Saturday, June 30, 2007

YARR - this be a public service announcement

Yep, I be a service-oriented pirate... lol

A few days ago, my library system's management update talked about an upcoming county sponsored blood drive.

It reminded me that it had been some time before I'd given blood. I've done whole blood donations lots of times, and apheresis (platelet) donation quite a few times. Platelet donations take a bit longer, but of course are quite valuable to cancer and leukemia patients, as well as hemophiliacs. My own dear father was a cancer survivor....so donating is just one way I choose to honor him.

Since I couldn't make the county blood drive, I decide to see when centers nearest me were open... it was high time I went back to donating.

My Red Cross

and you can search for centers near you. I also found out that there was a third type of donation I'd never heard of..... double red blood cell donation. It's similar to platelet donation in that they take blood and remove the component they're wanting -- be it platlet or red blood cell...and return the rest, plus some saline fluid back to the donor. They call it "Double reds", 'cause the donor donates 2 units of red blood cells in one donation. And those with types O+, O-, A-, and B- are needed for this special donation process.

The pirate librarian be type O+, so I felt a special obligation to inquire about it. When I called the red cross' 1-800#, I asked them -- which do ye need more -- double reds or apheresis? They said double reds...so I did it on my day off. The only "problem" is I can't donate for 112 days. Ah well...


Anyway, if ye be healthy enough... be one of the few and proud that gives the gift of life and donates blood! Ye never know when you, or someone you love, may need it.

YAR!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Skipping ahead a bit to Week 5, thing #10

Thing#10: Play around with an online image generator

And I can say, I had way, way too much fun with this one: Meez

For this thing, we were supposed to play with one of the generators: Meez, yahoo avatars, speech agents... and post our results.

Here's mine:




Ahhhhh..... Ahoy there Captain Jack! Hey, Sim-me, take it easy on the Captain! ;)
I just wish real-life me looked as good as sim-me.

Week 3, thing #6: Flickr mash-ups and third-party sites


Ahoy! I really enjoyed exploring all of the mashups available through Flickr. There were so many fun ones to play with.

The one I wanted to write a post about was the Lolcatgenerator. LOL is netspeak for "laughing out loud", and I've personally visited some sites that use cute pictures of cats (or other animals) with funny captions -- usually misspelled as if the animal had written the caption.
One very funny LOLcat site is:
I Can Has a Cheezburger

Another one is meme cats, but that one has... er.... ruder captions on occasion so I'll not be posting the link here. But if ye be reading this, yer net saavy enough to seek it if ye wish.

And...using LOLcat generator, I decided to make the image you see above. Now isn't that the cutest little swabbie ye ever did see? YAR!
I was also quite intrigued by the trading card mashup application, but want to play around with it some more...

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Week 3, thing 7

To do a post about anything technology related.

Well, the pirate-librarian loves technology. Even if I don't always understand it right away, I enjoy playing around with it. Of course, the best way to start off learning anything new is to RFM as techie friends of mine say. That's read the frelling manual...

what??!

Did ye think I'd be stupid enough to use a naughty word on something I know library administrators could read? Not to mention me own dear forever-young muther would read? (hi mom!) ;)

Anyways, on to my technology related post... the pirate-librarian enjoys many things: ICQ for online chats with one of me best friends. (Cheaper than having to count minutes of cell phone time or worry about a long distance telephone bill!)

Another best friend of mine and I play a muliplayer online game, and a dead-on useful program for that is TeamSpeak . (similar programs include Ventrilo , Mumble , and Roger Wilco ) Basically its a program that allows voice chats over the internet (using a headset and microphone) -- and leaving the players hands free to manuver our characters, etc. I know I was hesitant to get setup with this program -- but it definitely beats trying to type what you're telling your teammates AND trying to fight the bad guys! YAR!

Also for thing #7, we're supposed to leave a comment on someone else's blog because "That's what online communities are all about - connecting and communication." (from http://marylandlibrarieslearningacts.blogspot.com/2007/01/7-create-blog-post-about-anything.html ) I will do that - leave a comment, but am I the only one that thinks it seems a bit artificial to require folks to 'connect'. Its not real connection if you feel compelled to leave a comment...... ;) No disrespect meant, mates!

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Progress so far....

This copied and pasted from "23 Things" post.... http://
Me own commentary/additions in [brackets]


Week 1: Introduction ( official start of week June 4th) [week of 6/4-6/8]
[thing] 1. Read this blog & find out about the program. [Done and done: 6-14-07]

[thing] 2. Discover a few pointers from lifelong learners and learn how to nurture your own learning process. [Not done this one yet... can't do it while on the desk because of lack of headphones, and off the desk only a few machines are set up with sound. Aye, I can do it at home, but finding the time when I have to tend to me home crew be quite difficult!]

Week 2: Blogging [week of 6/11-6/15]
[Thing] 3. Set up your own blog & add your first post. [Okay, is it just me or is this a bit like putting the cart 'afore the horse? I would think this would have been good to do as thing two since many of the other "things" have participants writing about items they've explored or read. Obviously its been done or ye wouldn't have a blog to read, mate!]

[thing] 4. Register your blog and Track your progress to journey into Learning 2.0 together. [done.. again, if it hadn't been, its doubtful someone would have found this on their own... I can't imagine a search engine has 'caught' me yet... lol!]

Week 3: Photos & Images [week of 6/18-6/22]
[thing] 5. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site. [see previous post... done 5a on 6-19... and would like to do 5b at some point, even tho it might be "outing" myself as to who I really am... but since my coworkers in the branch know or probably have guessed... hehehehe]

[thing] 6. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites. [not done yet]
[thing] 7. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week. [Hmmmmm..... maybe done soon? ;) )


*Note - from my early days, I've enjoyed roleplaying (Marvel super heroes, Dungeons and Dragons, etc..... so I will slip in and out of pirate voice as it suits me mood and whimsy level. I'm doing it for CEU's (even if I don't really need them at this point), but no one said I couldn't have fun at the same time!

Jolly Roger


Jolly Roger, originally uploaded by The Department.

Week 3: Photos and images.

Ahoy there!

This week, we scurvy-dogs who are participating in the "23 things" are supposed to explore Flickr (an image hosting site).

Another item on this week's list is to explore Flickr mashups and third party sites... as I haven't done this yet, I've no clue what that means...but I'll be learning!

Discovery exercise #5a: gave me the option to use Flickr's blogging tool and add an image to my post. #5b would have me create a free account (done), and use a digital camera to take some picture(s) of things in my branch.

So far, I've done 5a...... Now really, did ye expect anything other than the jolly roger to appear on a pirate's blog?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Arrrr! Forget the 7 Seas!

Instead, it's the "23 things"....

This here be me blog for recording my progress through the "Maryland Libraries 2.0 - 23 Things program". The "23 things" be short, self-directed activities, designed to help folks learn more about various technologies out there and get more comfortable exploring and using them.

*Breaking pirate voice for a moment* In all seriousness, its been my own observation that to the general public, not only are all staff who work in libraries "librarians", but we know everything about everything. Which is a nice compliment of a sorts, but no one can truly know everything.... thus I decided to set sail on this voyage of learning and discovery.

About the name: I've always enjoyed pirates...at least the cinematical and fictional representations of them. I'm well aware that the reality was a lot messier, smellier...not to mention illegal. And in this day of "PC" language and lawsuits, I suppose I ought to add the disclaimer that the name in no way implies that I condone real-life piracy in any way, shape or form.