Sumer Is Icumen In

elmo and me

I gave my last talk of the season (i.e. through September) on Friday and one of the librarians in the audience made my day with this quote

Fantastic talk about libraries and CMS by the funny and animated @jessamyn. I swear she’s part Muppet. #nelaits

The talk, which I was actually pretty pleased with, was about content management systems, why they’re important to running a library website and how they’re not that scary. You can see the details here and read more about the day here.

Lat week was the wrap-up of three out of five of the things that I do that could be considered jobs. I taught my last class at RTCC, my last drop-in time happened and I wrote and presented my last talk. I’m back at home now, looking at a greenish sky and some very green trees waiting for rain and thinking about how my summer is going to go. I’m still working at MetaFilter — the site is turning ten next month so I’m going to New Orleans for a party (for work!) — and I’m still slowly automating the Tunbridge Library. Otherwise I’m going to have a shocking amount of free time. I’m not going to have much trouble with this, I’m pretty much never bored, but after getting into the habit of being out of town all the time (I was either gone or had guests here for all or part of the last eight weekends) it will be weird to get into the habit of being IN town.

I’ve already been slashing through my back burner to do list including buying a bigger/better backpack, fixing the toilet, paying some large bills (Topsham has a new furnace, hooray!) and taking out the accumulating recycling. I got rid of four (4) computers a week or two ago and I’m going to get back to my occasional ebaying. Other odd things on the list include

  • Getting some gravel to make more mossariums. I’m a little chagrined to have to buy gravel, but I’m even more tired of finding out of the way places to scoop it up
  • Get the purple bike running and taking pictures
  • Finishing some of the five or so books that I’ve started
  • Crossing fingers for warm enough weather to remove the flannel sheets
  • Getting a new driver’s license to replace the bent one I lost
  • Getting a new passport for the old one that is expiring
  • Write a lot of thank you notes
  • Getting back in the pool, the pool that was closed for two of the past few weeks, putting a serious crimp in my stress-management plan.
  • Recording more old tapes.

I think I’ve also figured out how to climb the hill out back to get to that really snazzy looking place up top with the great view and I’d like to start making walks up there a regular part of my weekdays. Solstice is coming up and it can’t come soon enough.

daylight

sunset, abu dhabi

My photos of Dubai are now completely uploaded and in a photoset on Flickr that you can see here: Dubai 2007. The cactuscam was a success and allowed me to see the christmas cactus flowering until something happened and it went dark on Decembe 11th. Here is the last photo from the day I got back. As I recall from the last time I went left the country in mid-December, coming back to a US that has gotten its Christmas on while I was away is always a little jarring. Christmastime in Dubai was interesting because Dubai is a Muslim country and so it is crystal clear that the trees and ornaments and lights designate a secular, shopping holiday. It’s a little more murky here.

However, I like Winter. And yesterday I woke up to a box of fancy english muffins on my doorstep. In two days from now the days are going to start getting longer. If that isn’t a bang-up reason for a celebration I don’t know what is.