and another book

Okay I spotted this book while rough-shelving on my circ shift - finding books with cool and enticing titles - an occupational hazard yes? Dung Beetle Ecology edited by Ilkka Hanski and Yves Cambefort was published by Prinseton U. Press 20 years ago. I guess it caught my eye because, clenching my insufficiently gloved hands walking to work this AM (it was a mitten morning - should have checked) I was thinking about my post winter, ready to almost overflow composters and how I better really deal with them this spring. So the benefites of rot are high on my radar today.

Just a quick glance at the preface tells me Dung Beetles are good parents - building nests like birds and nurturing their young - some birds and Dung Beetles produce only one offspring per breeding season. So clearly they have to take good care of them, invest in college funds, the best summer camps, get braces on their teeth...dung beetles as helicopter parents - who knew?*

Yes I am going to check it out - not exactly lunch time reading but still more interesting than Dan Brown.

*some of the facts in this paragraph are from the preface some from my overly colourful imagination

Something Wiki this way comes

I left a comment about my cavalier suggestion to the members of a three person subcommittee I have been named to that we could use a wiki - I realize now in the usual burst of 23 things creativity I should have phrased the email more like this:

"When shall we three meet (if at all) in Thunder Lightening or more of this da*n snow & slush?

"When the hurley burley's done? When the deadline's come and gone?

Process burn and report bubble wing of data, eye of newt cackle cackle
by the pricking of my thumbs etc etc (well I HAD to justify that title somehow).

At a glance Wikispaces looks pretty friendly (why does free stuff on the web so often look easier to use than the stuff the U of S IT people slave at providing for us) I feel like an ungrateful technowitch.

Podcasting and another book

Two birds with one Post. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis has been recommended to me by two people and I picked it up on the weekend.  Like other readers I couldn't put it down except under great pressure.

So this winner of  Canada Reads this year has an interesting history.  It was podcast chapter by chapter, and then self published before it won the Leacock Medal.  So that was the podcast I headed for.  I managed to subscribe to in on  my I-google page but I find I am rather clumsy at doing more than directly downloading to the computer.

I love listening to recorded books when I am weaving or sewing etc. so this is an option which is easier than borrowing cd's from the public library and with none of the annoying skips one often encounters on library cd novels. I guess Terry Fallis could also be the poster boy for successful self publishing.

On the road with the Grannies

This was not the absolute first time I have tried using the video function on my camera but I really only tested it a bit and lost interest - nothing like this 23things program to motivate me to use the technology at my fingertips. It was the first time I had opened and used I-movies which made for an interesting evening. Editing is fun, once you get the hang of it and like many cub reporters I kept kicking myself I didn't record this or that - the audience applauding would have made sense or presenting the grannies with a cheque for Station 20 west. ..ah well - it is really just a first effort at this youtube cinematography.  The hard thing is using the right


language - I want to call it "footage" and "filmclips" and other things from another format.  How would I use this in the library - we have talked about putting little video items on our branch webpage to explain things that are frequently asked questions or to serve as an online orientation.  Maybe my next opus will be "Raging Grannies go to the library"

Things I found tricky - duh don't put your camera on its side to take a vertical shot - you have to rotate it and i-movies tends to centre and cut people's heads off (you probably noticed that during Eileen's solo)  I also found i-movies a little annoying in that I never could figure out where my files were being saved to - so it took heading for bed and getting up again hours later to get it onto youtube - a learning curve but enjoyable.

Week 6 starts late for me

Well I am off to Yorkton tomorrow with the Raging Grannies We come home Wednesday and I expect to be back at work on Thursday, though I have a meeting as a Shop Steward with someone on Thursday afternoon so I am not sure if I will get a chance to tackle this week's things until Friday or later. However I hope to try to make a film clip of the Grannies big tour - THAT will be a fun challenge.

I look forward to getting caught up when I get back.

Tally ho!

Keeping up with the books

This week's book was a recording read by the author and very well produced.  And well it should be - it is a great story has won a Newberry, a Hugo, and various other awards.

Neil Gaiman is a very creative writer and The Graveyard book is a terrific read.  I think my favorite thing about the recorded version was the use of a very nice version of  Danse Macabre as the theme music. Nice touch!

In other threads (bad pun) I have been posting, on the weekend I finished the peapod.  But I had to curtail knitting almost completely for this week because my wrists are making nasty little comments about such obsessive knitting, mousing on the computer and threatening an rsi if I am not more mindful.  So this week has been dedicated to more "wrist-friendly" activities.

but i HAD to finish the peapod before taking a break. Obsessions are like that.

Prezi

So the assignment is to make a Prezi about music....and after an evening of enjoying Tom Lehrer clips on you-tube - decided - why not take one of my favorite songs by him to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry - so I had my you-tube. 2 actually - they are both fun - one is a tiny bit more educational than the other.  If it seems a little off topic - count your blessings - it was this or Gregorian Chant.

I enjoyed working in Prezi - it seems a lot more intuitive and less clunky than powerpoint.  I did have a bit of bother figuring out if a change was saved or if I had to "do" something.  I found I was exiting to view and then going back into edit little bits - there has to be a more elegant way to do this - Maybe I should watch the video again. (you remember RTM and RTFM (military) I bet those initialisms have NOT migrated from
newsgroups to text messaging - when was the last time you saw a manual?)

enjoy:

Elements my dear Watson on Prezi