HOME ON DERANGED

At long last on-line from home! Got a Dell desktop and signed up witha cable company for an IP and TV, since I lost half of the few local channels I had when the digital revolution went through in June. Here I had converted a year previously and enjoyed the HD and extra channels-only to have half of them yanked away..... So anyway I am now busily expanding my horizons and am about finished transferring all files accrued at work. I have managed to scan a large number of old family photos all the way back to the 1850s. My apartment got new windows and screens so now I finally can open the windows and patio door during the hot days.
Took advantage of the window thing to rearrange my storage spaces. Moved all the paper boxes into the closet or the pantry, dug through the old box of family photos, the best of which I took to work and scanned.
Dental and doctor appointments galore for annual physical process. Am officially downto 170 pounds from 211. Good blood pressure and cholesterol. Another Urology test at the end of the month. Maybe a camera in my future...
Posted another historical piece on the staff blog entitled "What's in a Name?", about famous folks with nicknames denoting an affliction of some sort. Ivar the Boneless, Blind King John of Bohemia, Baldwin the Leper King of Jerusalem, the Scarfaced Dukes of Guise, King Carlos the Bewitched, etc. The boss said he liked it. I'm already roaming the earth on new topics, like a comparative view of libraries and such. The library at Nippur , Alexandrine Library,preceded by purge of Persian Avestas, Bagdad, Cordoba, Cathedral schools like Reims, Mesoamerican "walking bookmen" etc. Upbeat all the way!

UP,UP AND AWAY!

Things are going amazingly well all things considered. My exercise regimen continues, I had my dental check-up yesterday and my major physical on Monday, where the Doc was very happy with me and verified my 31-lb weight loss. Everything looking good, heart, lungs, cholesterol, etc. To top things off, I got my new Dell computer delivered to my door before going off to work. I did fail to cut and paste stuff from the staff blog to here- the blog wouldn't accept it. Oh, well! I have all next week off to play with setting up the new machine and trying to figure out the best ISP and such. Mebbe I can get Calvin's help. For a price, Ugarte, for a price!

FINE TUNING

Continuing to tweak my diet and just about everything else. Trying to substitute olive oil for the butter I crave. Trying to cut down on the sugar in my drinks by using that Crystal Lite stuff and cutting it with soda water for the carbonation buzz I like. Once a week I allow myself a DIET soda. I am also keeping coffee to a cup in the morning and a Red Bull in the afternoon.
Finally made my 1st VERY weak attempt at exercising the other day with predictably dismal results. Could barely crank out 5 push-ups and 10 sit-ups. Then I tried looking up some exercises using a hand towel and said "Hell, I can make up my own!" Tried using it behind my neck and the sit-ups went swimmingly. Stomach's feelin' the burn. I was able to miracle my ass up without my feet leaving the floor as they had before. Sucking in the gut I can now get a faint glimpse of what my abs would look like if I had some. Gut out: not for the faint-hearted! Still and all, I am down to 170 and my pants are continuing to slide off my skinnier hips and I seriously need to get new pants in my old size 32. BOO-YAH, bitches! I am even starting to lose my double chin. Time to start getting some comparative pics on my Flickr page- 2006 with my beard and pony tail, 2007 without, 2008 with me as Mr. Chubs, and 2009 feeling human again.
Am trying to keep the home clean. Down on the knees scrubbing the kitchen floor type stuff. Hell, even a year ago I was still weak as a kitten, unsure of myself to the point of not being even able to take a bath for fear of not being able to get back out! Now I can kick back and relax...AAhh! General hygiene is on an even keel. New eyeglasses and keeping up with my dental appointments religiously. I tried the glasses holder -around -the neck thing to get my Librarian freak on, but it didn't work out- they bunched up around the neck looking too dorky even for me, and the damn glasses kept falling out, so I said screw it. Besides, the more I use them the worse the eyes get without. So I am making the effort to only use them when I really have to.
Have been working on getting the pics for Mom's Memorial poster ready for scanning. Speaking of which, I am going to get to learn how to use another kind of scanner- a portable job that I can use at my desk. This will be the 4th kind of scanner this year that I have been able to play with. Am now confident enough with the big newsprint scanner to have the Archives ladies let me work alone. Have just recently begun my new Archives project which will be my baby and mine alone. It is the archives of Dr. Melvin Judkins who decided to change from general practitioner to cardiologist at age 40, and pioneered the art of arteriography. Its got masses of X-rays and patient files. Already seen one creepy photo of a poor infant girl who ws dying, being worked on seemingly w/o anesthestic.
At home the Project is getting writer's or researcher's block. Running out of steam. Part of it however is my new enthusiasm for my incipient blogging "career". Since they have let me start doing things on the staff blog I have gotten encouragement. I now have a whole rack of potential topics. After posting "Tapping the Admiral"(about Lord Nelson's health problems and his pickling in booze), I am trying to figure which topic I want next : should it be "What's in a Name?" (about historical figures whose medical problems were reflected in a nickname), "You say WHO was a Librarian?" ( people with library experience you wouldn't normally think of like Lenin, Mao, J. Edgar Hoover,etc.), "March of the Tall Boys" (gigantism- Goliath, Peter the Great, the Potsdam Grenadiers, Abe Lincoln,etc), "Barking Mad" (insanity in royalty), and other topics I haven't come with names for yet concerning library factoids, medical prostheses, etc.
The Project itself, after 2 1/2 years is starting to fill up my apartment with about 30 copy paper boxes full of stuff. I am now seriously beginning to check out web sites to post stuff to in article form rather than making a magnum opus that may never happen. Am thinking of creating a military history web persona called "Mansfeld Russworm", after a couple of 16th century warlords. Am also finding more of my old stuff for a real portfolio. Been organizing my bookmarks on both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Cleaning out my hard drive of non-work stuff and getting them on Google Docs instead. Will be using non-work e-mail account as well. Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead.....

SERF'S UP!

Belated shout-out to May Day. Things getting busier all the time, with less time to mess around here and there. Found out a work-around on a problem we had with our huge Indus 5000 Deluxe scanner, so we are once again running pell-mell through the newspaper folios. I am also getting into a 2nd folder of documentation for the other scanning project I am currently involved with. So things on that front are going quite swimmingly. My other Archive work is in the final phase of dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s. Once that is done, I will be given a new project of my own to do from start to finish. The Library Records inventory was something already in the works. This new one is of an order of greater magnitude, in that it will be my baby, and bear my name to boot as creator.
I now have 2 postings to the staff blog so far and am on board for more at about once a month. Reaction has been favorable. The Project is starting to wind down, as the research part is finally coming to a close. It is now coming to the part where I actually make something of it all. I think I will start out slow and work out some articles first, post 'em around. I have been pulling together a portfolio for future reference.
Just got my job evaluation back. Good work and strongly on track in the right direction. Past and future looking bright and shiny!

HOWDYALIKEMENOW?

Things picking up again. Going great guns at with the Archival work. They will soon pick a special project for me which will be my own responsibility from start to finish. I am piling up too much vacation time, so I have to take a week off (Boo-hoo!) from 4/6-10/09.
I am taking on another digitizing project for a Dr. who has a groundbreaking FDA drug report which is promising to shake things up considerable. I was recently called upon by our new Big Boss to share my Archival duties with the whole crew at an All-Staff Library meeting. I shared a bunch of funny nuggets I had dug up, and it went over surprisingly well. A couple weeks later and I posted to the staff blog a few things I had found from a book about the Library of Congress I had jusst finished. It also got a good reaction. So it looks like more of that is in my future. Next up "Tapping the Admiral", a medical history of Lord Nelson. After that I have other things ready to roll out, like "What's In A Name?" on historical figures maladies as suggested in their nicknames. I also have thing about famous librarian types(Lenin, Mao, Hoover, Casanova, etc.), activist doctors(Virchow, Bethune, Papa Doc, Allende), etc etc etc as the King of Siam would say.
So things are definitely looking up! I finally bought the bullet and signed up for a credit card. I may now commence saving the Republic by glorious spending! Well, a new computer anyways...

STAYIN' ALIVE

More water under the bridge since last taking keyboard in claw. Here in Portland OR we are gearing up for the big transition to digital TV. I set up my big TV with the converter and antenna last year and am all set to to the same to my smaller set in the bedroom, but then the Blizzard of '08 occurred and one of my favorite stations, Channel 49, is MIA. They took a big hit on their tower and are still not back with a digital signal that lasts without breaking up within moments. Since the analog signal for that channel still works, I haven't converted it yet I have the gear though.
Everyone at work is running around like chickens with their heads cut off with the new looming economic crunch. Just when we were hoping for new toys, staff, and hours; but the New Paradigm put the kibosh on that. We "lucked out" in one sense as far as job loss goes, because we are not going to replace the several people we lost(including 2 who died over the last couple years), and may have to cut hours even further. That may help us because we are also losing the boss to half-time and Shannon, our patron accounts guru, who will be doing that full-time and no longer directly in the department, which cut the legs out from under us as far as covering things in emergencies (staff illness, vacation, etc.) . So if we can't afford to cover the last couple hours( I usually leave at 8pm), we may cut them out altogether.
My Facebook page is picking up. Have managed to find several of my high-school buddies and buddy-ets ( Hi Nance!) and lately even heard from a gal I knew from my days at PSU when I chaperoned the PSU Chamber Choir around the state of Oregon 2 years in a row, 1978-79. (Hi Judy!)
My archival work for the Library continues and next month I am slated to start learning the Big Scanner, capable of doing whole sheets of newsprint at a go. While doing this I began to think of my old Great-Uncle/Great-grandad- by- adoption Syd Angleman, a long-time Dean of Literature at University of Utah c1930-65. I started checking out HIS archives at the U and found he has a bunch. So I have halfway-decided on going back to Salt Lake City to check it out. I had sworn never to go back after taking care of Mom's cremation and carrying back of the ashes(on Greyhound no less- no special info or certificate needed to carry ashes, so I just stashed them in with the rest of my luggage). But this could be interesting on a couple levels, one familial, the other as a budding archivist.
Ended the year getting prescriptions and dental check-ups and fillings, only to have their fruition bolluxed up by the weather til after the New Year. Things started to go south around the weekend of Dec. 12th. Snow and stuff made it so that we had to close the next Monday, but were able to stagger along for the rest of the week until the next front came in- the weathermen were using the term "Pineapple Express" which dumped a foot and a half of snow on us and shut us down for the next week. I got kinda stir-crazy after awhile.
Been wondering whether I should take advantage of Circuit City going down the tubes and snag a computer at a discount price. Briefly thought about getting a credit card, but not if they are to start out with and extra 20% of charges at the get-go. I'll talk with someone at the bank this week. There are a few things that I need a credit card for like Amazon.com. They used to take my $ orders but stopped that a while back.
Also I have been working on my New Year's resolutions. No.1 of course is to stay bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Year 3 of the New Me. Fine tune the diet to keep taking off the lard from the first year. Down to about 180 now. Yay! Already had to drop the size 36 waist jeans as they started to fall off, and am back to size 34! My exercising with my little hand-weight is continuing too, jazzing it up with some new stuff I am thinking up on my own to work on different muscles. Got to hit the track across the street next.
Das Projekt geht immer wieder. Have vowed to get at least an article out of it this year. Start with one of those Military History blogs. Also want to kick-start my Booksie page and put in another short story ("Hell Night in Salinas", about a hitch-hiking trip gone horribly wrong back in '73) and make sure they get some exposure this time, dammit! Got to take another run at RefWorks too, which I need for the Projekt, and utilize my Google Docs more often and use my alternate e-mail accounts more often. Last Friday I found out I had missed out on an offer to have one of my pics from my Flickr account used in a guidebook for our fair city put out by Schmap. Which reminds me, I need to get my Blizzard pics on Flickr, too.
That's all for now buckaroos!

HE'S BACK!

Been laying low blog-wise while I try to learn more "stuff". Did the Camtasia video training this spring,which I unfortunately let lapse and now need a refresher course. This summer we migrated to new software and e-mail, so I had to get training for those as well. We had a "regime change" as well with a new boss from Iowa. I started working in our Historical Collections Archive for a couple hours 3 days a week doing a variety of things. Started out slow with filing newsclippings , then some moving and storing before getting to the good stuff- they are teaching to use Photoshop software and an electronic scanner. I have already learned how to scan some old pictures (glass slides no less from the 1920s), and am currently scanning a manuscript page. I am on tap to help with the digitization of our historical articles collection-which is different from the Archive office- and they even want me to spend more time there. I am OK with some time but not half-time like they mentioned.
My Facebook account is finally paying off. In the last week I have been found by 2 of my old high-school buddies!
The Project continues apace. Still finding lots to dig up on Germans fighting for Poland and Poles fighting in Western Europe in the 1600s. A lot of Polish bigwigs and engineers and artillerists especially found themselves in the West fighting under the likes of the Great Conde and Turenne. The love affair between the Polish kings and the Habsburg Emperors (lots of intermarriages) began to die in the 1640s. The Poles had spent most of the 30 Year's War allowing the Habs to recruit troops, with the Polish Cossacks making an especially frightful reputation for themselves; from the days of taking the Transyklvanians besieging Vienna in the rear(1619) to the Palatinate (1620's), invading France (1630s) , and crushing rebellion in Catalonia(1640s). Then the Poles started cozying up to the French as part of a marriage as King Ladisals(Wladyslaw) around 1645, when he nailed Marie Louise Gonzaga de Nevers. In return he allowed recruiting of a couple of regiments which helped capture Dunkirk from the Spanish in 1646. When she arrived in Poland she found she had to switch her name around as the locals thought it was sacrilege to try to one-up the Mother of Jesus with the first name Mary. A sort of "EWW!" moment occurred a few years later(1648) when Hubby died and she ended up having to marry his brother when he took over. The French connection was kept up when the future King Jan Sobieski married one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, Marie d'Arquien "Marysienka" which was a scandal in its day.
Am still bravely slogging through Polish, Italian, Rumanian, and Hungarian sources fleshing out info. Nailing down details on people like Jan (Johann) Weiher, who led a regiment of German mercenaries for the Poles in Sweden (1593), then Hungary for the Emperor against the Turks(1594), andfor the Poles again in Moldavia (1595) and Sweden redux (1598).
Just last night doing some research on the Long War vs the Turks(1593-1606) I finally found out the back story of the Transylvanian Trabant(Drabant) regiments, mounted outfits which were color-coded for Hungarians, Szeklers, and Saxons(Germans); the 3 major recognized population groups( the Romanian or Vlach-speakers got no such love).
This summer I had to take extra time off because the bosses said I would lose vacation time otherwise. Go ahead, break my heart! For a while there I "had" to take Fridays off. I also got to go to the coast for a business conference with a co-worker. Got an expense-paid stay at Newport. Got one of my rare 2-week vacations the first half of August. Made sure to get out of the house at least once a day and roam around. Played Mall Rat a little bit. Some banger cranked off a few rounds a couple doors down from my place but didn't hit anybody thank goodness. That is the first bit of foolishness where I live in a long time.., Got to see the Red Bull Flugtag which was a blast. All the frat boys and engineering nerds got together to make "airplanes" which they would push up to a huge stage erected over the River, where they would do a chorus line dance for the crowd before pushing their contraptions off the stage to plummet to a watery doom. About 60,000 people were there! I liked the Conestoga wagon with "Oregon or Bust" on it best.