I Pledge to Keep on Track Using MarsEdit

Now that I have MarsEdit, "a weblog editor for Mac OS X that makes weblog writing like writing email—with spell-checking, drafts, multiple windows, and even AppleScript support," I hope to keep on track by entering my interesting thoughts and activities more frequently.

Thank goodness I used December to get ready for a full and varied travel schedule in January.

Two days before I was to drive to Modesto to present a workshop titled The Effective Trainer's Toolkit for the Great Valley Center I found out that I was a victim of online identity theft. For those interested in this topic you can read my article My Brush With Identity Theft for my computer user group, MacNexus.

My next trip was by Amtrak to San Francisco to attend the January 2005 MacWorld Conference & Expo where I fell in love with the iPod shuffle and Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.

Then came a flight to snowy Boston for the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. The highlight of that trip was socializing at the American Library Association Players (ALAP) Midwinter 2005 Gala. As a result, I created the ALAP website.

My last trip in January was to the Cerritos Library for a brainstorming session on creating even more WOW services for children.

February brought me to Southern California again. This time I was in Pasadena at the Pacific Asia Museum, in preparation for designing a grant application on public library community partnerships.

In February I began teaching a six week online course, Effective Time Management for Library Staff, for Infopeople I love teaching this course because it revitalizes me. I started the class with this Randy Glasbergen cartoon. When I teach any class, I am always on the lookout for new resources and during the third week of my class, I took a teleclass full of helpful hints titled Non-Linear Time Management for Creatives offered by Lynn Cutts.

In March, after finishing up my time management class and my work on the partnerships grant application, I moved on to my next project—working on a May presentation for the Technology Training To Go Conference for Florida libraries made possible by funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant administered by the State Library & Archives of Florida. The event was managed by the Northeast Florida Library Information Network, Inc.

In April, I began work on another project, a session titled Stress-Free Library Program Planning to be presented at the American Library Association's First-Ever Conference Within a Conference entitled, Empowering Library Support Staff for the 21st Century. This special event was held in conjunction with the 2005 Annual Conference in Chicago.

In May, I traveled to Orlando for the Technology Training To Go Conference and enjoyed some fun time at Downtown Disney and Universal and in June to Chicago where I presented Stress-Free Library Program Planning with Judy Card; our handout is at my website. Once again I loved socializing at an ALAP Gala and added new photos to the website photo gallery upon my return home. I spent lots of fun time with my roommate, Barbara Rittinger, who works at the Arlington County Dept. of Libraries. We had signed up for the Chicago Greeter Service and had a wonderful time with our greeter, Gary, exploring Chicago neighborhoods, learning about architectural history and making the best use of public transportation. We also saw Second City's 91st mainstage comedy revue, Red Scare.

In July, I became involved in two new long term projects: implementation of the partnerships grant funded by an LSTA grant administered by the California State Librarian and becoming a project consultant for Infopeople. In my next entry, I will share my progress with these two projects.