A Bloy and his Blog

This post is inspired by the weblog, Ref Grunt. I couldn’t agree more with the librarian from that site when he writes: “Some days I love working the reference desk, some days I hate it and it’s often the same day.”

In the Morning

“My computer froze.” I’ll reboot it for you sir.
Information on the Coral Castle in Florida.
“How do I download to a floppy disk?”
“A window popped up that said I won a prize.” I think that’s an ad. If I were you I would not give them your email address.

read the rest of: A day at the reference desk

Almost everyday of my adult life, a clock radio has awakened me with the sounds of National Public Radio. One of my favorite parts of the day is spent lying in bed for a little while, listening to the best news and commentary in the media today. After 25 years, today was Bob Edwards last day as host of NPR’s Morning Edition. Listening to Bob’s authoritative and comforting style every morning was like hearing your father tell you about the events of the day. I also enjoyed the way in which he injected his wry sense of humor into Morning Edition — a unique and welcome trait that other hosts and news anchors often do not share.

Thank you for waking me up and filling me in, Bob. Good luck with the next phase of your career.

On Sunday most of my family got together to celebrate the baptism of my grandnephew, Adam Bloy. It was the first chance I had to meet the newest member of the Bloy family. Here are a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.

read the rest of: Hello Adam

A recent visit to a new auto mechanic (for an expensive repair) got me thinking about trust. How do you decide to trust someone? Once you get to know a person that decision does get easier, but what about the people you’re unfamiliar with, or those you are unable to get to know? There are a lot of people in our lives we must trust, even though we have very limited information about them. Having to decide if the car mechanic is trying to rip you off, if your doctor is the best qualified to treat you or if a certain politician is the best leader can be very difficult.

read the rest of: Who do you trust?

My creative energies have been in a bit of a diminished state lately. Why? Probably because it’s the busiest time of the year at work and I am getting increasingly eager for spring and warmer weather to be here on a more permanent basis.

That brings up the question, how do you give those creative energies a boost? One of things I find useful is browsing the web (okay, that’s no big surprise). With that in mind, there are a few new links that I’ve recently added to my page of web sites I visit on a regular basis. First, the css Zen Garden and the CSS Vault are collections of standards-based web sites and designs that have been accumulated specifically to inspire creativity.

read the rest of: Better creativity through web surfing

I generally think of myself as a positive person. Although lately I’ve found myself giving things a bit of a negative spin. It is so easy to get sucked into that deep pit of negativity. At first you let some little thing make you grumpy, then another and the next thing you know you’re grumpy at the whole world. When you have that negative attitude, you begin to see everything that happens to you in a bad light. I’ve known people that always seem to look to the negative. If they find twenty dollars, they’ll complain because they really needed the extra money last week. If you make a comment about how nice the weather is, they will tell you it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. Even worse is the fact that negativity can also be contagious. Hang around negative people long enough and you start to be negative yourself.

read the rest of: Always look on the bright side

There was a cute little girl (about two years old) at the library today who had a delightful case of the giggles. I think one of my favorite sounds in this world is that of a child’s laughter. It’s such a pure, innocent and joyful sound that we adults have long lost. Even if you’re having a bad day, hearing such a sound can do wonders for lifting your spirits. I was glad I was around to hear that little girl’s giggles today.