Should the Board of Education fund LMC's?

Great Friends, Great Weekend

It cannot get much better than having high school friends come for the weekend. Sitting around the table for hours, enjoying coffee and tea! And relaxing. And after that, relaxing some more. I am grateful.

So sorry for all the potential trick-or-treaters, but it was raining so I am sure there were few.

Today I am even more grateful for those who have gone before me, but marked me with their love and support, understanding and lots of hugs. I am thinking of you.

Google Wave Invite

Thanks to some wonderful friends and contacts, I received my invite early this morning. Unfortunately, it was as I was walking out the door. Since I have been able to "click" around in Google Wave, I have spent far too much of my time trying to figure out how to invite others. It turns out that only those original invites sent out on September 30 can invite others.

I want to express my sincere apologies to all of those to whom I promised invitations. But then, if I ever get any, know that you are on my list!

Google Wave

So I have joined some educator "nings" and the hype is Google Wave. I have communicated with everyone that I know that may have a pending invite out there (and some that I do not "yet" know), and I know that three people have invited me! So why am I not getting the invite from Google Wave? I hear that they have a lot of "stamps to lick". I can accept that, but in the interim, let's learn about Google Wave.

Patti Digh and "Life is a Verb"

The first general session featured a very sensitive and amusing author by the name of Patti Digh. She introduced herself (and members of her family who were present only virtually) through a series of slides (pages in her new book) accompanied by very entertaining remarks that left the entire group giggling throughout the session. She spoke of how the illustrations of her book came to be which entailed reaching out to some of the most important readers of her blog. Although she only needed a few dozen illustrations, over 120 illustrations were sent in and much to her surprise (also due to her gentle persistence), all were included in her book, some of which were designed by young people in their teens.

Patti spoke of the death of her stepfather who learned of his failing disease only thirty-seven days before he passed. She wanted to share how much that touched her. She put forth six practices that one might consider if one only had thirty-seven days to live:

1. Say yes! (If you say, “yes, but…”, there is a cost; if you say, “yes, and….”, everyone wins!);
2. Be generous! (There is a quality of engagement with one another. How does that “relatedness” hold a presence for me?);
3. Love more! (Err on the side of the hug!);
4. Trust yourself! (Burn those jeans that you have been holding on to for years!);
5. Speak up! (Your grasp at being “right” may fail you – index finger turning in what direction as it goes from up to down?);
6. Slow down!

She finished her remarks by giving us a challenge to mark our calendars thirty-seven days from that day and reflect on how well we have been able to abide by these practices. Her final quote to us is as follows:

“If we are without peace in the world, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”. -Mother Teresa

I encourage you to go here to lift your spirits.

Highlights from Georgia COMO XXI

A wonderful weekend was had by all at the beautiful Georgia Convention & Trade Center in Columbus, Georgia this past week. The theme of this year’s COMO was “CONNECT-COLLABORATE-COMMUNICATE”, and that is exactly what we tried to do! I had the added advantage of meeting some of the more important organizers of the event (Jim Cooper, Giselle Escobar) since I had previously offered to volunteer - - I would highly recommend this in the future.

As a new attendee, my inaugural moment was attending a reception for all first-time attendees and the COMO Committee. It was a delightful time for interaction and mingling around a full spread of appetizers. I met a few new librarians, some of whom were from public and academic libaries and whom I continued to meet as I wondered the hallways during the conference. I also had the pleasure of meeting Susan Grigsby who was the Program Chair and GLMA President and whose blog I follow from time to time.

Clean Water for all!

Spelling?

Yes, I would like you to write your blogs (and all other matters that concern you) with correct spelling.

That goes, of course, for me as well. When I add something that is not spelled correctly (of course, you know that it is a "typo"), please let me know!

And that goes for grammar as well!

Let's be the best that we can be!

Texting

So my daughters have a querty phone. They have an IPhone. Do IPhones have a querty keyboard? I don't know; I don't have one. I would love to have an IPhone but after all the hassle that I just recently had with AT&T, I need to do my yoga, breathe deeply and let it all go before I sign up. But I still want an IPhone!

So here I am left with my little LG phone with a keypad similar to the one way back when my phone number began with "CR".... This dates me, now doesn't it?!?!

I just had an enlightened thought here: why do my daughters rarely make mistakes when they text and invariably, I have to backspace when I have typed a "g" when I meant to type an "h"? I think I have figured it out! Way back when my phone number began with "CR" (it later changed to "FL" - don't ask me why!), we only had to type once for all three letters on the key. So in those days, when I wanted to type an "h", if I had typed a "4", I did not need to go any further. Typing a "4" covered all three - the "g", the "h" and the "i". Aha! Not true with texting!

I would not be at all surprised if there were some well-known researcher who has already studied the latent effects of early telephone use versus the texting of today, but I still get frustrated when I have to backspace while texting. Others go so fast with no backspacing. I go fast...and have to backspace through much of the message!

I guarantee you, my daughters (and many other younger technophiles) have no idea what I am talking about here! My enlightened thoughts are simple, but they may explain something somewhere!