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!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
BREATHLESS
Almost too much to handle for one brain. I now have more projects using the Camtasia software. Stumbling on some basic stuff. Been mucking about aimlessly trying to figure out getting my Excel project into a Word doc. I was successful, but there has to be an easier way to go about it.
The summer conference registration is done. One of the workshops I'll be attending will actually be about the bells and whistles for this blogging stuff. Did my Digital TV conversion with George's help and am loving the clarity. Finally am getting to actually SEE all the channels I have supposedly been getting all these years!
Been updating the old CV for the new Boss who comes in this summer. Been wracking my brains for anything and everything that could show my best foot forward. It actually sounds pretty good! I used to leave the "Extracurricular Activities" section blank til I realized that I HAVE done all the "Bougie" things like Little League, Scouting, Learning the Clarinet, Model and Stamp collecting, Debate, Writing for the School Paper, Debate, G.E. College Bowl, etc etc etc. Just wasn't very good at any of it, that's all!
The summer conference registration is done. One of the workshops I'll be attending will actually be about the bells and whistles for this blogging stuff. Did my Digital TV conversion with George's help and am loving the clarity. Finally am getting to actually SEE all the channels I have supposedly been getting all these years!
Been updating the old CV for the new Boss who comes in this summer. Been wracking my brains for anything and everything that could show my best foot forward. It actually sounds pretty good! I used to leave the "Extracurricular Activities" section blank til I realized that I HAVE done all the "Bougie" things like Little League, Scouting, Learning the Clarinet, Model and Stamp collecting, Debate, Writing for the School Paper, Debate, G.E. College Bowl, etc etc etc. Just wasn't very good at any of it, that's all!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
EXCELSIOR !
Learning curve going up once again as I endeavor to learn new things. Been creating more docs for work projects, and with the new "regime change" pending am busy gathering statistics up the wazoo to justify my existence. Live and Die by the numbers.....
As a reward for my doggedness in the Lib Web 2.0 classes the organizers have awarded me my own 1 gigabyte thumb drive! I promptly put that to work last week in an afternoon seminar called "Camtasia", which taught us the fundamentals of screencasting. So now I can honestly say that I have "done a video" by creating a mock-up of a training segment for the library.
Just got the sign-up info for the Library Support Staff Seminar to be held in Newport this July, so it looks like I will be going for a night out on the coast. Been a couple years since my buddy George and I took a trip to see the Hatfield Acquarium and the Air Museum up the coast. I still smile thinking about how the sea lions like to cruise through the water on their backs!
Had good fortune recently. My storage rental came due in the middle of the week(July 8) and I spaced it out totally. I usually sign up for several months at a time. So I figure that maybe now is the time for me to hit George up for a trip to storage with his truck and just get the hell out. In any case I was going to go up there on the 12th one way or another. So that Saturday I get a call from James and Shirley that George is there and this might be the time to go for broke (instead of going broke paying ro the rental) and yank the stuff. He was willing and we were done in an hour and a half max. Didn't even have to pay any late fees. They just said either pay for another month or get out, so I said OUT!
My studies continue apace. Cruising through the 30 Year's War looking for my Polish boys.Sometimes they are fighting in the big battles, like Ernst Donhoff at Lutzen 1632, while others are fighting for the French farther west, like the Rosens who came over with Bernard of Saxe-Weimar in 1635 and settled in Alsace One of them, Conrad, was KIA in Ireland 1690 as Lt. General of the Jacobite forces. Trying to think of a scaled down version of "The Project" that can be published in bits and pieces.
As a reward for my doggedness in the Lib Web 2.0 classes the organizers have awarded me my own 1 gigabyte thumb drive! I promptly put that to work last week in an afternoon seminar called "Camtasia", which taught us the fundamentals of screencasting. So now I can honestly say that I have "done a video" by creating a mock-up of a training segment for the library.
Just got the sign-up info for the Library Support Staff Seminar to be held in Newport this July, so it looks like I will be going for a night out on the coast. Been a couple years since my buddy George and I took a trip to see the Hatfield Acquarium and the Air Museum up the coast. I still smile thinking about how the sea lions like to cruise through the water on their backs!
Had good fortune recently. My storage rental came due in the middle of the week(July 8) and I spaced it out totally. I usually sign up for several months at a time. So I figure that maybe now is the time for me to hit George up for a trip to storage with his truck and just get the hell out. In any case I was going to go up there on the 12th one way or another. So that Saturday I get a call from James and Shirley that George is there and this might be the time to go for broke (instead of going broke paying ro the rental) and yank the stuff. He was willing and we were done in an hour and a half max. Didn't even have to pay any late fees. They just said either pay for another month or get out, so I said OUT!
My studies continue apace. Cruising through the 30 Year's War looking for my Polish boys.Sometimes they are fighting in the big battles, like Ernst Donhoff at Lutzen 1632, while others are fighting for the French farther west, like the Rosens who came over with Bernard of Saxe-Weimar in 1635 and settled in Alsace One of them, Conrad, was KIA in Ireland 1690 as Lt. General of the Jacobite forces. Trying to think of a scaled down version of "The Project" that can be published in bits and pieces.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Glory Be!
3-14-08 Trying something new. Just had to migrate to the MS Office 2007 software yesterday and am experimenting with a new feature which will let me post to my blog via my Office documents. About to wrap up my Library 2.0 class which got me started with this blog in the 1st place. Think I'll trash my LinkedIn account as I see no reason for it when I have Facebook with my blog incorporated into it. Also thinking of taking off my JSTOR application since my library only is affiliated with it in some titles which are no good for my research purposes. Will still have to use ILL to access any Journal articles which I need. But I still can learn to add those cites to my new Refworks account. I have been going great guns creating a bib for my 17th century history project. Also had to figure something out in a jiffy on how to save stuff because I had to purge my hard drive for the migration. Had to use 8 CDs to transfer files! Now I use Refworks for the bib cites, put the smaller text files in my Google Docs and larger stuff like E-books into Google My Library.
I am also using Facebook to join some more work-related library groups and a local Portland regional network. That's about as far as I have gotten in my "reach-out-and-touch-someone" efforts . I also opted for a Searching European libraries application which looks promising. Got an on-line to-do list via Ta-da! Time will tell its usability.
Am finally trying to get serious with my much-needed exercise regimen. Psyching myself up for actually going walking around the track at the park across the street from my apartment complex. Bought a 3lb hand weight to get some tone in my arms, which I am getting better about doing on a regular basis. My diet needs tweaking. My salad making has ground to a halt the last couple of weeks, which is not good. Since I usually don't get home until after 9pm, I am more inclined to focus on the main course instead. Cutting down my sugar intake is still on the menu. I have had about 4 liters of pop (Orange Fanta, Dr. Pepper, etc) sitting on my pantry shelf for about 4 months now, but I am still fighting my Ginger Ale jones. Am trying to substitute sugarless soda water for my carbonation fix when adding it to my juice. Managed to get to a outlet store out near Jantzen Beach where I scored a rack of that stuff for cheap ( 21 liters). I have taken to getting larger amounts of my meat at the discount stores I go to regularly now, and freeze most of it. Got chicken, Pork chops, steak and burger, as well as a nice pork roast. I snag roasts now when I see a good deal, which I never used to do. Forcing myself to get into the fresh fruits again so I can cut down on the juice. I have noticed that I drink a lot more fluid when it is in the form of juice & soda than water. I still have a rack of water, which I should probably steel myself to use-hell, even tap water- and save the juice-soda thing as occasional rewards. Been able to kick the candy habit pretty much. Got stuff that's been around for months- better toss it. Chips too, unless wheat thins ( whole grain ) which I put avocado on.
Been writing buddy John in Hawaii and have been trying out my new-fangled talents cutting and pasting pics from the web or my flickr account. Had a "Duh!" moment when I finally out a good way to research some of my boys directly from the Polish Wikipedia site. They give a lot more info, including their children and spouses than the English version. I should try the Hungarian version for my Magyars. I already use the German version frequently.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Softly, softly, catchee monkee....
Things slowing down a bit as I try to absorb some of the things I have been learning. Added some family pics to the blog and a map of states I have been to. Have been interacting with posts to IMDB more often. Am going to open a thread on foreign war movies. Tried doing a mashup for class that was supposed to work but the software betrayed me.... But I did succeed with GPS software to find my apartment complex here in town and gaze down from space on my friends' car. THAT was impressive.
Came across an awesome source for my 17th century studies project. Currently working on foreigners serving with Polish army, got my hands on a book detailing the composition and organization of the Royal Guards formations. The scales falleth from mine eyes.... Most all "my boys" are there and then some.....
Came across an awesome source for my 17th century studies project. Currently working on foreigners serving with Polish army, got my hands on a book detailing the composition and organization of the Royal Guards formations. The scales falleth from mine eyes.... Most all "my boys" are there and then some.....
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