thing 4 -- the public library

Well, of course the cooperation between the schools and the public library is an important one. And the work of the library to provide services for the general public is vital for an intelligent and informed society. My wife and I went to the new Rondo library and borrowed some Hebrew language books and tapes in an effort to learn a little modern Hebrew in preparation for a visit to Haifa University in Israel where our daughter is studying for this fall term.
And I wanted to share with you a poem written last year:

THE OLD MAN WANTS TO KNOW

“Why can’t things be as they were,”
The old man wants to know;
The promises and dreams of youth
Seem so much long ago.

As the tears begin to well
And start on down his face,
He says, “I want to see my friends
At some familiar place.

The barbershop’s too small these days.
There is no place to sit
And play a quiet game of cards;
It makes me want to quit.

So please don’t close the library doors,
There’s so much yet to know;
It offers us great wisdom.
It’s the place we like to go.”
...Webb

(I tried to paste this in the "Compose" mode and couldn't do it; it worked in the "Edit Html" mode. ...just a word to those who are interested.)
I have never been scared away from any library; I had a wonderful "old" woman who worked at the library when I was kid. I could walk a block, traverse down a ravine, cross the "major" road [no crosswalks there, of course :-) ], back up the ravine, through a narrow walking "alley" and into the entrance of the children's section of the library. It was almost as much fun to get there as it was looking for books inside! I read a series of sports books about tennis {Match Point was the name of one, I remember} and loved them.

This is required for thing 3 - Amazing new technology!

"Greetings all; to all, 'hello'
its really simple syndication;
the analog will have to go -
we suffer through expatiation.
And yet it cannot all be bad;
let's send the question on to dad."

I just set up the RSS feeds on a bloglines account and look forward to reading all the new posts. Although I thought it just fine to click on each one to see what the new comments were, I understand that now I'll be able to see at a glance who has written new things. It should be easier to keep up, right? As easy as putting the puzzle pieces together or following the lines of intrigue in a well-written movie. Speaking of which, my wife and I just saw "Michael Clayton" at the Grandview Theatre. If you haven't seen it, you should.

(thing 2) ...the more things change...

Electric power is great! ... until the storm downs the power lines and you lose power. Then you scramble to find your flashlights and your transistor radio. (remember them? they used to work on batteries!) but if the batteries are low then you are out of luck, as they say.
Computers are wonderful, aren't they? ...until... I called the StarTribune to inquire about our account and was told by the customer service representative that her computer was down and she couldn't look up any information for me. (sigh) Now it was just hers that was down, not the entire system. She suggested that I try again in about five minutes and hope that I get someone else. :-)
I was deleting barcodes at Arlington High school when the system went down. It was hit and miss for over 1.5 hours, I think. (grr) But we managed to find other things to do -- other steps in the process that could be accomplished. It was frustrating; I hope that power remains online and doesn't go down permanently. We'd really be "up a creek..." [or as the character in a book my parents used to read to me says, "Stuck? said little Bill?"

I had a little trouble finding how to add this lovely graphic to this entry. Can you guess anything about me from my friend above? eh?