Anything for a free lunch

Feeling more sluggish than Malfoy… could it be the after effects of the burger and chips I got free for helping out with the intensive summer school? Should never have followed this with a blueberry Geobar. It’s slightly scary that the new batch of students were born in the 1990s. I am not officially Past It.

It’s fitting then that my mental distraction (everyone should have one of these on a Friday afternoon!) is coming up with a songlist for the guys. Let’s not call ourselves a band. More a motley crew of three guys whose wives want them out from under their feet occasionally, plus one more guy and his wife (moi) who’s stupid enough to go along and attempt to screech vocals over their combined racket. Latest plot is for everyone to suggest half a dozen songs, we agree a common list and work on those. But what to suggest…?

Suppliers have all crept out from under their stones this morning. One little victory – finally get new resource up and running. This will save on aggrieved phone calls from the engineers. Villain of the dfay is the company who seem to think we belong in the same pricing tier as institutions four or five times our size. Er, how?

Tomorrow will be rolling up sleeves and tackling the final revisions to the draft CDG Strategy. After which I shall have earned something red and fermented.

Hurry hurry for the sky is falling in

OK so this morning I’d like to share with you a picture of my home town: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7557834.stm

Scary, soggy stuff. My train was duly cancelled and my nearest and dearest drove me to work through an assortment of lakes and closed roads. For some reason our car doesn’t have a hovercraft attachment. Sadly had a meeting to attend otherwise might have angled for a day’s home working.

Two people have commented on this blog today. A worrying trend to visibility. Some of them are not librarians, so my musings will make even less sense to them than they do to the regulars at this poorly-stocked bar.

Need to come up with a slogan to put on some bookmarks, promoting our new Library web pages. All out of inspiration. As you may have noticed. General mood not helped by regular calls from a fax machine. Next time I pick up I may just beep back and try to engage it in conversation.

Launch yet another stock editing exercise today. Boy am I going to be popular. Have provided detailed instructions and pleas for people to mark spreadsheets using actual characters and not just colour highlights – you’d think database specialists would appreciate the finer points of Excel sorting, but not always.

All for now. My morning snack grapes tasted of the pepper salami I had packed for my lunch, consequently my appetite for said carnivorous sandwich is building. Hopefully I will get home without actually needing webbed feet tonight.

Fantasy food and disappointing data decisions

Survive another early start and a meeting. Do a few of the jobs that were scribbled postits etc cluttering up my desk.

Spend lunchtime with colleagues fantasising about the comfort foods we would like to be eating. Settle on boiled eggs with soldiers. Pancakes with maple syrup and cream also feature. Leaves actual lunch of Edam, pitta and tomatoes looking rather pathetic.

Afternoon spent pegging away with the portal pages and firming up my objectives for 2008-09 with my line manager. It’s gonna be a long and full year, folks.  Discuss staff development which is a novelty as most of my out of the office time is spent developing other people – good to be reminded that I can be developed too!

Distraught to discover that Bristol Biomedical Image Archive will be no more after 31st July. I really liked this little resource and used it for teaching e.g. ethical use of images. Now I will have to rejig everything. And what happens when I need a copyright cleared portrait of Leptothrix?