My Jack Benny Birthday

Yesterday was my 39th birthday. My office mates put together a little celebration for me. A.T. got all the party trimmings, L.C. made a delicious carmel birthday cake, and D.B. gave me a new desk clock in the shape of an elephant (adding to my collection of elephants). Sunday night, I received a phone call from Dad wishing me happy birthday. And last night, I received gifts from the Schroeppels during dinner.

Class reunion

After some email arm-twisting from a high school buddy, I have decided to go to my 20th high school reunion in Topeka, KS. I will stay in my sister's place in Lawrence during the course of the reunion to save money on the hotel costs.

I have a wide range of emotions in respect to the reunion. Hopefully, some old friends will decide to come.

Rain, rain, rain, and more rain

The area where I live received about 5 inches of rain tonight. When I got home from work tonight, I tried to finish up the mowing of the back lawn. But, right around 6:45 PM flashes of lightening began a parade of torrential rains that has not quit as of this writing--five hours later. Kansas City's Plaza area got the brunt of the storm, receiving almost eight inches of precip. Brush creek has flooded and the police are asking Kansas Citians not to do any traveling for the rest of the evening.
The torrential rains once again revealed the leak I have in my roof. There are going to be some monetary decision to be made regarding roof repairs and perhaps the rebuilding of the guest bathroom ceiling.

As far as the weather goes, this has been the most unpredictable summer in my lifetime to date.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Norman

A college friend is celebrating his 39th birthday today. I don't think he will get the opportunity to celebrate much. He is in the process of moving his family back to the Washington D. C. area after serving for the Federal Government in Cairo, Egypt. Nonetheless, I think he is ready to live the next few years in the United States, instead of overseas.

Heavy rains in KC

We are at the start of a weather pattern that will bring nothing but heavy rains to the Kansas City area. Last night through this morning, North KC received about two inches of rain that fell rather quickly. One of the consequences of the rain is I discovered a roof leak in my house, in particular my guest bathroom. Right now, I've placed a bucket to capture the water. Subsequent rains might make the problem worse.

Check handling

One of the things we do in our computer lab is collect money for copies in both currency and check forms. Today, we had a library guest write a check for $44.20. Logic dictates that since we charge 10 cents a copy, this person printed off 442 sheets of paper, almost an entire ream of paper. The person who took this check loosely followed our check handling guidelines obtaining only one I.D. whereas our library rules dictate that a person must produce two I.D.s for a written check.

On Monday, I am going to have to put on my computer lab supervisor hat and let this computer lab associate know about Kansas City Kansas Public Library check handling policies. To complicate matters, the library card I.D. written as the one I.D. for the check does not match the person's name on the front of the check. Some corrective training is in order here.

Olympic HDTV observations

I have been able to watch pieces of the Olympics on HDTV. NBC is showing only the Olympic strong-hold events like gymnastics and swimming. Starting this weekend, they will show track and field and basketball on HDTV. It's nice to see these events on my television; however, they are not same day coverage like it's shown on the regular NBC network. So....I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see Paul Hamm's gold medal-winning performance in gymnastics.

New Associate starts

My new computer lab associate started today. She is a quick learner and knows about researching, especially with her journalism background. I hope she can remain with the library for some time although she's a recent college graduate who is looking for the college-graduate job.

The Olympics on HDTV

I got home late Friday night. I flipped on the HDTV and saw that NBC/Sony was running a replay of the opening ceremonies in Athens. The pictures were spectacular. To begin with, there was a parade of Greek history done with brilliant costumes and a spactacular opening cermony set: a big stage capable of holding over 500,000 gallons of water. Then there was the parade of nations with each nation wearing colorful outfits vividly displayed on HDTV. But the biggest thing for me was NBCs sweeping shots of the Grecian landscapes including the Parthanon--all gorgeous on HDTV. I stayed up until 3am watching the replay.

It's a small world after all....

I had two young ladies in the computer lab today who were from Sofia, Bulgaria. I mentioned to them that I had participated in an international library conference in Sofia in 2000. I think that made their day. I told them where I stayed in Bulgaria, about Plodiv and the resurrected Greek theatre structure, witnessing an Orthodox Greek wedding, and seeing the King and Queen of Sweden at the Rila Monastery up in the mountains.

House projects in August--Progress Report

I finished staining my back patio deck this past weekend. The deck takes a redwood stain. Apparently, I did not do a good job of scrubbing off the stain on my arms when I showered after the project. On Monday, workmates kept asking me: "Why are your arms bleeding?" I missed removing the redwood stain from around my elbows.

My newest lawn and garden toy is an electric edger I bought from Sears. In piecemeal fashion I have been edging around the driveway and front sidewalk. So far, I've produced two bags of edged grass.

Change of Horses

I've learned more about the hiring process at my place of work. But first....

I had to pick a different candidate for the lab associate position when I realized that my first choice could only work evenings because of his full time day job. The position I'm hiring for calls for the ability to work a flexible hours including daytime. So, I went to my second choice: a recent graduate from K-State University. She's a history major who also has newspaper experience with the Leavenworth Times and the K-State Collegian.

I had to do reference checks this past week. It was an interesting experience considering that some former places of employment are not always willing to volunteer information about the candidate I want to hire. For example, I had to fax a signed release by my hired choice to Kansas State University so that they could release the information that merely stated that she worked from x-date to y-date.

I finally had the references checks done yesterday. Next, I sent a memo to my supervisor and branch manager recommending my candidate's hire. The next step will be background checks performed by our HR.

I am hoping she can start some time in August.