Information & Globalization..the Shift

Co-worker sent this out. Crazy, but it makes complete sense.

Shameless Promoting

Quick note:

I know it’s last minute….but If you’re interested and able to make it out, Jeff will be performing at MOCAD tonight around 7:30 PM. Be there or be a big fat sqaure.

Also, he is in the Instrumental show at the Gallery Project in Ann Arbor (opens tonight). It should be up till May 6th, so you can always drop by whenever you are out that way.

That’s it for now. Maybe we’ll see some of you up at MOCAD. And If I don’t know you and you go….say “hello.” I’m always up for meeting new people.

To: Everyone

Do you know what bugs me more than anything when it comes to e-mail?!

This

“What is that?” you may be asking. It is a snapshot I took of a mass e-mail that was sent out to the entire class of 1996. MY high school class. Well, some. If they had your email address you made the list. I got a reunion reminder today (which I am NOT going to by the way). Out of respect, I made the picture small. Didn’t want to expand on the To or CC field so the entire internet world could spam us. Just wanted to make sure it was limited to the select few who had to sit through the same lame spirit assemblies and wonder why our school allowed sororities. Anyway, I’m really hoping I get voted best email address. I just know that’s why they decided to share our e-mails with everyone else in the class. Go Generals!

Did you know it’s as easy as 1-2-3 to send an e-mail out as blind carbon copy (bcc). Yes, it’s true. Without rehashing the entire step-by-step myself, I’m going to suggest you visit Mihow’s blog entry where she gives the greatest instructions ever. Plus, she’s a far better writer which gives me an excuse to stop writing; allowing me to get to bed at a halfway decent hour. Ha!

So what are you waiting for? Check out that link!

This red has to go..

I’m getting awfully sick of my blog’s design. I think I’m going to have to start redesigning it again. Don’t be surprised if it changes soon.

I swear…they came in a boat!

Jeff and I stopped by a McDonald’s tonight because he read in the paper that some of their coffee at the high end Royal Oak location was supposedly tastier than Starbucks (which I personally don’t care for all that much anway). I don’t have to go to work or school tomorrow so I figured why not stay up half the night with a caffeine buzz. Soon you’ll see where I used all the extra energy.

While we were sipping our premium coffees and Jeff complained how it “wasn’t all that”, a memory came back to me. I was 5 and I was enjoying a happy meal. Yes, my parents bought my sisters and I happy meals at age 4 and 5 (and throughout our childhood). We’re still alive and healthy as you can see. So it couldn’t have been THAT bad. Anyway, so the memory came back and I asked Jeff, “do you remember the happy meals that came in a boat and there were different colored ones…OHH! And stickers…..you could put stickers on the boats! My sisters and I LOVED those boats. We used to play with them in the tub and in the pool in the summer. We use to hope we would get one of the ones we didn’t have already. Do you remember those Jeff?! Must have been 1983 or so.“

Jeff said “no” and laughed like I was lying. So when we got home I went straight to my computer to start my research. At first I found nothing. Absolutely nadda.

Not one picture came up and I tried everything in the Google search engine; “Mcdonalds happy meal boat,” “mcdonalds kids meal boat,” “mcdonalds meal came in a boat,” “mcdonalds happymeal 1980s boat” and on and on. I eventually decided to call my mom to ask her if she remembered. Of course she was not around, so I called my dad all the way in Alabama.
“Dad, what are you doing?“
“I’m watching a basketball game. What’s up?!“
“do you remember Mcdonald’s kids meals coming in a 2 piece boat when we were little? With stickers you could stick on them? Remember us kids loved them?“
“No.“
“WHAT?!!“
“Maybe your mom remembers…did you ask her?“
“No! She wasn’t answering. GEEZ!! Why doesn’t anyone remember things I remember in my childhood. Errr…..well they did and I will prove it.“

Next, I called my year younger sister.

“Jessica? Do you remember happy meals from Mcdonalds coming in a boat and we used to have different ones and play with them in the bathtub, etc.?“
“No…..I mean kinda. No, not really.“
“Errrrrrrr…..“
After she started pretending to remember (to make me feel better) I got off the phone and decided not to call anyone else about it (considering everyone else seems to be having the early signs of Alzheimers). I decided I had to find it myself to prove to everyone that my memory far exceeds theirs when it comes to my youth.

Eventually I hit gold (sort of), I found this Wikipedia article which gave me a glimmer of hope. It was enough to show Jeff that I was not imagining my “happy meal boat”.
“Burger Chef. Not Mcdonalds!” he said.
“I don’t remember it being Burger Chef (whatever that is), but I guess my memory of Mcdonalds could be wrong.“
I was not convinced it was “Burger Chef” and even called my dad back to ask him if he recalled bringing us to such a place. He said “no,” so I continued my search…..eventually finding this link which then brought Jeff back to his own childhood. As if reverting back to his youth before my eyes, I witnessed Jeff’s voice go from a semi-deep to a high pitched prepubescent kid squeal, “WOW!! I used to have that. Man….I remember the little briefcase and those slimy worms. I loved those…” I let him live in the moment for a few before I nonchalantly said “yeaaaaahhhhh” and scrolled down past them looking for the highlighted cached words “boat” and “happy meal” as if on a mission. Must.Not.Lose.Focus. “Aha! See this person remembers the Happy Meal boats too!!“

I soon left Jeff in the living room where he must have continued to search, because guess who found photos of happy meal boats in less than five minutes?!

Jeff!!

Drum roll please……

Here they are……the “Ship Shape Happy Meals from Mcdonalds.”

Ahhhhhh…..the memories.

Now do you all remember?!!

Where was I?

How come I don’t remember this Public Service Announcement from He-Man and She-Ra? Ha ha…..

I loved He-man. I used to have a He-Man glow in the dark sword and a shield. (Which I’ve looked for at various times on eBay).

Will you still be my friend?

They’ll never get me lucky charms

What’s up my peeps?!!

It’s been a while. Where is everyone? I know my blog is boring, but some of you really could say “hello” every now and again. Geez…..talk about RUDE. Lurkers!

Ha ha. I’m just messin’ with you. I do it too!

This past Monday was my year anniversary at the library. I got a dollar raise! Woo hoo!! It may not seem like much, but every cent helps, lemme tell ya. To celebrate….I think Jeff and I are in need of a good St. Patty’s day sushi dinner. Cause sushi is magically delicious like Lucky Charms. Didn’t you know?

In other news…..ummmm……I have no news. Damn. I’ve just been working and on spring break. Boring huh?

In more work related news, I’m going to be teaching some new classes in May and June. So by then I will be teaching 6 different classes. I’m still contemplating one more class. It depends if we get the Photo Editing software I proposed. One of the classes I am for sure teaching is Flickr. You know you wanna take it. Too bad you don’t live in the city I work, cause it is restricted to residents ONLY. However, if one or two of you ever wanted to sit in on one of my classes I would totally let you. I let my mom sit in on my blogging class as long as she did not announce I was her daughter the way some people yell “that’s my baby!!!” when their child is graduating from college. She did announce it on her blog (which she no longer keeps…hint hint mom), but I thought that was cute.

Anyway….I’m just babbling now. I hope all of you are well and enjoying the almost spring weather. It could be worse…..we could be getting a snowstorm like those out east right now.

Happy St. Patty’s Day everyone!!

Floppy Transfer

I was just talking with one of our fellow computer assistants at the library I work because he was trying to extricate some information off of a floppy for a patron. We no longer have floppy drives (for 3 1/2 inch floppies) on our lab computers, so when a patron needs something off of a floppy we have to get out one of our handy dandy external floppy drives and then help them transfer to CD. Sometimes a patron’s floppy disk no longer wants to work, so we bring it to our old Windows 98 computer to see if it will pull anything up. While the computer assistant was doing this and we were joking about the extinction of floppies, he told me someone came in to the library over the weekend with a 5.25 inch floppy and wanted to transfer it over.

I had to look at my calendar to make sure it was indeed 2007 and not 1984.

Just as I suspected, I had not went back in time. It is the year 2007.

“No, we can’t transfer your 5.25 inch floppy over!”

“Unless it has Oregon Trail on it, because I LOVED playing that game in 4th grade.”

Nothing says “I don’t feel like writing” like videos

Because I’m a huge fan of replacing words with youtube videos when I’m at a loss for words, thought I would share some I’ve recently watched and enjoyed.

Wutsa Been Happenin’

Things have been quiet. I’ve had a couple weeks where I am not teaching classes at the library so it’s been relaxing. No last minute prep work, etc. Additionally, school has been easy. I’m kind of ready for the semester to end though. I love my classes, but you know how it gets halfway through. *Is it OVER yet?!*

I’ve decided not to take any classes for the spring/summer. I just want to work and enjoy my summer. My internship ends in a year so I’d kind of like to just take it in and enjoy it. This first year has really flown by. I’m scared this second year will go even faster. I can’t believe how much I’ve already learned though. Recently, I completed the research and installation of the intranet, a project I have been working on for some time. Instead of going with Mambo (had a lot of problems with it), I made a last minute gut instinct decision to go with Joomla (more development going on with it). My boss and co-workers seem pleased with my choice. Of course, anything is better than our current intranet. It is barely used by any of the departments. This will really be a great content management solution (once it is revealed of course). So many nifty features that will make work life easier. Right now we have to search for documents and pics on a shared drive. Because anyone can add to it, it’s insanely cluttered and unorganized. *Yuck* Despite the folders. We must have 3 (unintentional) different photo folders on the drive. So the intranet will really help streamline things. More to do for the intranet to truly be ready for rollout to the rest of the staff though. I guess that is why I’m not interested in taking classes this Spring/Summer. Just want to devote my time and energy to work without worrying about whether I will have enough energy to do my homework when I get home. It would also be nice to give Jeff a hand on the house sometimes too. “Ha!” you say, but I am a splendid cleaner upper, really, I am!

The other day while Jeff was at work and I was home sick (cough cough…OK…I just didn’t feel like going to work that day) I cleaned up a whole bunch of foam he had cut up while he was working on the house the day before. He said I did so good he thought he had done it himself, but just couldn’t remember it. Now THAT is some good cleaning, lemme tell ya! Jeff has been working on the house very diligently lately. Right now he’s on one of the upstairs closets. The picture shows his progress. It used to be unfinished. Soon it will have nice finished walls and a red tiled floor. I’ll share a pic when it’s done. I’m so proud of my handy man. I always wish I could do more to help him. Of course, I can’t do electrical. I can’t do drywall. I can’t do all that other stuff he does….cutting, measuring, working on his hands and knees getting dirty. So Instead, I just work my vocal chords; “So what’s that for?,” “why are you doing it like THAT?!”"Are you hungry? Cause I could eat a house.,” “Why do men have nipples?”,”Do you think our future kid will like this room, cause I totally think he/she is gonna love it. We’ll put the crib here, then there will be a rocking chair over there, a little bookcase here, ohh! And over there…..that can be like his/her little hideout space….then he/she can draw on the wall here and have an accident there….then YOU”LL clean it up cause I’ll have already changed a poopy diaper that day…” Jeff usually just shakes his head and smiles. I think he gets excited at the fact that I am excited about the house (in its completed form). He knows not to interfere with the played out visual plans in my head. See I work on the end result while he works on the rest. Perfect equalibrium.

What else has been going on? Hmmm….Oh! We purchased airline tickets for our trip down south in April. Flying in to Nashville. Huntsville is a couple hours south. I think we’re going to hang out in Nashville for the day though. Jeff needs to experience Nashville. I often went there to see bands when I was a teenager. Now I’m going to go back and talk about how everything has changed *in an old lady voice*. “Back when I was a youngin’…there used to be a bar here….now it’s just a Walmart parking lot. Damn you evil Walmart!” I’d also like to make it out to Chattanooga, TN another day. There is an aquarium I’d like to go visit. I’d rather go to this aquarium in Atlanta of course. Except it’s kinda expensive for us. We’ll see. I’m excited wherever we go. I love getting away this time of year. Especially since it will be t-shirt weather by the time we are down there. Not to rub it it or anything. Woo hoo!! Vacation!

Ohh, and FAMILY. Yay!