Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

It's a snowy morning here in Amherst (and on GI when I left home). They've been getting wholloped in the Southern Tier this week, but we've had rain for the last few days, which melted the snow that we got last week. It's still too warm for it to be nice snow -- it's 32 degrees. So it's a wet sloppy mess for the most part.

Because Ethan stayed home with Russ and Will, I stopped at the local coffee shop to grab breakfast. A yummy egg, ham and cheese sandwich on foccaccia and the best decaf coffee I've ever had. While I was waiting for my sandwich to be made (yes, they made it from scratch), I noticed a number of homey-looking pies on one of the work tables. Cherry pies. I asked, and all but the one with the almond-crumble top were already spoken for. Well, I bought that one for dessert for tomorrow. It was still warm. Ahhhhhh.......

Of course, on the radio they had to do the story on Thanksgiving travel. Someone (I think from AAA), said that "Thanksgiving is a magnitudinous holiday." Huh.

Our New President

This was posted on the New York Times website four minutes ago:

"Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, as the country chose him as its first black chief executive."

Amen.

He won Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Three huge swing states. Amazing. There will be no questioning this ending. Not like the last two elections. I couldn't dare to hope. I mean, I did hope, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too high, having had them dashed over the last eight years. But this is real.

Will he bring the United States back up in the eyes of the world? I think so.

Costs of digitization

Why is it so hard to find costs for digitization? If you do research, you'll find wildly different costs, from $.04/page to $20/page, and different costs for text vs. images (which I can understand). But you'd think that people who do grant-funded projects would have published this info. Don't granting orgs want this kind of information? "So, Ms. Soandso, how EXACTLY did you spend the money we gave you?" Also, you have to put costs in your grant proposals. Are those figures just pulled out of... [ahem] the air?

This looks ok: The Price of Digitization: New Cost Models for Cultural and Educational Institutions

I like this quote from the end of the summary for the above-linked symposium report:

"I ended by quoting Voltaire, "the best is the enemy of the good," and urging people to go for more material at lower costs and quality levels. I also think we urgently need help demonstrating why we need these projects. Institutions don't quantify the value of new information and fear that it is used by those outside their community; we may need a new definition of community." (http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.lesk.report.html)

Let's remember that: The best is the enemy of the good. Let's make it our mantra. I may have it tattooed on my butt. Or at least put it on my office door. (No one would see the tattoo.)

Technology Issues

Kind of a pain when you install a Firefox add-on and it makes Firefox not work properly. Granted, it was a beta of Google's new toolbar, but still. I expect more from Google for some reason. I'm crazy.

And, why will iTunes take some of my files but not others. Why is it discriminatory? I'm only trying to put MP3s in. Are some MP3s better than others? That doesn't sound right.

Oh! And, the LibraryThing app in Facebook has stopped working, so it's not updating my list of things read. Thankfully the code is still working here on the blog.

My Wii

I finally got a Nintendo Wii on Friday, and found a Wii Fit on Saturday. Now my crazy stalking of Target can end.

Of all of us, Will was the only one in our family who had used a Wii, and of course he was tickled, and wanted to play it RIGHT NOW! Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. The old Sylvania in the living room wouldn't switch over to game mode, so moved that, along with the DVD/VCR player to the basement, and brought the Toshiba with built-in DVD/VCR to the living room. The screen's a bit smaller, but it's much clearer, and everything works.

Finally got everything hooked up, and Will and I played a number of games Saturday night before supper. After the boys went to bed, I pulled out the Wii Fit and did about 45 minutes of that. Did the same Sunday night. Yesterday I was SORE!!! But all good.

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

This woman is a neuroanatomist who witnessed her own left-hemisphere brain aneurysm. I first heard her on Oprah's Soul Series, and was blown away by her. She has a book out, Called My Stroke of Insight. I haven't read that yet, but I intend to.

Erin McKean: Redefining the dictionary

This is a terrific video from the TED Conference, about what dictionaries are currently and what they could be. The speaker is funny and dynamic. Definitely worth watching, especially for word geeks like myself.

Jed Bartlett is Back!

This is terrific! Barack Obama pays a visit to Jed Bartlett for some advice.

Obsession

As I've already admitted to some of my nearest and dearest, I am now obsessed with Stephenie Meyer's books, specifically the Twilight Saga, but I also liked The Host quite a bit.

How obsessed am I? I read all four of the Twilight books in a week and a half. And these are hefty books. And every Tuesday night I'm online to check out MTV's Twilight Tuesdays. And on occasion I read the Twilight Moms discussion forum, to commune with others as obsessed as I am.

The Twilight movie is coming out on November 21st. That had been the date of the next Harry Potter movie, but they moved HP to summer, so Twilight slipped into the spot. At least now I don't need to choose between the two, as I'd thought when I found out that Twilight had moved to 11/21, but didn't yet know that HP had been moved.

In the last couple of months I've also listened to all of the Artemis Fowl books on audio (thank you Buffalo & Erie County Public Library). They are very good. Don't be afraid of the YA designation -- they're fun for anyone interested in scifi/fantasy.

A New Earth

"If you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others."

A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

Happy May Day

It is a lovely, but cool, first of May. Only supposed to be a high of 58 today. Last week was amazing. Beautiful, warm, springlike.

The spring bulbs have gone nuts in the garden. All of the daffs are open. First the big showy trumpets, then the little minis that smell so sweet. Hyacinths grew where I forgot that I had planted them, and in a couple of places (under a bush?) that I couldn't conceive of ever planting them. I will move those this weekend.

I bought more dahlia bulbs the other day, and will probably plant them this weekend if it doesn't rain. I also have to investigate whether I managed to save any of the bulbs I dug up last fall. I know I dug them up; don't remember if I then did anything with them.

Adams Nursery is having their impatiens sale this weekend -- $9.95 a flat, or thereabouts. It's still a little early to plant them. Last year I planted them on Mother's Day, and they did just fine. I also have several coupons to use there in May.

Will Winter Never End?

It was warm today. Finally in the 50s. It's supposed to be up and down temp-wise all week. Today was lovely, well, rainy, but a bit of a tease wrt spring's arrival.

This evening Ethan and I walked around the yard, picking up sticks and throwing them into the woods. I took a look at the areas where there are bulbs to see how they're doing. Some of the daffs that Ethan and I planted last year near the northeast corner of the library are starting to come up, as are the daffs at the back of the house that have been there forever. Not much else peeking out yet.

There is still snow on at least half the yard. Another day or two like this and it should leave all but the deepest shadows.

I was thinking that we were way behind with flowering, but I just took a look at my notebook from 2001 (the last time I kept track), and it looks like crocuses didn't come up until the beginning of April. Although, tomorrow is April 1, so we're getting close. My entry for April 9, 2001:

Crocuses begin flowering. Yellow along sidewalk, purple to east of garage door.

4/13/01: Daffodils flowering.

4/20/01: Iris dwarf reticulata begin flowering. Hyacinths and grape hyacinths coming up.

Etc., etc.,.....

I know that I need to be Present, be in Now, not what happened in previous years. Especially since there's not a darn thing I can do about the weather. I will enjoy them when they appear.

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I've already decided that I need to dig up the stumps from the shrubs we cut down in the back of the house last year. I want to plant the butterfly garden there (the one I ordered from Michigan Bulb), and I don't think it will have its best start with those stumps in place. So, as soon as the ground is diggable, I'll be out there with a shovel. And then compost.....

New reading

I've been reading A New Earth, and participating in (well, watching) Oprah and Eckhart Tolle's online class for the book. It's pretty interesting. Am I becoming more enlightened? Hard to say. I suppose that Tolle would say that if I said that I were, it would just be the ego speaking, and I wouldn't really be any more enlightened.

Thoughts on recent migraines

I just had a glorious week and a half (thereabouts) off for Christmas and New Year, along with Russ and Will and Ethan. Overall, it was fabulous. I really didn't want to go back to work. There were a few instances of wanting to lock the boys in separate rooms, when they just wouldn't leave each other alone, but other than that, things were great.

Except, I had a pesky migraine for much of the time. Around Tuesday (last day of vacation), I fingered the walnuts I'd been sprinkling on my oatmeal and my lunchtime salads. Yesterday, my first day back at work (and my first day of not sleeping in, I might add), was headache free. Hmmm.... Perhaps I shouldn't have blamed the nuts. Maybe the culprit was keeping my lazy ass in bed until 8:00 every morning.

Of course, I will look for any reason to keep nuts in my life. The edible kind, not the human kind. The human kind I can do without, thank you very much. Dare I reintroduce nuts if I promise to keep a normal sleep schedule? Please, oh please?