Jingle Award: The E-Ticket

I recognize the library as the remedy to all of life’s problems.


Jingle gave me an award, and the rules of the award say – they ALWAYS say – you’re supposed to tell seven things about yourself. Well, OK, but I’m going to cheat and tell a story, with the items thus revealed.

The Wife, at my encouragement, went to see Bill T. Jones at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center a week ago, on Thursday night while I stayed home with the daughter.

1. I appreciate dance, but don’t go out of my way to see it.

I heard about this particular dance about Abraham Lincoln from watching Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.

2. I miss watching Bill Moyers.

My wife went online to order the tickets on Wednesday, but you’re supposed to print your ticket or tickets, which basically is a bar code or a bunch of bar codes. We experienced the same thing when we went to see Cats at Proctors recently.

3. I hate the cost-saving measure (on their part) of having the customer have to print the ticket.

Oh, and not incidentally, these tickets, almost invariably, are UGLY. I have tickets to shows I went to years or even decades ago that I’ve kept; these are NOT keepers.

Well, our desktop computer was being cranky – again – and the Wife ordered the tickets on the laptop, from which we had never printed.

I suggested rehooking the Internet connection doohickey –

4. I am not particularly technologically savvy, except in the eyes of those who are even less so

to the desktop, see if it worked again, and try to print from there.

Thursday night, I get home from work, and the Wife said she didn’t print the ticket yet. Yikes – had she called me, I would have printed the ticket at work and brought it home.

5. I HATE dealing with things at the last minute when it is avoidable; sometimes, it’s not avoidable, but…

She said that I said that I could just take the printer cable to the laptop and print that way. I said that’s NOT what I said. I said to take the Internet cable and reconnect it to the desktop and try to print from there.

6. I HATE it when people say that I said things I didn’t say.

So I made the switch, but unfortunately, the desktop was dormant for so long that I was going to have to reboot it – WHICH TAKES FOREVER – and it’s now 6:30 pm for an 8:00 show that’s a half-hour away.

I said, “You should go to the library and print your ticket from there.”

7. I recognize the library as the remedy to all of life’s problems.

And so she did, successfully, print her ticket at our neighborhood library – YAY, neighborhood libraries! – went to the show and had an enjoyable time.

And after she left, I DID try to link the printer to the laptop, but the laptop required software for which I did not immediately know the location.
***
And I’m supposed to bestow this award on others. If you are reading this, and I’ve never bestowed anything on you before, consider yourself bestowed.

The Boycott QUESTIONS

You need a critical mass, patience, and, ideally, an alternative to achieve success in a boycott.


Arthur at AmeriNZ wrote about a possible boycott of the store Target, and the reasons why. (Has anyone written the obvious headline, “Target target of boycott?” Subsequently, MoveOn.org sent out this e-mail:

Target, the retail giant, just became one of the very first companies to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowing unlimited corporate cash in elections.

Target has spent over $150,000 in the Minnesota Governor’s race backing state Rep. Tom Emmer, a far-right Republican who supports Arizona’s draconian immigration law, wants to abolish the minimum wage and even gave money to a fringe group that condoned the execution of gay people.

Target must think customers won’t care. They’re wrong: We do care, and we need to let them know that we want Target—and all corporations—out of our elections.

Will you send a message to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel telling him that you’re not going to shop at Target unless they stop trying to buy elections? Click here to add your name to the petition.

A lively discussion ensued at Arthur’s blog about the fact that Target has been a gay-friendly place to work, whether boycotts work or are tilting at windmills, and even if you wanted to boycott, say Target, does this mean you end up shopping at, say, Wal-Mart, who have policies others oppose?

  1. Thoughts on the specifics of the Target boycott. At present, I’m inclined to sign a petition, but not yet to boycott.

  2. Have you ever boycotted a product or service? I have, everything from Twinkies (ITT) to lettuce and orange juice. Actually, I’ve also boycotted Wisk detergent because I found their “ring around the collar” commercials so offensive. (But now, my wife buys Tide anyway, so while my technical boycott still exists, for her it’s just product preference.)

  3. Do boycotts ever work? Certainly, the Montgomery bus boycott did in the 1950s. Eventually, the Florida “sunshine tree” growers dumped Anita Bryant as their spokesperson. To some degree, the one against Nestle over baby formula was successful. I’ll contend the boycott against South Africa ultimately helped to end apartheid.

You need a critical mass, patience, and, ideally, an alternative to achieve success. The conversation about Target is that it may be Target, Wal-Mart, and not much else in many small towns.

Please add your collective wisdom.

Hiroshima

Atomic Cafe, the 1982 documentary about the bombings as well as the subsequent Cold War propaganda, had a strong effect on me.


The best teacher I ever had was Paul Peca, my sixth-grade teacher. He encouraged us to think, create, and debate about things in the world. He was a staunch Republican, yet encouraged a mock election in class in which Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater for President, 13-3.

One of the issues we debated was whether the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 and the Nagasaki bombing a couple of days later was justified. Mr. Peca said yes; it shortened the war. Most of us said no; it was brutalizing, with health effects far beyond the immediate event.

I haven’t really changed my position, and I suspect neither has Mr. Peca, who we loved so much that some of us walked 12 miles roundtrip one day to visit him the next year.

Here’s the complete video for Atomic Cafe, a 1982 documentary about the bombings as well as the subsequent Cold War propaganda, which had a strong effect on me. Or use the embedded video below. Here’s Vincent Canby’s review of the film in the New York Times.

Public Reading of John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”
Friday, August 6 at 12:30 pm
Location: John J. Bach Branch, Albany Public Library

30-Day Challenge: Day 15- Current Grades

I am really good at answering calls.

Well, I’m not in school, so you’d think that that’d be that. But as someone once said, “You misunderestimate me.”

One of the things I am required to do every year in my job, around this time, actually, is to do a self-evaluation. Most years, I hate the exercise, though a few times, I relished the opportunity to vent about something. Most recently, four or five years ago, I ranted about the “new” place and how much of a PITA it was. (And it was: it was a month before we were fully functional with consistent phone and Internet.)

Most of the time, though, I have to make up something that doesn’t sound as though I cut and pasted everything from the previous year’s narrative. (Not that I haven’t done this at all…)

So, let me try out the first draft here:

few get reference questions, I do reference questions. I’m not afraid of taking the sucky ones, the ones we all know there is no real answer, but we try to approximate one anyway. I get a lot of feedback from reference questions because I’m pretty thorough in explaining what I can and cannot provide. I think this begins in the reference interview. I recall at least one advisor at staff training noting that she liked to call me – specifically – to hash out the question in a comprehensible way. I know I do that well.

I like giving help to the interns and even the newbie, who used to be an intern.

The Census data, with the American Community Survey’s 1-year, 3-year, and (soon) 5-year releases, are getting more complicated; glad I’m going to those biannual Data Center meetings.

There have been weeks that have gone by that I was the ONLY person to post on our blog or our Twitter feed. What’s with THAT?

One of the things I do that is not in my job description is to answer the main phones. Since we went from two people up front answering them to just one, I probably respond to it about twice as often as I used to. I specifically requested (and got) a phone with the main lines on it so that I didn’t have to sprint over to get them.

Now, is it “my job” to answer the phone? At some level, no. On the other hand, we in the central office expect the folks in the field to answer their phones regularly; how can we do less?

And who are the people calling? Some of them are our potential customers, needing to be directed to a local center. But others are delivery people and visitors wanting to get buzzed into our offices; people from our field offices; SBDCs in other states; members of the state legislature and Congress, or generally their staffers; people who need to be directed to the Department of State’s Corporation section, among others.

Let me say, without false modesty, that I am really good at answering calls. A couple of times just in the past week, I was complimented by people on the phone who were 1) stunned that it was a real person on the other end and 2) pleased that I was able to give them definitive answers rather than push them off to someone else who may or may not be able to help. I swear, I think I’ve found a calling – no pun intended: after I retire some decade, I’d love to be a 211 operator.

Lessee, what else shall I write?

MOVIE REVIEW: Ramona and Beezus

pleasant, sincere, likable, wholesome


I knew it would happen eventually: I take the daughter to a movie that doesn’t scare her (cf. Princess and the Frog, Despicable Me) or totally bore me (Alvin and the Chipmunks 2).

Ramona and Beezus is a story based on Beverly Cleary’s apparently popular children’s book series, which I had never heard of; obviously, I live in a cultural desert. Ramona Quimby (Joey King) is a nine-year-old middle child, stuck between her beautiful high sister Beatrice, who baby Ramona had dubbed Beezus (Selena Gomez – Wizards of Waverly Place), and the new baby.

Ramona, her rambunctious, free-spirited imagination on high, doesn’t know how to draw inside the lines. This is alternately interesting and frustrating to Beezus and to the parents, Robert (John Corbett – everything from Northern Exposure to My Big Fat Greek Wedding to Sex and the City) and Dorothy (Bridget Moynahan – Six Degrees). Ramona does have an ally in her Aunt Bea (Ginnifer Goodwin – Ed, Big Love), who relates to being the younger sister. Bea is horrified to learn that Hobart (Josh Duhamel – Transformers) the boy who broke her heart in high school is back in town, and Bea and Ramona agree to keep Hobart at arm’s length.

Meanwhile, in school, Ramona cannot be bothered with traditional rules, such as spelling, much to the consternation of her teacher, Mrs. Meacham (Sandra Oh – Grey’s Anatomy, Sideways).

There’s a family crisis and Ramona is asked to step up, and she really tries, but her efforts go a bit haywire. In this context, I particularly enjoyed the evolving relationship between the two title characters, and between Ramona and her dad.

Describing more would fall into spoiler territory. Suffice to say, these are the words I would use to describe the film: pleasant, sincere, likable, wholesome. This sounds like being damned with faint praise, but it is not meant to be. I enjoyed it, and I don’t regret having seen it. Don’t necessarily need to see it again, but I’m not the target audience.

The movie received a 73% positive rating, as of this writing in Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s the official site for the film.

Ramblin' with Roger
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial