Social networking

Hmmm. I created my Facebook page. My daughter thought it was strange, but let me be her friend, anyway. I found some friends on it that I would never have expected to find there. I left messages on their walls. But I e-mail them, anyway, privately. These sites affect me in the same way that TV news stations have started to affect me when they have banners running under the commentators. There are so many places to look I'm not sure where to start. I end up turning to another channel. I'm one of those folks who hates multi-tasking, so when I'm reading, I'm not watching TV or listening to music, and when I'm walking my dog, I'm not talking on my cell phone. My daughter is capable of having the TV on, talking to me (well, sort of) while IMing several friends online, keeping track of her roommate's messing about in the kitchen... I guess I find these sites messy. I'm a linear kind of gal...

We'll never use these in our library - that firewall thing. Anyway, when I went into Facebook I sort of felt as though I was invading a young person's holdout. I did find some friends of my generation, but why? It's so time consuming. All my work these days is on a computer - I try really hard to avoid computers during my free time. Unless I'm buying horse equipment or supplements.

Now that I've set these accounts up, I'll probably never use them again, unless I'm required to by the powers that be in some future non-firewall reincarnation of my institution. I don' t feel a need to let all my friends know what I'm doing right now. I don't necessarily need them all to know each other either. I rather like having different worlds.

Blog vs wiki

Blogs are solitary endeavours. You got something to say. Here's your forum. Someone might even read it. Good for digesting material for your clientele, keeping them up to date on whatever it is you think you've cornered the market on, good for announcements. I don't see this as hugely important in our library. We have firewall issues. I can only access my blog for this class through a VPN. So far, I'm finding the blogging thing very addictive, but I have a lot of regular work to do, so reading a bunch of blogs and then blogging myself just isn't going to happen, until my director tells me to do it, of course. Which she may do. She's been reading my blog. She's going to read this. Oh, dear, this is so public.

Wikis are communal. We all have something to say, and we can all edit for the good of the group. Good for groups for managing things like schedules, appointments, documents, lists; I haven't even begun to imagine all the possibilities. I think we could actually use a wiki in our library for vacation days, meetings, announcements, working on documents (we do nothing without everyone proofing!), putting up articles, videos, but I'm not sure we have any uses for them at the moment with our patrons. And again, that firewall issue. I created my wiki for my boarding barn. I may flesh it out and present it to a couple of folks at the barn to see what they think - right now they might just say, eh! we're used to looking at three different marker boards, two calendars, and trying to keep up with phone calls. I think it would take a strong directive from the owner/trainer to keep such a wiki up and running. And the boards would have to come down...

“There is something about the outside of a horse...

that is good for the inside of a man." --Winston Churchill

Or a woman, of course.

When I approach Renny's stall, he's usually waiting. He can't see me coming, but perhaps after five years, he knows my footsteps. Sometimes he nickers, usually not. But there is an alertness to his gaze, as I reach the door to his stall. Of course, I'm by that time going, Hi, Ren, how are you, Red? Did you miss me? He moves toward the door as if he had no choice, but he does really. I have no illusions about why he always moves towards me. I have been his human treat dispenser for quite some time now. He is hugely motivated by food. I open the door of his stall, and he presents his head for petting and scratching. He investigates pockets and hands. He knows where the good stuff resides. I generally don't dispense treats upon arrival, but he is ever the optimist. Yesterday, we said hello, and as I walked away to change into riding clothes, he started pawing in his doorway. It could be begging, it could be "let's get me out of here!", or it could be something else I haven't even thought of. I don't know - he's not talking.

I longed him first in just his halter. He had no bucks in the back. He was smooth and willing. A good boy, he knows how to longe, moving from trot to canter and back to trot at the sound of my voice. I longed him a second time in the surcingle and bridle. He was more than happy to do it all over again in the side reins. This time he really relaxed and was snorting and blowing, always a good sign. He was working well over his back and was tracking up nicely under himself. When I asked him to canter, I could see him hesitate for a second as if wondering, can I do this without bringing my head up? I encouraged him with my voice, and he smoothly went into the canter. After that little confidence booster, he easily went between gaits even with the side reins tighter than ever before. We even got a bit of white stuff.

We longed for maybe a total of 12 minutes. I took him back to the aisle to untack, and as usual, he expressed a desire to chew on his halter for a few minutes before I put it back on him. So, with one arm holding the halter for him, and my other arm around his neck, I let him chew. His eyes go to half mast, as if the chewing were some equine opiate, I marvel at his chestnut colored eyelashes and breathe deeply as I press my cheek into his neck. If I could bottle that eau de horse and carry it with me for all the times when I cannot have him near, I would be so happy.

Rainy Wednesday

Horses haven't been out for two days. Paddocks are too wet. Will have to longe Renny before anyone gets on him. Always a fun experience since stall time usually means bucks stored in the back. He performs his self chiropractic at a mad dash gallop around the arena, barely contained by the longe line. I'll probably longe him first in his halter, so he can do his airs above the ground, then put the surcingle, bridle and side reins on. I recently reread the section on longeing in the USPC book on Longeing and Ground Training. Good to revisit these classic works. Will be sure to attach the longe line to not only the bit ring but also the noseband so that all the pressure is not on the mouth.

Friday Pub Med RSS Feed

Success! I followed David Rothman's guidelines on generating a custom RSS feed from PubMed. It worked! I think I have fulfilled this week's requirements for the course. I'm going to check in with an instructor to make sure they have received my blog link. TGIF!

RSS feeds

Patrons in my library can use the RSS feeds in Ovid to get their favorite journals' TOCs. We, the librarians, are using RSS feeds to try to keep our heads above water - staying current in the rapidly changing world of 2.o. I have a couple favorite library awareness feeds on my igoogle home page - finding the time to read them in the midst of my extremely busy day is another thing. Thankfully they usually take a topic and deal with it succinctly. Thank you David Rothman and Michelle Kraft.

Cheesh. I just realized I thought it was Monday when I did that first blog this morning early. Before caffeine had sufficiently made its rounds evidently. I guess I thought it was Monday because for me, it was Monday. I took yesterday off to hang out with my home from law school daughter who's on spring break.

This is kind of addictive, I'm realizing. I just watched the two videos about blogging and RSS feeds. That Commoncraft dude is swell! Those videos were almost as much fun as Dylan's original music video. Almost, well, not quite, really not at all. But definitely so much better than one more power point soporific.

Okay, so that wasn't my first ever post. Margie inspired me last summer with her blog about her riding vacation in Germany, so I created a blog at that time. I think I wrote one post then under a different blog title - lele.

Monday, March 10, 2008

First ever post to a blog. Had to log in to VPN. Hospital firewall doesn't like blogs. Now I just have to figure out how to link this anonymous blog to MLA. One mission accomplished. :o)