Ten years ago this weekend, Shea and I gathered in her hometown of Creelman with ~150 friends and family to celebrate our marriage. Her Maid of Honour was her lifelong friend, Janelle.
How fitting then that Shea was a bridesmaid this weekend for Janelle, who married her longtime partner Ben at the scenic Sherwood Forest country club outside Regina.
The Wedding Party…
Our drink glasses…
An evening ceremony provided excellent lighting, even for those of us using smartphone cameras…
Beautiful setting…
Even with a smartphone, sometimes you luck out. I love how the phone focused on Shea while blurring everthing around her…
The ceremony ended with guests holding sparkers aloft (and then kids converged on the leftover sparklers to make sure they didn’t get left unused.)
Shea and Janelle…
Partying with the kids (Sasha apparently partying really hard as she flashes the crowd!) 😉
For the past few weeks, Reddit Gold members (those who pay an annual subscription fee) have been able to beta-test a new feature called Multi-Reddits. That feature has now gone live for all Reddit members.
With thousands of sub-reddits, it’s difficult to keep track of them all. Multi-reddits allow you to combine similar reddits into themes – food, music, humour or whatever. Then, when you click on the multi-reddit, you see a blend of stories from all the sub-reddits that are included in the multi-reddit. For example, if you subscribe to a multi-reddit called “Canada” which combines the sub-Reddits for each of the provinces and territories, you’d get a mix of stories about what’s going on across Canada instead of having to click to each sub-Reddit separately.
Was out on the Reference Desk covering a lunch break again today. Instead of going by memory, I consciously made notes to myself about the questions I answered which I thought would be an interesting companion to yesterday’s post on the same topic…
The current time in Zurich, Switzerland
Help printing an e-mail (our PAC’s only have Internet Explorer and so when people try to print attachments from Gmail, it always seems to be problematic. Today was no exception and I ended up doing a massive workaround so he could get his print jobs)
Another printer request – this time from a guitarist who wants to enlarge some tab from a guitar magazine as much as possible so he can read it better
Probably the last twenty minutes of the hour I was scheduled on the desk (plus some time that bled over past when I was supposed to be there) was trying to help a patron track down a very specific copy of the Holy Bible that the library had. I gave him phone numbers for every bookstore in town (Christian and secular) and he dialed them all without success. He didn’t have a credit card but I did show him that the Bible edition he wanted was online through Amazon and ABEBooks although at what some might view as a steep price. This is one of those frustrating reference questions – nobody locally had it, he wasn’t in a position to purchase it online but he badly wanted it (at one point, he did the math on what it would cost to stand at the photocopier and hand copy it page by page at $0.15/page. I think it came out somewhere around $120 which, given the online price, might not actually be that bad of a deal. Er, is it a copyright or a broken commandment if you photocopy an entire bible, originally from 1611 but re-printed in 1982.)
Although I’m working in RPL’s Outreach Unit, I occasionally go out to help on the Reference Desk, especially since they’re short-staffed right now, because of both summer holidays and some vacancies.
I was out to cover a lunch break today and in one short hour, I got a fairly representative sample of questions you get at a public library reference desk…
Books on studying for the MCAT
Help someone scan and e-mail their immigration documents
Tell kids to not play on the escalator (Public Library Rule #47: “All kids will play on the escalator”)
Guest pass so someone can go on the Internet
Directions to washrooms
Information on drain flies and how to get rid of them
Help someone printing their resume
Another guest pass
Request for Newspaper classifieds (the local paper is on display but we keep the job section at the Reference Desk as it often goes missing when left public)
Somewhat fittingly given where I normally spend most of my day, directed a visually impaired patron to Outreach for a computer that would better suit their needs
We were out of town this weekend for Shea’s parents’ 40th Wedding Anniversary so I didn’t get around to blogging as we were pretty busy the whole time. Instead of going back and post-posting (er, is that a word? Backdating posts to keep my “daily post” commitment going anyhow), I thought that, this time I’d just combine all the missed posts into a single spot…
FRIDAY FUN LINK
Way back when I got my first guitar, I paid $20 or so for a piece of shareware software that allowed you to play an MP3 and by clicking your mouse during the chord changes, it would recognize what chords were being played and create a chord chart for you. I recently stumbled across a similar online service called Chordify which does the same thing – and you don’t even need to click your mouse when the chord changes happen. Plus, you can link directly to YouTube videos of the songs you want chord charts for which is a great bonus. The songs I’ve done so far are all full of sharps which I think just means that the site doesn’t account for a song that uses a capo and you’ll have to transcribe chords up and down to make them easier to play.
SATURDAY SNAP Shea wasn’t sure what to get her parents for a gift then had the bright idea to hire a photographer to come to the party to take both candid and posed shots of family and guests. We don’t have those pictures yet so, for the time being, here’s a slightly less professional one taken on my iPhone.
SAPPY SUNDAY
This isn’t a weekly recurring feature on the blog but I thought I’d use “Sappy Sunday” here since every other day I was catching up on has a set theme. And what better way to talk about being away for awhile then this heart-tugging video by Google? 😉
Shea was at a fitting for a bridesmaid dress and Pace was at a playdate with a friend tonight so Sasha and I had a fun evening of “Kick Daddy To See Him Say Ow!”, “Dancing and Singing to Old-School Rap Songs” and of course, a personal favourite, “Sneak into Brother’s Room and Jump On His Bed!”
The CLA Government Library & IM Network has a weekly feature on their web site where they ask various librarians across Canada a standard set of 13 questions that helps give some insight into the wide variety of backgrounds, specializations and interests of people serving as librarians across Canada and beyond.
My own profile got posted the other day and beyond being included with a great group of established and emerging librarian friends, I was happy to get a really good response from friends who saw it on Facebook as well as many of my co-workers at RPL when I sent this link out to our “Fun Group” e-mail list.
My favourite comment came privately from a former colleague on Facebook:
I’m not sure what I liked more about this q&a: the random Flintstones reference, the image of you reading about the Hulk and Ginger Spice, the Vonnegut quote, or simply hearing your authentic passion, charm, and humour captured so well. I miss you, Jason Hammond. Thank you for injecting some of your fabulous-ness into my Monday.
