And now we’re back… from outer space (LA)

Ack. Left LA at 11pm PST last night and got in to Detroit at 6:15am EST this morning. You’d think that a monday night red-eye flight to Detroit would have been pretty sparsely-populated… nope. They were overbooked by something like ten people. We briefly debated giving up our seats for a free roundtrip ticket, but… well… I guess *I* briefly debated. Marie briefly put an end to any internal debate that I may have been having. So after three hours of sleep, it’s back to work for me… and back to rescheduling my knee appointment for the third time. Whew… need a nap. Time for Tios!

Boogeyboarding in LA

Last weekend in Nashville, then a week in Ann Arbor working the Art Fair, now in LA for Sarah and Josh’s wedding. Whew… whirlwind.
We spent the day yesterday on Hermosa Beach enjoying the filtered sun and playing with the boogeyboards on the waves. We did finally manage to get the hang of it and had a few exciting rides (and spills). The wedding is this evening on the beach, followed by a small dinner and reception.
Now off to nap to catch up on some lost sleep. Maybe tomorrow we’ll meet up with Jenny and Esteban before we catch the redeye flight back to Detroit.

Libraries 2.0

On the way past an old empty brick library in Tecumseh the afternoon, I was thinking about the role of libraries in today’s information society. First, it’s depressing that the old turn-of-the-century libraries are being emptied and abandoned. They are usually (other than churches) the best remaining examples of small-town (or big city) brick, stone, and masonry architecture. But beyond that, I’m not sure that the continuing conglomeration of local facilities into multi-storied district-level warehouses of books is a positive thing. It’s just physically impossible to build a facility to store “all” of the current books that people might want to read at any given time, due to the sheer number of books and periodicals in print.

Here’s what I would propose: Continue the rotating library loan system, allowing local libraries to have current and fresh books in print. This system seems to have worked well for many years… why abandon it in favor of warehousing? Next, outfit each library not with an acceptable internet connection, but a freaking blazing-fast one. Partner with Google or someone similar to use a room in the library as a server/digital archive that’s redundantly distributed across the country. This would be the new Library of Congress… all publications available in all places simultaneously. Google is always seeking new server locations, and this would give them the ability to expand the material that they are able to process and store, and provides a service to the community. The great thing about digital information is that it doesn’t require a 25,000 sq ft facility… just the retrofitting of existing libraries that can continue to concentration on being a community learning hub, without having the constant worry of housing more and more printed material.

Questionable Quality Inn. We’re out.

In a continuing quest to outsmart myself, I made reservations at a hotel other than the one that Mandy suggested for the wedding this weekend. I’ve had great luck with Choice Hotels in the past, this one would save us something like $17/night, and the webpage for the hotel looked nice enough. I didn’t get a good vibe from the place to begin with, but we decided to give it a shot… besides, it ended up being even cheaper with the AAA discount.
Results:
It turns out that the whirlpool was one of those portable 3-person deals, and it didn’t even have water in it. The pool was closed, “waiting for inspection”. The wireless internet was only available in the center corridor of the hotel. The patio door didn’t open (not that we really wanted to go out there anyhow.) There was some sort of orange gunk on the walls. The undersheet on the bed was too small and couldn’t even be tucked in. The room was more humid than outside and smelled like a moldy chemistry experiment. And at least one towel, sheet, and pillow case were less than clean. Oh… and the lamp light was shorted out.

So… we got ourselves moved to a different room without too much complaint from management, which was considerably better but still less than great. So in the morning, we checked out of the Quality Inn, drove a hundred feet down the street, and checked in to the Comfort Inn. $3 more per night, but *they* had a working pool, a clean room, and the clientele was a bit less seedy. It was only later in that day that we discovered that the hotel that Mandy suggested was about a block away from Vanderbilt University, in the nice “college-town” area of the city. The hotel that *we* stayed in was sandwiched between the ghetto and projects on the north edge of the city, and the run-down rural apartments and the waiting-to-be-condemned shacks just in the hills just further north.

Hey… it’s an adventure. We survived. And saved a few bucks.

Gran Ole Nashville trip

Off to Nashville for Ben and Mandy’s wedding. We’re just north of Dayton right now so we’ve got most of the trip ahead of us. I checked the weather before we left and it looks like it’s exactly the same in Tennessee as it is in Michigan… 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity.

Also, I’m still tweaking the blog layout, but I added a nifty sidebar item, courtesy of Flickr. It shows the most recent image that I’ve uploaded that I tagged with “moblog”. So it won’t show everything, but it should change pretty frequently since I’ve set up my phone to be able to upload images directly to Flickr.

Three-O

Well… those three decades went quick! I think I need a party.

So… Sunday, August 14th. Starting at 2pm. PAJH (for those of you that remember it… will this be PAJH IV?) becomes PAJMH and combines with JTBP! I’m not sure what that spells but I’m sure that it has way too few vowels.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely invited, so swing by the Little House on the Bayou, bring some food or some drink (or bring a good stout and cover ‘em both), and hang out for a while!

blogware updates again

Time to upgrade again. I found that a lot of things that I wanted to do with the blog required newer versions than I had installed, so it’s upgrade time. (And the time is quickly approaching that I’ll need to do the same with the server itself. Sigh.)