Postcards from Alaska #11

Alyeska also has a small population of ground squirrels, such as this guy. Moments after this picture was taken, he rushed us. I don't know if he was trying to scare us or if he was just curious as to what we were all about, but he gave up with that tactic and scurried away where I and my camera couldn't get at him.

Postcards from Alaska #10

Alyeska is a ski resort and hotel, located at the bottom of a mountain, with a five star restaurant near the top. They also offer tourists the chance to ride up in the cable car for around $15 a pop and get a good look at the view. Nice, huh?

Postcards from Alaska #9

We saw Alyeska Resort on the Travel Channel and thought it might be nice to visit. We forgot to write down where it was located, however, but stumbled upon it all the same. (Doesn't hurt that, for the largest state in the union, Alaska only really has about 8 highways to its name.)

Postcards from Alaska #8

I actually ate a very small chunk of this glacier. Quite smooth, but with hint of whale ass.

Postcards from Alaska #7

"You've been a whale of an audience, ladies and gentlemen! Have a good evening and don't forget to tip the tourboat staff. G'night!"

Postcards from Alaska #6

Exit Glacier, near Seward, is a glacier you can walk to. If you're dumb you'll go stand next to it and possibly get calved on. Or, you can take the vanilla wussy way and stay behind the rope, like me.

Postcards from Alaska #5

Resurrection Bay, near our first major stop in Seward, AK. An all around gorgeous place.

Postcards from Alaska #4

Memo to self: Next time I come to Alaska, bring a camera with a stronger zoom.

Postcards from Alaska #3

See what I mean?

Postcards from Alaska #2

Little known facts about Alaska: No sign in this state is without at least one bullet hole.

Postcards from Alaska #1

Home sweet home. This is the Winnebago we rented for our two week Alaskan adventure. Even with gas prices soaring, this was still cheaper than staying in $150 per night hotels (tourist season prices, dontchaknow) and eating out at expensive restaurants every meal (during tourist season all restaurants in AK are expensive). We rented this one from Great Alaskan Holidays in Anchorage. A fantastic company and a great all around experience.

A-MINUS: 0

I've never been to Alaska before, but later this afternoon I'm headed up there. Yes indeedy, I'm finally off to visit the homeland, or at least the growing up land, of my wife Ashley.

From age five, when her dad moved the family up there, looking to and eventually taking a job as an industrial mechanic on the oil pipeline project in the mid 1970s, to age 25, Alaska was where Ashley called home. She and her family lived in a variety of places—often Little House on the Prairie style, with no running water and an outhouse, sometimes in the middle of the wilderness with no roads of any sort leading to them and supplies air-dropped every two weeks—but eventually settled down in a little community called Salcha. I'll get to see that area and lots more.

Unfortunately, I've been operating under the mistaken impression that I was supposed to fly out Saturday instead of today despite the fact that my itenerary clearly says May 18. So I'm about to pile the cat in the car to zoom down to North Carolina where I'm ditching her with the in-laws and then flying out of Charlotte at 5:20. I guess the countdown still works, as it's a 10 hour flight, so I won't get there until the wee hours of Saturday. Well, the wee hours for me, it'll only be midnight when I get there.

Oy, I should have left yesterday.

I'll drop in from time to time, posting from libraries across Alaska, uploading snapshots and no doubt sitting next to the Alaskan equivallent of Mr. B-Natural.

A-MINUS: 1 or 0 depending on your point of view

The Unprecedented

NO!

#$%&ING!

WAY!

I'm simply astounded!

Awestruck, even!

I'm amazed, taken of breath and at a near complete loss for words (except for, well, these).

How come? Lemme tells ya.

A computer patron came up to the circ desk and asked me how she might print information from a website but only print a select amount of it and not print the entire site. Can you believe that shit?

Huh?

No, listen to what I'm saying, here, because I don't think you understand the full gravity of the situation.

This patron asked this question IN ADVANCE of attempting it. This beautiful, compassionate, caring soul didn't just print out the entire damn website and THEN come complain about how she only wanted a sentence. No, she actually sought out our assistance IN ADVANCE in order to accomplish the goal she had set before her.

IN! ADVANCE!

I nearly cried with joy and amazement! It was like a religious experience. I tell you, if I wasn't already married and if she hadn't been kind of a hag, I would have kissed her full on the lips and slipped her some tongue. Instead, I joyfully supplied her with my, until that moment unused, pre-printing lecture on the finer points of internet printing and how she might highlight the one sentence she wanted, go to the print menu, select "SELECTED TEXT" and then print.

It made my millennium.

A-MINUS: 2

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #81

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library?

BIRTHDAY LADY— Yes, could you tell me what year Jerry Falwell was born?

ME— Oh, did he pass?

BIRTHDAY LADY— Yes he... Ohhh, no. You hadn't heard.

I failed to mention to Birthday Lady that the only deaths of famous people I EVER hear about come from either her or Entertainment Weekly. Instead, I fired up Google, looked up Mr. Falwell's birthday of August 11, 1933, and passed the information on. Birthday Lady explained that Mr. Falwell had died of an apparent heart attack. She then apologized to me for being the bearer of such tragic news, but she'd only just heard about it herself.

A-MINUS: 3

Mr. B-Notary?

Speaking of dogs in the building, one of our favorite neighbors of the "liberry" is a lady named Carrie, who bought the house of our former "liberry" neighbor Mona, when Mona moved away a few months back. Carrie visits us frequently and is a considerable "liberry" donor. Unfortunately, she owns a small yap dog which she insists on bringing with her where ever she goes and almost always brings it into the library when she visits. Mrs. A has been concerned that Mr. B-Natural would catch sight of the dog and then throw a big, righteous, Grumpiest Old Man in all the World hissy that someone else's dog was allowed to come in the building but his was banned. She's not been so worried, though, that she's asked Carrie not to bring her pooch. (Did I mention she's a major donor?) So far, Mr. B-Natural hasn't seen the dog, but there have been some close calls.

In the middle of last week's story hour, Mr. B-Natural came up to the desk clutching a fistful of papers.

"I need to get these notarized," he said. "You a notary?"

"No, I'm not and both of our others are busy at the moment," I said. Then I recalled that Mrs. A was actually in the building and is a notary. I told Mr. B-Natural that I might have one for him after all and went upstairs to find Mrs. A.

Upon returning to the desk, I told him, "She'll be down in a couple minutes." I then tried to find something productive to do while we both stood there waiting.

"I already signed these papers," Mr. B-Natural offered.

I gave him the long, slow burn look. "You're not supposed to sign them until the notary can witness it," I said. "MRS. A won't be able to notarize that unless she witnesses you sign it." THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A NOTARY!

"Ahhhhh, I can just sign it again," he grumped.

Mrs. A came down from her office, saw that he'd already signed the papers and reiterated the purpose of a notary to him. Mr. B-Natural told her he could just sign it again over his previous signature and she reluctantly agreed to witness that. While he was doing so, the door opened and in came Carrie and her pooch. Carrie was dropping something off and came right up to the desk, within a foot of Mr. B-Natural, and passed it over the desk to Mrs. A. Fortunately, Carrie had somewhere else she needed to be and departed before Mr. B-Natural had a chance to look up. As Carrie left, Mrs. A turned and gave me a horrified look at the bullet we'd just dodged. It's not that she's afraid of Mr. B-Natural's wrath, but that doesn't mean she wants to listen to it either. Plus, he would have a point. We're playing favorites with dogs. Granted, Carrie's pooch is far less likely to be riddled with the kind of fleas Bubba has delivered to us in the past, but it's still not being completely fair.

A-MINUS: 4

Mr. B-Wireless?

Mr. B-Natural has let it be known that he just ordered a laptop computer and will soon be taking advantage of the "liberry's" wireless access. No more will he have to wait in line in order to get right to his "innanet" crossword puzzle. No more will he be busted off the computer in the middle of a very important game of solitaire in favor of a child who only wishes to spend hours on MySpace. He will be footloose and fancy free... provided he remains within the as yet undetermined confines of our wireless signal.

"Hey, will I be able to use it outside, so I can sit there with my dog?" he asked last week.

"Not sure," I said. "Probably. Some people have used it in their cars, out front."

"What about at the picnic table?"

The picnic table is a bit far away for what I imagine are our signal reach limits. However, I'd be willing to drag it closer to the building if only for the sake of his dog, Bubba—a wonderful animal who we like far more than we do its owner.

Eventually, he will realize that with a wireless connection he can use outside, we'll no longer be able to prevent him from drinking his coffee as he uses the internet. And when he spills that cup of coffee in his own keyboard, he will have to live with the consequences.

A-MINUS: 5

Bite my ass, lady! And I mean that only in the kindest possible way.

Mrs. B told me about this one.

Early last week, Mrs. B received a phone call from an irate patron. This patron said that she had requested an inter"liberry" loan two weeks ago and it still hadn't arrived for her. She was furious that this was the case because she really needed that book. Mrs. B looked up the title in our consortium's directory and found that one library in the entire consortium owned the book and it was currently checked out. She explained this to the woman on the phone, pointing out that if a given book is not currently on the shelves of the library that owns it, that book can't exactly be loaned out until it is first returned.

The woman didn't care to hear this, of course, and insisted that she had been assured the book was available and would be in her hands within 10 days. Furthermore, if the book wasn't in her hands by the end of the day, she was going to phone the library commission to complain about us. Mrs. B told her that she was welcome to do so, but that we had no control over when or whether the book would arrive, nor did the library commission.

The lady then backtracked a bit and said that she might instead call the library commission to complain about the library that actually owned the book. Mrs. B tried to point out that the book might have been checked out from the other library between the time the ILL request was originally taken and the time we actually processed it, a day or so later. It might not even be overdue and could therefore not be recalled by the library that owned it to loan to us. The woman angrilly insisted that no one wanted to read that book, it wasn't popular and so no one would have checked it out. If she didn't have it by the end of the day, she was phoning the library commission to tattle on someone. She HAD to have that book.

When Mrs. C returned, Mrs. B asked her about the ILL. Mrs. C looked the book up and found that it was actually checked out to us by the library that owned it as part of the interlibrary loan and it had already been mailed but had not yet arrived. Mrs. C phoned the patron back and told her this. The patron was suddenly all nice and happy and said she was sorry she had gotten so angry with us over it before, but that she really needed that book for a paper she was writing for a class and had to have it immediately.

Mid afternoon, the mail arrived and so did this lady's requested book. Mrs. B phoned her up immediately and told her the book was waiting for her. The patron was overjoyed.

Four days later, she actually came to pick it up.

A-MINUS: 8

And the password is... (2007)

When it comes to the New Devil Twins and their Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids, we rarely encounter any of their parents. The most we usually see from the parents is when they pop their heads in the front door to ask if their kids are on the premesis, almost as if they are afraid of setting actual foot in the building.

Last week, though, the mom of two of the primary League members stopped by, with her kids in tow, to sign up for computers. We only had one available at that point, which I knew because I'd gone back to reboot it some minutes earlier. The other two computers were occupied by a no-name patron and Mr. B-Natural, respectively. I told the mom she and her kids were welcome to use the computer we had.

The eldest son, Mark, signed up and headed on back leaving mom and little brother at the desk. Mom said that her younger son (points to younger son) had told her about some permission form we needed to have her sign in order for him to use the internet on his own and asked for one of those. I forked it over and waited while she started in on it.

"He's not going to be able to look at anything bad, is he?" she asked.

"Well, he'll have access to pretty much anything that's on the internet," I said. "Well, anything that can get past our filter."

"But nothing gets past the filters, right?"

I shrugged. "You'd be surprised. It's pretty good, as filters go, but it's not foolproof."

She gave the boy a long appraising look.

"MooooOOOOoommm! I'm not gonna look at anything bad."

"You better not."

While they were filling out the form, I went back to log on the computer for Mark. Only, when I came around the corner into the computer hall, I saw Mark was already using it to load a webpage. Mark looked up at me and I saw guilt cross his face.

"Now, how exactly did you do that?" I asked him, knowing full well that I had rebooted that computer earlier and that it had returned to our login screen where a password is required to proceed. "You're not supposed to know the password."

"No... I didn't," he said. "I just hit this button, but I didn't know it." He pointed to the single letter that has served as our password for the past few months. Granted, it's no great feat to have paid attention to our hands during the 200 times we've logged him onto a computer in that time, so it's not exactly surprising that he knew it and he's certainly not the first to have mastered that trick. His brazen use of it, however, was a bit off-putting.

"I'm sorry," Mark added.

"Let him tell me what it is," Mr. B-Natural said in a hopeful tone.

I gave Mark a stern yet forgiving look and told him it was okay. Then I left a note to the staff that we need to change the passwords again.

We've now changed the passwords, yet again. At my suggestion, we're going to use a password of multiple letters. Mrs. A then suggested and instantly approved a choice: my three initials.

Immortality is mine!

(Now if we can only convince Mrs. J to stop saying the letters aloud as she types them.)

A-MINUS: 10

Actual Semi-Paraphrased Second-Hand Information Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #80

SETTING— My "liberry" shortly after Eternal Newbie Greenhorn, Ms. S, arrives for her afternoon shift. UberBoss Mrs. A and Next-in-Command Uber Boss Mrs. C are present at the circ desk when Ms. S appears.

MRS. C— (To Ms. S) As soon as you get clocked in, you can go upstairs and read the shelves.

MS. S— No. I'm going to go read the YAs.

(She actually said that, "No. I'm going to go read the YA's." Said it not merely to a fellow employee but to her superior and in front of her Uber Superior. Not, "I'd PREFER to go and read the YA's," but "NO, I'm GOING to go read the YA's.")

(There followed a pause)

MRS. A— (To Ms. S) Mrs. C just told you to go upstairs and read the shelves in non-fiction. That's what you're going to do.

MRS. C— You can read the YA's (which are downstairs) when we're gone. You can only read upstairs while there are other people here to watch the desk.

MS. S— (Grunts loudly in irritation as she shuffles off to do as she was told.)

Shortly after this, Mrs. A followed, taking Ms. S into her office for a more private meeting, the contents of which I can only speculate about. Unfortunately, the end result was merely a verbal reprimand and not an actual firing.

A-MINUS: 12

C-Note

Instead of my usual shift at my own "liberry," yesterday I did some subbing at Town-C's branch. They were in the throes of their annual salad lunche0n and were short-staffed to begin with, so I agreed to come over and run the desk, provided they fed me. (They did, and quite well.)

It's been a few years since I subbed at Town-C's branch. It's a much smaller "liberry" than ours, essentially one large, meandering room. And while its librarian, Mrs. S (no relation to Ms. S) and our own Mrs. A are friends, there's still something of a rivalry between our two branches--much as there is between our two towns. I don't think the rivalry exists so much on our part, at Town-A, since we pretty much view ourselves as top dog of the whole area, and rightfully so. From what I'm told, though, Town-C's board of directors speaks ill of us every chance they get and encourages their branch to be as free-spirited and different from us as it can. I have to admit, in many ways, they are far more progressive than we are; they do a lot to serve their small community by offering lots of literacy training (we offer it too, but rarely do people take us up on it), and other public service style classes. There are other differences, too.

For instance, Town-C's shelving philosophy differs from our own in that its largely divided by subject, even beyond the Dewey nonfiction. There are separate sections for romance, westerns, inspirational, mystery, large print, classics, children's classics, children's award-winning classics (subdivided by award won), children's award-winning non classics (subdivided by award won), favorite children's authors (individually subdivided outside of the general shelves, by author), favorite classic children's authors who won awards, favorite non-classic children's authors who didn't win any awards and died of consumption, etc. In fact, the children's section is so subdivided that a newbie like me (or a patron, for that matter) can't find ANYTHING without three maps and a sherpa.

Much was the case when a lady came in looking for a copy of a juvenille book, today. The computer said Town-C owned a copy, said it was in, but we couldn't find it on the shelf where we thought it should live. She suggested it might be an award winner, so I looked at the computer again. Sure enough, there was the note "(AWARD)" out beside the call. We looked in the awards section and couldn't find it anywhere in the subdivisions, either. I decided to search the database of the entire county then and noted that that Town-C actually owned two copies, one of which did not show up in my earlier search. It was listed as being located in the Classics Section. Only I didn't know where the classics section was, as it didn't seem to be in the children's area or the general adult fiction area. The mom and I searched the library for a full six minutes before I found the classics section, located in the nonfiction area (not even the 823s) hidden in a floor shelf. There I found both copies of the book in question, both with the exact same call number even though the computer showed two different ones.

Who exactly is that helping?

The philosophical differences also extend to the public computers, of which Town-C has over twice as many as we do. Each patron is given an hour's worth of time, is not run off if no one is waiting, is not even timed and there are no passwords for staff to have to know. It's pretty much a self-serve operation. We had several computer patrons throughout the day, but never more then one at a time. They all knew the drill, came over, signed up on their own, logged off when they were finished and gave me no trouble.

The only rogueish patron was a kid I've long thought of as The Redneck Prince of Darkness. I've not seen this kid as a patron in my own library, but instead have seen him skulking along the streets of Town-C as I've driven through it on my commute to work. If its possible for there to be such a thing as a redneck goth metalhead, this guy is it. As should any true goth kid, he dresses exclusively in black, but in things like black flannel over black Carhartts and work boots. He's got the black knit-cap, too, and the whole thing covered by a long black trenchcoat. When you see him, your brain automatically starts playing NIN on a steel guitar with fiddle accompaniment. He does have the dark, vaguely angry thing down pretty good, but I just can't take him seriously, other than occasionally wondering if he's gonna start shooting. He came in, used the public computer furthest away from the circ desk, way in the back of the double row of them where prying eyes couldn't see his screen, then left.

Town-C also suffers from a similar ailment to my own branch in that it has a most unfortunate location for its public restroom. Town-C's is located directly across from the circ desk, has a paper thin door, no sound-proofing, loud echoey walls and anything that occurs within its confines is clearly audible to the entire library. Only three patrons used it while I was on shift, but I heard all their businesss. Particularly that of a mentally handicapped patron, who came in with many of the same Unobstructed Doors crowd who visit us. He went in the restroom, peed very loudly and cracked the loudest, longest fart on record. I had to retreat around a corner, least one of the aides catch sight of me giggling.

A-MINUS: 15