Concerts

My choir, The Choral Arts Society of Utah has two concerts coming up. The first concert is on October 17th at Rose Wagner. We are doing 60's music, like the Beatles, Association, Beach Boys, etc. The concert starts at 8pm. It is a free concert but you will need to get tickets. Go to www.casu.org, click on Performances and you can get the information on when the concerts are and how to get tickets.
The other concert is our Angel Tree Benefit Christmas concert on November 29th at Cottonwood High School. All proceeds go to benefit the Angel Tree program. Our guest singer will be George Dyer.

Tagged

OK, I was tagged awhile ago and I am finally getting around to answering the tag. Here goes.

Random Facts

1. I have lived in Salt Lake City all my life.
2. I wore glasses when I was little and in Seventh Grade did not have to wear them anymore. My eyes corrected themselves.
3. I work at the Salt Lake City Public Library and have worked there for 28 1/2 years.
4. I sing in a choir and have been in this choir since November 1994.

Current Obsessions

1. Watching the Olympics and staying up too late.
2. Watching TV in General like Heroes - which will be on again on September 22nd. I can't wait.
3. Reading Breaking Dawn - the fourth book in the Twilight series.
4. Singing in the Choral Arts Society of Utah Master Choral.
5. I also have Blogs that I like to read.
6. Eating chocolate.

Goals

1. Too Clean my house -- right now my house is a terrible mess.
2. Too get out and exercise and lose weight

My Fears

1. Losing my voice -- I love to sing and I am always afraid that I might lose my voice and not be able to sing.

I don't have any other fears at the moment.

My Joys

1. Singing
2. Spending time with my Family.
3. Playing with Ava. She is so cute and does the funniest things that make me laugh.
4. Eating Chocolate -- it is also an obsession that I need to tame a bit.
5. Being with friends and going to movies with them.


That's about it. I can't think of anything else at the moment.

I tag Linda Pierce, Becca Thompson, and Katherine.

Days of 47 Pops Concert

On July 11th and 12th my choir (Choral Arts Society Master Chorale) had our annual pops concert at Abravanel Hall. It was huge success. It was fun. We did theme songs from movies like "Dry Your Tears, Africa" from the movie Amistad, and "When you Believe" from the movie Prince of Egypt and many other songs. Here is a link to Flickr where one of the choir members husband took photos of this concert and other concerts that we have done in the past:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/choralartsofutah/

We have one more concert up at Fort Douglass for the 100 year anniversary of the Reserve that we were invited to sing for July 23rd. Then we will have a break until our choir party on August 19th and we start rehearsals again on August 26th. Enjoy the pictures. If you can't click on the link to get to the pictures just type the url in the address bar of the internet and it should take you to the sight. Enjoy.

Continuing Saga.......

Sunday was a busy day. I went to a Missionary homecoming at 9am and then I had Stake Conference from 2-4pm and I was singing the choir so had to be their at 1pm. In between the morning meeting and the afternoon meeting I drove back to Centerville to let the dogs out. Meanwhile I received a phone call for help from a friend. They were having a family get together. They had family from out of the state. They held an Eagle Scout court and she asked if would come and help in the kitchen so that they could spend time with the family and also to sing the National Anthem in the program that had put together. They missed me singing on Memorial Day so they wanted to hear me sing.
Now I am going to do a little advertising for my choir, the "Choral Arts Society of Utah". We have 2 concerts coming up for the Days of 47. The dates are July 11th and 12th, they are free, at Abravenel Hall at 7:30pm. That's all for now.

Continuing Saga.......

I don't have pictures to post this time, but 1 week ago I had my 45th birthday on June 1st. Some days it seems like the days are just dragging, but before I knew it another year has gone by. They say that the older you get the faster the time goes. I celebrated by birthday with The Bauman's, friends of mine. I have tended all the kids in this family and now they are all grown up and 2 of them have 3 kids, more on the way. One of the family has the same birthday as I do and so they invited me up to celebrate all the birthdays in this family in the past month. The oldest boy has a birthday on May 29th, He and his wife just had a new baby boy on May 30th. The second boy has a birthday on May 15th. The youngest boy's wife had her birthday on May 26th. It was a nice day and the dinner was good. Then I went to my brother Rob's house and visited with them for a bit. I got there in time to see Ryan and Jamie and Ava before they left to go home. Ava was so sweet, she made me a birthday card that I have hanging on my fridge. Thanks Ava. I love you. Apparently she got to grandpa's house and wondered where I was. So I am glad that I stopped by.
I am house sitting and animal sitting. I am taking care of some friends house and 2 dogs, Emma and Meggie, and a their cat, and a parakeet. There house is in Centerville. I will be their from the 6th of June until the 23rd of June.
On Memorial Day my ward has a Memorial Day Breakfast. I was asked to sing the National Anthem at the flag raising ceremony. It was raining a little. As I was singing it was quiet, but when I got the the chorus "And the Rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" a helicopter went over. It was cool. I have never been asked to sing the National Anthem. It was fun.

Check out my Slide Show!

Check out my Slide Show!

Atlanta Georgia/North Carolina Trip

I know that it has been a long time that I have updated my blog. March 19-31 I went to Georgia to visit my Aunt. We left Georgia and drove to Chapel Hill, NC where my cousin, my Aunt's oldest, lives with her husband and two cats. They live in a little community called Arcadia. It is really nice. Here are a couple of photos that I took.




My Aunt and I then left and drove down to the Outer Banks of NC. We were there for the rest of the week. I enjoyed the ocean and putting my feet in the water. Apparently it was snowing here when I was sitting on the beach in over 70 degree weather enjoying myself.






We saw three of the lighthouses along the Outer Banks. At the end of the week we drove back to Georgia. We went to the World of Coca Cola the day before I came home. Here are a couple of photos from there including the Coca Cola Bear.








I have added a slide show to my blog of all my pictures from the trip. Enjoy.

State Employees

Little House Cubical Prank

thinking ahead 2008

thinking ahead 2008
Originally uploaded by RCPL Thinking Ahead 2008

I liked this photo that was taken of the Salt Lake City Library and decided to add it to my blog. It's cool how the clouds are reflected off the windows.

Wrapping up Library 2.0

I have really enjoyed doing Library 2.0. I have learned a lot. There were many things that I didn't even know about until we learned it in this program. I had no idea what RSS feeds were or that there were so many online Word processing sites for patrons to use. It has been a great experience. I also learned a lot doing this program by helping others when they were having trouble or couldn't figure out what to do. I also learned from others. It's fun to learn these things when we all work together. I plan on returning to many of the things that we have learned and playing with them and doing more with them. I plan on continuing on with doing my blog. Thanks for doing the Library 2.0 program. I can't think of anything that we haven't done that I want to learn. I know there is a lot out there, but I think that we have covered those things that I wanted to learn. There are a couple of things that we learned that I think would be a useful tool for the library, one of them is knowing about the online word processing capabilities that will help patrons to be able to do a word document and I think keeping up with the Library Wiki is a great idea and a useful tool for the patrons. Putting photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube is also a fun way to keep patrons informed about goings on at the library. Thanks again for doing Library 2.0.

Podcasts and Netlibrary

I played around with Podcast.net and Podcastalley.com and found about 4 podcasts that interested me. One of them was a Disney podcast. The other ones were book review podcasts. A couple of mystery ones. As I played around with site I was able to figure out how to put the podcast onto my Google Reader without having to subscribe to the website. It is a fun and useful site for searching for reviews and news on certain subjects.
Netlibrary is something that I have used before when it first came available. I have had an account and I have downloaded 4 books and have put them on my MP3 player already. It is very easy and fun. The checkout feature works just fine. I have had no problems with that feature.

Another YouTube Video

Here is another YouTube video for your enjoyment. I picked this video because it put the lyrics on of what this mother is singing to the tune of "The William Tell Overture." There are other videos that just has this mother singing without the lyrics showing. It is very funny and quite true. You mothers out there would really enjoy this.

YouTube

I have enjoyed playing around in YouTube. When I went to Atlanta Georgia a year ago, I was able to see Mei Lan, the baby Panda. This video is when she is a year old. I chose this video because the panda is so cute and I just want to hold her. I looked up many other videos, including the many of the domino videos. I tried to find the Library Staff Development Day video and couldn't find it. I found the David Lee King video of him touring the library. I might put that one in also. YouTube is a fun way to advertise or show the programs the library has to offer.

Web 2.0 Awards

I played around with a couple of the winners. I played with the games and the one game that I had fun with was called Guess-the-Google. It would put up an image of a collage of pictures and you would guess the search term in common with all the pictures. It is fun for when you want a break from everything. The other one that I played with was the winner under the category Classifieds and Directories. It is the Craigslist. I know that most patrons know about this site, but it is the first time that I have heard of it. You can pick a state or city and it has the classifieds for that city. And it is up to date. This would be a great site and very useful for patrons looking for housing or jobs, etc. There were many other winners that we have already looked into or played around with previously.

Google Labs

I played around with three of the labs. The first one is Google Ride Finder. This lab would be very useful in some states that use taxis and other forms of transportation for people to call for a taxi. It shows on a map where the rides are and gives you the name of the taxi service and address and phone number you can call, etc. The next one that I liked is Google Mars. It gives an image of mars. Let's say you click on craters, it will put a balloon where the craters are and on the side it will give you articles on the craters. I had fun playing around with this one. I am sure that this one will graduate. The last one I played around with is Google Suggest. This is similar to Did you mean... when you do a search except this shows suggestions as you type in a word before you click search. It is very useful, especially if you are not sure of the spelling and it shows you before you click search. I am pretty sure that this lab will also graduate. This was fun to see what Google has been working on.

Cool Text

Online Application Tools

I was surprised to see how many online application Tools are out there on the internet for Word Processing. I have read about each of them and they all seem pretty similar in what they offer. These tools will be very useful for patrons that don't have Microsoft Office or any word processing tools to be able to get on the internet and go into anyone of these tools and be able to write a letter or anything. They are limited in Fonts and some things that you can get on Microsoft Word, but you can open up a Microsoft Word document and other application. It is also nice to know that they are free to sign up for and easy to use. I am glad to know that these tools are out there.

The amazing world of Search Engines

Exalead : I didn't like this search engine. Very limited search information.
Wink: This search engine was for searching Social Networking sites and people. If you are into searching this type of information, then this search engine is for you.
Gravee: This search engine doesn't even work. I typed in a search and it came back with nothing.
Clusty: This search engine was better. It gave me the information that I was looking for on the subject I needed. This search engine was an easy one to use.
Mooter: This was not a bad search engine. I was able to get some information on the subject that I needed.
Kartoo: I didn't like this search engine. It was too confusing. I would push on a link and it would give me another link. I didn't get the information I needed.
Yahoo: This search engine I used a lot before Google came along and I have been able to find the information I have needed using this search engine.
All in all I still like Google the best. It has more to offer. Yahoo is good for Flickr. I will still use Yahoo once in awhile.

Library 2.0 and the Future

I agree, technology will continue to grow and more things will be on the internet, but I don't believe that the print form of the library will ever go away. Like the Just in Case article, there will still be a need for the print form of books and journals. There are many journals and books that are not digitized and can't be accessed on the internet, and maybe someday they will be, but I don't see the print form of the journals ever going away completely. I like Dr. Wendy Schultz's article and how she talks about where libraries are headed in the future. She talks about the library 4.0 phase and that library 1.0, 2.0 or even 3.0 will not go away but be integrated/merged into each other. There are a lot like me that don't own an ipod or PDA. There are many who don't own a computer or CD player, or can't afford to own one. So I for one will still want to hold a book physically in my hand and curl up in a blanket and read.

Places that I have visited

I didn't realize how many states I have been too. I don't travel very much. I probably have been to California more than anywhere else, but it is fun to see that I have traveled other places.





Here is a map of the Countries that I have visited. A whopping 1%. I hope to someday visit more places.

Generators

I played around with the different links for the different kinds of generators. The Cooltext was fun. I played around with this site for quite awhile, but I couldn't figure out how to put it on my blog and there was not any help information on the websites. There are some fun text generators. I went into google and typed in image generators and came up with a site that had may different image and text generator links. I tried doing an Avatar, but couldn't get it to work and I am not sure I was doing it right in the first place. The ImageGenerator link was a bad link, so I am not sure what that one was like. My favorite of the generators was Blog Generator. There were different image generators that you could do and when I found one I like it was easy to do and I was able to put it on my blog, it is the chocolate bar on the side. There are many other generators on this site that I want to play with and will play with when I have the time. Blog Generator was the easiest to understand and do, at least for me. I can see how addicting some of this stuff can be if I had more time to do them.

More on the subject of RSS feeds

I did a little bit of searching in Topix and Syndic8 and found Topix to be easier for me to use for searching RSS feeds. But my favorite and easiest of all is Google Reader. I found more fun and interesting feeds searching through Google Reader. I didn't really find any feeds that were unusable, but there are some that are unusual. But those sometimes are the fun ones. RSS feeds can be very addicting. Have fun.

RSS Feeds

I didn't even know about RSS feeds until Staff Development Day when we learned about the Library 2.0 program. It has been fun learning about RSS feeds. I had fun looking at the different websites with RSS Feeds. I picked several and grouped them in my Google Reader under different folders. It was easy and as I played around in the Google reader I was able to manage my RSS feeds, delete any that I decided I didn't want. It's amazing the how technology today makes it easier to read up on all the breaking news in one place without having to find the websites or the fun and games websites out in the web that you can put in one place. I like the Librarians internet index. Being able to see what sites that other librarians have indexed to help with reference service. Be very careful, RSS feeds are very addicting. Don't have too much fun, you won't get anything else done. You will be too busy looking at all the feeds that you have selected.

Joys of Flickr

I have had a fun time with Flickr. I have uploaded some of my own photos. I checked out some of the 3rd party and mashups of flickr. The Fd Toys was a fun one. I created a calendar and sent it to my email. It was pretty easy to do. I checked some of the other mashups also. Fd Toys is a fun mashup, it gives a variety of things that you can do, calendar, trading card. I checked out some other librarians trading cards. Some of them were good.

Austria Trip

Austria Trip
Originally uploaded by bearyfun

This is a photo that I took when I went to Austria with my Choir, the Choral Arts Society of Utah Master Choral. We were on a tour of Old Town Salzburg Austria. This was looking out over Salzburg. It was a nice day, sunny and warm. This is my first photo that I uploaded onto Flickr. It is actually not very hard. Flickr is fun. I enjoy the other libraries flickr photos. I am also a member of the our library flickr account. My choir also has a flickr account showing photos of our concerts. I like flickr.

Library Things

I have joined LibraryThings. It is very easy to do and I enjoyed cataloging my favorite books. I think it will be a good way for me to keep track of the books that I have read. I am not very good in remembering the titles of books or the authors. This way I can keep track. The only thing that took me longer and was a little bit harder was linking LibraryThing on my blog where I wanted it, but by playing around and doing a little bit of searching, I finally figured it out. This is fun.

Tagging and Technorati

Tagging is interesting. It was fun to look at the different tags used on delicious. I also looked at some of the other Social Bookmarking sights and I like the delicious sight better. I find it could be a useful tool for the library for research. To be able to find bookmarks that were bookmarked on other computers in other departments. It could be very useful for Readers advisory too for the library. For my own personal bookmarking and searching on the internet I do at home and I am not interested in putting my personal bookmarks out there on the internet for others. I was a little confused with Technorati. The video tour of Technorati was not very useful to me. Some of the things it showed on the video is not an option on the website. I finally figured out how to search blog posts and tags and the blog directory by clicking on the Advanced button. This is something that I am not very interested in doing.

MySpace

Here are my thoughts on the MySpace page. It wasn't too hard to set up a MySpace page, but once I set it up I had to play around to get some understanding of how MySpace works. I successfully joined the libraries MySpace page. I played around with adding music to my MySpace page and while doing so found other MySpace pages I didn't realize had one. There are many other aspects to the MySpace page that I still don't know how to work with or understand yet, but I hopefully will figure it out as I continue to play in MySpace and find other friends in the Social Networking world. I also found on the MySpace page how to go in and watch TV shows, like House. It is fun and a new experience for me.

MySpace

Ok, I have read all about MySpace and I support the library on this endeavor into the social networking world. I have enjoyed looking at some of the other libraries MySpaces. I have looked at ours and like what I see. It will be a good way for Teens and other patrons to know what is going on in the library, events, book clubs, etc. I am now going to make my way into the social networking world and set up a MySpace account. It will be an interesting experience of which I am willing to try.

Wikis

Here is my blog about Wikis. I think they are really cool. I really liked the Booklovers wiki. Reading reviews on books that were read by patrons. I think that it would be very useful for the library to have a wiki with pathfinders to booklists and other subject areas, and for patrons to have the ability to post a review of a book on the wiki. I also liked the Bull Run Library's wiki. I liked St. Joseph County's wiki. I use Wikipedia all the time when I am playing the games on my computer at home. I can usually find the answer that I need on Wikipedia. I think is a fun, useful tool to have for the Library. I better stop there. I am not very good in writing. I am excited to go on and learn other technologies on this Library 2.0.

This is my second post. It has been fun learning different aspects of blogs. What has helped me in learning the different aspects of blogging is helping others with their blogs. I have helped Lenore several times, helping her get to her blog and her gmail account and on posting comments to other blogs. I have also helped Ronni, showing her how to leave a comment. The only problem that I had after I set up my blogger and posted a blog was leaving a comment on the Library 2.0 page, but thanks to Alex who helped me get started on leaving a comment I was able to leave a comment and help others who were having trouble with the same thing. Thanks Alex. I have friends who have a blog account and have been reading them, but it is fun to be able to get one going for myself. There are still things I want to do with my blog and that is to post a photo.

My first blog for the Library 2.0 program

I am really excited about all the things we will be learning in the next few weeks. I am glad that we are doing this Library 2.0 program. I have been wanting to learn some of these things for a long time and now I am finally going to learn them. I already had a gmail account and have been using it for quite sometime. This is the first time using a blog. Setting it up was easy but it took me awhile because I was on the desk and I was helping patrons.