Work and other interruptions.

Have I mentioned that work has been crazy busy of late? One of the digitization projects that has been coasting for ... well a long while ... has been bumped up to top priority, and with the stepped up timeline come a whole lot of staff who need to be trained to do (part of) what I do.

Last night, we went out to see Jann Arden in concert. I enjoyed the music (especially the songs off her new album, even if I don't think that "Free" was the best choice for a title) but really, truly wanted to take the teeny folding chairs we perched on and launch them into the sun.

This evening, as the wind and rain rattles the house -- enough of a worry that I brought out the candles and lanterns "just in case" -- I have been getting stuff done that got snugged in between the stuff I was supposed to be doing this month. Sigh. I was also watching CBS detective dramas (Criminal Minds and CSI NY) that were distractingly entertaining this week.

Speaking of distractingly entertaining....

Ending on a positive note

Put in my last day of work for a while -- I'm off for just over two weeks -- and ended on a really positive note. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, serial edition from 1836-37 has been digitized and posted on one of our databases at work; the collection is visible globally, though -- feel free to have a peek if you are interested (it still needs an entry page, but the content is there).

Some of the most amusing pages (to me) are the advertisements inside the covers and (in later issues) surrounding the text, though the prices might as well be in ancient Hebrew because I cannot for the life of me work out the price of anything that involves a shilling.

All the stakeholders seem to be pleased with the results including the professor who had requested that it be made available for a class she is teaching in the fall. Due to the time constraints of mounting it before September, we did not run the text through the OCR software; given enough time, that would be my preference for almost every project.

Our next priority (on my return) will be to work through several shelves of theses and upload them to our digital repository. OK, enough about work, I'm on vacation!

Today did not go as planned...

... but for a change, that was OK.

Stuff happened that, instead of making me want to pull my hair out or run through a wall Warner Bros. style, actually made me feel good about my job:

• I got to meet with my managers and the outgoing grad student/intern over lunch at the University Club (f.k.a the Faculty Club) where we discussed the future of the work that I do -- what projects may or may not be coming down the line, what equipment may be purchased, staffing levels, training, and so on.
• I got to be "promoted" to an admin of the UVic Libraries Facebook Page and encouraged to add content (such as photos) whenever possible.
• I got to pose for a photo-shoot for The Ring to accompany a story about our current project in an upcoming issue (though they also took some shots without me, so there is a chance I won't end up in the final cut).

At the end of the day, while it might be fleeting, I at least felt like I was making a recognized contribution to the University.

Therapy has a volume level

... and mine seems to be around 11.

My ears are still ringing from the succession of loud, obnoxious music I cranked during the bus ride home, probably loud enough to disturb fellow commuters. I had a busy, frustrating day at work (interesting, at least, but I broke my brain in three places) and I required some very loud tunes to drown out the rest of the world and refocus. Luckily, my mp3 player dished out in rapid succession, Metallica's Enter Sandman; Bloodhound Gang's Bad Touch, Outkast's Hey Ya, LCD Soundsystem's North American Scum and Boney M's Rasputin. Awesome.

(**I can't believe I found YouTube links for all of those songs!)

Today, we began the real work on our latest digitization project which involves a number of resources dealing with Victoria's early history (ca. 1855 - ca. 1910). Included in the project are 5 hand-coloured maps of parts of Vancouver Island. Below is a shot of one of our attempts to photograph one of the maps:

We spent almost the whole day trying to get a usable image of that one map from the equipment we have into the computers we have on hand. Not as simple as I had anticipated. Most of the other documents should be straightforward aside from one diary/scrapbook (1874-1907) which is too large to fit on the book scanner (which puts less pressure on the spine), too delicate for our flatbed scanner, and may not lend itself to being easily photographed.

I came home to find that Canada Post, after under-charging me and my asking if the under-charging was correct, decided after the fact that in fact I had paid insufficient postage, thus returning the package I had sent to an etsy buyer on Saturday. I have emailed the buyer with my apologies and I will re-send the package tomorrow.

Happily, it's not all stress and grumpiness in my world. Last night I finished binding the 4oth and final Coffee Haiku book, so now I have to find some buyers! I also made some pendants from some of the "gemstones" (i.e. polished rocks) I bought at the Scratch Patch on Sunday. Today, along with the returned mail there was also a package from Sally Ride Science containing a complimentary copy of the curriculum guide in which my photo appears: Living Green (my photo is on page 29).

Last, but definitely not least, the grad student with whom I will be working for the next month on the above project is easy to work with. When he used the word "grok" in context and without calling attention to it, I knew we'd get along just fine.

Beating stress.

I spent most of the weekend getting more and more stressed out about the project that awaited me Monday morning. Usually, I can leave my work on my desk and walk out the door... but as I mentioned, I'd had a bad day Friday and the dregs of it were still causing knots in my stomach.

So last night, after blogging, I not only started knitting that baby hat, but I finished it in under 90 minutes -- including a test swatch with the yarn I had on hand (some craft acrylic -- definitely not what I would like to use for babies I care about, but for proof of concept it was fine). I was so pleased to finish a new project so fast, I went to bed feeling much better.

This morning, I decided it was time for me to try walking in through the garden. Thanks to my ankle, it's been more than three months since I got off the bus a stop early and walked in through the Finnerty Gardens and the Native Plant Garden, but I did it today. It was chilly (around 3° celcius) and grey this morning, but that was OK by me. It was nice to walk in, clear my head, and take a few photos.

By the time I logged in at my desk, I was much calmer and by coffee time, the whole kerfuffle had sorted itself out. Mostly. I still have work to do, but at least now I have all the information I need to get it done.

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This, that and the other.

Yesterday proved to be one of the most frustrating days of work in the time I have held my current position. All I will say is that working on projects which involve multi-institution collaboration have far too many opportunities to run off the rails or into walls. I left work so grumpy and annoyed that even an hour of transit travel didn't give me enough time to decompress.

This morning, I slept in. Hooray for sleep! (It's been difficult re-adjusting to the 6 a.m. alarm now that I am back to full time and my regular start time of 8 a.m.) It doesn't help that I am fighting a sinus cold. Bah.

In between doing some laundry, I made some pie pastry (and Kiddo helped me) so that Hubby could bake an apple pie. He used about a half dozen large apples; it's HUUUGE.

This afternoon, we went out to Glenwood meats -- we got turkey sausage, turkey & cranberry sausage, buffalo sausage (yes, we like sausage), beef bacon (mMMMmmm), Ayrshire bacon (a traditional Scottish cut of bacon, similar to back bacon or "Canadian" bacon), and some chicken thighs -- to round out what's in our freezer.

After grabbing some lunch, we drove out to deep Gordon Head to take some photos in this month's Grid -- it's likely that it will be our only chance to do so this month, so we tried to make the most of it.

Back home, kiddo helped Hubby make fresh pasta for dinner -- lasagna, her choice.

...And now I am about to settle in to making some more catnip mice!

Back in the Saddle

Monday morning was back to work, albeit only for half a day. In that half day, I got about 15 minutes of work done -- mainly because people kept asking how I was doing, but also because I had a meeting to attend. Yesterday was a bit better, but I didn't have access to my computer as my profile was being migrated to a new server. This meant I didn't have access to my calendar program and didn't get the notification about a meeting yesterday... which I subsequently missed.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, my evenings have been busy-ish. Monday I had to finish a review for a Nancy Drew DVD Game (yes, you play the game on your DVD player), The Curse of Blackmoor Manor. Last night, I spent a couple of hours putting together kiddo's costume for this year: a spider. It's not quite done yet... but if she had to go now, she could.




Next challenge: prepping for the Halloween party she is hosting on Saturday afternoon.

Summer Rain and Summer Concert

First day of summer and the smell of fresh rain greeted me.... after some clearing through the day, it seems to be ending the same way. I don't mind as it was getting too warm for me (mid 20s... too difficult to sleep, yes I am a sissy). When I arrived at work this morning, crews were tearing down the walls on the southwest corner of the library... very odd.

The construction and renovations are now going on all around the existing building, making it difficult to avoid all the noise that accompanies such activity. To compensate, I find myself more often wearing headphones. Last.fm was not working for me today, alas, so I dug through my drawer of CDs and pulled out an 80s compilation and found myself bopping merrily along to 88 Lines about 44 Women. I enjoyed it so much, I replayed the track. Twice. :)

Hubby met me for lunch and stuck around to work from the library this afternoon; he even joined me for "walkies" around the ring in lieu of afternoon coffee.

After work, we grabbed some sushi from Fujiya, gathered kiddo, had a quick dinner, and went back to her school for her summer concert. She was, as always, cute -- even though she was in the back row. Unfortunately, we were too far back and my photos ended up blurry. Sigh. Hubby did manage to get some video... but at least now we know to get there earlier next year.
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