Summertime is here!

And that means books. Lots and lots of books. My job is to put these books away, but it's an overwhelming job. In summer we are closed for most of the weekend, meaning that there's 3 days of work to do on Monday.

When books are returned to the library they are actually returned at the desk and then placed on shelves behind the circulation desk. It's our job to take these books from these shelves, organize them, and then put them on the big shelves in the main part of the library. The only problem with this setup is that the shelves back there are not big enough to deal with the summer months. There are two overflow tri-level carts back there that yesterday were both filled, as well as most of the page carts were then filled with books.

It's days like that that are so frustrating. It'd be fine if we had enough hands to help put all the books away, but when you're working in 2-3 man shifts it makes it seem like nothing is getting done. I don't know, I llike my job, but it could be so much easier if it didn't feel as though I was under an avalanche 24/7 while I'm there.

Name this blog!

Introducing the first ever contest on the Unnamed Blog: Name the Unnamed Blog. We'll let this go for awhile, but if you have an idea drop it in the comments and I'll pick my favorite at some point.

Have fun, and good luck!

Prize includes: Bragging rights and having this blog named after your idea.

We'll leave this open until I see a winner.

Into the woods (and back out again)

Today we got lonely and wanted to go hiking as it's been a few weeks since we've had to do any large walks. So after eating dinner (at home since we decided to nix the picnic) we left and went to a small park known as the Gosnell Big Woods Preserve. It's smaller than the name suggests, but some of the trees there are impressively large.

There was another reason for this hike: we missed geocaching. There were a few caches in the park, so we attempted to find as many as possible in the short amount of time we spent there. The first we attempted to find was off the beaten path. To find it we eventually crossed a mudstream, went through a swamp, went up a hill, and then we actually had to find the thing. I eventually found the metal plate (which had the coordinates to the next part in the multicache). Thankfully we took a different route back out (a safer one) and that was uneventful except for E walking through a spiderweb.

The other cache we found was an easily found cache that was hidden under a tree about 30-40 feet off the path. This was a one-part cache so we signed our name and on we went. By this point we were all tired, so were glad to make it back to the car and go home.

Another thing to note was that the park was deserted except for some teens who decided to go for a (very loud) bikeride on the trails (marked only for pedestrians). Other then that it was an uneventful hike, but it was up and down so I'm very glad to be home now.

Now for the brownies and bed (and wonderful sweet sleep!).

Eureka!!

E has a netflix account, which allows us to watch episodes of TV shows without having to actually watch them on live TV (meaning no commercials). We used this a lot for older TV shows, but the one that we really fell in love with was a brand new show (at the time).

I'm talking about Sci-fi(syfy? whatever)'s Eureka. We watched the first season on DVD, waited eagerly for the second to come out on DVD, and then M came up with a brilliant idea. He turned one of his computers in his lair into a homemade DVR system. He can now download TV show episodes to his computer and we can watch them on our TV using a wii remote as a remote. This system allows us to watch episodes before they come out on DVD, well before, in fact. We can usually have an episode downloaded by the following night to watch. This meant that we could watch the 3rd season as it happened, week by week (until syfy decided to chop the 3rd season in half, making us wait months and months for the next episode in the season).

For those of you who haven't seen the show the basic idea is this: Jack Carter, government agent, needs to drive through Eureka, USA, while taking a juvenile back to her hometown (this juvenile is later shown to be his daughter). He narrowly misses hitting a dog and slides off the road, effectively stranding himself in Eureka until his car gets fixed. While he's there, strange things start happening. Eventually he is told what is Euraka (after signing a novel of nondisclosure agreements). Eureka is the home to Global Dynamics (or GD) which is the home of the smartest scientists in the world. Jack eventually solves what's going on, stops the crisis, and is then invited to be the new town sheriff (since the last one had gotten injured in the crisis and wished to retire). So Jack stays in the town, grows as a father and a person, and makes it through some pretty strange things. Each episode is one crisis or happening, but there is a large overall storyline that takes most of a season or two to fully develop. That's why the show is so addicting. It's a great show, but you want to know what happens next.

If you want to check out the show site you can find it HERE.

Overall this show rates a 9 out of 10.

A New Beginning

I have no idea if anyone is going to get here, but just in case I will beg your forgiveness now. I have not been the most prudent blogger in the past, but I am older and wiser now. I will do my absolute best to post on a relatively regular basis (which means that I'll leave this open in a tab and post whenever it catches my eye).

Of course my posts may sometimes be just senseless babbling occasionally, but anyone who is around me for a long period of time realizes that most of what I say is senseless babbling anyway.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that chances are if you're reading this you know who I am. Just in case though, here's the "Who I Am" as briefly as I can make it without boring you.

You will know me as Jckwik, unless you know another one of my alias', Elfien [the coward]. I am this year entering 11th grade at McQuaid Jesuit, starting to look for colleges that may fit what I'm looking for, which is a complicated mess at this point.

I have a less then part-time job at the local library (9-12 hours a week mostly) where I spend most of my shift shelving books. Due to this I can easily say the alphabet quickly and rarely have to say the alphabet at all anymore. I work with a great group of people, mostly fellow teens, but they all are good at what they do. We're a tight knit group, but we manage to do more work than talking.

In school I'm known as a friend of teachers, and I must say that I prefer the older wiser teachers to my young stupid classmates (I may go into more detail on this later).

Current song: Duel of the Fates by John Williams
Current book: Several at the same time actually: Hey Ranger! (a book of misadventures from America's national parks as told by a ranger), Harry Potter 7, Physics of the Impossible (a fun book telling how ray guns and other impossibilities are completely possible with tech we may discover in the next few thousand years), and The Forever War (SR for McQ) by Joe Haldemen.
Current level of tiredness: Tired, like I'm going to bed after this tired.

Right, that's about as brief as I can make this.

One last thing about this blog: it is extremely comment friendly. I encourage, in fact, hope for as many comments as possible. I will try and respond to any and all comments, so even if your comment is "Hey J, your blog stinks!" I'll try and say something in response (In that case it'd be something like "Then why do you keep reading?"). Of course, if you don't have an account I'd like to know who you are when you comment, thanks.

With that comment the opening post is now completed and I get to play with my settings now! Fun fun fun.... *insert the evil laughter*

Also, if you haven't noticed by now I am quite insane.