NCIS Day at the Office (Activity 21)

Found this on YouTube. Credits on the clip. Thanks much!
PS You Tube is addictive and should be considered hazardous to your sleep cycle. Hence our esteemed colleague's warning: "Look for something that interests you on YouTube... Spend a few minutes exploring (and we mean just a few - it can get addictive)."

In case you'd not guessed NCIS is my favorite thing next to Star Wars, peanut butter and Italian food. Don't get much of the latter any more and it's wearing thin, but that's another story.
Videos have endless uses, but don't try to explain how to use internet on You Tube. If you can't get online how are you supposed to get the video. That's what 8-year-olds and libraries are for, haha, I will still have a job in the near future since robots don't shelve books yet.
Oh, since you've not made it to the end of the video yet... Mark Harmon's in charge, in case you haven't guessed. Notice everyone gives him front stage? It's kinda like when the priest walks in, everyone remembers something they need to confess and suddenly the floor is very interesting.

Technorati (Activity 14)

I'm a little lost in this site. Lots of fun stuff to look at and RSS, etc. However, not being all that thrilled about 'real news' because it makes me ill, Technorati doesn't seem terribly interesting to me. I like taking pictures better, on real film. But in the interests of space with a trip to Europe coming I'll probably switch to digital sooner rather than later. Bumber, I like my old camera.
I also don't read much in the way of blogs. Wikis more, but I don't trust their accuracy much either. I'm still old school, what can I say.

Cool Stuff (Activity 17)

I posted my blog's 'readability' just below the Meebo widget. I'm glad all that college money paid off. Wordshoot is a fun game http://cognitivelabs.com/word_shoot.htm just watch out for the bad guys. Your typing skills will help there. I don't know any funky questions to ask Yahoo! Answers.

Delicious (Activity 13)

My only question is: besides the IS desk list, how do I find other delicious lists? I can look up anything and it's been tagged by whoever, but that just means they think it's connected to that tag or I think it's connected to that tag.
I looked at some of my tags. I only tagged them that way because it was mentioned once in my blog. The only indication of tag accuracy is the number of people who labeled it with that tag. I guess it means you think alike if you tag something and look for other things with that tag, but there's always someone who tags differently and they may have a great site, but you might never find it.
PS Here's my list if anyone's interested: http://del.icio.us/hmack

Wikis (Activity 16)

I have 2 favorite wikis to which I've contributed. One is http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. This is also known as Wookieepedia. It is a favorite of Star Wars fans such as myself. I've not had much time to add to it, but it is always growing. Most of the stuff I know is already there. I use it to aid my fan fiction writing. So many folks are so nit-picky about details in such things. When I write I check my details against the wiki, especially when I write minor characters and can't remember things like the color of their hair. This is getting easier though, most of the standbys are going gray.

My other favorite wiki is http://nciswiki.cbs.com. This site is part of wetpaint, a wiki discussed in Discover 2.0. It is a fan wiki for the show NCIS or Naval Criminal Investigative Service a spin off of JAG. This site contains summaries of most of the episodes from the last 5 seasons, information on the cast and characters, photos, favorite quotes and a list of 'props we covet'. (http://nciswiki.cbs.com/page/Props+we+covet) The props list is extensive and includes Bert the farting hippo (a stuffed animal, you can guess what it does), an NCIS badge with ID and morph-pro software (to determine the look of your future offspring).

As for concerns about wikis: anyone can post/edit anything on them. If it isn't monitored how do we know the information is correct? Teachers in my day wanted primary resources and internet was the last place you looked because there was no guarantee of accuracy. Not that the dates of the Civil War have changed, but you were safer using PAL because it was actually in print somewhere in a magazine.

I like the camping trip idea, but if you're backpacking a cooler is way overdoing it. It's heavy! You camp near a stream and drop your 'cool' stuff in a bag in the creek. No one brings a cooler backpacking! Even my family leaves the cooler in the car with pop and juice for afterward.

My friend and I used to write a fair amount of fan fiction together that this would be an easier way to post and edit what we've written. The only problem is that life has taken over and our writing is severely outdated in the grand scheme of Star Wars. However this would make it much easier to keep up. Now if only the library could get the books faster... patience is cheaper than rushing out to buy books.

More RSS (Activity 8)

I tried out topix and technorati. Feedster wasn't working. I'll try it again later. I didn't have much luck finding stuff though. Both appeared to be regular news browsers. I searched for a few items, but didn't find a whole lot of articles. Only one was 'exciting' enough to put on my delicious links. There was no blogger RSS feed. Go figure! On the LISwiki Weblogs I did find and link a couple more library links to add to my collection. Yeah me.

RSS Exploring Bloglines (Activity 7)

Yikes! That took 2 hours of reading and rereading and geez then there weren't any obvious links on the sites I wanted to add. Then I reread it again looking for the key. The little orange box thingy on the end of the URL line. That would have saved me about 45 minutes. Oh well, at least I figured it out. It'll be more fun when I try to teach others how to do it later. But I can put that off until Sunday while I let my brain relax a little. Next time I'll ask one of our gurus.

Fridge Letters, Street, and No Trespassing sign (Activity 12)

A message to my brother about borrowing his DVD's it's much cheaper than going to the video store. Mel Brooks has created some of my favorite movies: Young Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and of course, SpaceBalls. I saw SpaceBalls a half-dozen times before watching Star Wars. Many of the lines sailed right past me as I had missed that generation. I remember my parents not being thrilled that I had seen it. We were pretty much a Disney movie family, nothing over rated G until I was in Junior High. Of course, the rule faltered at friends houses and when sitters were over. I saw Indiana Jones, Top Gun and Dragnet in pieces several times before being allowed to see the entire film. Top Gun and Dragnet were hidden in the dresser, not for children to watch. I also had a couple of sitters who would allow me to stay up late and watch something with them after my brother and sister had gone to bed.


And now to Bein' Green. (It's not easy according to Kermit the Frog and he would know). Yoda on the other hand, while having the same issues: a small, green puppet voiced by Frank Oz and later a C.G.I. swordsman through the work, presumably of Industrial Light and Magic, is another of our favorite characters. However, the inspiration behind Yoda Lane is the Sound of Music. I have not seen many movies where Yoda-ling occurs. Sorry, bad pun I know. I take full responsibility for hanging out with punsters. What can I say, they're my other family and I love 'em.

And finally my No Trespassing sign. Appropriate that it's attached to a fence as I ride my bicycle and often use fence posts to lock up. I do drive a car, but gas is just expensive. And such is life.

Meebo (Activity 9)

This one's in purple :) Hooray! No more switching between IM's. Meebo is a cool toy. I even created my widget thing, but I can't figure out what to do with it. I guess I'll figure it out when I'm not so tired. I even figured it out while half watching a movie. IM reference is phone reference without the phone. There may still be a wait, but no need to tie up the phone. Plus if you can't find something you want, let them do the looking for you. We love questions like that. It's a great challenge.

Social Networking (Activity 10)

I'm writing this one in red because I can. The whole social networking thing is very cool. I tend to be more traditional in my social networking i.e. I prefer personal contact rather than someone I met on the web. However, it was craigslist.org that got me a place to live. Therefore, I use it to a certain extent.
I see where the question of caution enters. There are lots of nice people who are just looking to network. And there are others. As for libraries taking part in social networking I think it's great. These are the good things of social networking and it allows the younger generation to be excited about libraries. Especially since primary sources are required for papers and projects and the internet, while wonderful, doesn't usually count. But that's another story.

Trading card (Activity 6)

I've never been much of a card trader, but this is kind of cool. I wish it would show more of the tree behind me. Those trees were so tall and there's not really a good way to describe it. Makes you realize how small we really are. That was a great trip.

Picture Post (Activity 5)

How cool! My two favorites in one picture! Abby, Goth forensic specialist of NCIS (TV), with her black light wand playing Jedi of Star Wars. I saw this episode recently, Hung Out to Dry, Season 1, Episode 2. The parachute lines that she's checking turned up evidence of sabotage. The Marine who's death they were investigating had the same name, strangely, as one of the TV crew members. As Gibbs (Abby's boss) would say, "I don't believe in coincidences."

7 1/2 lifelong learning habits (Activity 3)

Title provided by the folks wanting me to learn something.



Easiest part of learning: PLAY!

Perhaps because it was instilled in me from an early age. Our preschool (scary that I can remember that far back) was all about play. We had puppets, sandtables, watertables, typewriters to tear apart, a small shop area for wood, nails and hammers. I am still playing. When not at work I spend countless hours volunteering at church (they're about ready to give me run of the place or kick me out, can't decide). Most of these jobs aren't terribly exciting, but they give a sense of purpose and allow time for casual conversation that's lacking in the usual formalities.



Hardest part of learning: Goals...

I think this is because the easiest part of learning, for me, is play. I don't want to limit myself by setting goals for that play. I taught myself to play guitar, but that doesn't mean that I want to learn picking or any radically difficult chords. I learned lots of new chords just by looking for songs I wanted to play, but I started with easy stuff. Three chords got me a long ways into the Kingston Trio book and I can play with The Group on our camping trips and get-togethers. Those same three chords, plus a few others have served me well in playing some of my favorite church songs. I'm not brave enough to play them as a music leader, but I trade on my percussion skills instead.

One of the clearest goals I remember having was wanting to be an altar server at our church. For those who don't know what this is, basically you are an assistant to the priest during Mass. I had wanted to do this when I was young, but you had to be a certain age at the Catholic school I attended. We moved before I was old enough. Later in high school it struck me again, but we attended church so far away it was difficult to get there on time. Also, the whole family had to come early.

Finally in college I asked the priest if I could serve. This took me several months as I was learning the lay of the land and felt out of place disturbing our priest to ask for training. He was very helpful and though I was very nervous the first time and did a few things wrong I was gently corrected. Later I trained others in these tasks and have enjoyed watching them grow.

I enjoyed training at my current church this past fall when I spent many hours writing and rewriting the guidelines. Two dozen bright-eyed kids came for training and are doing very well. New and exciting things invade each weekend: incense and bells for special services, sprinklings of holy water and extra blessings. And the kids thought my manual was difficult, ha! I didn't include the incense instructions in my original draft.

The current goal is to get Sunday out of Saturday night's onslaught. Lots of kids going back to school turned in their books yesterday. Thus we have many full carts to order and shelve. Back to work!