A Suns Odyssey

The Phoenix Suns ended their playoff journey early in the first round this year. It was quite a year. Am I surprised? Not really. There were a lot of inconsistencies for the team long before the trade for Shaq. Sometimes the momentum and enthusiasm was not there. Perhaps the team played without a lot of heart or focus--sometimes. That is okay. There is always time to regroup for the next season.

I feel I can say all this since I managed to either watch or listen to every single Suns game this season. Pre-season included. This is the first chance I have ever had to do such a thing. Before this year, I was living in Montana and could only follow the team when they showed up on TNT, ESPN or ABC Sunday basketball.

My first chance to ever see the Suns play in-person was on April 1, 2007 when they played the Dallas Mavericks. Wow! That was an incredible game filled with amazing passes, 3-point shots, etc. Remember the old slogan, "The NBA is FANtastic!" It certainly was for me on that game. I was in awe. It was also tons of fun!

Once my family and I moved back down to Arizona in the Summer of 2007, I looked forward to the next Suns season. We even drove down to Tucson on October 6 for the Suns intrasquad scrimmage. My daughter got her first chance to see the Suns in a more intimate setting than the US Airways Center. McKale Center of the University of Arizona had a mere 7,000 die-hard fans having fun watching the orange team play the white team. That was so much fun!

And how quickly and crazily a season has flown by. I am proud of the Suns regardless of the playoffs or the trade or D'Antoni not playing his bench, etc. They are a great bunch of talented gentlemen who if they are "clicking on all cylinders" can be one of the most incredible teams in basketball. I don't care about the Championships--I just want the team to have fun and play well.

Enjoy your summers, guys and we'll see you next season!

Pride in your neighborhood

Okay, so I like clean streets. This morning, I am walking my daughter to school and it is recycling day in our neighborhood. In the middle of the road are some cardboard bottoms from 2 Gatorade packs. I told my daughter that if it is still there on the way back, I will pick it up and recycle it myself. I proceeded to do so.

I often wonder are we all so busy that we can't pick up trash, aluminum cans, shattered glass in our neighborhoods? I never see myself as too busy to keep things clean. I do wish more people were responsible for taking care of where we live.

One might argue that it was because being an employee of the National Park Service that I have the "pack it in, pack it out" mentality. But I have been like this my whole life. I don't like to see trash, recyclable or otherwise on our streets, sidewalks, etc.

Let's try harder to keep our little corners of the Earth clean, Please!?

Ray Davies: "Life Goes On, It happens everyday so appreciate what you've got before it's taken away"

Well, Mr. Ray Davies of the Kinks said it so precisely, that one can not argue with the fact quoted in the title of this post.

Here is the official end of the Learning Web 2.0 training. I have been asked, from the powers that be, to analyze the experience, to discuss the goods, bads, uglies, etc.

I most enjoyed playing with "blogland." It has been fun to do little episodes on the Learning 2.0 experience and post pictures, YouTube video, links, etc.

The bloglines account was an exceptionally neat way to keep track of blogs, podcasts and the like.

I liked the image generator exercise where I could find the Warholizer. That was lots of fun.

I was most bored with the searching sites for RSS feeds and podcasts. For me, in both instances, it was easier to go to a website on a topic I knew and subscribe to the podcast or RSS feed from there.

My post on the Library 2.0 phenomenon which was my Pollyanna-ish version of how I currently see it in libraries, was commented on from an unknown individual that I glossed over the comment since it brought back nightmares of Library School 14 years ago!!!! I just can't philosophize on that level. I have a husband, kids, cats, and the Phoenix Suns to root for!!!

I think I will continue to keep my blog up for fun. So thanks for the experience!

Here is a link to an Unshelved issue I especially liked:
Unshelved strip for Friday, March 14, 2008

Audiobooks via the Internet

I browsed the Greater Phoenix Digital Library website and explored in more detail the titles for the OverDrive audiobooks.

I liked the "Browse audio ebooks" option which allows one to search by genre. I also liked the "burn to CD" notice when you look up a list of titles.

I checked under the biography/autobiography option and found a book called Antarctica on a Plate by Alexa Thomson. This author agrees to go down to Antarctica and cook for scientists, eccentrics, etc.

This sounds like an interesting premise and reminds me of my remote and rural existence in Montana. I certainly had challenges when preparing food. Let's just say I was 22 miles from a grocery store and 50 miles from a WalMart. And certainly fast food was NOT an option. This author has even more intense experiences dealing with defrosting food in a frozen environment, for example.

I also explored "Sue Grafton" to see if any of her works were accessible via audio ebooks.

Interestingly, after I reviewed this site, I had 3 questions in a row about the Greater Phoenix Digital Library at the Information Desk and I was able to help each individual since I had just reviewed the features.

Podcasts??

I browsed some podcast indexing websites and was overwhelmed! I was flustered as to what topic I would want to listen about. I tried to see if a soap opera, Guiding Light, was still doing podcasts (in a way a perverse return to their radio hey-day), but all the dates where from 2006. Perhaps they have moved to the streaming video episodes . . . (my home computer and its internet connection are too ancient for such technology!!!).

My husband suggested going to websites of things I like. For example, the Phoenix Suns website has a link to their podcasts. I was amazed how easy it was to add that to my bloglines account. It was really neat since you can get podcasts of radio interviews that you might not be able to listen to live.

I did find the Library Channel from Arizona State University. This is a neat resource of podcasts from all facets of the many libraries in the vast University Libraries system. I have learned about Arizona history, travel, new resources, new librarians, etc. Keep those podcasts coming!

Our library system could benefit from podcasts if we were visited by an author and we could conduct an interview with them about their books. I guess those individuals who do the special programs at the library could also have their presentation be in podcast form. Such podcast-abilities are endless!

You Tube in Libraries?

How could something like YouTube be beneficial to our libraries?

I was thinking about using YouTube to provide a tour of the various libraries in our library system. Sometimes materials, restrooms, copy machines and the like are not easy to find. Individuals could link to a YouTube video from the library site and get a brief tour of the library they were curious about.

Also, a short YouTube video could track the renovation or construction of libraries in our library system as well.

You Tube

So, the wonderful world of YouTube. I will try to embed a cute cat illustration--Simon's Cat. That seems like a lot of fun. And so true for cat owners--you should have seen my screens in Montana (I was replacing them often!!!).






I chose this because I like the crazy world of cats and this individual has a brilliant way of displaying that via illustration.