Amazing!

I can't believe it! Flickr actually has photos of the kleine berg (little village) in Germany where I was born nach dem kreig (after the war).

Kloster Mallersdorf
The kloster (cloister) in Mallersdorf serves several functions: a school for young girls and women who want to become sisters, a retreat center when the sisters participate in silent reflection once a year to renew and strengthen their spirits, and a hospital and nursing home for sisters who are sick and/or elderly. In the 1940s, the hospital served as a "lying-in hospital" where pregnant women would go to await their babies.

Sigh . . . those were the days when women enjoyed two weeks or more at a quiet and clean hospital, with excellent food and much pampering. Now, it's in-and-out the hospital door, pop goes the weasel!

I found this photo of the interior of the kloster at Bistum Regensburg, which contains a number of other photos of the church, posted oddly enough on my birthday.

The train station in winter - What a winter wonderland!

The train in winter - I took this same train (or one like it) from Munich to Mallersdorf in 1980 to see the place where I was born for the very first time.

I next searched for photos of Straubing, Germany, which is where my parents and I lived until my father finished his tour of duty with the Air Force. What a beautiful place! I'm sorry now that I didn't make time to go there.

The old city of Straubing from the air - Thankfully most of it was spared during the heavy Allied bombing raids towards the end of the war. Much of that took place farther north, near Berlin and Dresden.

Straubing , Niederbayern, Deutschland - Look at all the bicycles! No wonder many Europeans manage to stay so slim! Saves on petrol, too, which cost around 3 Deutsch marks per liter (about $5.35) in 1994. And we think that $3.59 per gallon is high! [I sure hope I did the math correctly; currency conversion always throws me for a loop.]

The flowers of Straubing - Isn't this a lovely view? Everywhere one goes in Europe, one can see beautiful flowers in neat and tidy windowboxes.

Beer garden at Chinese Tower, Munich, Germany - Of course, a trip to Germany wouldn't be complete without a pleasant afternoon spent at a German biergarten.

Verdict on Flickr? Very cool, especially the capability of archiving one's photos on a secure site where earth, wind, and fire cannot disturb them. If I had the money to blow, however, I'd spring for a subscription to SmugMug. Not only do the creators of SmugMug offer unlimited storage, more security, and greater privacy, they also keep 4 backup copies of each photo in 3 states! Great idea!

Flickr

dis Flickr ting ... she gon take sum time, mon

Off to a great start

Exercise 4: Registration in progress

I’ve sent Bethany an email with the URL for my blog and the name of my blog. I hope that it will show up soon in the list of participants. This was a step that confused me last year and I wasn’t able to find a work-around. This year, for some reason, I found the directions clear as a bell.

Recording my progress is easy at this point. I love to write, and I’m having fun learning about these new technologies. It’s also a gas to refresh my HTML coding skills. Back in the mid-1990s, I used to know loads of HTML codes by heart. Then along came web editors and I got spoiled.

Despite the ease of web editors, I prefer knowing HTML code because all too often web editing programs insert extraneous codes. Knowing the codes also gives you greater control in tweaking a web page. Of course, web pages were a lot simpler back in those days: no Java scripts, no Flash, no whatever cool tools are being used nowadays. In fact, web developers didn’t even use tables much, which was more beneficial for people using web readers.

Interesting blogs by librarians

Exercise 3 - Setting up my Summer 2.0 blog

When deciding on a name for this blog, I researched a number of possibilities, including a couple that were way too obvious, such as the Lonely Librarian and the Lazy Librarian.

The Lonely Librarian
The Lazy Librarian

Funny, neither of these librarians has posted in a long time, which is the case with quite a few other blogs by librarians that I have come across. Sigh, we are such a busy lot, I suppose. We create blogs and MySpace pages, etc., yet have little time to maintain them. So much to learn, so much to do . . . never enough time in a day . . . me, read books? why, I'm a librarian . . . I don't have any time!

Thankfully, I do make time - and have time - for reading, especially now that my children are grown and I ran away from a 2000-square-foot house that threatened to make a house slave out of me. In any given month, I usually read 20 to 30 books and not all of it fluff reading either, fluff being detective and mystery fiction in my case.

In particular, reading biographies and re-reading classical literature have captured my attention this year. Since March I've read almost everything that John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut wrote as well as several books by John Updike (I really enjoyed The Witches of Eastwick ... deliciously erudite and often wicked!). In addition, I've read two biographies about Steinbeck, am halfway into the large collection of his letters, and almost through with a short bio of Vonnegut.

Other interesting librarian blogs:

Marian the Librarian 2.0
Library Buzz
Annoyed Librarian
Science Library Pad
j's scratchpad
ResearchBuzz

And a list from hell of library blogs:
BlogBib

Despite plenty of online references to "learned librarians," I was unable to find a blog so titled. Perhaps few librarians have either the ego or the hubris to take on that title.

Beginnings

Exercise 3: Day One of Summer 2.0

After several aborted attempts to create a blog, I finally accomplished this task. I'm using Firefox these days because I just can't get no satisfaction with IE no mo'. Even Firefox proved to be a challenge tonight when Blogger's server refused to recognize my incoming. After resetting the network connection to stxproxy and taking out the numbers and asterisks and other coding in the advanced mode, eureka! success at last! It'd be nice if someone dropped a note to the Blogger folks that their security words are becoming dangerously unreadable.

These types of problems, which we've been experiencing constantly with our networks and other technologies for a long time now, have left me feeling frustrated and frazzled. Ordinarily I'm very good at dealing with technology issues and I usually have unlimited amounts of patience, but facing these obstacles for such a long time now has eroded my calm and left me feeling short instead.

For example, as I type this, I am getting red messages next to the "SAVE NOW" button that Blogger is not connected and attempts to save and publish may fail. What's a poor librarian to do? Retreat to the rainforest and become a luddite? That's the QotD . . .

7 & 1/2 lifelong learning habits

Exercise 2: Today is the first day of the rest of my life

I thought this online presentation was well done. For one thing, the author(s) paid attention to the needs of all types of users by providing sound as well as a visual transcript of the contents. The navigation tools were easy to understand, and it was a breeze to pause the narrative, move forward, and go backward.

The only technical problem I experienced was in downloading the learning contract. However, a Google search turned up the suggestion to use CTRL, SHIFT, A in IE to access this document. I tried this technique in Firefox, but it didn't work. I then opened IE and met with success. The form itself cannot be manipulated, but that is a minor issue.

The narrator's voice seemed a bit wavery at first, but I grew to like her homey tone by the end of the experience. In fact, I developed a picture of the speaker in my mind's eye as this plain, but pleasant and very comfortable person, someone easy to get to know, someone worthy of my trust.

Of the 7 & 1/2 habits enumerated, the easiest for me are setting up my toolbox and lining up my resources. I have always considered myself to be a pretty quick thinker and a resourceful person, so figuring out a "shopping list" of what I need and another list of who can provide help are easy.

On the other hand, the hardest habits are overcoming obstacles and following through (i.e., the path to the goal and checking in). Just as I would rather clean someone else's house or office, I tend to help others with their information needs before my own. Distractions and interruptions are other obstacles that are difficult for me to deal with.

And I have a lot of zeal at the beginning of a large project, but I find my interest flagging if it drags on too long. Knowing this about myself, I found it useful in the past to include at least one person who enjoys finishing projects whenever called upon to build a project team.