Wednesday, December 03, 2003
I had this really unusual dream. I was researching
whales or turtles at the giant downtown main Cincinnati library.
The librarian was escorting a patron over to my
desk/chair which was a really important spot because I
was sitting at the only computer through which these
specialized nature/ocean databases could be accessed.
Well, as soon as she saw me sitting down she came over
to me and first asked me something like are you working
on "whales or turtles" and a second later - almost as if
she had asked this question to quite a few people - "do
you know what this is(referring to the computer
console." (Did I mention the one adult blue ash
librarian is hot?) I answered her question in time, and
made her happy. I said "I’m looking for information on
whales/turtles for 1997-1999. And I want to make sure
the information is also available at the blue ash
branch. (Because in my dream, This database referenced a
really really expensive and rare Bound book collection.
And you could read those really scientific books and see
all the pictures and everything there inside the
library, but you could not check out anything. So I was
letting her know that I wanted to read the special books
in the Main library but that I didn't want to travel all
the way back to the Main library in case I didn't finish
what I needed to get(info from the books- reference
database book things) (That actually seems really silly
in the light of day when I realize the power of
photocopying). ). So the woman librarian ran off and let
me know she was looking for a phone to call the library
staff over at Blue ash branch. After telling me this,
she disappeared, walking around a corner. I sat in front
of the computer console not looking at the screen
(because I never interfaced with the computer yet). I
was thinking about how cool it was that I convinced her
I was serious about my idea. In waking state: I have no
REAL reason why I was looking this info up. Though I do
have a personal connection-ask me in person. I remember
thinking in that chair, how easy it was to get help from
her.
One of the first things I thought when I woke up: Man, libraries work hard for a living. MOST LIBRARIANS I HAVE MET WERE/ARE AS EAGER AS THIS ONE TO HELP ME ON WHATEVER THING I AM LOOKING UP/RESEARCHING. That is really cool how devoted to helping they are. Wow, they have a really detailed job. (Another tangent: This librarian in blue ash offered to 'keep searching' for star trek or science fiction books and bring them to me out in the stacks if she found more. I was truly happy when she suggested that. True story.)
One of the first things I realize after writing about this dream: It feels like maybe I took advantage of the female librarian. It seems that I did not want to be kicked out of that cool computer / database center chair.
What were my motivations and why, I don't know. My dream self just did these things. It could also be that I wanted to know more about whales/turtles because one of my friend's likes them and that I wanted to impress them.
Barely related: I owe them money for a Christmas music cd which I sat down on, which was in my coat, at an indian restaurant last Friday (11-28-03)
On other news, I experienced a strange but completely disabling error in my uc BOL email account. All incoming emails after November 17th or so were not there. They were unviewable except on UC's email login webpage interface (Yea my grammar rules). I called the helpdesk and everything. It was strange because the Mirapoint companies’ webmail interface (http://email.uc.edu) would let me delete all the messages except for one. I would goto folder view and discover the folder still had a lone email message. Outlook express could not download/view it. Squirrelmail was completely trashed and thought my mailbox was full of ALL unreadable messages, instead of just one. Very silly things my people. Well to solve it I personally taught myself the IMAP communication protocol. This took a period of about 2 hours of RFC studying and reading. I finally know what IMAP UID's are. Anyway, all this for something the helpdesk should be experts on. In the end, I issued a "do NOT view anything, delete messages numbered 1 to 4, and auto-expunge(delete upon TCP/IP disconnect)." Or something like that. The whole point of this story: 1) My mail is no longer broken. 2) This is not something that average person should have had to live with for 2-3 weeks and eventually fix on their own. 3) I NOW know the internet protocol of IMAP. This information should be relatively useless to most people. Maybe i'll try to forget what I read...
One of the first things I thought when I woke up: Man, libraries work hard for a living. MOST LIBRARIANS I HAVE MET WERE/ARE AS EAGER AS THIS ONE TO HELP ME ON WHATEVER THING I AM LOOKING UP/RESEARCHING. That is really cool how devoted to helping they are. Wow, they have a really detailed job. (Another tangent: This librarian in blue ash offered to 'keep searching' for star trek or science fiction books and bring them to me out in the stacks if she found more. I was truly happy when she suggested that. True story.)
One of the first things I realize after writing about this dream: It feels like maybe I took advantage of the female librarian. It seems that I did not want to be kicked out of that cool computer / database center chair.
What were my motivations and why, I don't know. My dream self just did these things. It could also be that I wanted to know more about whales/turtles because one of my friend's likes them and that I wanted to impress them.
Barely related: I owe them money for a Christmas music cd which I sat down on, which was in my coat, at an indian restaurant last Friday (11-28-03)
On other news, I experienced a strange but completely disabling error in my uc BOL email account. All incoming emails after November 17th or so were not there. They were unviewable except on UC's email login webpage interface (Yea my grammar rules). I called the helpdesk and everything. It was strange because the Mirapoint companies’ webmail interface (http://email.uc.edu) would let me delete all the messages except for one. I would goto folder view and discover the folder still had a lone email message. Outlook express could not download/view it. Squirrelmail was completely trashed and thought my mailbox was full of ALL unreadable messages, instead of just one. Very silly things my people. Well to solve it I personally taught myself the IMAP communication protocol. This took a period of about 2 hours of RFC studying and reading. I finally know what IMAP UID's are. Anyway, all this for something the helpdesk should be experts on. In the end, I issued a "do NOT view anything, delete messages numbered 1 to 4, and auto-expunge(delete upon TCP/IP disconnect)." Or something like that. The whole point of this story: 1) My mail is no longer broken. 2) This is not something that average person should have had to live with for 2-3 weeks and eventually fix on their own. 3) I NOW know the internet protocol of IMAP. This information should be relatively useless to most people. Maybe i'll try to forget what I read...
