This Side of Lost

Why is it that the phrase "mayday" came to represent something bad happening? The first of May seems like it should be a nice day. You know, with little blonde girls running around may poles with ribbons and such? It is a nice day here, incidentally.

I haven't updated in a while, and that's because I've been busy. This is my toughest semester, and the last couple weeks have definitely lived up to that. I've been 1) writing a plan for a collection development policy and 2) designing forms and queries and reports for my database and 3) doing online information retrieval about voice qualities in advertising in a lot of my spare time. All three of those are done now, making me about half done with final-type stuff. I've still got two huge papers to write for Wednesday and Thursday. Hmm. Those two days are really close together, aren't they? Curious...

But summer is coming soon. That is good. I've even got a decent idea of what I'll be doing. For the first half of the summer, I'll be taking two SLIS workshops -- one on Extended Archival Description (some sort of HTML-related technology thing) and one on Intermediate UNIX. A couple of interesting computer skills courses, basically -- a total of 3 credits, which is 1/4 of the credit load I take during the semester. And they're both on Wednesday. That and my 15 hours/week work at the Chemistry Library makes up all of my official responsibilities for Summer Session I. Sweet. Session II is still up in the air -- I've applied to be an AI for summer chemistry courses, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I'll probably just have my Library work and not much else.

Otherwise, my plans are to 1) rollerblade and play frisbee a lot 2) watch a lot of baseball 3) read a lot. I can't wait. Oh, and maybe do some travelling...

• May 14th -- Samantha's uncle Rich is celebrating 20 years with his partner and they're having a party this weekend. Meet Samantha's dad -- yikes!
• June 4th -- Alison graduates from high school. Wait a second -- wasn't she just starting junior high? Man. I'll be back in MN (with Samantha hopefully in tow) to witness the event.
• Sometime in July or August -- head to Georgia to meet Samantha's friends and see her hometown.

I'll try and be more prolific on here when the semester is over. Then again, I probably have less to talk about... ah well. So it goes. I'm off to join Samantha for a late lunch and go to a staging for a film project I'm doing with my choir... ? More news on this as it happens, I guess. Peace.

And other hilarious lists can be found here. My new almost-endless form of Internet entertainment. Enjoy.

Because I'm done. Yeah baby. And what a better way to finish it than with possibly my most impressive procrastination product to date: a 17-page paper (to be fair, only 12 pages is text -- the rest is title, pictures and citations) about technologies and databases in protein bioinformatics, written entirely between 6:45 am and 2:45 pm (the time it was due) today. And my prof already graded it -- 100. That's 40% of my grade for that class. Oh yes.

So that wraps up Semester #2 here at the School of Library and Information Science. Assuming I've passed all my classes this semester, at this point I am about 60% done with my degree. I am looking forward to taking fewer classes and being able to concentrate more on other things next year. Like my internship? Right now I am in communication with powers-that-be at two nearby liberal arts schools (DePauw and Butler) about possible opportunities. They are waiting on me to finish finals craziness to move forward... and look at that, I'm done. So more news on this as it comes.

Speaking of the "more news as it happens" promise -- my filming project went well on Monday. My now former choir (the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble) was doing this kind of a "music video" for a contemporary choral piece as part of a grant proposal. As I had a central role in it (it was emulating a clock tower and I was speaking numbers in Italian -- no kidding), I was kind of the star of the film, representing the mind of the poet who wrote the text. The day was interesting -- I spent about half of it in a cold, concrete stairwell, sitting around looking dazed or walking slowly up the stairs, in pursuit of a dream... and about half of it in the Green Room, grazing on cookies and chatting with choir people. Ah, the life of a movie star. Honestly, though, I'm not sure I'd like a career in front of a camera -- there's a lot of loitering around and it got real boring.

In other news...

• I saw Nickel Creek on Tuesday. Yeah, kind of sudden. I knew they were coming for a while, but I also knew I'd be bogged down in finals stuff. But eventually my love for their brand of progressive bluegrass won out and Samantha and I sprung $20 each to see them for two hours. I still think they sound better on their CDs.
• We've sampled the fourth (and last?) sushi restaurant in Bloomington -- Domo. Nice atmosphere, but nothing that was more impressive than Sushi Bar or Mikado.
• Nice weather this weekend, maybe. Wiffleball? I hope so.

Oof -- what a day. I'm off to bed to sleep the sleep of the guilty. Goodnight, and peace.

The Spring Bike Auction is this Saturday (May 14). It's at the Jordan Parking Garage, lower level. Preview begins at 8 am and auction starts at 9 am. Cash and checks accepted.

I was supposed to tell someone else about this, and now I can't remember who. Someone help me out here.

EDIT: Oh, maybe it was Teri. Does that sound right?

Hooray for summertime. Baseball is well into its second month, and the Twins are cruising along at 20-13. Which would ordinarily be plenty of wins to be leading the AL Central, if it weren't for the Chicago White Sox, who have gone and started not sucking. Anyway, it's been fun following them so far. A cool bar and restaurant called Yogi's generally gets all the baseball games, and Samantha and I have so far been there about once a week or so to watch. She's becoming a bona-fide Twins fan... sweet! :) Also, you might notice I've added some of my favorite Twins links and blogs to the left-hand column.

Also, summer means summer reading. I'm now completely caught up on the Harry Potter series and am anxiously awaiting the sixth book (along with the rest of the country). I've also started reading a series I'm long overdue for -- the Chronicles of Narnia. Enjoyed the first one and am on the way with the second.

I had my first taste of summer classes yesterday. My Encoded Archival Description class (henceforth referred to as EAD) looks interesting and will give me some experience in markup before I take the plunge into some more serious web stuff in the future. My Unix class looks to be super-intense despite only meeting once a week. Steve Cox is a machine at teaching this stuff.

In other news:

• A tip o' the librarian cap to Homestarrunner.com, whose new toon this week has the brothers Strong mentioning Boolean operators.
• Recently I've seen a good movie (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), a freaky movie (Romper Stomper), a silly movie (Tomb Raider) and a pretty bad movie (Tomb Raider 2). And no, none of them are on the AFI list. We'll get back to it soon.
• Samantha's dad and her brother Ben are coming to visit this weekend, for the occasion of her uncles' 20th anniversary. Much Humphrey family excitement will be had. :) I'm looking forward to being a part of it.

That's all the news that's fit to type. Peace, y'all.

Ladies and gentlemen, I treat you to a very interesting article by the dean of my school. In it, he discusses blogs. Do read for a fascinating insight to the dysfunctional relationship our dean seems to have with his own school.

It should be noted that he is speaking about a subject that a good number of his faculty and students are actually actively researching. Way to show support there, Dr. Cronin.

Remember how much joy the four day weekend was when we were in high school and college? Having Thurs-Fri or Fri-Mon off? I remember looking forward to the four day weekend provided by the state-wide teacher convention in Minnesota every October. Knowing that you've got two more days buffering your usual two day weekend just made the week previous that much easier. Time to take a trip, time to relax in earnest... just lots of time.

Now picture if you had that weekend every weekend. Welcome to my life this summer. :) I'm back at work after not being there for four days. It's a nice feeling.

This particular four day weekend was quite exciting. Samantha's father and brother were in town and we spent just about all our time with them. I had met Ben already and was prepared for his awesome presence. Her dad was just as easy going. We spent most of the weekend being supremely lazy, which was just what they needed, they said. I'm always happy to oblige someone's lazy tendencies. :) We also showed them around Bloomington a little (including the obligatory visit to the Lilly Library) and going up to Indianapolis to be at her uncle Rich's 20th anniversary party Saturday night, where we attended their beautiful service and liturgy and ate fantastic BBQ ribs and chicken.

It was fun to host someone else, and it's quiet now that they're gone. And I'm anxious to do it again. (Hint hint! This means you! Yes, you! Come and visit me!)

In other news:

• I had a good time doing some singing at church the past couple weekends -- doing the kyrie as part of being a deacon, and also helping out David with a couple verses of chant interspersed with his organ prelude. I always get such nice compliments from people at church whenever I sing. Is it any wonder I like going?
• Plans are slowly coming together for my visit to Minnesota in 2 1/2 weeks. Excellent. *temples fingers*
• Some big movie opens soon. Does anybody know anything more about this? I haven't heard a thing. The whole media machine's been silent on it. Really.
• A quick shout out to Sarah and Pete, two of my Bloomington peeps with kick-ass blogs that I've linked to now. You guys rule -- we should hang out sometime soon!
• Quote of the Week 18: "Nothing says humble like cleaning someone else's can." - Matt Kuhn, waxing religious on humility, as only a seminary student with a janitorial summer job can.

So much for my bathetically ludicrous online gibberish today. See you on the flipside, and peace.

I'm now being aggregated (is that the right word?) by SLISblogs. Cool. Hi folks.

So I've been listening to Yahoo's Launchcast Radio quite a bit recently. The fact that I pay the SBC-Yahoo conglomerate through the nose for DSL has a few added benefits, one of them being the "Plus" version of said service -- no ads, higher quality sound, etc. It's an interesting service -- once you log in with your Yahoo account, you can rate artists, albums and individual tracks on either a four-star or a 100-point scale, and the site starts building a profile on you. The algorithm has its issues (like any program of this type), but it mostly does the job -- mixing artists and tracks you've told it you like with stuff you haven't rated, but it thinks you'll like.

All this uncontrolled music assaulting my sensibilities is akin to a period in my life when I listened to radio program called Freedom Rock every week. The summer after my freshman year, I lived on campus and worked during the week and usually drove home for the weekend. Freedom Rock (self described as "an hour of imported, independent and underground music") played every Sunday night at 8 pm -- right when I was driving home. I discovered a few bands I really like thanks to that program.

During that time, I started a hotlist -- a text file sitting in the home directory of my Unix account that I could update with the name of an artist whenever I came across something that piqued my interest in them. It would be the list I'd go to whenever I was at a headphone station in Barnes & Noble and every once in a while spurred a CD purchase. But mostly it was just a list of people to "check out at some point."

Anyway, I think now's the time to start it again. But this time, I can force my music inklings on the world! Ha. So here we go. This is what I've got so far. This post will be edited many times, hopefully.

The Hotlist

Thea Gilmore
Eddie from Ohio
Matt Nathanson
Avion
Butterfly Boucher
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers
Elliott Smith
Troubled Hubble
Greg Trooper
Aslyn

Past: We saw Star Wars: Episode III a week ago, when it opened. I saw about what I expected -- a lot of flashy CGI special effects, and Anakin Skywalker sliding down the slippery slope of morality and fear... into a pool of molten lava. I did not expect it to be like the old trilogy... no junky Millenium Falcon limping its way across the screen in glorious lo-fi, no one painting a Han Solo gray in this black-and-white world, no strong female character. So I was not disappointed. Incidentally, I was inspired to go purchase the original trilogy on DVD after our viewing and spent the rest of last weekend watching it, so I can say these things after a recent review.

Present: It's a gorgeous Friday here in central Indiana. We ate breakfast outside at the Deli (chocolate chip pancake!) and went rollerblading on the Clear Creek Trail. Samantha looked like an expert after not being on blades for a year (at least once she got the brakes figured out). Right now Samantha is watching Robin Hood -- the Disney version of course -- after being away from her video collection since moving up here. Tonight we've got a Memorial Day vegetarian cookout at Pete and Sarah's, complete with faux meat. Hmm... maybe I should pick up a burger patty on the way...

Future:

• This time next week, we'll be in Minnesota, under the hospitality of Andrew Ellingsen and Eric Hopkins, for my sister's high school graduation. Not to mention the Twins-Yankees series. :)
• I've got two leads on jobs for next year: Working for Gary Wiggins, the guru of chemical information at IU, and being an Instruction Assistant for the Main Library. Neither are for-sure yet, but I'm hopeful.
• Samantha and I have finalized our living arrangements next year. Starting August 17th, we'll be in a very nice 2-bedroom apartment on the SE side of campus (at 2nd and High, for you townies). We are very excited about this: Samantha can't wait to be out of her increasingly small 1BR, and I can't wait to not have my life split between two places. We feel like this is a natural step to our relationship and couldn't be happier with our decision.

And the summer cruises on by... already at the half-way point for my Summer I classes. Life is good. Peace!