Here is a nifty little site I can't remember how I came across. You can search for authors
on tour in any area, limiting by zip code, mileage radius, and time frame. It's still in beta,
so it's a little glitchy, a little clunky, but what a great idea! You can even browse events by subject and by the names of venues. (Queens Library has three CLs listed; that's one more than NYPL has...) I don't know where they're getting the listings from; apparently you can submit events if you "sign up as an author or publicist." So far I've signed up for a weekly email notification that lets me know what authors are appearing within 30 miles of my zip code in the next two weeks, and it's a nice service. It tells me Queens Village CL has an author event on October 27th. Queens Village, did you submit that event yourselves, or did Booktour.com mine that info from some press release? I'll see what more I can find out.

Thing Number Seven

Something, anything, about technology.


I tried to post this by email, something I noticed you can do, but it
didn't work, this time. That's okay, though, as I don't know how
much I need to do that. I guess if all I had was a small handheld
device that had email but no i-net and I just had to post...
Anyway.

Today's after-work activity was posing for new passport photos,
to replace the woefully unflattering ones we've spent the last
decade trying to resemble. My brother makes his living as a photographer,
so we went to his house and got on the stationary bike (which puts you at just the
right height for his 6-foot self, and which is in front of a nice plain white wall) and
attempted to maintain a "neutral expression," which is apparently a requirement
of passport photos. Tell me, were they pulling my leg? You can't smile, or wear
your glasses? Now I have to go look that up. .... Yes, it's true, no smiling.

But you can wear your glasses.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/faq/faq_881.html

I didn't even have to get out of this chair to look that up, thanks to Technology.

Who Are All These People?

So many of the QL2.0 participants are completely anonymous, I find I'm

thrilled by any little shred of displayed personality:

Rhymes With Shmibrarian, I love it! (and I think I know who you are!)

Blog This My Foot.

Okay, so you can't choose your layout when you use the "Blog This" function
in Flickr. I like the photo-centered-over-text layout, and apparently it's a
default text-to-left-of-photo that you get. Grumble.
AND I just realized it posted not here, but on another blog I have, that I suppose
Flickr associates with me. If I sign out of Flickr, and browse it anonymously, there
is no "Blog This" option offered. Gah! How to explain to the Flickr the having of more
than one blog? Who cares. It's a little bell, a small whistle, the world is too noisy
already, I'll pass.

Thing Number 5

Ah, Flickr. Fun to say, fun to spell. For thing number 5, I've made
one of those Flickr badges that pokes out one picture after another
in an amusingly animated way. There it is, over in the left-hand column.

Here's A Test Post, Then

That was easy.
So 7-and-a-half-habits, is it? What's that half-a-one, "play?" That seems like a full
habit to me. Let's call it 8 and not be gimmicky.

Habits 1 (set a goal) and 8 (assemble a toolkit) seem the easiest to me. The goal sets
itself when you think about it, springing from the desire to do something: want to drive around
Sicily all alone? Learn enough Italian to get by without a tour guide. Want to compete in a triathlon? Learn to swim. And, buy a bike. And, learn to ride a bike. Um. Is there a limit to the number of goals one can have? Probably not.

Assembling a toolkit sounds like a fun habit. Who doesn't have a bunch of objects in their closet/cellar/attic that they absolutely needed back when they definitely were going to:
1. Learn to cook (Cuisinart)
2. Work out every day while watching TV (stationery bike)
3. Learn photography (35mm film camera)
4. Raise tropical fish (tank, pump, filter, fish...uh-oh, are they still in the closet?!)

But having those things doesn't guarantee you'll use them. So go slow on the acquisition
of things. The most important thing in your toolkit is probably time: devote enough of that
to achieving your goal, even if it means giving up something else for a little while.

The hardest habit? Probably teaching/mentoring someone else. Why? Because that takes time, and nobody has enough of that.