Who has ever reached the top of purpose in a single day? Yet it is amazing how easily we get discouraged when the virtue of patience is demanded by perceived delays.

There are phases to greatness. Each one of us passes through different phases in life on the path to our destiny. Has it ever occured to you that there is no butterfly that has never been a caterpillar? So next time you feel like a caterpillar just remember this: one day you will rise … and indeed you will fly!

Stop crying! Wipe your tears away! You may even be looking green and ugly today … but tommorrow you will be a flying flower! Hold On!

Feel free to download an mp3 file of the message Phases to Greatness.

DOWNLOAD mp3 HERE

Birmingham’s new 193m library in Centenary Square is granted planning permission by the city council…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: travel city. The blog is also related to: fun city.

I hope everyone is having/had a great Thanksgiving!  It’ll be short, but here are my Thursday tidbits!

• Want to be amazed at some photographs? Check these out at Underage Reading.
• Considering some Black Friday shopping? A friend of mine from high school, Jamie, did a spot on her local news about things to think about.
• A dear friend of mine from college, Shaun, has spent several year working with a camera truck, which he built himself.  NPR did a story on him, and you can always check out his website at Cameratruck.net.  If you want to learn more, there is a short documentary available, too.  (Short like 10 minutes.)
• Need some Thanksgiving day music?  Check out this list at NPR.
• More Twilight/New Moon stuff: Lisa @ EW has further thoughts after her EW review.  The Oatmeal on How Twilight Works.  Tiger Beatdown on the Underpants Conundrum.
• The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions
• Did you know the New York Public Library had such treasures? Also other interesting info!

The thirteenth arrondissement of southeastern Paris is situated on the Left Bank of the Seine River. Its land area is relatively large by Parisian standards, and measures more than two and three quarter square miles (over seven square kilometers). This district has a population over one hundred seventy thousand and is home to about ninety thousand jobs. Both population and employment figures are growing, largely due an influx of Asian immigrants.

Les Olympiades is a residential high-rise district built well over thirty years ago on a huge, elevated pedestrian esplanade complete with a shopping mall, the Pagode (Pagoda) at the center. To many people this complex looks like a smaller version of La Defense, Europe’s largest business district, situated just west of Paris. A driverless Metro (subway) feeds the complex, running every four minutes during the extended rush hour. Nearby is the huge Paris Rive Gauche project built on and near old railroad yards. Once again we are talking mostly high-rises. If that’s your bag, be my guest.

The Bibliotheque nationale de France (National Library of France) is another resident of the new thirteenth district. It was founded by Charles V in the mid Fourteenth Century at the Louvre Museum, described in our companion article on the First Arrondissement. Later the library moved to its own quarters in the same district. The new library, said to look like an open book, opened to the public in late 1996. Despite being located in a modest neighborhood, accessing library materials costs money. A famous French historian was refused a library card. Although there are many complaints the library does contain ten million volumes.

The Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital started out as a gunpowder factory and was converted to a dumping ground for the Parisian poor, serving as a prison for prostitutes, the criminally insane, and others of that ilk. During the French Revolution many prostitutes were freed but other residents-inmates were murdered. On the upside the hospital’s reknown professor, Jean-Martin Charcot, nicknamed “the Napoleon of the neuroses” has been considered the founder of modern neurology. Furthermore it was the site of Paris’s first vaccinations, way back in 1800. La Salpetriere has become a teaching hospital. This was where Diana, Princess of Wales, breathed her last. If you are in the neighborhood you should visit the Seventeenth Century Chapelle de la Salpetriere (Hospital Chapel). By the way, the word chapel is misleading as the complex can hold four thousand people.

Unless you are a Princess Diana freak, who can blame you for not wanting to tour a hospital once famous for its rats? Don’t miss the next sight, unknown to many. The Butte-aux-Cailles (literally quails hill) is located in the west end of the district, fairly close to the very busy Place d’Italie. The hill is about 200 feet (65 meters) tall. Cailles was the family name of people who once farmed the land. In 1783 the first hot-air balloon carrying people landed on this little hill. It was one of the strongholds of the Paris Commune in 1871, memorialized in a city square by that name. There has been so much excavation that the hill can’t support the high-rises that mar so much of this arrondissement and so much of the “new” Paris. So you’ll have to be satisfied with the co-op restaurants, trendy bars, and nightclubs that haven’t erased the village atmosphere. The Butte is home to an art-deco public piscine (swimming pool) fed by a natural hot spring. You can even enjoy vaudeville and Brazilian music. If you fall in love with a little house in the neighborhood remember, it was once inexpensive.

The Gare d’Austerlitz (Austerlitz Station) is one of the most important Parisian railway stations. It was named for a small Czech town in which the sorely outnumbered French and allied troops under Napoleon defeated the armies of Austria, Russia, and Great Britain in 1805. This railway station was first built in 1840 and extended a generation later. There are plans to rehabilitate and upgrade Austerlitz station doubling its capacity by 2020. The complex is moderately attractive but if you aren’t a railroad buff, don’t go out of your way to see it.

The Manufacture des Gobelins (Gobelins Factory) makes exceptional tapestries and has been doing so for centuries. It supplied the kings of France starting with Louis XIV. The company founder, Jehan Gobelin, discovered a special dye during the Fifteenth Century. Detractors called his company la folie Gobelin (Gobelin’s folly). I guess he showed them. Some of his descendants purchased titles of nobility and abandoned this unnoble trade. Other family members branched out to the tapestry business and later into carpets and upholstery. The complex includes a museum offering guided tours.

Of course you don’t want to tour Paris without sampling fine French wine and food. In my article I Love French Wine and Food – An Alsace Riesling I reviewed such a wine and suggested a sample menu: Start with Schniederspaetle (Onion Ravioli). For your second course savor Brochet d’I a la creme (Pike in White Wine and Cream Sauce). And as dessert indulge yourself with Strudel aux Pommes (Apple Strudel). Your Parisian sommelier (wine steward) will be happy to suggest appropriate wines to accompany each course.

The Hook Library is looking for 3 volunteers to help out with events aimed at children.  For details of the posts and an application form please visit the website at:  http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/leisure/libraries/volunteer.htm

On this Day of Thanks (here in the U.S. in any case), it behooves one to call out– indeed, to celebrate– those things that bring warm happiness, that nourish the soul.  Your correspondent humbly nominates “The Book of the Month,” a service of the Special Collections Department of the Library of the University of Glasgow.

There’s no “negative option”– so no unwanted deliveries as a result of failing to post the refusal card– just one wonderful book showcased after another.  This month’s featured tome, appropriately to the anniversary celebrated in (R)D two days ago, is Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).

Man, Terrified

Chimpanzee, Sulking

Visit the Book of the Month archive and enjoy!

As we browse to our heart’s content, we might recall that it was on this date in 1864 that Oxford mathematician and amateur photographer Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson– aka Lewis Carroll– delivered a handwritten and illustrated manuscript called “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground” to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.  The original (on display at the British Library) was the basis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…

source

Now that’s something for which to give thanks!

Author Etiquette: Acknowledgements I  (Hjersman)

Copyright  ©  Peter Hjersman 2009 

     Writing a book is demanding, which…for most books is a major understatement.  The writer often needs a lot of information in a ridiculously short time, yet only a few are able to hire researchers.  Libraries have been the most used and most reliable source for centuries.  Universities have knowledgeable resources, for student, professors, and sometimes an intriguing letter from a writer.  Now the “information highway”, the internet, adds to these resources. 

     Once I have tackled a search, librarians help in ways that the digital world cannot.  Many libraries have added internet question-and-answer systems to respond remotely and these give yet another perspective.  I still prefer talking to the librarian in person; they often bring up aspects, resources unknown to me. 

     When a book is finished–no more research is required, and the printer is waiting–most authors will thank those who assisted.  Standard manuscript front matter includes a page for acknowledging the helpers.  Many readers will read this section to see the resources used, identify the agent, editor and others who might be of help to the reader in their own pursuits. 

     If someone has done something special for the author, a reward keeps the contact alive.  Usually, the helpers are listed in the acknowledgements, or as the international translator and author Fred Stodt astutely says: “I add the usual housekeeping page with a list of helpers, to acknowledge their help and I give books to the helpers outside the publishing sequence.”   The book given to the helper may be signed in a special, unique, one-off phrase that no one else has.  Of course, if the help was tremendous, they should receive a free copy of the book.  If the helper does a lot of work for the writer but the result is not used, a reward is still appropriate.  Leslie LaMarr, the diverse and imaginative writer/publisher advises: “Quite a few authors include an acknowledgment page in the front of the book.  However, if you feel this detracts from the emotional journey you are taking the reader on, you can insert the page at the back, after the text ends.  It is not mandatory to thank people for their support or to financially compensate them.  Just as their help was a courtesy, so is acknowledging it in conjunction with your work.  On a personal level, it is courteous.  On a professional level, it nurtures the relationship and may allow for collaborative efforts in the future.” 

     Many helped me with my first book.  I learned to run a printing press, do graphic methods, use special darkroom techniques, and enjoy the many suggestions for a company name.  Publisher Ruth Gottstein, who has nurtured many social issues through her Volcano Press  considered my book, plus sent it to other publishers at her own time and expense.  She also suggested an upcoming book fair with the neighboring national librarian’s convention, which was my big break. 

     Each person that helped me received a gratis book.  Every copy had a letterpress ex libris label with their name printed on it.  The owner of a local popular restaurant agreed to cook a special meal for the group, at my expense.  I printed menus for this event with letterpress (which Lester Lloyd taught me), with the chef’s name. 

     To include more people, I had a launch party, where I rented a room over a popular disco and invited everyone I knew.  We offered snacks, but drinks were available downstairs, in agreement with the owner.  Mistake noted: visitors stay longer with alcohol.  Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, the famous children’s author had this to say: “Sometimes it’s fun to have a launch party.  With The ‘ABCs of Writing for Children’, when I interviewed a lot of authors for the book, I had a LOT of friends in that book!  So I invited them all to a party and fed them.” 

       “I try to fill up my acknowledgements page with all those who have helped me along the way.  And, if someone has done something special for me — maybe hooked me up with insider information or toured me through a facility or allowed me to crash at their place overnight, I’ll try to buy them a meal or a six-pack,” I was told by a rising fiction writer at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.    Next week: more acknowledgements 

###

Today I’ve spent 3 hours to escape from a stalker-like Belgium traveller, trying to bore her by sitting under Harbour Bridge eating a sandwich, feigning disinterest in a museum (which I would have actually gone in had I been alone, then resorting to going to the library. She still stuck to me like chewing gum on the sole of your trainer. I’ve been in the library for 2 hours now and think she MIGHT have gone. I’m a little scared to go down and check, in case she’s hiding behind a rack of newspapers or something, ready to tag along some more. My contingency plan is to go back to the hostel-as she’s not booked in there, theoretically that’s failsafe. Though who knows, maybe she’d want to sneak in there too…

Early on today as I was working the Reference Desk one of our regulars arrived and immediately handed me a note that read:

Sorry I don’t mean to be rude but I took a vow of silence for 40 days

OVER [i flip the note]

Can I please have the local newspaper Woeful Thanks

I read the note, said “sure,” and handed the guy today’s paper. He smiled and walked away.

This particular guy a homeless veteran, but he isn’t an Irregular. He chooses to be homeless even though he has steady part-time work, and he is consistently polite and respectful of the Library staff and our materials. Although he most certainly leads an unconventional life he is always a decent guy.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

A very generous parent donated five books from the NY Times bestseller list:

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‘Tis the season to be baking! 

This December, the Children’s department is excited to host our first-ever Family Cookie Exchange!  Join us on Wednesday, December 16th with 2 dozen of your 2 favorite holiday treats.  This is a great opportunity to show off your baking skills!  Whether it be cookies and bars or candies and fudge, we want to see them here!  Hot chocolate will be on tap to wash down the treats.  Make sure that you bring copies of your recipes to share with others as well as an empty container so you can take home some samples!  This event will begin at 6 p.m.

If you would like to participate in this event, stop by the Children’s desk and pick up a “Save the Date” gingerbread man.

If you are looking for some baking inspiration, why not check out one of the following books:

• Taste of Home Cookies (641.8654 T186)
• Christmas Gifts from the Kitchen by Georgeanne Brennan (641.568 B75)
• Cookies and Cakes  by Susannah Blake  (J641.8 BLA)
• Southern Living Best Loved Cookies: 50 Melt-in-Your-Mouth Southern Morsels by Susan Hernandez Ray  (641.8654 R211)
• Pillsbury Best of the Bake-off Cookbook: Recipes from America’s Favorite Cooking Contest  (641.71 P646)

There's my boy!

On this day before Thanksgiving, I’d especially like to express my gratitude to our local public library for employing the #1 son. He’s been working there for three weeks now, and he’s been gaining so much more than a paycheck.

Of course, what he likes best is the paycheck.

The books are the thing.

We hadn’t seen #1 in his new habitat yet, so the Mister, the #2 son, and I decided to visit him last night while he was working. #1 had specifically asked his younger brother to come see him.

No, not his mother, who went through 15 hours of excruciating labor pains to bear him. Just sayin’.

Hmmm . . . curious headgear

When we arrived in the children’s section where #1 works as a shelver, we could see him working at his cart putting books in order. As we got closer to him, I couldn’t help but notice something odd—what he was wearing on his head. The other day he had asked me if we had any ear warmers. Thinking he wanted one for a video, I gave him one I was able to find quickly.

Apparently, he did not want the ear warmer for a video! For there it was around his head. On closer inspection, I could see he was trying in vain to cover up a wire snaking from his ear through his shirt.

Me: “Are you listening to your iPod Touch?”

#1 son: “Why would I do that? It’s against the rules.”

Yes, it is against the rules! However, #1 is used to music filling his ears as often as possible. He doesn’t have to converse with anyone there, so he figured why not listen to tunes to make the time travel faster. Hope it doesn’t get him fired!

Two of my favorite children's books

Lovin’ the library

I’ve always loved the library. Back in the day, my two older sisters, my little brother, and my mom would walk what probably was three miles to the library, check out books, and walk back home. It’s one of my favorite memories! There was no money to buy books, so we were very grateful for the library, because we loved to read.

Curious George . . . on steroids, apparently

When I was a kid, I pretty much lived in the children’s section of the library. My mom would go off to the adult side with its books filled with tiny print and no pictures. Intriguing but not as much fun.

Everyone loves Franklin!

Walking around the young adult part of our local library showed how much it was still the same (there’s no changing that Dewey decimal system) yet so different (computers are a hot ticket for the kids to use, plus there are audio books and videos to check out as well as books).

#1 looks at a Nicolas Flamel book that he's about to shelve.

It’s still a fascinating place for the kids, as well as the perfect spot for my #1 son to learn and gain confidence as a worker. And for that I’m extremely grateful.

These two characters

I’m also giving thanks that my sons get along so well . . . most of the time. Like any siblings they fight, occasionally with wrestling. But for the most part they enjoy each other’s company and like hanging out together.

Brothers who genuinely like each other? It doesn’t get any better than this!

I know there are sites that list these places with WiFi spots, but I thought I would list them on my site. I’ll try to keep this list current. This is for me too. I have satellite (WildBlue) at my house and so I come into town to upload and download large files (I’m a graphic designer, you know). The lame thing about this is that whenever I go online at free WiFi spots in town, they’ve opened up the broadband to allow for multiple users and it ruins me to go back home to my slow-ish laggy internet.

I haven’t personally checked all of these places. so you might want to call ahead on some of them. I will put a * next to the spots I’ve actually used.

Hotel / Motel / Resort
Courtyard Marriott Bryan College Station
Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites – Aggieland
Hyatt Place-College Station – College Station, TX
Homewood Suites College Station
Hilton College Station & Conference Center
College Station Hawthorn Hotel Suites
Ramada
Residence Inn
Townplace Inn

Store
Office Depot
Copy Corner *
Barnes & Noble
Airport

Coffeeshop / Cafe
It’s A Grind *
Hastings on Texas and Holleman *

I’ll add some more when I find them or hear of them.

In light of Thanksgiving, I decided to make a list of 30 things/people/whatever I am thankful for – one for every day of the month of November (in random order).  Some are serious; some are…not so serious.

I am thankful for…

• Matthew – my best friend and incredible boyfriend – for always being there for me, for always laughing at my jokes (no matter how lame they are)and being silly with me, for always getting excited about the things I find exciting (even the seemingly unexciting things), and for countless other reasons.
• Sweet, selfless prayers from a 9-year-old.
• New friends and opportunities for fellowship.
• Good health.
• Central Baptist Church Hillsboro – for being such an integral part of my spiritual formation throughout jr. high, high school, and college.
• Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection – because of him I am saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8).
• Naps.
• My dog, Tex – because he is the best dog in the world.
• April 19, 1993 – the day my sweet Jesus saved me from myself.
• Pastor Jamie – for tending to his little flock at FBCPO and for not being afraid to step on some toes, including mine.
• Sheila & Steve Cochran – my “adopted WA parents,” who love me and take care of me here in WA.
• Music - especially The Beatles, Coldplay, and Hanson.
• Hannah – my roommate and friend – for “blessing” me (please excuse the inside joke).
• 22 years and 9 months of life. (Geez, I’m getting old!)
• My car (as old and clunky as it is) – for getting me all the way to WA from TX with no problems.
• My family – for loving and supporting me every step of the way, even when I move 2000 miles away from them.
• ETBU – for my education and the life lessons it taught me throughout (and even after) the four years I was there.
• God’s mercy and grace – that they are renewed daily.
• Ice cream.
  
• Youth Missions International – for giving me the opportunity to follow my calling and serve in the Northwest.
• The library – for providing me with hours upon hours of free entertainment.
• Weekends.
• The Jarretts and The Cooks – Hannah’s family – for being awesome and for being great friends to me these last couple of years.
• God’s faithful and unending provision.
• First Baptist Church Port Orchard – for lovingly taking me in and making me a part of their family.
• Kasie, Kenneth, and Kristen – for being the coolest siblings of all time.  OF ALL TIME.
• Mentors.
• Babies – for their sweet innocence and fresh life.
• The Venturas – Matthew’s family – for being my second family.
• The Greening Family – for being my Texas buddies here in the Northwest.

I hope all of you have just as many reasons (and more) to be thankful.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

So I was browsing the Library Newspaper Catalog today. Yes, weird, I was in a library for fun. Apparently ‘breasts’ on the below ad was the more predominant word for this advertisement, good job Loblaws!

The newspapers were really really cool to see and I highly recommend when you’re bored to go to the library and read the newspaper from the day you were born.

I wish I wasn’t 4 hours old I could have gone to Brampton to see Big Bird!!!