I also had two valid reference questions today that I totally rocked out. The one I’ll mention was from an education student at a local university who was looking for information on Resource Rooms in Special Education.

I have no idea what Resource Rooms in Special Education means – so I did a quick google search and fell onto the about.com web page that gave me a little bit of background. I knew pretty much off the bat that we weren’t going to have much in the public library on the topic, especially in our print materials. The student related that she had already been through WilsonSelect and ERIC without much success. She said she had found one article that she Interloaned from 2000, but it wasn’t enough, and that she wasn’t finding much at her University Library.

I did a quick keyword search for “resource room special education” in ERIC and came up with something from 2008. But she was right, this was gonna be a little bit narrow on the results. I’m not familiar enough with educational terms to do the whole synonym thing – so my next step was to head to Google Scholar with the author’s name as a search.

We found the original article and I pointed out how Google Scholar shows you who has cited the article – and how you can use that to kinda expand your search. (Forgive me, but I’ve forgotten the official citation search database I was using at WSU — somebody refresh my memory please.) Then – once she grabbed the journal names that the articles were in – she could likely use her University’s resources more wisely. Her professor had enlightened her to ERIC and WilsonSelect – but something was nagging at me that she had failed to mention the specific journals as opposed to the conglomerate databases.

The end result was that she walked out with what I’m going to take as a swing in her step – a little confidence – ready to do the business herself. It really saved MY day today – almost as much as my sole.

*edit* Oh. I almost forgot to mention Google Reader Play. There. I mentioned it.

I have sadly become one of them.

There’s a lot of stress in library world right now. What with property taxes taking a nose dive and the economic downturn as a whole, not only is the general public on edge, but your friendly, normally heavily sedated librarians are feeling the grind as well. At our library we’re looking at a 15% reduction in the budget, on top of the 5% or so drop we took in last year. Where does that leave us? Substitute librarians are a thing of the past for now. Department, committee, and any other meetings that take us away from the desk are being shuffled and cut and spaced out further and further apart. (I can’t say that this is completely a negative thing. There are often better ways to communicate within an organization than through monthly meetings. Still, the encouragement to become involved with your professional organizations or any other outside the box thinking is not as boisterous as when I first arrived on the scene about 5 years ago. Our lot has been cast, and that lot means that) Our eight hour days are now to be spent with additional hours on the desk dealing with increasing amounts of reference transactions.

Yet, even with the increased gate counts and reference transactions – libraries are taking a hit. It’s a cruel twist that in the times we’re used most, we don’t get the support we need. So it goes.

So I am pressed for time, and I’m pressed for sanity. It hasn’t been an easy three years for me. I’ve experienced unspeakable pain and loss, well, unspeakable in that I won’t talk about it to anybody but my therapist. I really had no desire to sit down here and type anything out. But the other night I was lying awake in bed and I was thinking about how good it felt to finally sit down and actually think things through and just write it out. I have a post about group/silent study rooms or the lack thereof to thank for that. I’ve read Nicole’s work on the web as far back as I can remember, but group study rooms and their demand has become such a flashpoint in the past two years that I had to respond. I was a little unfair in picking at her choice of words, but I was trying to convey that there was equal frustration on the other side of the coin in regards to what libraries can and can’t do with the space and resources that we have. I think she understands that, and I’m glad that she takes the time to write up posts that are more often than not worth the time none of us have to read.

So I want to start writing again.

I used to put pen to paper daily. I used to love the ink releasing and actually used to have decent handwriting. I’d go all out for the loopy letters. These days I’ve been reduced to chicken scratch. I would much rather type than pen. I think I just have to accept the new medium, but I can’t accept where it’s put me as regards to my writing. I don’t need to find the time. I need to make the time, getting back to the introductory paragraph. I don’t want to be that person who shuns off something because they feel they’re too busy. I know I can do this. I see other people doing it everyday.

There are really three things that stopped me from writing. One was the aforementioned unspeakable. I went to a dark place, and I think I’m just about ready to emerge from that. I’m not afflicted with clinical depression, thank goodness – but I was definitely not in a good place for the past 3 years. The second was the chilling effect from worrying about what work would think about what I wrote. It was doggone thoughtless to register this site and expect to write about professional matters without fearing the repercussions. I’ve got a backup plan in the works for when I feel like I need to vent, something akin to this, but not. The last reason was that I’ve become fed up with my hosting provider. All I wanted was for the lifestream to update on its own, every 30 minutes or so – but these guys haven’t been able to get it done. So – for the first time since Yezbick.com has existed (2003?) – I’m likely to migrate to a different host once my lease runs up here.

There are other things, of course. Facebook and twitter are worthwhile distractions. But they don’t give me the release I can get from pounding at the keys to usher in an 800+ word update. They distract me from that. I’m fairly convinced that this is my return. That I’ll go ahead and make an hour an evening and have a go at it. I’ve got plenty of material to rehash. For starters there’s my delicious account. I could talk about any one of those sites that I’ve found it worthwhile to store into my own personal database. It was actually my “Read it Later” queue that inspired me to sit down here tonight. I’ve let it grow and I meant to make this post an exploration of the links I haven’t quite gotten to as of yet. Instead I’m on a rant. Perhaps I’ll put that off until tomorrow. I’ve become quite adept at procrastination.

1000 words. I promise it won’t be like this every night. Not even close. More than likely it will be more akin to:

Interesting –

Social Eyes presents librarians with an exploration and discussion of new social tools and current trends. The column will address both practical and innovative uses of social technologies that will improve the quality and efficiency of library services.

Unfortunately I don’t remember where I grabbed this from – as Read It Later – doesn’t give you the spot where you actually noted it from your twitter stream or wherever. So I can’t give credit. SOZ. This isn’t the case with my delicious account. There I often make the effort to at least plug a little bit of what the site is about and try to hook up a via tag. Either way – I think there’s a lot more to be said about the things I come across – if just to make me feel better and more productive.

And here I am – closing out this rant – and it turned into something exactly the opposite of what I expected it to be. Here’s hoping I have the same resolve tomorrow to go over what I didn’t get to today.

So, I’ve been back from Britain for a while – had what can only be described as an awesome vacation while over there – and now I’m slowly getting back into the rhythm of things. It’s a rhythm that has been somewhat complicated by falling ill over the past week – but thanks to well wishes from my Gramma and a scategory of other people – I’m back in the saddle again.

Being back in the saddle means being back to work – which is what happens when your vacation ends – which is just something I’ll have to deal with. Don’t get me wrong — I’m damn lucky to have a job right now — it’s just…meh.

I also have been waiting patiently for a plugin to finally kick back into gear — the plugin that generates that lifestream that you can see on the right side of this page…It’s called lifestream…and it’s not streaming. I tinkered with the site for a while — took it down, put it up, unplugged, replugged, changed permissions – and now I’m just waiting for something to pop up and say YAY – WE FIXED IT…

But I thought I should go ahead and set something down here. Keep this fresh. Like that banana.

If you haven’t already — the other pictures are up on my flickr page.

Take Luck.

I’m away from the office until the 27th – catching up on American Style Wrestling in Great Britain. Cheers.

We intended other things not so clearly defined. Like the horrific memory of an early teacher pounding into our heads the idea of prepositions and prepositional phrases – and the doom that would rain down upon us should we dare to end our sentences in such a state. It has stayed with me, though not in its intended form. I learned more about the nature of people than words in those two years. They can’t be trusted. They are all insane.

I’ve lost faith in medicine. Another notch on the wall. I wonder whether all hands immediately reach for their pockets, billfolds, wallets, etc. etcetera ETCERA!!!!

I’ve lost faith in nearly all things, and now I stand silent, a black hole on a beautiful day. I can trust in normalities – the beauty of a bird’s song is simple to behold, much more complex to appreciate.

I can’t, however, trust that this one particular squirrel doesn’t understand me. I spoke to him moments ago as he clung to a tree, startled that I had pulled back the door to allow the slight breeze to fill my nostrils with the pleasantries of spring. He did not move. He only fixed himself upon the bark and stared at me. At other times he would chatter – but this time he seemed to be listening.

I know it is the same squirrel. He became trapped in our home a few months ago. Somehow he had managed to get caught in a conduit leading to the furnace. (the furnace has a shut off safety precaution whenever something is blocking its main vessel, so he was not toasted squirrel) In freeing him from his captivity – a process that involved my father’s old army duffel bag and increasing amounts of adrenaline – part of his tail became shorn. I’m not sure what freed those fibers from that feeble creature, a creature not so much feeble as demanding a poetic line, but to this day his lack of tail cover serves as an identifier.

He is more deliberate in his motions than the other squirrels. He will sit for hours at the feeder. He often sits so that he may look in through the glass door to spot whomever may be seated at the kitchen table. In this case, me.

I wish I could communicate with that squirrel. Right now it seems we just have an “understanding.” Understandings are things meant to be misunderstood. I try not to reach these artificial understandings with people anymore because they are simply a means of saying “let me get what I want and if you get something out of it as well, so be it, but this is about me, even though we’ll say its about us.”

There is something magical about this relationship I have with this squirrel. Something in distance and lack that creates momentum for sentiment.

There is so much more I want to say, but I’m beginning to scrape the bottom of the well. Things aren’t as lucid as they were moments ago, if lucid could be the term. Millions of zany dots crashing about and into each other, some occasionally screaming to be heard. Now there are relatively few thoughts. I had zoned in on the squirrel and everything else seemed to move away to give me my space. Is this meditation? Is this controlled thought?

I’m intrigued by the possibilities of thought control exercises. I’d intended to research it. I intend to research lots of things. I am plagued by curiosity. Since I moved up here I have yet to remove my favorite childhood toy, a Curious George doll from its perch in the back of my Focus. I think I’ll do that now. So that I may take a picture of it. Oh, but perhaps I should stay. I wouldn’t want to just walk away from this exercise and lose all motivation to continue. Standing and moving about may be just the sort of thing my attention requires to ignore things that I find pleasant.

If I do move about, the headache will certainly become much more prominent. With nothing to occupy my mind but destination, I’ll have more cognizance relegated toward physical ailments – of which I obsess over quite a few right now – particularly in the nether regions. The unspeakable. Those invisible pieces of ourselves that only the doctors we no longer trust have complete knowledge of. And there is another preposition. And there is another fear. And another complaint. A gripe. Collected so many of those I made a category for them in this here CMS.

Managing content. Ha. Can I manage this? I can’t even manage myself. Oooooo! Jerry! Jerry! You see? Things are supposed to be superfantastic, but I leap at the opportunity to hurl insults at myself, possibly to deflect your chance. I imagine when I begin something like this, that I feel is earnest and honest, a queue of people ready to unleash their own slings. And this isn’t “cool” to be discussed. It isn’t sage. And yet I’m firing it out and into the open abyss of the world this afternoon – with but a fleeting glimpse into the future of how it will come back to haunt me when seeking employment at the great salvation location that as yet has to be determined.

Employment. Classes. Stress. Erratic physical abuse.

Now I have switched trains and am moving about the tracks of which there are several tunnels in succession that grow darker with each passing moment. It starts with feelings of worthlessness, which are only accentuated by ruminating on my age. And time. And you just can’t stop it.

Lately I’ve given up on people. I think they all hear what they want to hear – and there is nothing you can do to stop that. I am in doubt as to the strength of any of my friendships. I only hear intermittently from those I love. And if I keep talking about this I’ll start crying again. And that’s just what we need. Another 28 year old man child crying into the internet.

I’m only able to look back, it seems. This all started because I took the time, a considerable amount of time – about 4 years now, to think about what I wanted to do with myself and what I enjoy. That vision has remained constant. But it is shrouded in a “Gaussian blur” behind several other layers with similar effects employed. It is an image of aspiration, a goal, but isn’t clearly defined. I’m losing sight of the dream when I stare directly at it because I can’t pick out the details.

Ultimately it is going to come down to me. To my motion in the world. Frenetic Kinetics. What will happen then? I can’t even depend on myself now. I fail so often at the little things. Oh. Wait. Wait for it. Yes! There it is — a welling in the eye. pathetic.

There is a space between the brain and the skull. I think my mind is stuck there. Cycling round and round. Claustrophobic.

I’m screaming into the void. I’m screaming into the void. I’m screaming into the void.

I got in trouble for this once. I got grounded for a while. I wrote what I thought was an artistic piece and sent it off to that same teacher we mentioned before. I remember only that it included a phrase turning about something like “the grass was like razor blades, cutting into the sole.” Mother got a call and the nuns were passionate in declaring that they could have called the police. That this could be perceived as a threat. I was stunned. I was then very angry. I was forced to write an apology for something I wasn’t sorry for. Someone had misinterpreted what I was saying and I was cubbyholed and made to apologize.

I’d see that teacher every so often in the years that followed. The strangest emotions would always creep up. There was something in it similar to the feelings you go through when seeing an ex shortly after a breakup. Only I had no love for this teacher. Looking back I wonder whether I can push her over into the crazy lady pile. Looking back I wonder whether any of those women teaching at the school had any sanity. And I feel bad for the counselor. Who was learning. And was assigned me. And tape recorded me. And I don’t know how anyone can’t put on a show when they are told they are being tape recorded. What could her class possibly learn from me? People hear what they want to hear, and sometimes people say things just to be heard — but I don’t know that you can ever say that people say things clearly. Words are symbols. Yada yada yada.

Where is this coming from? Is it a natural response to the guilt I have for over-exposing myself to helpings of wine last night? What is it with wine that I can’t restrain myself? Was that masochistic?

Should I just delete this entire rant? This is going to come back to haunt me, isn’t it? Because, heaven forbid we should ever be honest with anyone.

Oh there’s a lot of anger in me. I shouldn’t leave off so angry. I should exercise some thought control and see if I can’t walk away from this feeling superfantastic.

Even though I can’t see it clearly, I know I have a plan. I also know that I have a lot of growing up to do – and a lot of inner objections to that Idea. Perhaps my notion of growing up is skewed. I know I’m a different person than I was ten years ago. I think I’m wound tighter now. I think a lot of that has to do with how I spent (that squirrel is freaking out. But it’s not the same squirrel. What is he so pissed off about now? There. I took a picture of him. But he is the impostor squirrel – so don’t get the wrong idea.) Now for a loaded question – what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah — how I spent the last four years of my life. If there is one thing to put my finger on to get a pulse of a direction my life should have avoided — it would be my last job. I should’ve walked out of that place and never looked back the minute I got that paper degree. That paper degree that says that I can read and think real good. Yeah. Reaaaaaaal good.

I think that place gave me a lot of issues that I’m still holding onto today. Issues of respect and self-respect. I think it tore me up and spit me out and didn’t have a problem in the process.

That squirrel is freaking out again. This is why children torment animals. This is why we can’t live in communion with them. Their words don’t register as symbols with us, just as annoyances.

Whatever. I’m done with this. I can’t talk about the deli anymore. That will just make me start feeling more pathetic and angry all over again. If there was one thing Mark McGuire had going for him during his testimony – it was that he wasn’t there to talk about the past. I wish I could say it as clearly as him, and mean it — “I’m not here to talk about the past.” I think that perhaps healing whatever is wrong with me starts with figuring out why I’m here. I’d like to work myself toward a more spiritual life — but I think my issues with my fellow man make a common spirituality impossible. I could ramble on about God here — but the phone is ringing.

It was Uncle Larry. He left a message. Hi Uncle Larry. Sorry I didn’t pick up the phone to talk to you – but I really don’t think I could handle it right now. This is making me laugh. I think that’s a good sign. We’re headed toward the land of the superfantastic.

Yeah. So. God. I’d love it if I had faith – but at the same time — something about God makes me think of Horses and blinders. God’s path is a different story. You can walk the path of God — and you can walk that path alone. I think I believe the bit about God being within us a tad more than the rest of it. I tend to associate God with will. And as should be evident – my will is not strong. Faith in myself is near rock bottom. I am not the same person I was a decade ago. I’ve been defeated many times. But this spiritual side is something that has been missing for probably fourteen years now. I guess that’s basically when I lost faith.

Funny — that’s also when I ran into crazy lady and the nuns.

Is faith meant to be shared? I think faith is meant to be shared in the sense that you let your actions dictate your faith, and your faith dictate your actions. The latter portion is where I’m falling short. I have a profound lack of faith in my will – which is weak – and I haven’t come to know God in any sense.

I can’t go back to the church. I hold beliefs in the rights of men that would be grounds for excommunication. The church is supposed to be about a community — but lately it seems to be an exclusive club. Built with walls of shame.

So I want to exercise my spirituality. I want to feel a keener sense of it while I’m carrying out my daily activities. I want to begin to appreciate life again – and perhaps more important — appreciate myself.

I think we can leave off here. We’ve come to a better place than where we started. We’ll see how this plays out in the coming days. Thanks for sticking around.

A company logo for SOKETI –our database project. Unnecessary – yet added some fun to the whole process. Feedback welcome.

Now if only we could construct a database.

Yezbick.com may be undergoing some changes soon…
Must research multiple domain registering.
Decision time is nearing.

I now have a nifty little plastic card thingy that I have to slide through the credit card slot while managing. It makes my job seem — tangible. Like I’m really a manager – and don’t just play one in some deli.

Still – the little plastic card doesn’t ward off impatient pricks. I’d like to slide it across the jugular of several of the clientele that came in tonight and raised a ruckus. A ruckus I say.

And – it doesn’t magically create all possible combinations of menu items — those weird requests we get have to be manually entered as we come across them — thus the ruckus with the impatients.

Now I’m at home — and in six hours I will be in the shower — waiting to experience the thrill of computerized chaos all over again.

I just wish I could play Defender on those touchscreens.

And I wish someone would paint a portrait of willi that sells for $900…

“Don’t look at me – I didn’t do it,” I said defensively. “You know — you do have the wrong web address on the menu. It says stcharles and leaves off the deli…Maybe somebody else has the legits for that site…Sho nuff…Pretty funny stuff…

P.S. Still no word on when my baby be coming back.

Tried to brighten up my enviro with a little holiday lighting…One strand in front of the house looks really cheapo ghetto – so I am trying to refrain from running out to Big-Lot’s to buy some more…Actually – it’s rather easy to refrain – as lately I just don’t want to leave the house.

I was “given” the night off of work last night…The night before I’d been overworked — we had a sketch $190 order come in and I did a lotta takeout biz — and what with the ingenious cutbacks I had double the amount of the ordinary to deal with…So when I got a call early the next morning asking if I was gonna come in and do the extra work they had piled on me since I didn’t get to it last night — I kinda flipped. But righteously so…

Now I have to go back…Fo real doh. Have to have a talk with the big man too…greaaaatttt…

There are a lotta things to be checked out that should be in the siz-urfed box — but I just haven’t had the time to check them all out…I know there’s a lotta talk about some movie called The Day After TommorrowTomorrow — but I can’t get this computer to watch it…

Frustrations are mounting to a fevered pitch…

Need to start shopping.
Car needs brake job.
Cohesiveness is gone.