31 January 2008

The Croftin Branch Library. Don was there today for a meeting. Hacking
and sniffling, but there.

27 - 30 January 2008

Thomas sick like dog. Don sick like dog. No pictures. (Trust us, you didn't want to see them.)

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26 January 2008

Tax forms. Every year, librarians across the country act as unpaid
employees of the IRS: distributing tax forms, looking up tax forms on
the Net, printing out tax forms by the hundreds, helping people go
spelunking through cryptic instruction books, locating things in the
labyrinth of the IRS website....

You'd think the lest they could do is give us a special deduction, but
no-ooo.

25 January 2008

Parking lot at Wal-Mart and Mars grocery store.

24 January 2008

This is during our monthly Tournament of Cards at the library. We
supply popcorn and juice, the kids bring their Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh
cards to play and trade, and everybody has a good time.

23 January 2008

This is Cosmic Comix in Catonsville, the third of the comic stores I
frequent.

22 January 2008

Thomas in front of Toys-R-Us in Waterbury, CT on our way home.

21 January 2008

Thomas in the really cool elevator at Le Meridien Hotel in Cambridge,
MA.

20 January 2008

At Arisia, a fan displays her devotion to the Flying Spaghetti
Monster. May we all be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

19 January 2008

Thomas in Jesi gear at the Arisia science fiction convention.

18 January 2008

Here's where I parked Eurovan at the parking garage adjacent to our
hotel.

Useful tip: always take a digital picture of where you parked so you
can find it later.

17 January 2008

Thomas and Melissa in Joann Fabrics in Portsmouth, NH.

16 January 2008

Another comic store: this is Jumpgate in Portsmouth, NH. Jumpgate is
more than just a comic store - it's a one-stop science fiction/fantasy/
gaming store. Great place!

15 January 2008

Nancy, Thomas, Mike, and Frida (the dog).

14 January 2008

Thomas and his Sister-in-Law, Nancy. Nancy and her son, our nephew
Mike, live in Newton, Massachusetts. This weekend we're attending
Arisia, a science fiction convention in Boston; we came up early to
visit with Nancy and Mike.

13 January 2008

Road sign in Pennsyltucky, a little outside Wilkes-Barre. We love road
signs that make names. Don turned "Washington Westwood Hohokus" into
an entertainer in DANCE FOR THE IVORY MADONNA. "Mauzy Broadway" became
a female impersonator.

We figure "Ashley Sugar Notch" is a porn star....

12 January 2008

Members of the Brooklyn Park Anime Club.

These kids are great. They remind me of myself and my friends at that age: they're the outcasts, the nonconformists, the ones with passion for something beyond sports and cars and fashion. Once a month, the Library provides a space for them to meet, as well as a large TV and DVD player, plus a laptop PC for Internet access...and the opportunity to meet with fellow Anime enthusiasts.

I sit in on the meetings, listen a lot, and try to learn what I can. I don't know anywhere near as much as a lot of these kids, but I know a lot more than I used to.

One of the Anime Club members gave me a great compliment: "Mr. Don, you're the coolest adult I know."

11 January 2008

Another of our regular comic stores. This is Twilige Zone in Glen
Burnie. That's Thomas in the green shirt.

10 January 2008

Chick-fil-A in Glen Burnie. The company appears to be owned by some
kind of religious weirdos, but they have really good chicken nuggets.

I'm here moet Thursday mornings for brunch before going in to work. (I
work from 1 to 9 pm on Thursdays.)

9 January 2008

My second-favorite spot in my library is this part of the children's
area. Again, lots of windows and comfy seating make it a very inviting
area. And notice the mural, painted many years ago by a former staff
member.

When I give tours to elementary school classes, we always start in
this area. I tell them to keep an eye out for elephants during the
tour. When we return at the end, they are quick to point out that they
didn't see any elephants. My answer: "Turn around. Do you see the
elephant now?" And there's Babar, staring them in the face!

8 January 2008

This is my favorite area of the library where I work. Comfy chairs,
big bright windows, what more could you ask?

7 January 2008

This is my desk at work. A cluttered desk may be the sign of a
cluttered mind; but if so, then what does an EMPTY desk signify?

6 January 2008

The view from the Info Desk at the Wedt County library. Today is the
first of half a dozen Sundays I'll be working here over the next few
months - at time-and-a-half, hooray!

5 January 2008

One of our ongoing projects is scanning all our old photographs so
they're in digital form. Here's one of the ones I scanned today.

This was taken on 3 September 1992. It's Thomas in front of the train
from BACK TO THE FUTURE III, at Universal Studios in Florida.

4 January 2008

At the comic store. This is Empyre Comics in Glen Burnie, one of the
three comic stores we frequent.

3 January 2008

Not the train station; this is the LED display at my library, that
lets you know when it's your turn to use one of our 13 public
computers. At the time of this picture there were 15 people on the
waiting list. And it's not a particularly busy night.

We serve a disadvantaged community where most folks don't own PCs of
their own, so they have to use the ones at the library.

Meanwhile, branches in the richer areas of the county have a
superfluity of PCs. Some of these branches never have so much as ONE
person on the waiting list.

Sigh.

A Picture a Day

Don here. I'm going to try something new this year. I'm going to try to take (at least) one picture a day. I've figured out how to email pictures from iPhone to this blog, and I will try to keep them pretty current.

Don't expect anything special; these pictures aren't going to be profound or artsy or anything like that. In fact, a lot of them will be pretty mundane. I'll try to add comments, but they'll likely be short and fairly uninformative.

Hmmm. Kinda makes you wonder why I'm doing this at all, eh?

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2 January 2008

Don's Dad. Father-and-Son breakfast at Dennys once a week is a
tradition. And a joy.

1 January 2008

At BWI Airport to pick up our friend Betsy. If you sit too long, the security guards come up and tell you to move along.

We live half a mile from the airport. Visiting there used to be fun; now, because of security, it's a source of anxiety. By allowing ourselves to become terrified, we've given the terrorists exactly what they want. Osama must be thrilled at his ongoing victory.