It was so nice to head back to work today now that we FINALLY have power in the library again. The after-effects of Hurricane Irene are starting to finally fade, though, she left a few challenges for us at work as we started everything up again. We had one computer that apparently was a little too happy to be off and seemed to get stuck in booting up until I had to coax it to finish the job.

One of the patron printers in the Reference area decided that it didn't want to talk to the print management system. As a result, patrons would send over their print job, but the printer woudn't actully spit it out. For some reason, its static IP address decided not to be static any more.

We also had trouble with one of the two elevators. it didn't want to actually move until the technicians came out. We also had the security alarm go off in the early morning hours. The irony was that the alarm wasn't set at the time.

With being closed since Saturday, we had 5 book carts full of materials that needed to be checked in. That kept everyone hopping for quite a while. Thankfully, by lunchtime, we had fallen back into the regular routine. It was fun because today was the first day I got to be officially in charge as the director took a half day and tomorrow off so she could get ready for her sons wedding this weekend.


I am nto sure if I mentioned it, but when when our electricity came up on Tuesday, we seemed to have trouble with our landline phone. It was really weird because we had power, and our cable and internet connection seemed to be working. The latter two should have been a sign because they are purchased as a bundle along with the phone service. What was really more interesting was that when people were trying to call us, we would see their names and numbers pop up on the television called ID like they always did. That really got me thinking ... and it was a very embarrassing moment.

When we first lost our phones and power, I decided to see if we could use one of the regular phones (rather than the portale ones) and plug it directly into the wall to see if it would work. Alas, it didn't work. Apparently, this service required the MODEM to get any calls, which was frustrating since the MODEM had long ago lost its battery backup. Well, it seems that when I plugged everything back together, I didn't stick the phone line in the right slot in the MODEM. So, we actually did have phone service, but it was not working because of me!


On a fun note, I got to hang a print of one of my favorite paintings in my new office. A friend of Ray and I (one wonderful Karen Taylor) found out I was looking for it and hunted it down to give it to me for a new job gift. She also got me a little statue that was made from its appearance. If you find it interesting, you can check out other works by the artist, whose name is Giuseppe Arcimboldo. I find it interesting how he uses all sorts of objects to create the visages of human being.


One of my good friends and fellow librarian seem to really have a unique connection. Everyone used to laugh because we would show up at meetings to find that we were usually wearing matching outfits. It was never anything that we did on purpose ... just a pure coincidence. We wouldn't won't get to test out the gift as much as possible because my new position will have me attending a different set of meetings. We were joking around about that and our other commonalities on Facebook throughout the day, and we realized that we actually had done it again. We were matching, though we didn't even connect at a meeting. It is really kind of funny. It is nice to know that as things change, the sometimes stay the same.

Well, I am going to let you go for the day. I think I have rambled on (and probably bored you) long enough.