at who those people were and noticed that several of them didn't use "professional" as a tag, but instead used "association." Not exactly the best system; but I'm a cataloger, so I prefer some kind of controlled vocabulary. A controlled vocabulary has so many more benefits than random tagging.

Overall, I did learn finally what del.icio.us is (and how hard it is to type that when you're trying to talk aout it). I don't know that I can see using this very often. So this was probably just an exercise in discovery and nothing more for me.

On the other hand, I am creating this document using Google Docs. It looks like you can use Google to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Since these documents can then be shared and edited by a group of people it seems like this would be great for when you have a professional committee or task force who all have to work on something together. It beats sending attachments back and forth, trying to keep track of the changes, and saving upteen versions of the same thing on everyone's machine.

Okay, now that I'm done writing, I just have to figure out what to do next. That is, where does this get "saved"? Hmm ...

Blue 2.0: del.icio.us

I've been hearing about del.icio.us for a long time and was never exactly sure what it was. So this week in Blue 2.0 we had to set up an account and learn how to use it. Setting up an account was easy and it didn't take much to figure out how to add links to the site. My account can be viewed at: http://del.icio.us/Kasclar.

More on this in a future post.

My week

I was supposed to be in Indiana yesterday and today. But I had to cancel that trip. I came home from work on Tuesday after only being there an hour feeling as sick as a dog. I've been home ever since.

Yesterday I thought I was feeling better. My temps were down for the first time all week and I was feeling somewhat better. I was supposed to leave around 1pm for Indiana, but decided that going would just be pushing myself more than I needed to. Good thing too!! By 4pm or so I started going downhill again. Last night was horrible. Chris asked me how I was doing when he came to bed (I had been there since 8:30) and I started crying. I was miserable.

This morning I was starting to feel better and have slowly been feeling a bit more energetic. I'm not ready to say that I'm 100%, not after my experience yesterday.

Chris made me breakfast this morning before he left for work and then he cut up an orange for me to have sometime later today. So sweet of him!! Reminds me of the question on the USCCB website that was set up in support of marriage: What have you done for your marriage today? Check out the website here. Chris could be on one of those videos today: "I cut up an orange for my sick wife". It's truly the little things that make a big difference.

I am getting a little stir crazy. I hate being stuck in the house so much, but I have no energy to go anywhere. We did manage to go to Mass on Ash Wednesday, but I was miserable that whole time. Been watching a lot of TV, something I usually never do. I can't wait to start feeling better and actually get back into my routine.

New England in KY

It's almost Super Bowl time!! We decided to stay at home this year and watch the Superbowl here. No parties, just us. But we're doing it right.

Chris is preparing New England Clam Chowder for dinner and we'll finish it off with a Boston Creme Pie that he started making yesterday and finished up today.

Guess who we're rooting for??

Enjoy the game!!