The best placemat maps

Back when I was on the interview circuit, I had a spiel about every library needing to be the best in SOMETHING. Anything. Pick something and be an expert. My standard example was novelty placemat maps. Heck, I'd say, someone somewhere collects them. If that's your collection's strength, play it up. Be the best dang novelty placemat map library in the world.

Well, yesterday I found a novelty placemat treasure map of the Caribbean in our collection.

But only one.

Back in the saddle

Arrived back from a trip to Chicago (Arrived home from a trip to Chicago? Arrived back in Eugene from a trip home?). There's an extended art post coming up, but niece #1 is visiting this week so the evening time is spent preventing meltdowns, er, playing and eating.

But for those that just can't wait, feast your eyes on this found photography site.

Lazy Sunday

Douglas Adams wrote about Sunday afternoons as one of the great dead spaces of our lives. He mentioned a sort of existential dread that comes after reading, for the fourth time, a paragraph in the Sunday paper about a revolutionary new pruning technique and the anxiety of looking forward to the long, dark, teatime of the soul.

I'm paraphrasing, but the message is that I'm stuck in the suburbs for the moment. Relaxing yes, but I'm not very used to sitting still.

Anyway, the polka program just ended, being replaced by what appears to be Serbian music. Yes, I am hanging out with my parents.

A nice visit so far. Tomorrow I move to a friend's house and begin a progression of dinner appointments. It sounds like only one will be an opportunity for dining out in one of the world's best restaurant cities. That does leave, however, 3 lunch opportunities.

World Cup frenzy

Even the geographers are getting in on the action.

15 is crystal.

Updating my resume (NOTE TO BOSSES: for a grant application. I am NOT on the job market) this afternoon, I noticed that I have been in the library biz for 15 years now.

And my mother says I move around too much.

On the other hand, I have worked (in some capacity or another) in 8 libraries. Maybe that's what she means.