Changing Gears, Still Moving Ahead

Now that the "assignment" for work is completed, I can play at blogging for myself. It's not much fun to write this if no one is going to read it, so I'll just maintain the same blog that the dogs started, and see where it goes for a while.

It was fun writing from the dogs' viewpoint. They are totally relationship oriented -- well, at least Blackie is. (Rufus's meaningful relationships must include several tennis balls.) But there is one relationship to which the dogs cannot relate, and it has more potential than any human bond. That is the one I would like to discuss.

This morning's reading followed one that pointed out error and resulting judgments. That one was honest and right, but the administration of discipline is a hard thing. Today, in the very next chapter, God said, "But..."

"But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob,

and He who formed you, O Israel,

'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name; you are Mine!

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,

Nor will the flame burn you.

For I am the Lord your God

The Holy One of Israel, your Savior..."

Despite the time we've spent sniffing around instead of following Him, despite our outright disobedience, He created us for His glory, and His glory will prevail. Why? Not because of any good thing I have done, but because He paid the penalty for me. He bought me, even though He had already made me. He stepped in and took away the guilt of my selfish acts, so that I might come again to be His pride and joy.

And He will be very present, here and now, in times of deep-water distress and fiery troubles. Even though I walk in these scary, awful places, He is here. He does not simply lift me away from harm, but He will somehow protect me from utter destruction. I know this is true. I am in the swift waters, and I have felt the singe of flame. But He is here. May the name of the Lord be praised.

The End of the Road

[The Mom writes -- and she's apologetic about the formatting] Everybody's trying to get somewhere quickly on the information highway. Thanks to Learning 2.0 for giving me a piece of the road map so I could begin to learn where things are and how to get to them.

This has been a stretching experience. As I may have written in an earlier posting, I appreciated someone taking the time to teach me things that my kids don't have the patience to introduce or instruct. It was especially fun to be able to show my son something he didn't know anything about... but that only happened once. When it came to MySpace and YouTube, I purposely avoided consulting my "experts" except when I couldn't get beyond a first step.

Lifelong learning is important to me, and 2.0 has been a great contribution toward this process. It's invaluable for me to have some idea of what the general tech-savvy public is doing out there, and some of the tools we explored (Blogger, MySpace, and wikis) are vehicles the library system ought to employ to reach that public.

Being a traditionalist, it was easy to write my blog posts from the viewpoint of my even-more-traditionalistic dogs. They are relationship-driven, as am I, and some of the tools for creating virtual relationships were not very appealing to them. But, if that's where people are, it makes sense to make their acquaintance online, with the future possibilities of face-time someday. From a business standpoint, I understand that valuable transactions and interactions are not limited to those carried on in person. Learning 2.0 has laid a bit of groundwork to help our staff begin to see what could be done. As for what else we ought to explore and learn about, I don't have any specific suggestions. I would like to see more of this, however. There is so much going on in the way of new technologies and new collaborations, we should not lag behind too far or we'll miss the boat!

There was always adequate help, support, encouragement, and enthusiasm for this course. For me, it helped to be gently pushed along by timelines that were flexible but distinct. I can't wait to start playing with my MP3 player! Until I learned what cool things they can do, I couldn't imagine why I'd ever want one.

My favorite part of this whole thing has been the blogging. It has been fun to write, and to find illustrations to summarize or provide a hook. I would like to maintain a blog, but it's not much fun unless you know someone is reading it. I'll have to give some consideration to marketing and target audience, and then perhaps it will be worthwhile.

Thanks for giving the dogs free reign over the library! They've loved being here!

Another Way to Waste Time?

• Activities for a good day...

a good night's rest

a bowl full of fresh water

big grass with fresh scents

snack (with milk, please)

more water

more grass

a nice run with favorite tennis balls

more water

more rest (preferrably on couch or the big bed)

another snack

more grass

another run

Now, we ask you, where does television-watching fit on our list? IT DOES NOT! Although we are very adept at sleeping through the artificial noise, why don't our people just take naps with us? Why do they have to watch that thing? And now they have television on the computer, too? What's next, obedience videos?

That said, Mom did find an amusing clip from Ye Olde Sesame Street on YouTube. We didn't actually watch it with her, but the title seems to indicate something about security settings on library computers. We're sure it's very enlightening. Here's the link -- and can we go outside to play now?

No Cookies in the Library!

http://img.youtube.com/vi/ZJlkplvYdgA/2.jpg

Web 2.0 Awards and Just Sniffing Around

Looking over the Web 2.0 Awards was eye-opening. This was a good way to get some kind of overview of the many, many tools that are out there. We tried playing "Guess the Google," a game that gives you 20 seconds to figure out the word that is depicted by 20 illustrations. It seemed like a good way to practice conciseness in searching.

The other 2.0 Award winner we scoped out was a collaborative site called "43 Things." It's a fun meeting place to share your goals and find others with the same goals. Some of the aims were very specific (like completing these 27 Things) and others were more broad (learning to do new things.) This is a great site if you've got something in mind already, but also a handy place to pick up ideas for large or small life goals. Blackie is considering adding another nap to her daily routine, but she's going to have to do more searching to find others with this common interest. Rufus would like to learn how to carry three balls in his mouth, and hopes to find expert advice on improved embouchure development.

Google Labs... It's Gotta Be Good!

What a great thing -- Google has Labs! We should nominate them for some new kind of Dog Friendly Technology Award To Be Named Later!

We spent time looking at Google's new accessible search for visually-impaired users. Since we know a few blind people, we'd already heard about this one. The idea behind the access issue is that Google evaluates website content for usability, considering that screen-reading software handles text well, but not graphics. Guided search results may also be expanded, so the user is not limited to just what Google thinks is good content.

The other beta tool we checked out was Google Trends. It was interesting to see that searches for "rhododendrons" really spike in the springtime, but were almost non-existent in the deep winter months. Fascinating.

Pulling Together Toward a Common Goal

It's good to know that we really can share the load and get more done as a team than we could as individuals. We can see the need for shared work capabilities among several parties, and tools like Google Docs or Zoho make this possible. We liked Google best, simply because we were already familiar with other Google applications. One of the ideas we've got is for Mom to invite that nonprofit admin assistant from the Midwest to join the Google team and share their data that way. Frankly, we get tired of hearing complaints when a Word Perfect document shows up on our home computer, and it takes three more emails to get a different readable format.

Searching, Learning, Culling

After a good meal, the dogs were ready to sit back and think philosophically. The article called "To a Temporary Place in Time" made Blackie think about the style shifts she's seen over the years. People get all excited about doing things a certain way, presenting a particular emphasis, and that's all everyone talks about for a short time. But then something new and a little bit different comes along, and the paradigm shifts.

Rufus, being younger and (therefore) having both a shorter perspective and a shorter attention span, doesn't have much interest in customizing his search engine or eating his kibbles from a new self-feeding container.

So, the dogs' thoughts are that the more things change, the more they stay the same. If there's a package of blue tennis balls at the store, let Mom buy the contrasting color so she doesn't lose them in the lawn any more. They're still tennis balls, after all.