A Few Quick Notes 109

-Though today was supposed to be rainy and overcast this was not the case. Just like the preceeding two days, Monday turned out to be a pretty clear and pleasant day. Arguably, the only problem with any of the past three days has been heat. On Sunday we even managed to make it all the way to 30 C (86 F). Fortunately, the humidity has been relatively low, making the temperatures much more tolerable than they would have otherwise been.

-A few days ago, while poking around the PEI government website I came across a body that I had never heard of before, the Anne Authority. This is the body that officially licenses Anne of Green Gables products. A list of companies so licensed can be found here. I guess when one character is such a substantial part of the economy it pays to kept track of the products that represent that image. Another question that may soon arise is what happens when Anne enters the public domain or if that is even possible?

-These past few weeks have been pretty disappointing when it comes to trivia results. Consistent with our current Rose and Thistle slump, we finished several points away from first. Pop culture keeps killing us. Though on the plus side, one of our wrong answers did cause me to learn that Casanova became a librarian in his retirement.

Unfortunately, my old trivia stand-by, Bitters, has also been less successful in these past few weeks. Again I would say that my scores are being impacted negatively because I don't watch TV, many movies, or listen to popular music.

-On a related topic, in a week from tomorrow Rose and Thistle Trivia will be adding a fancy/crazy tee-shirt component to the mix (for one week only). As I know that the host is a touch anti-American I was thinking that decking the team out in US army shirts might do the trick, but I am not sure. Another idea was that we buy a few white tee-shirts and then cover them with some of the host's favourite topics, particularly collective nouns and animal habitats, though maybe this would be a bit to much. Any ideas would be appreciated because I think just tossing on a few Hawaiian shirts won't be enough for the win.

-On Friday the Gorch Fock came into port. Since her arrival I have been informed by two independent sources that this German naval training vessel is a very famous ship in Germany. While many people were taking photos of the ship (as I was also) it seemed that many of the photos didn't really capture the entire ship. It seemed that to accomplish one would have to be a bit higher. Fortunately the ship was docked right across from the parking garage. Upon ascending to the top level I learned that not only was I the only one there, but also that I had a pretty good view of the ship and the harbour as a whole.



-For some reason I have not been posting very much. In many ways this is hard to explain because it is not as though I have been occupying my time with important time-consuming activities. It actually seems as though I have been accomplishing less in these past few days, particularly as I have been reading less than usual. More striking is that I actually managed to post today, particularly considering that I have spent several hours on work related matters already this evening. Maybe that is the trick on both fronts, work at home in the peace and quiet of an isolated room without the common distractions of an office environment.

A Few Quick Notes 108

[Written on Monday July 23, 2007]

-From yesterday’s rain and wind we have returned to the realm of beautiful weather. Fortunately, today managed to be beautiful without being oppressively hot and humid. High levels of humidity have been particularly problematic these past few days.

-As I was eating breakfast this morning I started to think about what I might want for lunch. Aside from the normal, and somewhat mundane, options, I thought that I might like a piece of the coffee cake that I baked on Sunday. As I was the only one in the kitchen I didn’t have a chance to make these sentiments known to anyone else. I continued along my way and tried my best to keep up with my typical morning routine.

After showering and dressing, I descended to the kitchen to finish my lunch preparations. Almost as soon as I walked in I noticed that my mother, father, and sister were sitting at the dining room table, each with a plate of scrambled eggs and cake in front of them. To add insult to injury, they left half a corner piece in the pan.

- While cataloguing a 1971 report on the population characteristics of unincorporated communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, I was struck by the first sentence of the report. The report opens by stating that it "provides basic detailed information…." While one can read it differently, it seemed a little odd to me that information could be considered basic and detailed at the same time. As I flipped through the report, this veracity of the statement became obvious. None of the information was complex, but certainly was detailed with age and gender breakdowns provided for very particular geographic locations.

A Few Quick Notes 107

-Today is another rainy day in Newfoundland (or at least St. John’s). The weather managed to change from just about perfect, or even on the hot side of things, to overcast, humid, rainy all in one night. Hopefully things will have dried up a little by the time I have to walk to work tomorrow morning.

-Though I did not have a particularly good reason to do so, I baked my first coffee cake this morning. After a quick search for the recipe card I was able to find what I was looking for. As all of the ingredients are pretty common I did not have to head over to the store before the baking process started. The only problem I encountered, and this hardly counts as a problem, was that about half way through the process I realized that my mother has been baking double batches of this cake for the past twenty-something years. As I had only added enough ingredients for a single batch my cake turned out to be much smaller than I had originally expected. Aside from the size, the cake turned out quite nicely. So far I have managed to finish off about a third of the cake, though I imagine that I probably will have to switch to a slightly more substantive food in the near future.

-Running out of propane is one of the more frustrating summer experiences. Several times this summer I have gone out to start up the barbeque only to find that it would not ignite. After a few minutes of fiddling around with the tank and nozzles it usually becomes apparent what the problem is. In this case I was a little thrown because some gas escaped, giving me the false sense that an empty tank was not the problem. Anyway, after eliminating all other possibilities and lifting what felt like an empty tank, I was pretty sure that that was it for my desire to barbeque last night.

-For the first time in about a year I was able to break out my Pictionary easels. Five of us engaged in a few exciting and vigorous games. In my opinion, Dougal’s drawing of civilian by first drawing a solider and then crossing it out to indicate a ‘not-solider’ stands as one of the better drawing sessions of the night. As usual, there were also a few correct guesses that occurred so quickly and with such sparse drawings that it is hard to believe that anything could have even been realistically guessed.

-While typing that last section I learned that Word does not recognize the name ‘Dougal.’ While I know that this isn’t the world’s most common name, I certainly would have thought that it merited at least a degree of recognition by the Microsoft empire, particularly when they recognize ‘McDougall.’

-This past week was a relatively unsuccessful trivia week. We managed to do quite poorly at the Rose and Thistle. The large number of pop culture questions really did us in. At Bitters I managed to be only 2.5 points out of second place. Unfortunately, we (at my proding) ended up making a few last minute changes that lost us a few points, though not enough to cost us the victory.

Bad cataloging

On Thursday I was looking for an item, in which form I would find the item I wasn't quite sure. Fortunately, I had what appeared to be a largely complete citation. My first step was to look in our catalogue, which unfortunately yielded no positive results. From there, I went to the uncatalogued section of the library and quickly, with the assistance of a co-worker, located the related series of documents. After a quick skimming of the titles I came to the conclusion that we did not have what I was looking for. It seemed as though my next option would be to find the item in an electronic form, the odds of which seemed pretty good as it was a government document.

In just a few moments I was able to find something that appeared to be the document in an online location, though I was not sure if it was the same version of the document that had been cited, as the citation did not include a description or page number. I was quickly becoming aware that the citation with which I started wasn't as complete as I would have liked, something that is frequently quite an inconvenience and cause for much time wasting.

From the vast open plains of the untamed Internet I turned to the more restricted confines of Amicus, the catalogue of Library and Archives Canada. Again, within just a few moments I was able to find something that resembled the item I was looking for, though my skepticism was rising with each new approach.

Unfortunately, there were major differences between several of the records in the union catalogue (which is what Amicus is) that I was searching. The physical descriptions of the items varied drastically from record to record. In two or three cases the item was supposedly 18 pages long, in others it was 89, and some just indicated that it appeared on pages 72-89 of some other document (without saying which document).

Eventually, once I turned back the to those fruitful unfenced plains that we call the Internet, I was able to find a reference to the original form of the item indicating that it had been a paper published as part of a collection of papers with a collective title. From there I was able to recall seeing the title on the shelf and then use the pages numbers indicated in some of the Amicus records to locate the item.

This experienced has caused me to reaffirm my belief that the use of proper citation formats is critical, if not for the average reader than for the future researcher or librarian (or library worker). Additionally, analytics, or the practice of creating separate catalogue records for discrete intellectual entities found within larger bodies of work, needs to be undertaken with great care because it otherwise runs the risk of making the task of identifying a particular item more difficult. It also seems that certain institutions supplying catalogue records to Amicus need to improve their quality control, otherwise the usefulness of Amicus might become greatly diminished.

On the other hand, without such mistakes I would be able to have the satisfying experience of finding something that was marginally more difficult to find than it should have been. To modify and reverse an opinion jokingly expressed by my cataloging professor, bad cataloging keeps reference librarians employed.

A Few Quick Notes 106

-Today started off on the cool side of things, as so many days do, and eventually turned out to be quite respectable. The temperature seems to be near 20 with a clear sky and slight breeze, a significant improvement over some of the rain filled days that we have experienced recently.

-This winter and early Spring I took a (mandatory) management course at library school. At the time it seemed as though I wasn't really learning anything all that useful. One main focus was on the uses of different types of analytical and strategic planning tools.

One technique that came up time and time again was “SWOT analysis ” (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). For various projects we had to use this technique, though I am not sure if I every really saw the utility.

Earlier this summer I finally saw a situation in which I thought that I might be able to use this analytical tool. I decided to conduct a SWOT analysis on my life. Unfortunately, at least based on my mis-use of this analytical tool, it seems that my weaknesses and threats outweigh or overpower my strengths and opportunities.

I really worry that some of this may have been tainted by my not having properly identified either my primary problem or desired objective (which would place this analysis in context). Maybe if I become motivated I could try and conduct a full-fledged strategic planning exercise on my life (though we all know I will never be motivated for this to happen).

-Today, the day after my phone was installed, I noticed that the phone was ringing. Actually, as the phone is so new, it took me a while to recognize what was happening when it was ringing, though I eventually did figure out that the mysterious sound was the sound of a ringing phone. As I was somewhat confused I forgot to answer with my typical intro and instead just said "hello."

The person on the other end asked if she had reached motor registration. Obviously I replied that she had not reached her intended number. She then indicated that she had somehow been transferred, seemingly by an automatic transfer system. I really hope this call is not indicative of things to come, if so these calls could become tiresome very quickly.

-So far this summer I have had very bad luck when it comes to catching cloths on relatively blunt doorknobs and handles.

In June, while moving some boxes from one location to another, I was walking backwards while pulling a cart when I somehow managed to catch my left rear pocket on the door handle, the result being that the handle popped through the fabric and I was hooked on the door.

A few weeks later I was walking by an old card catalogue when the right sleeve of the long sleeve shirt I was wearing caught on a drawer handle and tore a small hole in my shirt. I wonder if this may be the first piece of clothing damaged on such an innocuous piece of furniture?

Shortly after my run-in in with the tricky card catalogue I was walking next to a cupboard and managed to catch the left front pocked of my pajama pants on the rounded cupboard doorknob. Within about a second I managed to have a tear that was several inches long.

As I have been wearing pants every day (a workplace concession) I have noticed that just about every pair of pants I own has small holes near the inside seem at about the height of my knee. While these wholes surprised me at first because of their unusual location and frequency, I think that I have figured out a possible cause.

It seems that they are all in about the same area that tends to get caught between two kegs of beer when one engages in the exciting activity of keg stacking (as one might do if one changed kegs on a semi-regular basis). I guess from now on I will have to be more careful about which pants I wear to work unless I want to live by the maxim “tighter jeans means less caught fabric.”

Anudder night at da Rose and Thistle

So me and da b’ys was down to da Rose and Thistle for anudder crack at da trivia championship. We was all down dere a few before da event because dere has been some load a people some a dhese weeks. Anyways, me an de b’ys was dere and ready to go but we were practically de only ones dhere.

So we sits around for a while, me drinking beer and Peter on da Strongbow, when da missus gets up and starts ta giv’er. B’y, she laces into dem questions some good.

We does OK on da first one, I guesses dad she’s talking about da buddy dat made Coke (and we finds out dat she is when we corrects de quiz). Anyways, when we gets to da second questions we gets smoked. Da missus has da gall to ask da name of da group dat wrote de song for CSI. Like I knows dat. Jaysus, me and da b’ys don’t watch TV (we spends our time on da hinternet).

So over da next few questions da missus goes on givin’er, some of dem we knows, oddurs we got no clue.

By da time me beers’ gone she’s done wit da first fi’teen. We sits dere, me and da b’ys, trying to tink about CSI and I keeps saying da Pretenders, but da b’ys says she’s an group den dat, so I says da Monkees, and den de b’ys says dat dey plays dere own instruments. Wit out da words da b’ys is telling me to screw off, so I goes back to da Pretenders (da b’ys can screw off demselves).

When da missus gets back up dere and gets going it don’t take no time for her to get all dem questions out. B’y, I starts ta wonder how she makes it seem so fast, b’y she flys.

All of a sudden she’s getting on wit some question about Europe and da ‘masses.’ B’y, I got no idea what she’s getting on wit, but I goes and says ‘Hitler.’ One a da b’ys jumps in and says “b’ys, don’t forget Uncle Joe” so we goes and writes dat down. De oddur b’y says he likes Hitler (not like dat, but for da answer). In da end we goes wit Stalin cause a touch a da socialism never went astray.

Da missus kills off da night wit da final few questions and we goes on to da correcting part of da night. Soon enough we sees that we did pretty well, dough we made a mistake or two. We learns dat it wasn’t Fleetwood Mac or da Pretenders, or even da Monkees dat wrote da CSI song, but instead da frigging Who, jaysus. Soon enough we gets to da questions about da masses and learns da we shudda gon wit da gut (Hitler dat is) cause it wasn’t Stalin dat done said da thing about the masses.

When we gets to da end we sees da we were after gettin’ 25. So as da point count down nears us we starts ta get excited. B’ys, its been some long time since we won (were due). Anyway, when da missus shouts out 26 and da team at da bar shouts and hollers all I can tink of is dat bastard Stalin, infectin minds, making people tink he said stuff he didn’t. Me fist come down on da table and we goes.

Next week me and da by’s is gonna win, we deserves it.

My Long (Work) Weekend

Last fall my parents told me that my sister was to have her room redecorated and the windows replaced. All of this was to be accomplished by the time that I returned home for Christmas. Unfortunately the work was not done in the fall, nor was it done in the winter (because of the presence of snow). Though spring was a possibility, that didn’t really happen either (but much of the furniture had been removed and placed in my room because of this possibility). Eventually, about a month ago, the windows were finally replaced, though none of the other work was completed. This meant that the room had to be painted, the carpet removed and replaced, and the moulding replaced.

Late last week my father informed me that we would be proceeding with the project this weekend and that he expected my help. So while I can’t say that I really volunteered, I was keen to assist if it meant it would hasten the removal of the excess furniture from my room, and possibly allow me to access my desk, dresser and floor within a few days.


Saturday

The first task on Saturday morning was to install the new moulding around the floor and closet. While this would seem a relatively straightforward task there were a few hiccups. In particular, we seemed to be unable to accurately measure any of the boards that we cut, frequently necessitating a second cut. A more particular problem, which occurred in only two instances, was that we had to chisel out the back of the moulding to create a channel for phone cords. Fortunately these modifications went relatively smoothly, and seem to look just fine.

About five hours (and much frustration) later we were able to move on to the first coat of primer. While I got off to a slow start, things eventually started to speed up and were able finish the first coat without delaying dinner by too great a period of time.

The period of time immediately after dinner was actually spent on a pruning project that my mother and I had noticed earlier in the day. For this project I had to climb one of the front maples and cut of a branch with about a 3 inch diameter. It was also decided that a few smaller branches could also be removed. Once these several branches were down they had to be cut up and then tidied.

Shortly after the pruning operation was wrapped up we were able to head back upstairs and start on the second coat of primer. From my perspective, this coat seemed to progress a little more quickly than the first. The only problem we encountered was that we did not have enough paint to complete one of the walls.

By about 11:00 PM we wrapped up for the evening. All in all, it was a pretty full day.


Sunday

While we started working a little later on Sunday, we were still able to accomplish a fair bit.

The main task of the day was to apply two layers of the top coat, a light pink colour. Like the second coat of primer, this process moved along relatively quickly. Because we had assisted the drying process with several fans we were quickly able to move from the first coat to the second coat. The process was made more efficient by a division of labour, I cut in while my father rolled.

Amazingly, we were able to finish the day’s work without delaying dinner. Though the day was much shorter than Saturday, I was still quite tired when all was said and done.


Monday

The least amount of work was scheduled for Monday. The plan was to give a first coat to the moulding and then paint the closet doors. The moulding seemed take only an hour or so to paint. Amazingly, the doors, because we each took one set, also only took an hour or so to paint. From start to finish, we likely only took about three hours, maybe even a little less.

On the other hand, before the day is out we may have to start re-installing some shelving units and maybe apply a second coat of paint to the moulding. Though, even with these several additional projects, I don’t think that the number of hours of work will be as much as either of the two preceding days.

As much as this wasn’t how I planned on spending my Canada/Memorial Day weekend, I am pleased with the progress that was made in terms of removing the extra furniture from my room. Accessing my desk should be a particular pleasure in the coming weeks.