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| Smoking |
| 05.05.04 (5:43 pm) [edit] |
While waiting at the bus stop the other day, a man asks me if I had a light for his cigarette. Usually, I just say no and I'm left alone. On this day, however, I felt completely stressed out and proceeded to lecture him on smoking. I didn't preach. I just told him that I would never give anybody a light because not only did smoking kill my dad ( he died in May, 1999,) but it is also killing my mom (she has been battling lung cancer for the last 2 and 1/2 years, but more than likely won't make it through the year.) He tried to tell me that this is an evil habit and that he has tried to quit. That's all he said, and that's all I said. Did I make a difference, I'm not sure. As far as I know, he didn't ask anyone else for a light.
Okay, if you want to relieve some stress, do a google search for "[u]Penguin toss[/u]" and play the game. It is only some mindless fun.
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| Plumbing problem |
| 05.04.04 (4:45 pm) [edit] |
No, it is not the personal plumbing problem I'm writing about, but the house variety. Whenever we do a load of laundry, the sewer drain backs up. Before calling a plumber, I tried to snake out the drain with little success. So my next move is to call a plumber. I call the plumber and they say the problem is a blockage in the pipe going from the house to the sewer. This is a little bit of good news because someone had told me earlier that I might have a collapsed pipe. With this, we are talking major dollars and cents. :(
Anyways, plumber and helper get this gigantic pipe snake and try to cut through whatever is causing the blockage. Of course, as luck has it, this does not work. Plumber says that he has found concrete like material that he cannot cut through. He then proceeds to tell me that I would need a new pipe. In the process, however, I would need to tear down my porch to excavate the existing pipe.
You would not believe how much my heart sank at this moment. For one, as a handyman, I rate a 1 on a scale of 10. Everything that must be done would have to be done by outside sources. Secondly, I do not have funds to cover such an expense. Let me backup a second. It cost me $40.00 for them to come out to my house to tell me it is going to cost me $300.00 to clean the drain. Which, by the way, is not guaranteed to work. And if takes more than 1 hour I will be charged another $300.00. So, in the end, I just paid (charged) for a service that didn't work. :twisted:
Yep, I am one smart person.
To get back to my long story, Mr. plumber, now $300.00 richer, tells me that his dad, who owns the company, has a water jet that releases so much pressure, it is able to go through frozen mud. WOW, not really, but this fantastic solution would cost me another $300.00. Again, without any guarantee of working. :cry:
I still can't do wash at home. I'm out $300.00 and back to where I started. Yellow pages here I come for a second opinion. Owning a home is great, but the problems suck.
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| Future day care providers |
| 04.28.04 (5:18 pm) [edit] |
Tonight we had a class of helpless, wannabee day care teachers come into the library. A different group of students comes in about every 3 weeks. The teacher's goal, she says, are for the students to find materials on their own at the library. What a joke!
I do not mind helping this group in the least. What bothers me is that nobody wants to use the catalog to find their materials. They want the liberrian to find all the information on community helpers, family, curriculum
books, opposites, shapes, etc... :cry:
They are here as I am writing this blog, so here is an example. A student wanted books on shapes. I led her to the concepts section, clearly labelled, and told her that she will find books on shapes under the label SHAPES. Not more than 5 minutes later another student asked for books on opposites. While showing her where the clearly labelled OPPOSITES section was, the before mentioned student says to me that all these books on shapes are too hard for 4 year olds. Right there, I wanted to stop and tell her, these are books that TEACHERS must have some interaction with the children. Besides, is it that hard to identify a round man-hhole cover.
I know these are students. But if you are going into a child education field, shouldn't you know a little about children :?: I cringe :x whenever I see this group. Too bad it is not possible to hide.
We have asked the teacher to schedule a catalog demonstration for each one of her classes, but she refuses. Today she is sitting in back of the library, talking on her cell phone, leaving her "needy" students to us. Everybody complains about how little day care providers make in our area, but after dealing with these wannabees, I would not pay them any higher.
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| Driver's ignorance |
| 04.22.04 (6:34 am) [edit] |
For once, a blog not about neighbors or the library.
Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you have to have working brake lights on a car in order to legally drive it :?:
Driving into work this morning(I usually don't drive, but I had to take my daughter to school today) and noticed that the car in front of me did not have working brake lights. Being the good samaritan that I am, I pulled up along side of him, motioned for him to roll down his window, and told him his brake lights were out.
I thought he might say one of 2 things. One, that he didn't know about it. Two, that he knew about, but thanks anyways. Boy was I wrong. All he did was tell me that having his driving lights on was enough. He didn't need brake lights. I don't think he understands the law too well, and hopefully will be stopped and issued a ticket by the local police. I just wonder if this person even has a driver's license?
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| Staff Appreciation Day |
| 04.20.04 (3:34 pm) [edit] |
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I won't add any opinion on this topic, but today is staff appreciation day for all library staff. For our special day, administration had this spread of food. Hot Dogs, both beef and vegetarian, vegetable tray, and cake. I forgot to mention coffee. :roll:
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| Swimming pools in April |
| 04.19.04 (8:25 am) [edit] |
How is this for brains. The temperature is warming in the Midwest, so it is time for the portable swimming pools to come out. Actually the temperature on this particular day was about 65 degrees. My next door neighbor girls decided they wanted daddy to fill up thier pool. Being the responsible person he is, he agreed. Remember, it is only 65 out. Anyways, after filling it up, he noticed a leak. Instead of letting it drain out slowly, he proceeded to slash holes in the pool. This would have been fine if the water would have drained on his property, but it all drained on my side and up against my basement windows. Thank god my windows are well sealed or he would have been paying for water damage to my basement.
Once again, though, he didn't apologize or attempt to stop it from flowing onto my property. Where is the respect for my property? Are we developing into a society where no one takes responsibility for thier actions. :evil:
What I need to do is to move to a place where my nearest neighbor is about a mile away from me. Like that would ever happen. I am a city employee, I have to live in the city in which I work. :cry:
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| Children and running |
| 04.16.04 (1:00 pm) [edit] |
No matter what age of the child, color or sex, it seems as if every one of them wants to run in the library today. Even after telling them to walk, all they do is look back at me (like, who me?) and continue running. Then they force me to use my big bad librarian voice, which usually works. What is so important in the library that you need to run to. Okay, maybe the bathroom, but what else? :x
I think I'm just cranky because I have to be in this stuffing building on a day when it is almost 80 degrees outside :( Besides this, it was a late night last night and very little sleep
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| Daycares |
| 04.15.04 (1:54 pm) [edit] |
Today we had a program featuring live animals from our local zoo. One local daycare had called and said they were coming in at 10:00 am for the program. This was fine because as you know, most programs take about 10 to 15 minutes to start. Well, this daycare decided that coming at 10:45 was okay. The head of the group became rather upset when I told her that the program was ending in about 5 minutes she became rather upset with me.
To put the blame on me, she said she was told that the program didn't start until 10:15. Even if it did, she was still 1/2 hour late. I so much wanted to tell her that she was still way late, but I bit my tongue and apologized for the mix-up. Later on, somebody else from the same daycare had called and wanted to complain, but this time I told her that the group was late by 45 minutes and it would have been too disruptive to let them into the program.
I just wish people would take some responsibility for their actions without blaming someone else.
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| Warm weather |
| 04.06.04 (5:18 pm) [edit] |
It is so nice to have the temperature soar over the 50 degree mark. Nobody comes into the library, at least the children don't. Everybody forgets about homework and decide that playing outside is better than getting a passing grade. Needless to say we are pretty quiet down here at the central branch. I guess living in the Midwest makes you cherish any day that it isn't snowing.
Of course, though, I would rather be here than at home. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife, stepdaughter and dog very much. It is just that when the weather starts to get nice, this is when all my neighbors decide for me that I should hear and enjoy the music they listen to. When I first moved into my house, the nights and days were fairly quiet. But all it took was for a few people to move out, and some move in. Creating instant noise. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Why does the person fixing his car have to have his car windows down, doors open, 5 cans of beer laying on the ground and music blaring for everybody to hear? While these people are out in the front of the house, in back my "nice" neighbors are fixing more cars, drinking more and playing louder music. And yes, these same people treat our alley like their own personal parking lot. All this does is force me to keep my windows closed. I am not at all adverse to speaking my mind and asking them to keep the music down, but my wife thinks I should be quiet for fear of retalliation.
I live in Milwaukee, which was once a mainly European community. Just like every other community, Milwaukee is experiencing a rapid growth in the Latino population. It might seem as if I'm against Latinos. I'm not. It is just that a lot of the things they do piss me off. One is thinking that everybody enjoys spanish music. Another is that the space behind a garage is a parking lot. Many people do this to avoid buying a parking permit. Also, many latino households have huge extended families living in houses built for one family. This causes two problems - excess trash and no street parking. This duplex two doors away must have at least 15 adults living in it. All of them have cars, thus leaving little space for us traditional families. Another thing that bugs me about my neighborhood is that people park cars in the backyard. It is illegal in Milwaukee to park cars on a non paved surface. Believe me, I have called and complained many times. Sometimes I do get results.
Hopefully, I am not offending anybody with these rants and ravings. I did not pay $90,000 to live in Mexico or Puerto Rico. There are quite a few latinos in the areaho do respect other's privacy and care how things look. I guess it depends upon the individual. If I ever stop blogging, you can assume one of my neighbors has killed me for speaking my mind. Stay tuned.
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| First time blogging |
| 04.05.04 (2:06 pm) [edit] |
I heard about blogs, read bout them, always wanted to do one, and now I am actually writing one. Now what do I write? Why don't I explain the name of my blog. I am a huge fan of the old Universal Monsters - Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, etc... I can't get enough of them. Actually, anything related to horror feeds my addiction, but nobody does it better than Universal. I even celebrated my 40th birthday last October 31st down in Orlando at Universal Studios. By the way, if you like to visit anywhere for Halloween, go to the Halloween Nights of Terror. This is one of the most awesome collection of haunted houses on the planet. But don't make the mistake of going too near Halloween. The lines are terrible, but the fun fantastic.
But what about goofylibrarian? Let me just say I am a Goofy fan in the most extreme way. I could go a whole week wearing nothing but Goofy clothes (except underwear, too old for underroos.) My stepdaugther, Stephanie(11) gave me this nickname when she was 2. Not because I was goofy or anything, but all because of a Disney Baby Board Book. I showed her a picture of Baby Goofy and asked her who it was and she had said "that's you, david." Her uncle overheard this and he called me Goofy. Ever since, I'm Goofy, at least to my wife's side of the family. I don't mind, I play the part quite well, sometimes unintentionally.
Writing this is not as hard as I thought. I should quit now and do some library stuff.
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