RSSSSSSS

Here is my Blogline feed
www.bloglines.com/public/josiebrockmann

This is great, but I doubt that I will be checking it every day. I would much rather it be on this blog perhaps.

I'll make a link.
I am so smrt.

Wiki

A few clever gals in our ref department have created a Library 2.0 wiki. One of our assignments is to write about a wiki we liked in our blog.
I enjoyed the example of the Book Lovers Wiki from Princeton Public Library. I think a wiki would be a great RA tool. We have an RA wiki, but it is only for internal use. However allowing for outside use could be a good idea.

It's been so long

I'm a pretty terrible blogger. I never could keep up with a journal when I was young. Anyway, I'm halfway through my first semester of school and I enjoy it. I am terrified of writing papers - I have forgot how to do it. I hope they don't suck and I don't sound stupid!
Anyway, my best friend Kari and I just returned from a trip to OKC. We had a wonderful time. It was so nice not to worry about who I needed to take care of. We had some good food, good beer, good talks, we visited a Haunted House which was fun. Lots of screaming and laughing at the same time. We went shopping for over 2 hours!!!! I haven't done that in ages. It was wonderful and I thank my husband for supporting me to go and for my mother-in-law for giving me some spending money.

Who thought of these?

I order fiction for our library and we use Ingram. Every once in a while I will run across an "erotica" book, and man do they have some funny titles! Here are a few notable entries (and no I did not order these for our collection!)
Freak in the Sheets
Longing for Toys
Knockin' Boots
Statue of Pan (this one was just weird)
Every Frat Boy Wants It
Blushing at Both Ends

My personal favorite,
Big Spankable Asses

I honestly wonder if libraries actually order these books???

Dinner with the monkeys

Last night my sister and I took the babies out to dinner at Chili's. I should have known that things were not going to go well, when H was in his car seat crying up a storm because his shoe fell off. I yelled at him - I later explained to my sister that I had become temporarily possessed and while my head did not spin and I did not vomit green porridge, I said something not so nice.
So we get settled down, babies in booster chairs, snacks passed around and crayon pages unfolded, when the waitress comes by and immediatly hands us this huge stack of napkins. They ended up coming in real handy. She must have kids.
For some reason our dinners took longer than expected so the babies became antsy. H would not stay put in his booster seat, so he stood on me and played peek-a-boo with a patron behind us. That man was so nice, I could have kissed him. Then H wanted to stand on the table, no way Jose!
Then the babies started a squealing match and little A can squeal like a little pig!
H would not eat the food I had ordered for him, so I feed him yogurt and he ate some of my fries. Real healthy. Little A rubbed her dirty hands all over her dad's shirt and I somehow sat on the lid to H's yogurt.

I guess when I read back over this, it sounds like a pretty typical dinner time with the toddlers. Maybe it is the fact that I am a first time mom, but man was I tense that whole time. You just have a dread of making a scene, or impending melt-downs. Maybe if I could just relax a little, it wouldn't have been so bad. It was so easier when H wasn't mobile or when all he needed for dinner was my boob.

Thomas

Right now my son and I are watching Thomas the Tank Engine videos. I must admit, I think these are so cute. I love how the shows are not animation, but model trains and wooden people and sets.
I haven't had much interesting things to write about lately. I was hoping for some juicy library patron stories, but people are behaving like little angels.
Oh well!
I'm really enjoying Scott Lynch's new book, Red Seas under Red Skies. It is the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora. These are such fun books. They are very violent and the main characters are foul mouthed thieves, but I just love them.

Shaving

I was shaving my legs this morning and I wondered why we do this? (True, not everyone does this, but many in America do.) A couple weeks ago, my sister bought one of those in home hair removal kits with the wax and strips because she was sick of having hairy legs and never had time to shave them (she has a little baby girl.) It was a huge mess! That wax stuck to everything and would not wash off with soap and water. You had to use this special liquid that came with the kit. Of course the liquid was in this teeny-tiny bottle. What would happen if you ran out?

Anyway, being the Reference librarian that I am, I wanted to see the history of clean hairless legs and pits. According to The Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History, ancient Egyptians often removed all hair from their bodies with the rich employing a barber for that purpose. Soldiers returning from the Crusades brought the fashion of Middle Eastern women who shaved their body hair to Europe. In the 1920's, women were wearing shorter skirts, so they shaved their legs. The razor companies advertised that underarm hair was unhygenic and that the pit stink attachted itself to the hairs. Remove the hairs, remove the stink. By 1964, 98% of younger women were shaving their legs (Teresa Riordan). In 2002, $8 billion dollars was spent on razors.

Grammar bad

My mom just emailed me and pointed out some grammatical errors in my blog. I obviously didn't get her "good grammar" gene. It went to my sister.
Thanks mom!

Blame game

It is always bound to happen, that I will get stuck listening to patrons expound on all sorts of political views and opinions. I try and be polite and try not to argue or debate these views, even when I'm biting the inside of my palm to keep from talking. This afternoon a very nice gentleman asked about a book by an author he had seen on the TV. Then he told me all about this person and his views on the world, namely religion. Religion is bunk, religion is the cause of all our ills, etc...One of this author's main arguments against religion and God was that God didn't stop the Holocaust. I see the argument, I understand it. I don't try and defend God or make up some excuse for the disgusting Holocaust. I remember reading about Elie Wiesel being asked if the Holocaust destroyed his faith in God, he said no because without faith in God all he would have left would be to have faith in man - and he knows first hand the evil man can do. (If I am totally wrong on Wiesel saying that - please let me know.)
I think maybe the better question would be to ask why more humans didn't intervene in the Holocaust. Why didn't we intervene in Rawanda? Why aren't we intervening right now in Darfur? Lets not blame God for our failures.

See'im?

When my son is pointing something out to me, he will ask if I "see'im" (translation see him?) Example, he heard a bird this morning outside his window, said "bird" then asked me "see'im."

So, a couple days ago he passed some gas - which we call tooting. Right after he did so, he smiled, said "toot" then asked "see'im?" Perhaps I will need to teach him "smell'im."

Newbie

This is my first post on my first blog. I'm not sure why I am doing this, I was never any good at keeping a journal. Perhaps I want to explore techie stuff that I know little to nothing about.
I've been reading some blogs about public library life, which are intensely funny. Mine will not be quiet so humourous, but from time to time I will comment on the strange things that occur in my library. I will also wax poetic on my son and family, and occasionally vent my frustrations on said family. My son is almost 2. Nuf said.
Part of my job entails reading and writing reviews for our libraries Readers page, so I will talk about books I've enjoyed or disliked.
I'll be starting graduate school in the fall to become an official "librarian." The program is completely online and based in Wisconsin, while I am in Colorado. I'm worried about finding time to study. The Boy will not give me much room to work on the computer in his presence, so I imagine I will be up late. Which will mean less reading. Which will make me grumpy.