Hey, everybody!

Today, I’ve got a couple of awesome photos for you, which illustrate interactions between human beings and the natural world, and feature (especially!) bicycles! I was inspired by the thought that our new library should soon be getting a bike rack. Who knows what wonderful things may then be seen in Mount Kisco?

The first photo is by Ton Van der Weerden from Holland. The horse is a Dutch Draft, a breed I did not know before. Isn’t he beautiful?

As you see, the type of horse is very similar to the Belgian Drafts from my home town, but the hairstyle is quite different! For pulling, people in my part of the world clip the horses’ manes short and trim their fetlocks. In Holland, they leave the horses’ hair long and make beautiful braids!

And here’s a Russian Blue kitten, photographed by Lindy Meow! Gorgeous, isn’t it!

This one’s definitely set for wurld domanashun, don’t you think?

So, it will be very exciting if we do actually get a bike rack at the library!

In the meantime, I am happy to report that we did get some new furniture today! Behold the Teen Room Computer Desks! The teenagers tell me they like them a lot, and I think they are very pretty!

That’s it for this afternoon — enjoy! And I am always amenable to comments or suggestions!

PS Don’t forget, Emma McGlauchlin and Nicola Kraus, authors of The Nanny Diaries will be at the library to introduce their new book, The Real Real on Wednesday, September 30th at 7:00 PM!

PPS Just noticed, I ended almost every sentence in this post with an exclamation point! What in the world was I thinking?!

Wood Frog with Egg Mass, originally uploaded by J Gilbert.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter — those of you who celebrate!

Easter day was very cold in Northwestern CT, down in the 30s and with a sharp wind. But my sister and I went to our favorite vernal pool in the afternoon, and saw masses of wood frog eggs in the not-quite-frozen water. Wood frogs are amazing! They are the first creatures to emerge in Spring — even before the Spring peepers — and they sometimes breed in the ice and snow. Actually, they are the only species of frog found above the arctic circle. They “hibernate” by freezing solid, and resume their busy lives when the Spring sun thaws them out again. Pretty cool, no?

Of course, our little “Waldo” was a wood frog — and I may collect one of his distant friends or relations for the kids again this year.

Are there any kids who don’t like frogs?

The amazing photo is courtesy of Jim Gilbert. Please check out his photostream for more wonderful pictures.

And now, on to the next topic.

WLS LEARNS — THING 11, deli.icio.us, “folksonomies” and social tagging.

WLS Learns: Thing 11: Tagging “Folksonomies” and Social Bookmarking in del.icio.us

Well! I finally entered the right password, (Thanks, John!) & I got started on this assignment this afternoon.

It’s certainly easy to see how del.icio.us could save me a lot of time, since I cannot save any bookmarks on my computer at work. We’ve also had problems every once in a while with the reference computer, and some bookmarks have been deleted. Del.icio.us would give us a safe place to organize web based resources and keep them available for everyone who needs them – I like it! Plus the Common Craft video is fun.

Now on to the remaining tasks:

1. Exploration. I decided my popular category would be “Travel.”  Interesting!  Today’s popular sites included a great one called Joobli, which contains an international calendar of festivals — so you can find something interesting happening, wherever you happen to be. It’s got everthing from book fairs to music festivals to beer fests. Pretty great! So, it seems easier to find really useful information on delicious than on google — particularly if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for!

Of course, del.icio.us does not automatically eliminate the perils of exploring the web. I mean, you can still get sidetracked pretty easily, if you have any inclination that way at all.  Just for instance, the “travel” tag led me to concerts, which led me to Early Music sites, where I found theoretical discussions of things like heterophony and musica ficta. All of which could be a lot of fun to read — if I only had the time ;-D.

In sum, I can indeed see the use of del.icio.us. Bookmarks there are as tightly focused as people want to make them through their tagging — which could certainly be useful for a group or community wanting to study or discuss something together.

Which leads me to the last part of the assignment. I am now going to go and find a couple of nice Web sites and tag them for the rest of my colleagues.

…..and the links I added are:

1. Reading Rants
2. The Library 2.0 Reading List
3. 100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials

Enjoy!

~D.

Red shed with cow, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Good morning everybody!

Before I start my Web 2.0 homework today, I’d like to report on an amazingly fun new toy! I downloaded Colorsplash to my phone, and have been wasting my few spare minutes playing with it. And I just have to tell you, I love it!

It’s a very simple application that lets you selectively desaturate photos. Basically, it converts your photo to grayscale, and lets you add back colors by painting with your finger. You can zoom by pinching the screen with two fingers, to fix small details. And there’s even a mask, to let you see what you’re doing more clearly. Plus multiple undos to fix mistakes.

So, I love my new toy! I can have all the fun of finger painting with (I think) pretty cool looking results!

Here’s an example: one of our neighbor’s cows by a red shed. She and the shed are in living color, with a grey background. After fixing her color, I put her through a vignette and cross-processing filter in Picnik — doesn’t she look great?

Of course, she’s a very pretty cow, anyway!

Enjoy!

PS To see the “colorsplashed” cow,  before filtering, click on my flickr photos in the sidebar.

Perelandra, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Hi, everybody!

This blog is going to get a little technical again, now and then — I have to start doing homework, as the WLS Web 2.0 class, part 2, has now started!

But I thought I’d post a picture to start! I took this in my parent’s garden this past weekend, and I called it “Perelandra” because it reminded me of a beautiful description of a little dragon coiled round a gorgeously-colored tree, in that book by C.S. Lewis.

I love it when things in real life remind me of books!

(Is this another sign that I am becoming an ueber-geek?)

Enjoy!

And now, on to the techie stuff!

I have to admit, my heart sank a little when I got wind of this latest assignment. Not because I have anything against podcasts. I love them! I love them so much that I do them myself!

The problem is that I already subscribe to more podcasts than I have time to listen to. I started subscribing to podcasts on itunes even before I took Linda Braun’s awesome class on podcasts and podcasting. And I added more (including The Mount Kisco Library podcast) when I took that class.

HOWEVER, I’ve only used itunes to manage my podcasts before, and the bloglines option is certainly an interesting one. So, here goes!

WLS LEARNS: THING 10: Podcasting.

I had a lot of fun searching directories and finding new podcasts. Here’s a summary.

1. In Bloglines, I subscribed to 2 new podcasts.
      A. Games in Libraries
      B. The Art of Storytelling with Children.

These are both awesome resources, which connect with many other educational tools and interesting people, both online and in the world beyond!

2. I also added a great new information source to my ever-growing list of favorite web pages. The Online Education Database has published a Web page called Skip the Tuition, which lists free courses in podcast format from some of the world’s best universitites! This makes a great addition to the many classes already available at itunes u!

IN SUM: I had a good time doing this assignment, AND I learned about some wonderful new resources! Which goes to show you – even if you think you already know something, you can always learn more!

~D.

Young Giraffe, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Hi, everybody!

I just wanted to let you know that the editors of the Schmap chose this picture to illustrate their New York City Guide! I’m excited!

I tried to put a widget to the guide on this page, but I couldn’t get it to work ;-(

But anyway, I hope you enjoy this pic! And definitely, check out the Schmap page if you’d like a mobile city guide — I think they’re pretty cool!

Enjoy!

~D.

A Nicely Rounded Profile, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Hey, everybody!

I went out looking for sings of Spring today (It’s pretty cold, actually!) & I happend upon this little guy at Wampus pond. I scared him off at first, but I managed to get a couple of good shots when he came back towards the shore.

Enjoy!

Anyone for Guinness?, originally uploaded by Blazingstar.

Hey everybody!

Isn’t this an awesome photo? And definitely in the spirit of St. Patrick’s day, isn’t it!

Blazingstar took this awesome shot, & I hope you enjoy it!

Winter pasture, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Yes, it’s still winter here — even though the snow was almost gone this weekend, when I took this photo. (It was still pretty deep on my parent’s windy hilltop, for some reason — but not in this valley).

What do you mean, I’ve got it on the wrong foot?, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Hi, everybody!

I loved Birgitte’s red clog picture so much that it inspired me to post my own red clog picture, as you see.

But I’m not going to write much, today. There’s either too much news or too little…..

‘Til later… Enjoy the day, everyone!

Snow leopard, originally uploaded by deirdrej.

Hi, everybody!

Isn’t this an amazing pose? My twin sister and I went down to the Bronx Zoo this afternoon — ostensibly to see the special holiday exhibit — but there are SO many marvelous creatures there that we got seriously sidetracked. Which was good! There’s this wonderful snow leopard exhibit, for instance. Isn’t he a beautiful animal? And what a stretch!

Speaking of stretching — time to exercise my mind a little, I guess. I have been mulling over J. Sexton’s IMPOSSIBLE pre-holiday question: “what are your 10 favorite books?” Man, that’s impossible — isn’t it? It’s easier to just have one favorite book, or a hundred. But I’m going to go ahead and list a few. Here are some books that I seriously love, that I will definitely read more than once, and that had a big impact on me. (BTW, I think you can also find most of them listed on my Librarything page.

So… some of my favorite books are….

1. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. This book has SO much in it! I fell in love with it when my Dad read it to me — I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time — and that was without understanding half of it. Even now, when I read it, I still discover new things. By reading and re-reading it, I developed a love of nature and countryside, and also of language. (In fact, I think it’s Tolkiens fault that I took historical linguistics in college!) Besides, Sam Gamgee has got to be one of the best heroes in all of literature! (Excuse me, all you Peter Jackson fans — and yes, I love the movies, too, although they don’t hold a candle to the books, but anyway. Frodo is NOT the hero. And neither is Aragorn. SAM RULES!)

2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking GlassAnother book I fell in love with when I was about eight. What fascinated me then — and still fascinates me now — is how perfectly Carroll captures the atmosphere of a dream. BTW, I liked “looking glass” better than “wonderland” back then, and I still do!

3. Jane Eyre I was a bit older when I first read this one — about 12, I think. But it’s another one I can easily read more than once. Melodramatic? Yes! But very compelling, and what a wonderful character Jane is! The consummate girl power book!

4. Kai Lung’s Golden Hours How to describe this? Imagine Sheherazade as a young Chinese man with a very clever and resourceful girlfriend, and an amazing gift for storytelling. It’s great!
Engaging, and very funny (imo). You’ll like it if you like the style — and here’s a sample. One of the characters is describing an exceptionally beautiful woman:

“…after secretly observing the grace of her movements, the most celebrated picture-maker of the province burned the implements of his craft, and began life anew as a trainer of performing elephants.”

I feel sure somehow that Terry Pratchett must have read Ernest Bramah. In any case, I love them both!

5. Cache Lake Country This book made a huge impression on me. Again, I read it when I was a bit too young — but I loved it! Passages from it have stayed with me all my life (particularly the scene of the wolves in the snow at full moon — awesome!) Plus, it has great illustrations — always a plus, with me.

6. Loitering With Intent I’m not sure I could say which is the greatest of the late, great Dame Muriel Spark’s many wonderful books — but this is one I really love!

7. A Wrinkle in Time Another favorite from my childhood. I just reread it recently, and it’s as good now as it was then. Meg Murray rules!!

8. A River Runs Through It Just a beautiful book. That’s all I can say. Really!

9. Cautionary Tales I LOVE comic verse, and these are some of the best ever! Deliciously absurd, but pointed! Here’s a quote — from the Moral Alphabet, in which every letter gets a verse with a Moral.

B stands for Bear. When Bears are seen
Approaching in the distance,
Make up your mind at once between
Retreat and Armed Resistance.

A Gentleman remained to fight –
With what result for him?
The bear, with ill-concealed delight,
Devoured him, Limb by Limb.

Another person turned and ran;
He ran extremely hard:
The Bear was faster than the Man,
And beat him by a yard.

MORAL

Decisive action in the hour of need
Denotes the hero, but does not succeed.

10. The King of Attolia Megan Whalen Turner’s 3rd “Queen’s Thief” book is the best one yet. And they are extraordinary.

But wait! I’ve already gotten to 10, and I have so many more favorite books. Ursula Leguin hasn’t made it onto the list yet, and neither has C.S. Lewis. Or Flann O’Brien, or Dorothy Sayers, or Adalbert Stifter, or Hartmann von Aue, or Jane Goodall, or… actually there’s next to no non-fiction. Which I read all the time, and love! (especially if it’s about nature or animals) And no serious poetry …. …… aargh!

Well, John, I agree, this was next to impossible to do! But I did enjoy the attempt, and I hope everybody who reads this does, too!

Goodnight, everyone! More later,

~D.