Very Funny Video

My son shared this funny video about our computer culture... set to the music of West Side Story. I hope you enjoy it!

Thing #47 The end...

Well, I am sad that I am through with my More Things on a Stick. I have really enjoyed this.
Things I will definitely continue to use: Twitter, Pandora, WebJunction Minnesota (YAY! Free classes!), Photo tools, customized homepage, Google Docs, RSS feeds, screencasting...
My goal is to continue to revisit these Things and incorporate them more into our school library setting. I have also learned a ton from just blog-reading and twitter. I am trying to start some discussions at our school about internet-use and blocked sites. We will see where that goes!

Thing #46 WebJunction Minnesota

OK- THIS was a really cool thing that I had never even heard about before. I made my account and sent some friend requests to other 23 Thingers. I couldn't find very many.... I don't know if that is because not very many are on there yet or because there is no simple way to find each other. It would be nice if someone would start a More Things or 23 Things discussion or group on there. I did explore the Destiny Users group and discussion and that was awesome. The very best thing, though, has to be the free classes! That gives me something to look forward to for when this project is done. I have signed up for Multiculture Literature for Children and Young Adults as my first class.

Thing #45 Cloud Computing

I hadn't heard the term "Cloud Computing" before, but I was familiar with the concept. I read the articles and found them interesting. I do think that I am moving in this direction. I love the google apps that I can access from home or work (or anywhere for that matter). We have been saved by Photoworks' cloud. Photoworks spun out of the old Seattle Filmworks. Many years ago, back in the film era, we used to do mail-in film processing with them. When we switched to digital, we were then uploading our digital photos for processing with Photoworks. Probably about 5 years ago, all of the photos that had been on my husband's computer disappeared. We are still not sure what happened. He searched the hard drive and was able to recover some of them, but it was heartbreaking. We purchased an external drive and have been diligent about backing up our photos ever since then. Recently (while doing the Photo Tales thing), I discovered that when I log in to my photoworks account, I can download my old photos so I have my own copy again. I don't know if that ability was always there and I didn't realize it or if it is a more recent function they have added. I was able to get access to a lot more of our old photos through this and can use them in all the fun techy ways. I know there are plenty of photos we weren't able to recover, but at least it wasn't a total loss. And having the photo sites backing up and saving our pictures really is a huge benefit. This is the same reason why I think I would prefer the Kindle over the Sony e-reader. Amazon backs up and maintains your entire Kindle library for you online. That is a nice benefit, especially when you have lived through the personal experience of a computer crash and the resulting loss of files. I would be hesitant to be solely dependent on the third-party site to maintain my files though.... if they went out of business, it could be just as bad as losing your files to a computer crash.

Thing #44 The Economy

As soon as this "thing" finally got linked up to the More Things page, I knew it was not one that I would teach me a ton. I think I have a pretty good grasp on why we are in such a financial mess right now, after all... I am an MPR member! And I could be a frugal blogger myself, but have been living this way for so long that it just doesn't seem to me like something that would be fun or interesting to write about.

For example, from Frugal Dad's blog, we have been doing most of those things for years. To us, they aren't a way to "survive a downturn in the economy", but are just common sense. We use cloth napkins, my husband is making extra money from a hobby by selling airplane antennae online, we don't have cable, have a value internet package, do online banking, belong to Netflix, bike to work, we have high-deductible insurance and a medical spending flex account, my husband does all our own house and car work, etc...
We truly could be the example for living frugally. I made my own baby food, we used cloth diapers and cloth wipes that we home-laundered and line-dried. We made our kids' toys, halloween costumes, playdough, etc. at home. We bought our first house when we had saved enough for a 20% down payment so we could avoid the mortgage insurance. We paid it off in less than 15 years and still live there, having avoided the bigger/better moving trend. Sometimes we do feel cramped, but then we think how fast the past 15 years have gone and how in just a couple more years, two of our kids will be off at college and it doesn't seem like a big deal to have to wait for a bathroom now and then. We never use the air-conditioner. We buy used things all the time, although I will admit that I hate to garage sale and do not do that... I prefer thrift stores, ebay and craigslist. My husband even took an online class to become a Certified Heating and Air-conditioning mechanic so he could legally obtain freon to recharge the car air-conditioners himself! I am not sure how many people take living frugally that far...

But because these things are in our nature, they are not difficult transitions we have needed to make to adjust to the current economy. And it isn't like we don't have our personal splurges. I LOVE live theater, which is not a cheap habit. And while I am a regular public library patron, I also love to buy books for my own. My husband is a hobby-pilot. Not cheap, but he loves it and it makes him happy. We haven't had to cut back on those indulgences yet, because we are frugal in so many other areas of our lives.

Reference Services Part 3

I do want to add, though, that after making my initial post way-back about reference services and how it isn't typically something I use, it was in the back of my mind that this is something I SHOULD take advantage of and it is just a matter of remembering the service at the time when a question comes to mind that I can't find the answer to on my own.

Since that time (and other than my 24/7 experience I blogged about below with my tricky question), I have sent two questions in via the link on my library's website and have received very thorough responses in less than 90 minutes.

More on Thing #34 and Reference Services

At work this week, we were trying to remember the name of a particular book. It was a great picture book that demonstrated different types of poetry. We learned about it at St. Kate's Booked for the Evening a couple of years ago. Last night, I had just added the new MNKnows badge to my blog and decided to give the AskMN 24/7 librarian chat help a chance to solve my problem. As I waited for a response, I decided I would tweet my question out on Twitter too. I got approximately 10 suggestions via Twitter before I heard anything back from the library reference help! I did not get an answer last night from the reference help at all, but it got passed on to today's librarian who didn't really find much in the Minnesota public library catalogs but told me I could find some examples that sounded good by searching "poetry examples juvenile" on Amazon. I appreciated the effort but it didn't solve my problem. I got much quicker book titles via Twitter.

To try and really find out what the exact book was, I decided to try to contact the librarian from the talk who recommended it. I have found her profile on Facebook (yet another thing I wouldn't be using if not for the "things") and have sent her a message. Hopefully, she will have a better memory than I do and not think I am a weird Facebook-stalker.

P.S. I had just finished typing and posting this blog, and went to check my email and Facebook... it had been less than 5 minutes since I sent her the message and she already responded and had the title! It was also one of the first titles provided me by Twitter-folk! Definitely speedier than regular reference service... leave me a comment if you are reading this and curious WHAT the book title was after all!