A digital “have-not”

Well, this is my last #blogjune post and sadly I’m going to use it to whine a little because our landline has slowly died this week taking our broadband connection with it. Curses!

Communication Breakdown by Flickr user Stéfan
Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

It happened like this: On Monday there was a strange message on our home phone – brt brt (like a phone ringing tone) – I thought nothing of it (we hardly use the landline, but it’s there if we want to talk to our family as mobile coverage is a little spotty around our little house). As the week progressed we noticed our connection to the outside world seemed to get slower – we experienced bad ping times on Dr K’s favorite game Mechwarrior Online. Fast forward to last night when we realised we had no connection at all.

Telstra has been alerted to our fate! It cannot stand. Today’s post had to be cobbled together by tethering my mobile phone to my laptop (at least I now have a new skill!). Godspeed Telstra, may you fix our connection as soon as possible.

A facetious post for Saturday

This is one of my silly favourite sights on Saturday.   We call it the paranoid pole.  It’s situated at our local Coles. The text on the sticker says “Please beware police want to label you as a criminal”. We like to park near the paranoid pole and offer comfort.  Taking its picture today probably made it more nervous.  

Fur Friday (short and sweet)

Inspired by this adorable post on Design Sponge, I thought I’d share a picture of my sweet little cat, Tripitaka playing with my Lego late one night.

Tripitaka menaces the villagers

Have a happy weekend everyone!

It’s not that hard! (though it can be surprisingly difficult with ebooks)

Yesterday we held another “It’s not that hard” staff information session at my work, this time on ebooks.  I was one of the group presenting this session for other team members at my library.  My role was to facilitate the discussion part of the session, following on from my two colleagues who had introduced the topic and discussed the ebooks we had on offer at our library and the trials and tribulations of our poor clients trying to access them (hence the title for today’s post).

We only allocated 10-12 minutes for the discussion part of the session so I broke the attendees into four groups, gave them their discussion topics and told them that they had a maximum 5 minutes to discuss the topic and a 2 minute report back to the entire group before I had to hand on to the next presenter and the conclusion of the session.  The discussion topics were inspired by the American Libraries June 2013 econtent supplement about digital content – a very interesting read.

It went really well (well, one group went a little off topic at one point but they had access to our e-resource librarian and she was happy to answer their many questions about our resources). The report back time was full of interesting comments and demonstrated that the groups had really considered the issues the discussion questions raised in the short amount of time that they had to work with.

This was one of my best It’s not that hard presenter experiences so far, I’ve been lucky enough to work on two other sessions in the past – cloud computing and copyright (major thanks to Molly who works tirelessly to organise us into doing these sessions and to my other two colleagues who put up with my usual whimsical ways of working).

Photo of an “artful” arrangement of Young Adult titles back from the days when I was a Youth Services Librarian (we were having a pizza and book review party – a good night as I remember it)

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Thinking of my mother.

Me, my mum and my sister (1990?)

Pamela Jean McGill November 13, 1949 – June 25, 2000.  13 years yesterday.

Peeps, it was bowel cancer, most of the time easily resolved – if you see blood in your stools please  get to the doctor and insist on a test, it could save your life.

Sorry to be morbid, she’s been on my mind a lot lately.

Elegance is refusal

Elegance is refusal

– Coco Chanel (attributed)

Coco Chanel – Image by Flickr user chariserin
Creative commons licence Attribution Generic 2.0
(CC BY 2.0)

I first read this quote in (I think) The One Hundred by Nina Garcia (although, it may have been in one of my other fashion books – I really must make better use of referencing software!)

I have this quote on a sticky note attached to my pencil pot on my desk at work.  I tend to use it to remind myself that I can say no to sweets (and remain elegant).  I don’t think this is necessarily what Chanel meant in her statement, it just works for me.  Funnily enough, my pencil pot had been pushed to the back of my desk and turned around before I did my ergonomic repairs last week.  Finding the quote and pushing it back to front and centre has been helpful in getting my head back in the healthy living game (that ball has been well and truly dropped).

I’m amused that I looked for another quote that I could share because I don’t want to appear too vapid (this journal is already ample proof of that!) but decided today to just go with what the universe presented to me, the quote that I actually copied out and put on my desk.

Monday Meme – Travel

Monday~ time for a meme.  Thank you to The Bun Toting Librarian again for another great one to share.

How old were you when you first travelled? My first major journey was in 1982 when we emigrated to Australia from England.  I was 8 years old.

What is your favourite form of travelling: car, bus, train, or plane? Plane

Where did you go on your first road trip? The first one I can remember here in Australia was a holiday up to Geraldton – all went fine until Dad insisted on taking the pretty way up to Kalbarri in my Mum’s new car (the road was just pebbles and was very rutted) I don’t think she ever forgave him for it and any squeaks the car made after that were considered his fault!

Where did you go on your first bus ride? I first started using public transport in high school as I went to one out of our local area – but I think the intent of this question is about travel and I think that might have been last year when we were in Scotland, we went on a lightning Highlands tour (completely awesome).

Where did you go on your first train ride? From London to Paris via the Channel Tunnel.

Where did you go on your first plane ride? London – Kuala Lumpur – Perth

Motion sickness? Treatment of choice? Not for me usually – exception: Boats (nothing helps).

Where would you like to go that you haven’t been? Italy. My Dad went to Italy the year before last and had a fabulous time.  We’re talking about going together next year.

Where would you like to go back to? Scotland! (although I don’t look like I was having that great a time in the picture below).

Me at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle.

Travelling alone or with someone? Dr K is my ideal travelling companion – we usually have a lovely time.  We’ll see if I get along with Dad next year… I suspect I get too introspective if left completely on my own.

Your ultimate travelling dream? This is a moveable feast.  At the moment I rather like the sound of a cruise on the QEII (somewhere tropical) but a month ago, I wanted to travel to India and before that, a cruise down the Amazon.

Lazy Sunday Morning.

I’ve had a lovely morning. Dr K made pancakes for breakfast with berry coulis, yogurt and maple syrup. Then I picked up my little sister (yes she’s 36 but she’ll always be my little sister) and we went to UWA for the Upmarket. We both bought a dress and Lucy got a pair of pendants that were very cute. We got our lunch there, Snags and Sons was holding a stall selling New York Style Hotdogs (delicious) and then went back to Lu’s for a cup of tea. Now I’m sitting on the couch considering a nap. I love a lazy Sunday.

So lazy that I don’t have a new photograph to share … here’s a Lego model I completed earlier this year: Tower Bridge in London. Started a year ago but only recently completed because Tripitaka the kitten was a little too interested in the process when I first started the build (it had to be put away to save my sanity).

Hoping you are enjoying a lazy Sunday too.

Polar Bears

Something I learned before we flew off to Iceland last year was that there are no polar bears in Iceland (this fact was very disappointing to one of my close friends).  However, we did actually catch sight of some on the streets of Reykjavik …

Go home Polar Bear, you’re drunk.

There are however, polar beers. Quite vicious ones! Do be careful of these…

Polar beer!

[Sorry :)]

Adjusting to a new set-up…

Yesterday I was whining a little about not being able to do any of my favourite activities on my doctors orders. One of his other recommendations was to arrange for an ergonomic specialist to come in and view my workstation set-up.

So above, is my new desk set-up.  If you are following along at home for #blogjune I posted a picture of my desk a couple of weeks ago.  The changes are not that dramatic.  This is what the specialist suggested.

1. Lowering my monitor at least 5 cm.  It’s now propped up on an Oxford Dictionary.
2. Angling my monitor back a little (this allows for my eyes to relax, not be wide open which in turn allows them to keep lubricated – a real problem for me as our workroom is aggressively air-conditioned).
3. Moving my mouse to the left side of the keyboard instead of the right (this is taking some getting used to)
4. Switching the buttons on the mouse to support action 3
5. Lowering my seat so that there is a 5 cm gap between the top of my thigh and my desk (two finger width).
6. Using more keyboard short-cuts (finally learned that Alt+s sends an email).
7. He recommended getting a document holder for my desk like this one – Angle Board Microdesk Regular.
8. He also suggested taking regular breaks from keyboarding and using the generously sized window ledge by my desk for standing up reading.

I already had a footrest that is in frequent use.

At home I’m going to consider getting a little footrest (my feet dangle unless I pop them on the sub-woofer under my desk).  I may end up adjusting the mouse on my PC so that I have some continuity between work and home, though I imaging my gaming will take a little punch whilst I adjust.