From searching books to writing one

This weekend is the three-day novel contest. Again.

I'm just gonna write something trashy and stupid. Here's hoping Hollywood buys the screen rights.

Aiming for 40 pages a day. As long as I can think in those terms I got a shot to finish it.

Harry Potter and the Tiring Weekend

This is it. Tonight is the release of the final book of Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The bookstores will be madcrazy with kids and families grabbing up copies right at midnight. And libraries, you might ask? Hudson Regional library is holding an all-nighter party. Other branches in the Pasco County system are waiting until Saturday morning to do our own. Centennial Park included. We're going to be holding games and contests, serving chocolate wands and pumpkin juice, and holding a door prize giveaway of three copies of the book itself. Oh. And I'll be going as Hagrid. Poor mum spent three weeks sewing the costume. We'll be posting pics as soon as available. What does this all mean? Well, for one thing, we're gonna hafta find a new fantasy series to geek out over... ;)

Helpful hint to all library patrons

And by patrons, I mean those who come to the libraries (patron is a formal term for library user).

Ahem. The helpful hint: Please, it would really help just even a little bit if you could remember to bring your bleeping library card to the bleeping library.

I mean, you've planned on coming to the library. You should think that having the library card on you would be useful at some point, correct?

More and more, you need your library card with you, not just for checking out books but also taking care of so many other things at the library. Logging onto computers now uses a time reservation system that requires you to have a library barcode number. Placing books on hold, or on request, that needs your library card. ILL requests? Oh yeah, library card needed. Getting into the bathrooms? Well, that still requires the door key, but in the future well you never know.

I keep getting amazed how people keep forgetting to bring their library cards with them. Libraries nowadays try to make it even easier, giving out keychain versions of the library card so people can have them handy, after all no one goes outside without their house and car keys right?

One of my staffers noted that people who forget their library cards tend to also forget their driver's licenses. So to all highway patrollers and county sheriffs out there, when you pull someone over please ask for their library cards. If they don't have their library cards you can be certain they won't have their driver's IDs either...

So why the obsession over books with blue covers?

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pirate. Oh, wait. Librarian.

When I got my first full-time job with Broward County Libraries, I got my first full contact with the reading public. And immediately ran into patrons who kept asking for books where:

• They didn't know the title.
• They didn't know the author.
• They didn't know the subject.
• All they knew was that their friends were reading it. Oh, and that the cover of the book was blue (and NO, it wasn't the used car price guide!).

It wasn't always blue for the color, more like 90 percent of the time. Anyway, everyone was looking for books with blue covers.
And it drove us insane.
Eventually I added this meme of there being a blue-covered book out there as part of my convoluted website. And as things shifted over to blogging, I created this blogsite as a place to discuss/rant regarding issues of librarianship and hunting down mythic books. Oh, and *SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT* promoting my Cafepress and book sites.

So. To all twelve readers of this site: please keep an eye out for a Book with a Blue Cover. Odds are it's about a man who meets a woman during a war. I think. Or it's going to have Voynich script in it. Or...

Friday Catblogging of Ultimate Cats

Well let's see what we've got to offer for today:
Tehya's showing off her jumping skillz! She gets atop the kitchen cabinet with her wicked grin...


Page, cat number two, prefers to roll on the ground, especially after catnip's been spilled there...

UPDATE: the pictures disappeared! I had to resubmit the images. Hmmm...

My first vacation away from this library

I went on my first full week-long vacation away from work (I had been hired here back in August, and had taken a few days off once or twice before but not a whole week). Things I planned on doing during the vacation:

1. Start work on the Great American Trashy Political Thriller Novel. Results: 10 pages. *head thump*
2. Visit Gainesville, FL, my old workplace to see how things were and how my friends there were doing. Results: Ate at a really good Viet restaurant on University Ave. just a block from the campus. Bought a t-shirt honoring the back-to-back basketball team heh.
3. Attend the Bucs Draft Party for the 2007 NFL Rookie Draft. I had planned on going to NYC in person for the draft (hence the whole week off), but my brother canceled out due to work and so... Results: Got bored out of my mind because I went solo and didn't have anyone to hang with the whole time.
4. Attend a Cupid.com Pre-Dating event in St. Pete and see if I could hook up with an interesting woman who likes me for me (36-yr-old Monty Python comic-reading geekoid who is owned by two cats). Results: met about 4 teachers, 1 desalinization expert, and zero supermodels. Oh, I did meet a few ladies who were impressed that Tehya is a jumper... but that was about it.
   
5. Naps and plenty of 'em. Results: my cats are impressed that I'm lazier than they are. ;)

End results: ton of paperwork back at the office on Monday. And they say the Protestant Work Ethic is a good thing... :-/

My first attempt at Catblogging

Do be patient, I'm hoping to see how successful I am on this endeavor... okay, the Add Image command is here (click):Aha! Here's Tehya opening one eye at me wondering why I'm bothering her during a catnap.