Monthly Archives: December 2006

Job seeking

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Tuesday, I was sought out and offered another job. It would be academic hourly doing “stacks maintenance.”

I would so love to be able to help with this important work; but I have made commitments to others. The beautiful thing is—I was the 1st choice and I have a couple weeks to decide. Yes, as of now I have declined. :(

I do not want to get into a lot of detail (yet) but I feel very honored to have been asked to help with this work. While mostly not cataloging, it would involve fixing those stacks nightmares that need sorted out before going to remote storage. I would love to spend more time in, amongst, and working with the materials in our stacks, and in providing better access to them.

I have a very broad and deep experience of working in an academic library for six years, but UIUC is vastly different on so many levels. While possible (for a very few) to get to know every square inch of Milner Library, that may simply be impossible for anyone at UIUC, even just the “stacks.”

Whatever the differences, I’d like to get to know our stacks better. There’s something special (and different) about all book stacks.

And while this is not a “professional” position, it is valuable work. Work that goes on everyday, despite whether or not the doer has a bunch of letters after their name. It takes commitment, caring, attention to detail, and professional decision-making. So, if you think I’m silly for being honored to have been the first considered for this position, please go read other blogs.

I don’t think the most important trait in a library worker is whether or not, and how many, letters are after their name, but which ones actually give a crap and are competent. But, those, are not PC questions to ask or discuss.

As to my looking for jobs

I’m not actively looking for jobs right now. I am monitoring one fairly active list, primarily watching for positions here that might open. I could probably be a bit more explicit about looking for local positions, and maybe ought to step that up a notch.

I figure I’ll be finished with my degree at the end of next fall at the earliest. Of course, I could do my 8 hour project from most anywhere. Mid-year is not a good time to be looking for academic jobs, though. So, I need a job next academic year, or I might need to slow down and finish spring 2008.

Of course, folks are welcome to dump interesting “professional” positions in my lap in the meantime. Especially if they are local. I just need to stay in touch with folks extended across bits of campus.

Ode to a beautiful day

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I woke up feeling sort of unanchored and not quite sure how I felt. The morning (and day) was beautiful! 40 degrees and sunny.

I left work early as I needed access to some tools that we seem to have temporarily lost access to again. I could have started something new, but I did not want to contribute any more to my “problem pile.” I may just have to move on tomorrow, but that’s tomorrow.

This is the 8th year in a row that I have finished a university semester as a student (among other roles) just 2 weeks before Christmas. Some years the transition is better than others. I’m not Scrooge-ish this year, but I had made no progress towards anything related to a week from now. I had cards, but no stamps. Not a thought towards presents for anyone. Other than that I’d rather skip the gift exchanging this year. But that doesn’t work for all. And I had the discussion with few anyway.

So I went to the Post Office and got stamps, came home and found labels, updated the address book(s), printed labels and got about 1/2 of the cards in the mail today. I got several more ready for tomorrow, and more needing notes but otherwise ready.

Great customer service from Polk

I was productive in other ways, too. I called Polk Audio to find out if they have replacement parts for my 12-year old speaker. They do! Currently out of stock, but will have soon. The very helpful young man took the time to suggest ways to narrow it down to which part I need. We have the same suspicion.

I got through to a real, helpful, person very quickly. They still have parts for 12-year old speakers! I love Polk Audio. Some might even say I heart it; not me. If I can fix my own speaker I will be ecstatic. I have been trying to ignore the fact that one of my main channel speakers has been acting up. That couldn’t last. I would certainly replace my fronts with more Polks, but I’m in no mood to research what I want. And, besides, I never wanted to have to replace these speakers. I absolutely love my S10s.

I really wish they were fixed right now, but the world is looking up.

Adventures in Cooking

I made myself a pork roast today with a little IM advice from my friend, Iris. I hope she got to count it as a reference stat; a tick mark somewhere in time. ;)

I ended up basting it with Guinness and butter. My, my, was it ever tasty. I need to do this more often. We’ll have to see how the leftovers turn out.

Friends

Just recently, partly due to mental jogging via Dorothea here, I put several of my blog buddies that are non-local in my Friends folder instead of in Librariana (biggest) or elsewhere.

While I agree with Dorothea’s sentiments as espoused in her post, some of us are not as far along as others in this way of experiencing life. It can still be a bit odd sometimes. I also think part of the problem, for me anyway, with the idea of virtual friends vs. friends is the ridiculously simple-minded concept of “friendship” in much social software. That, for me, tends to color any idea of online friendship, whatever that may be.

But. She made me realize that as difficult as it might be to distinguish between the two, and that there may be no reason to do so, and that I have friends that fall into this camp.

Thus, I moved some folks in Houston, NY, MN, WY into my Friends folder. Because it now seemed silly to have a folder for blogs by people I can see reasonably often.

Musical love

I have the best friends! This one—in particular—is amazing.

We are both in “being scarce” mode right now, but still communicating in various ways. She had given me a forewarning, and today I got a present in the mail. In reality, two presents: “on the mark” and “off the mark.”

For images she used two of her photos that I have marked as favorites [on] [off]. She did a good job aesthetically and metaphorically matching the images to the titles, too.

Much of this music is new to me, although some is familiar. I’ve listened to them both once now. I started with “off the mark.” So far, I was immediately attracted to tracks 6 and 8 on “off:” Black Steel” by Tricky, and “The Garden” by Cut Chemist. Both are completely new to me. [Shhh! I was dancing.]

Thank you Jennifer! I’ll let you know more as I listen more.

Random productivity

I also scanned, cropped (a tad), and uploaded more photos today. The ones I added today were all from album #1. The wedding photos go in the midst of these, chronologically speaking. Actually, I have rearranged the set of scanned photos so that they are probably in chronological order now.

It’s a Beautiful Day

That it was; especially since it started out negatively ambiguous. The day was lovely weather-wise; I was productive; I have hope for my speaker; I made very tasty meat and it was exceedingly, stupidly simple; and I have the most amazing friends.

Now I have to get jennimi’s CD in the mail; and apologize for not being able to make her an original mix right now. I haven’t even made myself one in years.

If you’d like a copy of resonance [here and approx. the next 18 posts], though, let me know.

Semester’s over (sort of)

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Just finished my last class for Information Modeling with Allen Renear. I also managed to send in the last bit of work I owed him before class so I am really done with 590IML. Yay!

The ‘sort of’ comment is due to the paper I still owe Carole Palmer. I’m in a sort of slow research phase right now for it, but it’s not due until 14 Jan 2007.

To celebrate my semester being “over” I am going to see one of our local musicians, Kayla Brown, play a free gig at Aroma Cafe tonight.

I saw Kayla perform solo 2 summers ago, I think it was, and have been unable to catch up with her since. Actually, I ran into her bartending at The Blind Pig, but that’s not the same thing. She’s also playing solo tonight. [Update: Photo set]

Need to return some movies first, so off I go.

Disappearing act

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there’s a crack in the concrete floor
that starts at the sink
there’s a bathroom in a gas station
and i’ve locked myself in it to think

Ani DiFranco. “Shy.” Not A Pretty Girl.

I do not mean to alarm anyone, nor is this a promise, but I intend (and hope) to more or less disappear from here for a while.

I have not been very happy with what I’ve been producing for a long time now. While it may be my life, and it may be of importance to me, it is mostly public pap.

Bounds of discretion and friendship prevent me from saying some of the things I would like to; thus, I end up being vague. But none of my friends are stupid. So is the vagueness even helpful, or does it lead to hurt feelings via misunderstandings? I certainly do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, just as I imagine that no one intends to hurt mine.

And in reality, this issue is much, much larger than some of the ill effects of social software. That is just the most recent issue. I have no intention of totally eradicating the personal from my blog as that is what I like best about some of my friend’s blogs. But. I need a better balance.

I have a paper that needs to be written over the next few weeks, work to make up at one job, and another that wants me to work more and use up some of the funds budgeted to my position. I have yet to send a single Christmas card and haven’t bought a single present for anyone. I have a million tasks/projects around the apartment that need working on and no time.

For someone who wants to organize information/knowledge, I am currently leading a life that is an organizational mess.

There is no need for anyone to be overly concerned. This is not a cry for help or anything. [When I start talking about going to the Grand Canyon you might consider worrying then.] I am just not very pleased with much of my life right now and I need to find a way to do what I was finally able to do with my educational life recently; that is, tell myself a (semi-)coherent story. [Boy, do I sure wish I could take Storytelling over!]

I do need my friends, near and far. Please do not think I am asking anyone to stay out of my life! I am not. I am only hoping to get some things in order, even if that is only in the stories I tell myself. So please feel free to contact me if you like. I won’t be too concerned if you don’t though. I know how this time of year gets. The usual methods for contacting me apply—phone, assorted email, comments here, IM, see me on the street, ….

…there’s a bathroom in a gas station and i’ve locked myself in it to think.

Root canal. Part Deux.

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I have to go get the 2nd half of my root canal today. They only did so much last time because it was infected and the endodontist could not get it cleaned out properly. So he packed it with medicine, prescribed some antibiotics and said “Please come back so we can do it again.” With a smile, of course.

I’m not so worried about the tooth really. It’s more the stupid weather. It looks like an almost perfect repeat of the last time. At least it won’t be 2 days in a row this time!

Champaign: Cloudy with chance of showers and isolated thunderstorms. Highs in the mid 50s. South winds around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.

Normal: Dense fog advisory in effect until 1 PM CST this afternoon.
Cloudy with chance of showers and isolated thunderstorms. Areas of dense fog. Highs in the mid 50s. South winds around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.

Again, I have to ask myself if me and this tooth are worth several hundred more dollars. The first $1000 was a bit easier to justify being in immense pain and all. Now. I just don’t know. And, of course, I’ll still have to go to the regular dentist in a few weeks to get it filled. So even more money.

But I have an appointment and I try to honor my commitments.

Social software (can) suck

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When the flames rise around us and I can’t see the door
This is still my home and it has never burned before
This is where I’ve taken my solace and my peace
The walls are caving in but I am still a stubborn beast.

Jolie Holland. “Stubborn Beast.” Springtime Can Kill You.

I have decided that I do not like so-called social software. It has been building for a while now, but it has almost reached critical mass for me.

Now, please do not misunderstand me, social software can be extremely useful. It has been (and still is) useful to me. If I thought it was totally useless I would have pulled my Flickr, Facebook and MySpace accounts.

But I (and I have no doubt many of the “kids” out there not quite geeky enough to be one of the new cool kids) really didn’t need another reminder of the fact that I am occasionally “tolerated.”

Like I said to someone the other night, “It is always complicated.” Heck, I’m not even breaking up with someone and I’m still confused about how to handle this problem.

[And, no, jdm, this has nothing to do with you. Just a useful quotation.]

Arrangement of categories. Archives. WordPress.

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To any WordPress users or mavens out there, do any of you know how to make the categories on an Archive page display in the hierarchy that they are in in the author area(s)?

See my Archive page for what I mean. Scroll down below the months and you’ll see the Categories. They are in the order of their internal WordPress numerical order; sort of in the order they were created, except many were imported so who knows what “order” that imposed? The ones at the bottom certainly reflect the order in which they were created, though.

And I’m sorry, but that is a completely stupid way to display them. They are not arranged that way in either the place where I write my posts nor in the Manage / Categories page. They are in alpha/heirarchical order in both of those places.

So, anyone know how (plug-in or otherwise) to get them to arrange differently?

Thanks in advance!

Validation. My life has been validated!

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Validation Results for [user-supplied text]

Document validates OK.—————————–OK, OK, only my DTD and document instance validate, but that is good enough at the moment. And, in fact, my DTD and document have been validated for a couple days now.

Just a bit ago, I finished answering the 5 questions we also had to answer, verified I met the exercise constraints, revalidated, and then emailed my files.

Yippee!

Now I only have to finish the first marked exercise before the week is out. But at the moment I am trying to help some of my classmates with their last minute validation issues via the electronic bulletin boards.

Update: Fucking WordPress! People say use the HTML source editor, but it is completely screwed up too! I have repeatedly tried to do a little basic formatting to this post in the HTML source editor and it is repeatedly doing whatever the fuck it wants to. My code is perfectly legitimate (and validatable) markup. WordPress’ is not even close! I despise a product that doesn’t allow me to write and use valid markup!

WordPress is really starting to get on my nerves lately!  This formatting issue likes to crop up now and again, amongst other problems that make my blood boil.

Where I am with this semester?

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590IML – Information Modeling — We got our marked exercises on conceptual modeling (ER, EER) back a couple of days ago and I was super excited to discover that I had aced it. Yay me!

I’m working on my DTD and document and got an early but nearly complete version to validate earlier today. Yay! Now I need to add an element with mixed content and maybe another attribute somewhere and then validate that. I also need to add comments for everything and then revalidate to ensure I didn’t dork anything up. I have until Monday for this.

[Right before I went to the GSLIS Holiday Party early this evening I add a mixed content section, added some mixed content to the document and validated it. I went to the party momentarily ecstatic. :) Now I just have to add a few minor touches and revalidate.]

I ran into Allen yesterday and asked him about finishing the 1st assignment or what. He said just go ahead and finish it. Seems kind of silly [for various reasons], but fair, too.

590TR – Information Transfer and Collaboration in Science — I have finally found a paper topic; just a little late in the semester, which means once I get my advisor’s signature my semester will go on for just a bit longer. :(

My topic is, for me, a bit like climbing over the wall with the sign that says, “Here be monsters! Keep out!” Some of you might be able to guess where this is heading with all my “word issues” lately.

I am going to look at the mapping of multiple, conceptual vocabularies for use by interdisciplinary scientists. Mapping work (for various purposes) has been going on for decades now; much of it “lost,” some of it found again, much of it being redone.

The reason this “be monster” territory for me is because I have serious doubts about how well these techniques can work. I have no doubt that they can in some limited domains, but how generalizable are the techniques, intellectual or machine? Another issue is the limited number of relation types in most thesauri. Much research, in many disciplines, has gone into lexical-semantic relations. Some researchers have discovered as few as 5, 7 or 9 types of relations, while some have found as many as 400+!

I don’t know what the “real” number of relation types is, or if there even is one “true” number that holds across languages. My guess is certainly not, especially to the latter. But I am well aware that a thesaurus with only BT, NT and RT is sorely lacking in its relationships and is a poor model of the rich lexical-semantic relationship between words and concepts. But do I want to be the one coding those relationships? Hard to say, but I’m guessing ….

I also owe Carole some comments on the assigned readings for the week I led discussion since I said I would provide them.

590CS – Seminar in Classification Systems for the Organization of Knowledge — Been finished. Ha ha ha. Now that‘s funny! One is never finished with Pauline. ;) I’m still doing thesaurus work since early summer and I’m now hip deep in CS stuff, and it seems like I will be for many a year. :) So, yes, class is over and I got an A, but the work continues …. I am so blessed to be able to learn from, and be guided by, Pauline.

Dang! I need to get my coffee date scheduled.

Oh, on a non-school note, it’s official … I am a member of the ASIST Standards Committee.

Schlock! vs. The Atom and Eve

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This evening I finished watching a movie I started last night, Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies (2001). Pretty interesting history of exploitation films and larger changes in American society. But on the DVD I rented—in the extras—is something even better:

The Atom and Eve.

By the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company, 1966.

Oh. My. Freakin’. God.

It’s a bit over 9 minutes long and is referred to in the notes as “simultaneously hilarious and horrifying, “The Atom and Eve” epitomizes the lethal and consumerist “straight” culture the exploiteers rebelled against.”

Holy crap. No kidding, Batman.

[Oops. Meant to say some more.] If you are (were) from New England, you would be more likely to have seen this consumerist sales pitch for nuclear power [back in the day, anyway]. It was the promo for Connecticut Yankee’s (a consortium of 11 power companies in all New England states) 1st reactor to be built at Haddam Neck, CT. Despite the calming allure of blue-clad Eve dancing around all the consumer goods, all the suits towards the end repetitively telling me they had checks and double-checks and that it was “all good” had me worrying again. But, damn, that floating coffee pot in that fully furnished modern kitchen was an awesome appliance. And God forbid, and Jimmy Carter forgive me, but Eve was looking pretty darn hot sliding up in that refrigerator. Ackk! Gah! Pure unadulterated evilness, it was. Decades of the best psychology could dream up and prove effective simply to market a way of life. A highly suspect way of life. And speaking of the nuclear…

I loved how this film [Schlock!] treats Duck and Cover as an exploitation film. The government has been hard at work at scaring the citizenry for a long time. At least all of my life.

The exploitation of fear is a very powerful tool.