How to use this Page

No, really. I get it. I'm being tested today. Why else would I
1: fall down in the ice this morning, cutting open the skin on my knee (right), slamming my left wrist (the one that broke the fall), and adding salt to the wound of my already cryptically-pained right arm
and
2: open my computer only to be greeted by mangled internet browser messages and a corrupted e-mail inbox?

It took a few hours of Aleve, cursing, phone calls to tech-types, inserting a lot of files, praying for luck, and...I'm back. Oh no. Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner.

And it's all in keeping with the way things have gone down here this year. A string of highs and lows, days spent riding the roller-coaster of life.

I'm spent and brain-challenged and laughing at myself for a change. That's the good news.

And because I'm in the mood to live up to my childhood nickname-- Chatterbox-- and because I'm in the mood to share another silly highlight of my silly life, what follows is the e-mail I sent to my dear friend Audrey yesterday (minus her personal information, of course). I'm just so glad my computer is working and I didn't lose anything except time and my temper.

Laughing is truly a healer.

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009:

D Day? Red Letter Day?
No, not what you think. Nothing to cheer about. Maybe something to smirk about. Do (Doo?) as I Say, Not as I Do (Doo?) day.

So in the string of One of Those Days that seems, in reality, to be One of Those Last 12 Months:

I was in Target, returning unused, unopened items from S's birthday party.

I am returning all those little impulse purchases I knew I wouldn't need but bought anyway. The cell phone rings. It is the nurse from S's school. The child is asking to come home because she has.. sshhh.. the ugly ol' D... as in diarrhea. Like Elaine on Seinfeld who stops to get her candy before rushing to the hospital to see her sick boyfriend, I got my $13 back and then dashed over to S's school. I bring the child home and get her up to the bathroom so she can continue exploring her D problem. I check the cabinets and discover in dismay there is no Immodium-D (DDDDDD, again!) in the house. I tell S I will run to CVS (so many letters, so little time) to get her what she needs.

I'm gone 20 minutes. When I get back, I give S the Immodium and tell her to get into bed and relax. This kid is like me. We need to be near our bathrooms. I feel bad that I passed on this horrible trait to her. We have weak stomachs, we two. We share the reading and writing genes as well, so at least I gave her something that is positive in her life.

I had not planned on being home this early in the afternoon. With my extra few minutes, I looked around the first floors and felt nauseous, surrounded by dust and all the slushy feet dirt dragged in from the snow on shoes and paws. I do not know how to clean floors. I was not born for stuff like this. I am clueless around mops and brooms. I can handle vacuums and paper towels and Fantastick and Windex but that is where I draw the line. I had no DESIRE (a "D," out of the blue) to clean but I had less desire to stare one more moment at the DISGUSTING dirt and dark decor draped all over the floor. (I know. I am pushing my luck with you.) {}

And I scrubbed and dropped Mop and Glo and wet another mop and tried to make the floor a little presentable. I should not be doing this with my arm. Yes, my damn, damaged arm. But you know how stubborn I am and when I get something in my head, there's no turning back... Er.. no denying my duties?

Speaking of Duty: {}

Charlie has a nasty, obnoxious, annoying bad habit. The dirty dog refuses to make outside in the snow! He hates it. You know why? I just thought of this: because HE IS A DIVA. Can men be divas? Is he a DIVO? Either way, the little fluffernutter is so spoiled that g-d forbid he should have to do his thing in a few inches of cold, hard snow. What does he think? He's a person?? (Uh, yes he does.)

It had been a few hours and I knew it was time to let the Divo outside, unless I wanted something more to clean up INSIDE the house and that is a fate worse than DEATH for me. I do not like touching the stuff. I do not like cats because I am not into seeing or smelling their waste in kitty litter. I get ill thinking about it.

I slid open the deck door and called for Charlie to go outside. The cold air felt delicious on my sweaty skin. (15 minutes of housekeeping and this princess is done for the day!) Charlie came to the door, stared at me, stared at the tall banks of snow and the passage we made to get him to the stairs down to the ground. His body went stiff. Frozen. His tail went flat. That dog would not move. I begged him to go outside but he turned a Deaf ear to me. I sensed a puddle of putrid, smelly urine heading my way on the now-relatively clean floor.

Do dogs get it when their owners play them for a fool?! I couldn't get that boy outside to do his thing so I went to plan... D.

There was takeout Chinese food in the refrigerator. I ran to the kitchen, searched the shelves and snap, came up with a great idea. I grabbed a big, juicy cold dumpling. Charlie followed the aroma and jumped all over me. He wanted that dumpling so bad he could taste it. And then I made him a Deal. And we bartered.

Do not repeat the following Dialogue to anyone.

I said: "Charlie, you go outside. You make your doody. You get a dumpling. Outside. Make doody. Come home. I give you a dumpling. Go. Go. Outside. Go. Make doody!"

Do you get the feeling he wasn't listening to me? All eyes were on The Dumpling.

I was really getting mad. I started to lift him to physically put him outside but Charlie thanked me with a dirty growl. I had never seen his anger like this. I could hear him telling me: "Get off me woman and give me that dumpling on the double!"

His little mouth began snapping. My desperation was mounting. I picked him up, put him out in the snow and shut the sliding door! I know. Call me Evil! The Devil! Charlie finally looked as if he was giving in. He leapt three feet, expressed himself for a second on the top of the deck (despite my screams to GO DOWN, don't do it on the deck, stoppppppp) and that was it. The dog was not moving. Not one more inch. No more bathroom-ing. And I so wanted him to go. You don't know. I saw Charlie ogling the food in my hand. I opened the door, tired and pooped and Defeated and Done. Done with the Divo Dog! I had had it. I just wanted to sit DOWN and get to my Desk. Enough. ENOUGH! My brain was scrambled. Maybe it was the fumes from the Mop and Glo. Maybe it was the image of S's diarrhea and the Immodium-D and the Chinese food and Charlie's anal retention all concocted into a mushy mess. SURRENDER!

In utter frustration, I shouted: "CHARLIE! NOW! GO MAKE A DUMPLING AND I WILL GIVE YOU A DOODY!!"

My daughter, S, heard me from upstairs. The kid was laughing hysterically at my dopey mistake! I made my Daughter laugh even in her Discomfort! I like pleasing her so...I guess being Temporarily Dumb has its benefits!

And as G-d is my witness, I don't think I will ever be able to eat a dumpling again.

Dats all, folks,
Pamela, who has finally come to the e-n-D of this Ding-Dong Dog's Tale!

One of my favorite things about writing for Computers in Libraries is that I now get a subscription to the magazine. All the blogs and RSS feeds and tweets in the world are really no match for being able to read “how to” stories from people working in totally different libraries than me. I feel like I pretty much get the issues involved with running rural, pre-OPAC, barely-online libraries and I hope I do a decent job showcasing them here to at least give people an idea of what’s involved and what’s at stake. However, I have never worked in a library with a self checkout system or a DVD service machine, or even a digital audiobook collection (though we’re working on one!). It’s a bit of a shame that most of CiL’s articles are locked behind a subscriber wall, but here’s a decent article about a library that is almost local to me and their experiences with their first self-checkout system.

My contract with CiL allows me to self-publish after ninety days which is what I intend to do if I remember. My first column/department about web stats came out in January and my most recent one about open source software will be out next month. In the meantime here is a tip I wish I’d known sooner… I recently set up one of my libraries with a tiny website for free. Dreamhost.com offers free webspace to qualifying nonprofits. This is real webspace with one-click installs for things like Mediawiki and Wordpress. If you have a 501c3 exemption letter and a little bit of patience, take a look at their wiki to get the rest of the details. A little more information is available on the Drupal site. I know people have had good and bad experiences with Dreamhost, but sometimes selling people on trying something new — and for my library a website was definitely something new — is all about removing as many barriers as possible and letting them see the utility in it themselves. If you’ve been waffling about webspace, or webspace costs, try it out. I have no affiliation to Dreamhost, for what it’s worth.

I knew I wasn't in New York anymore
Southbound, I-89, Vermont to Long Island
Somewhere near Randolph,
one of those towns you only see
on picture postcards,
in art house movies,
and pinpoint black dots on a road atlas

These are the towns we pass straight through
these are the places we forget
These are the people we ignore

And I would never have known Randolph
And I never would have stopped
I would have kept my foot on the pedal
and soared by,
sixty-five miles per hour

But I know this name
I know this place
because my car's oil pressure gauge
went flatline at exit 4,
You don't fool around
with "STOP SAFELY!" messages
blinking on the dashboard
Something tells you
you're in trouble

Like a mirage,
a Mobil gas station appeared,
just off the exit ramp,
tucked into a white carpet,
sheaths of jagged, shaggy layers of snow
surprisingly busy with snowmobiles
truckers in workboots and parkas and knit caps,
and locals, fair-skinned and sturdy,
buying the Sunday paper and a pack of cigarettes

I pulled in, parking my unruly Volvo SUV in a corner,
ashamed and awkward and intimidated
by people who knew where they were going
and what they were doing

I prayed someone inside
the tiny store at the edge of the crossroad
would save me

"We're too small," the manager said,
never looking at me, ringing the cashier,
wiping the counter,
answering the phone
"We don't service cars.
You're gonna' need a tow.
25 miles to the nearest town
Don't worry.
25 miles is nothing around here."

AAA had to come to
rescue me
I learned a lot about Randolph, Vermont
in the two hours of my unintended visit to this
town, buffered by crossroads in the middle of nowhere

I asked Brenda,
the Mobil gas station attendant,
what people did in Randolph
and she told me:
"You're doing it."

Brenda bought me coffee
and lent me her cell phone
to call AAA
("Only Verizon works out here,"
she said)
We were the same age
Fortysomething
She'd rather be
a stained-glass artist
than a Mobil gas station attendant
but she already has grandchildren
she was abused for nine years
she knows how to open car hoods
she knows how to find dipsticks
she wants her children to join
The National Guard
I told her:
"I write poetry"

Driving home in a thick, white breeze of snow Sunday afternoon
Clutching the wheel for dear (not deer, ahem) life,
afraid my car would roll over
as two cars did just before me
on an icy bend on I-89 South

I saw a sign just like this



I thought I had stepped onto the set of Northern Exposure, a show I remember more for the cute Jewish doctor in Alaska
(okay, it could happen, but his mother wouldn't be happy about it)
and the nomadic moose in the opening credits

You see a lot of strange things on Long Island:
fake body parts pumped plump with Botox and gel,
Ugg boots and cuffed denim shorts,
Wrinkled in Time Grandpas in red Corvettes

We've got lots of doctors my mother wished I married
but we don't have moose



We do have the occasional MEESE-kite,
now that I think about it.
I wonder if MEESE is the plural of MOOSE

FYI: In Yiddish, meesekite ("mieskeit") are unattractive human faces.

Not that a moose isn't pretty in its own way.
It's an acquired taste, I suppose
Like squid
Like liver
Like gefilte fish

If you’re at ALA you may have already seen this issue of Computers in Libraries. If not, you may be interested to know that I’m going to be co-editing (well alternating writing) the Tech Tips Column with Rachel Singer Gordon.

It’s hard for wordy old me to give advice in 1300 words but I do my best and even include a screenshot or two. I have the right to post my columns ninety days after they’re published in print so they’ll show up here eventually as well. The January issue has my advice on how to examine your web logs to figure out how, when and where users are accessing your website. The column I put to bed just today (I guess technically it’s a department, Dan Chudnov, now he has a column) due out in March is about Open Source software. I’m a little sad to see my favorite editor, Kathy Dempsey, move on to bigger and better things and I’m a little nervous about getting edited again, but so far it’s been great and just another way to get the word out.

I’m on my way to give my talk in one of the giant ballrooms. For anyone who wants to follow along at home or in the back of the room, here are the links you’ll want.

• Pimp My Firefox How to Make Firefox Really Work for You - slides
• Pimp My Firefox “e-handout” with links for all examples. Also available as a Word document.

Update: Talk went great. I spoke to about 200 or so people and almost all my demos worked! I went to go sit down and catch up on email and I ran into Jesse Andrews who is the guy behind userscripts.org (greasemonkey script repository mentioned in my talk) and BookBurro (very cool, check it out). He’s speaking tomorrow late afternoon, if you get a chance to see him, you should.