Author Archives: Niki

One of the more… unique things I did at work yesterday was help hang up artwork in the lower level of the library, because the professor in charge asked nicely and he had a class to run off to so he didn’t have much time. This was student artwork – digital photography to be exact.

The facilities crew had installed the track that runs along the ceiling earlier in the semester. We just had to hang up the wires from that track with hooks, and screw the frame hooks onto the wire at an appropriate height to hold the pictures. (So, 1 set of hooks for the top of the wire and another adjustable set for further down the wire where the picture was to go.)

Things I learned:

1) Perhaps one should check a package right after it arrives. The package of wires and hooks has been sitting in the room’s cabinet for about two months. We opened it and realized that there was only 8 hooks (to be placed up at the top in the track itself) even though there were 10 wires. And the package did say that there should be 10 hooks.

Somehow this worked out, as we only had twenty feet of track and with eight pictures it was already pretty full.

2) Looping the wire so it hides behind the frame and is not visible to the general public is hard work. The picture itself was pretty high up– higher than my head. Between keeping your hands above your head trying to loop it and trying to tape it with your free hand so that it STAYED in a loop, it was interesting work. At least my right arm was willing to become an informal tape dispenser, so I always had tape in reach.

Somehow this also worked out, but mainly because the professor re-did my work on most of them. Oh well, that’s what you get for free labor…

Now every time I see the photographs I can’t help to think about the coil of wire hiding behind each, all globbed together with tape. Chaos behind beauty.

One of the benefits of the campus I work at is the flower and tree eye candy — especially for a few precious weeks during the Spring. This year it seems everything has bloomed early, so I went out on Friday before and after work and took some pictures.

Click a thumbnail to see a larger size.

It was bit of a shock today when I stepped outside — back to the colder not-yet-Springish temperatures. The rain mostly held off, however, with the ground damp but not soaked through. Originally I figured that I was going to stay inside all day and get a lot done with my various projects, but the overarching theme lately is EWF-ASP (engaged white female, always seeking productivity).

My destination: the public library, somewhere I have not been in a while oddly. (One of the consequences of working in a library is the realization that you don’t need to buy a book to read a good book. My wallet thanks me.)

My goal: a guidebook for New York City and a guidebook for Philadelphia. Marco and Roger will be visiting in about a week and a half (yay!) and one of the places we want to visit is Philly. Just a quick trip – 1 night stay perhaps. Nothing is set in stone yet, mind you.

For the guidebook for New York City, it’s mainly to see if I can dig up anything unexpected that we haven’t visited yet. It seems highly likely that we will take a visit to the Bronx Zoo and Chinatown this time around, so that is what I will focus on.

I did find success: I snagged a 2010 book for Philadelphia and a 2011 book for New York City. I had to laugh at the latter since it is already out of date – it still mentions Border’s, which we miss a lot. Mainly because there was one right by Madison Square Garden so it was a great place to hang out while waiting for the MSG gates to open for our Rangers game.

Ah, memories. Here’s to new ones!

I was very amused when I logged into the work blog that I maintain at the library. One of the spam comments I received was the following:

Spam comment on a WordPress blog

I can’t decide if I am more amused by the unnecessary choices that the writer/program could choose from or by the Colin Powell quote at the end. I wonder if they would have classified that post as good or great? But it’s a spam comment that is found everywhere it seems.

On a similar “Okay…?” topic, one of the odder stories that I read about today was a woman in Bucharest, Romania who had a wedding train made that was almost 2 miles long (3,000m). The previously holder of the record was a woman in the Netherlands, though it is reported that that dress was not even a mile long. Apparently the making of the wedding dress was somewhat politically motivated, as the Netherlands had tried to keep Romania out of the EU visa-free travel zone.

The imported material which made the train cost about $7,300, not counting labor. Is it bad that it mostly makes me flinch because 1.99 miles of it is touching the ground? Dirty, dirty! However, the balloon ride with the train trailing behind looked kind of neat.

No, Marco. Don’t worry. I am not getting any ideas. ;p