Daily News

This sure is strange to me. I usually don't get sick and to be sick twice in less than a month!!! I guess it is the odds catching up with me though. I work at QBPL in Jamaica in the YA room. I probably see a minimum of 300 kids a day. THIS is the season I guess for it to happen.
I felt a little woozy yesterday near lunch time and about an hour after lunch I knew I was sick. I did not leave for two reasons. One was that I only had one shift left and the other reason was that I am not in this alone. Sharon, my sweetie, is a librarian in the same building as me and I did not want her to have to leave early or take the bus home alone. Sometimes I think that I am too gallant but hey, that is me.
A strange coincidence is that my brother had similar feelings the day before and was taken to the hospital. I think that the main difference was that he passed out and I did not. I think that if I had passed out I would have at least wound up at the doctor. I will call my sister Rona and see if anyone else at her house Sunday was also sick.
The mystery continues.

Lazy Saturday morning

So far today is just one lazy day. I have set my GPS to find a theater in Port Washington later tonight and went to mapquest for a printed route. GPSing is still new and I would like to see the route beforehand. Sweetie and I are going to see Steve Earle at the Landmark theater. I have heard tell that it, at one time, was a school. I hope that the seats are better than I remember in high school.
I have spent time on Facebook checking out the musings and ruminations of friends and family and sent some tiny messages. I even recommended some should be friends. Now it for them to decide.
In a little while I will go out for a 3-5 mile run. I don't want to push it too much though as I have only just restarted the running after have a upper respiratory infection. Not running for 3 weeks sucked. I ran a short 1 1/2 mile run on Thursday and it felt real good. Over too soon but I did not want to push it. Know your body. That is a mantra for me.

Work, work, work

The library is starting to become a bit oppressive. I am not speaking for anyone but myself. Customers know that there are rules and want them followed when it suits them but god forbid they are told NO. Some woman today sat down at the YA homework computer today and when told that it was only for YAs started in with"I only need it for a few minutes". When that did not work she claimed that a clerk "out there" told her she could. When I told her that the clerk was wrong and I know the rules for this rule, well then I was just being nice. Then she asked for my name and I gave her my first name and my employee number. Damn, if I don't get my way I will complain rather than understand that the rules are supposed to be for all. Exceptions should be made for her though because she complained, right!
I sometimes think that I should submit things to the effing librarian. Maybe I will, but not yet.
On an up note (and just in time) I started running today for the first time in 3 weeks and I felt great.

Inaugural Day 2009

Watching at the library today was certainly a thrill. I do have fears about the Obama term(s) in office. The hope that people are expecting are almost certainly too high to reach. There is so much at stake that this man, no how good his intentions is being set up to be a target of political opponents.
The hope that his administration offers and the belief that so many people have put in this man is astounding. It is touching that there is now such a feeling of being able to affect the way government moves should be encouraged. To take it away would give generations the feeling that empowerment is just an illusion. This is truly a power to the people moment and I hope with all my heart that success is achieved by this amazing person.

It may be way too much to ask of any human, but he has been by his followers.
A bit over dramatic, maybe.
I am only sure that the climb has begun.

Sunday the 18th of 2009

Today is my Sweeties birthday. I can not say enough about her. Her name is Sharon and she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She is my wife and I can never describe how important she is to me. She is smart, insightful, gorgeous, hot, thinks I am special and loves me. When I see her look at me I know that it is a special look. I love being in the same room with her, even when we are not talking. I keep thinking "she picked me". I am the luckiest person in the whole world. She makes me think of poems. Two that come to mind are:

"Jenny Kissed Me" by Leigh Hunt My apology to Leigh Hunt for changes I made.

Sharon kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Sharon kiss'd me.

"BROWN PENNY"by William Butler Yeats

I WHISPERED, "I am too young,"
And then, "I am old enough;"
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.

"Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair."
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love.

Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

I know that there are other things going on in the world and in my life but there is nothing more meaningful to me or my life. That is why I am kvelling on my sweetie today. I always think about her but today is something special.
I love you baby.

library program for Martin Luther King Jr.

Well tomorrow we are gong to be having a program that is to honor the memory of a great man, Martin Luther King Jr. The program started years ago and it involves students writing a letter to MLK . Some of the letters are touching, others look like a homework assignment and others are funny because they were written by students who did not pay attention to the whole lesson in class and because of it, some of them are very funny.
Tomorrow there will be dignitaries ranging from the Queens Borough President Helen Marshal to local bigwigs and we just found out today that Senator Charles Schumer may be here. You can just feel the need for photo ops, it is so thick. But a lot of the students will be here as well as at least one teacher and it really is about the students being recognised for what they are doing and learning It will be a busy day and probably a lot of fun. At least it will seem like more fun after the day is over.

supermarket ripoffs manufacturers lies

Today at lunch with a bunch of coworkers/friends the conversation turned to the difficulty in figuring out prices in supermarkets. For the same item you can see prices figured in ounces or pounds. For others it might be per item but then the items are of different weights. You have to be smarter than a fifth grader just to remember the weights and measures. The manufacturers lower weights (potato chips, cereal, coffee) have items in many different weights (cereals and candy bars) shrink size (toilet paper for example).
None of really think that prices will not go up but NONE of us like being treated like we are fucking morons. We know that it is a ploy to confuse us. We are confused but know the water is being muddied on purpose. It is only making people sure that there is an attempt to lie to us on a massive scale. It is a pity because it is ruining trust in corporations and what we expect from them. I have watched and have seen that inflation is going up. I expected prices to rise. I did not expect it's rise to be camouflaged to try to hide it's rise in the hope that I would not notice it. Guess what? I noticed and so do most people. WE are not stupid and don't like being treated as if we were.
I think that is all I have to say about this for now except I don't think that corporations will ever admit it unless they have no choice.

Theft at the supermarket

Today I opened my new circular from Waldbaum's and I notice that the Bumble Bee tuna was priced at $1.25 a can. Not much more you might think until you see the small print and notice that the tuna can's weight is now only 5 ounces. That is one ounce less that it was until real recently. A few months ago I bought some cans for 99 cents and they were 6 ounces. Just before this I also noticed that the Scott's toilet paper said "still 1000 sheets per roll". Yep, that part is true but I had noticed that the rolls were smaller and I had some older rolls around that said it was 125 square feet per roll and the new ones NOW said 115.2 square feet per roll. The price goes up and the size gets smaller in both cases. I think that is a double theft. A year or two ago the yogurts went from 8 oz to 6 oz. and they did it under the guise of portion control. The price dropped at first but then went up. In both cases the serving size was one in each container. So they lied about doing for portion control. Next, have you noticed that there are lots more sizes in everything ranging from cereal box sizes and weights to potato chips. The supermarket plays along by not being consistent in how they price them. Some will say 40 cents per ounce and others will give the price per pound or in ounces and then pints or quarts.
I know that they don't want to look to be solely blame for the prices going up but they are helping add to the confusion. I guess it should be called collusion.
I am tired of the deception and outright lies. The stores and producers should be honest and the weights and sizes should be transparent as, I believe, the laws on supermarket price displaying was intended to be.

Don't it Figure!

I had been sick and out of work for 2 days last week. It seems funny that just as I feel real good, my wife has to go to the doctor and is told that she has to stay home for at least a week. It seems she has been having headaches for the last 2 months. I only knew about the ones that were real head bangers. She is now taking prescription painkillers and the doctor has prescribed a CAT scan for her. In the past (and present) she has suffered from migraine headaches but this seems to be going on for way too long. I know that Sharon would like to know just what the hell is going on and so would I. During the holiday season, which started just before Thanksgiving, when this thing started, she puts herself under lots of pressure to try and have everything go right, and not just right but perfect. Not a fun way to prep for the holidays. That probably played a role in the start of it and then the pattern is set. At least I think that it starts to feed on itself. I think that I have more ways to release the pressure. For one thing, I try to go with the spirit of the season and don't expect perfection and I also have running which is a great way to relieve stress for me.

Quiet time? It sure doesn't sound it.

Today I have been hanging around the house taking it easy. In a little while I will be going to watch at least one of the football playoff games. Even though I am taking it easy it will seem like I am doing a lot this weekend. Football tonight, and tomorrow it is a birthday/brunch/football playoff party @ my brother-in-law Gary's house for him. It is always fun seeing him and his wife Janet and some of my nephews (hey Devon and Brian) and a niece (hi Rebecca) and also a big hello to Bosco, their Chocolate Lab. Tomorrow is also the new season premier of "24". A rip roaring 2 hour start. Be still my heart. Cheryl and Al called about seeing us tomorrow night as we have not seen them since before the new year. Then on Monday night it is another 2 hours of "24". 4 hours in two nights, thank god we are young (well at least my sweetie is) and able to take the excitement.It is also a good thing that Sharon and I are off until Tuesday. Sitting there for two hours, on the edge of our seats will drain the energy right out of me and then we are going to do it again. OMG!!!!
This is all predicated on the amount of snow that does or does not fall tonight. I could be home early and stay there until work on Tuesday. Thank god for the food pantry. We could be here for a week or two as long as we have gas for the stove.

Doing library stuff

I came in to work today so no one got stuck having to work from 9:30-9. I also wanted to monitor a program we are running for the YA's. It is a writing program that is about to produce it's first issue and it is called Teen Zine. I think that some of the stories, poems and drawings are really, really good. There are a couple of poems that are just outstanding. Well, no one showed. I know that it is cold out but not that bad. After after I was there for 20 minutes I called it quits. 5 minutes later one person showed and it was too late. Maybe next week the kids will turn up in numbers.
We try to get the teens involved in things that they like. We look for feedback and were hoping to find out how they would like to distribute the Teen Zine whick will be out in about 3 weeks. I hope that they can give us something next week as there is still time to impliment practical ideas.

crappy day, feeling crappy

Well this is different. I usually don't get sick but I am now. I am probably a crummy patient because it is something I am not used to. Also the weather sucks. It could be worse, it was supposed to turn to snow during the night and it stayed as rain.
Enough kvetching though, there is so much more that is going on. I am going to make reservations for air, hotel and car for a short, hit and run to Florida. We will see some good real friends, Jane, Bernie, Shelly and Jeff, on a whirlwind stay and also see my mother-in-law Grace. She is a wonderful woman that I have known for about 30 years.
It will be good to go outside in shorts and tee shirt and to have an easy run. I love running. It lets me think about things and work them out in my mind. Hard to believe that in high school I couldn't even run around the track once. Back then the gym teacher was a real asshole, being one of the last people to finish he would make me and a couple of kids run again. Hey, we had trouble with it the first time, why did he think it would be any easier the second time around? Everything would hurt too. Now running lets me think without too much interruption. I almost always feel great after the cool down.
Later today a good friend and his wife are going to Belize for a well deserved vacation. I know that Christian and Vick will have a great time NOT thinking about work at all. Right? Man am I jealous. I guess that won't help me much.
Anyway, enough rambling for now, I'll be back later.

Library Fun

Well, today there was the official groundbreaking at Queens Public Library main branch in Jamaica for the Children's Discovery Learning Center. Oh the excitement. the borough President, Helen Marshal was here as well as Thomas Galante, the Director of the Queens Library and other local notables . After the indoor ceremony there was the photo op taken with students and golden shovels (not used on the students). One of the photographers made a comment to another photographer about how funny it was that the dirt had been brought in just for this shot. The other one said, "you mean this is staged". Funny guys.
Well, so much for the excitement. We are trying to get the Young Adult room ready for the RFID team. They are going to be tagging all the books in the YA room starting in just a few days.
Yesterday I watched a football playoff game with the guys I play softball with. They are a great bunch of guys. They may seem, sometimes to be a bit cutting but when someone really needs help they come through. this was then followed up by a birthday party for Sherry Murphy, one of my sister-in-laws. I love getting together with family. What can I say, I have some great family members.

learning stuff

Usually I think of myself as someone who is not handy. In the past two weeks I have done a couple of things that has made me question the statement I just made. I know my foundational belief for not being handy is crashing down. I recently installed a wireless router and got it to work all by myself. Stunning! More amazingly, I followed this up by installing the security for the router and then got it to work on my wife's laptop when she could not do it. this is truly a New Year miracle. She is the handy one, not me. The world has almost flipped around. What more is to come? Watch and see along with me what the world has to offer.

Let's try this again

I seem to have trouble doing this on a regular basis, at least up to now. I hope to be more responsible to the updating of the brog from now on.
I probably will do or say what is making me happy, mad and going on in my life and the world.
There, that seems to cover lots of ground and I have not even done anything yet. But I will, I have things on my mind and this will organize them. I have always told YA's (Young Adults) that writing it down makes you focus your thought more.