Driving out some demons

The apartment has been cleaned from top to bottom, I've budgeted finances from now until approximately 2014, and life feels somewhat back into the Virgo balance - the way I like it to be. The only real snag this week was discovering that in order to get my new Saskatchewan license plates I first had to get a car inspection. No plates, no insurance, no nothin' til the inspection is done. Took the car in this morning, paid my $125 for the inspection and was then greeted upon return with the news that my car will not pass the inspection. In order for it to pass it needs $1300 worth of work (new brakes and all sorts of other things, with the labour cost adding up to about 2/3 of the total).

Colour me not impressed. My car is by no means a pile of junk. But perhaps I've been negligent on keeping up on some of these maintenance issues the last couple of years. I have 30 days to get this done and become fully qualified to drive my car in this province. On the plus side, my new driver's license photo is probably one of the best pictures I've ever taken, whether on a license or not. Really trying to look on the bright side, here!

Yesterday I signed up to try Regina Public Library's online book clubs. I was able to pick the type of book I wanted to read (went with non-fiction), and each day I will receive about 5 minutes worth of reading from the book of the week. By each Friday the premise is that I will have read a few chapters of the book. Which is a great little trick, and I suppose a way to get bodies into the library to sign out the books should their interest be peaked during the preview period. What makes this book club different, aside from the online format, is that there does not seem to be an avenue through which people can discuss the books each week. No wiki, or discussion board. No idea of who else is reading the book or way to hear what they think of it. I realize that RPL has bought this program from a vendor but I would like to see some more opportunities for discussion and debate. Both of which are what make book clubs great.

Found out today that I'm going to be doing a mini-session at our big Library Services Division meeting next week in Saskatoon. My topic? Facebook - what it is, how people use it, and how libraries can apply it. The crowd will be a mix of librarians, library techs, and staff. My new co-worker and I have been talking about how we are going to apply facebook in our libraries, so this will be a great opportunity to gauge (and hopefully inspire) some interest from the crowd and get the ball rolling. Other than some time at work tomorrow to teach a class, I'm back full time next Monday and then promptly off to Saskatoon for three days. It will be nice to put faces to all of the names I've heard of or received emails from that are in our library system.

That's it for today.