stacey ewing

I’m still alive, just mega-busy with a gabillion things at work and home. Can’t believe it will be May on Friday! This semester has flown by far too quickly! Most of my time has been spent cleaning up, launching and loading our new InfoCommons Blog. I’ve tried to add a little bit of everything on there so it’s not all boring library stuff. Our unit is so diverse anyway, it kind of works. Tons more to fix and add though.

I’ve got a million little things to share, including new pictures of Maui and some funny video from Wes’ birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this picture taken outside of our townhome. Little dude was hanging out in my window box of lettuce. I saw online that they eat bugs and lizards. Now I know why I hadn’t seen to many lizards around our door lately. Haven’t been too many bugs out their either. Too bad he doesn’t eat the squirrels who have been munching all the leaves off my Rose of Sharon! heh :P

I ran across this great old quote from Sandra Cisneros this afternoon while helping someone research a paper topic:

“Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can’t see.”

I’m so flippin’ excited! Our National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) Write-in Event for next week in the InfoCommons is shaping up quite nicely!!

Christy approached local mystery author, M.D. Abrams, and asked her if she would come in and speak and offer encouragement to our Nanowrimo Event participants. Marjorie agreed and will be coming out to speak at 6:30pm!

Then I contacted three of my fave authors to see if they would be interested in participating in a live chat with our participants and they were both game!! Jeaniene Frost, paranormal writer and author of the Night Huntress Series will be chatting with us at 5:30pm. Ilona & Gordon Andrews, urban fantasy writers and authors of the Kate Daniels Series (ACE Fantasy) will be chatting with our group around 7:30pm. Then at 9pm, Ann Aguirre, sci-fi writer and author of the Jax series (ACE Sci-Fi) will also pop on and do a Q & A round with our group.

I’m holding 30 minute “word war” contests throughout the evening and giving away “Murder on the Prairie” (signed!), “Halfway to the Grave,” “Magic Bites,” and “Grimspace” to the participants who write the most words during that time. Ann Aguirre contacted me and said that she would even mail a signed copy of “Wanderlust” to one of the winners as well! So, my childrens, prizes galore next Wednesday, prizes galore!!

Anyway, I CANNOT wait! These writers have been SO awesome and VERY giving of their time. Approx. 75-80% of last year’s participants were working on some kind of sci-fi, paranormal, urban fantasy story and the rest were working on novels & mysteries so I think our Nano participants will be ab. thrilled to find out who is on the docket for next Wednesday!

hi everyone!

sorry for the radio silence lately but the end of the semester wrap-up and extended hours at the ‘liberry’ have been INSANE and now I’m away at SOLINET and won’t get home until late friday.

I promise, I’ll have updates (AND PICTURES!!) of the ‘goings on’ quite soon! :D

xoxo,
stace

I love the hawks that sit in the tree a few buildings away from mine. On stressful days, it’s really nice to look out my office window and see them hanging out and scanning this side of campus for “rogue were-squirrels” to feast upon. Sometimes there is only one and lately there have been two (I think they’re married…heh).

I finally brought in a pair of binoculars (thanks Clannus Austinus!) so I could get a better zoom on them than my camera would yield and was able to ID them. They’re red-tailed hawks. According to some sites (on teh interwebs) they weigh between 1-4lbs and can have a wingspan up to 4ft! My two hawks are 2+ years old as their tailfeathers are red and not brown. Apparently when they dive for prey, they fly as fast as 120mph!! They eat prey that is racoon-sized or smaller (Carrie- make sure to keep Ramses on that lead!!). They live a fairly long life in the wild- 10-15 years (20-23 in captivity). Very cool.

We ROCKED the InfoCommons today! We hosted a Guitar Hero III Event to help students blow off a little pre-finals steam.

About 50-60 people showed up between Noon and 4pm to rock out with us in the InfoCommons. Not bad turnout considering we didn’t really advertise outside of a few list-serv posts and a couple of dry erase board signs. Most of our head count came from curious library folk but we had an equal number of students who were happy to take a break and have a little fun. :D

The response to the event was very positive and we only had two complaints in the four hours. We offered to help those two students relocate to one of the many empty spaces on the “designated quiet floors” of 1 and 4 but they declined- deciding to just stay near our area. I might have felt a little bad for them but the library was quite empty that day and there was more than enough space for them to find a quiet spot on the quiet floors or even over in the West wing of the same floor.

We also had ear plugs on hand for anyone who might want a pair but no takers. Most students studying around our area were plugged into their iPods anyway so the sound didn’t seem to bother them at all. We had quite a few students take breaks from studying, walk up to take a turn at the game, and then go right back to studying. :D

You can view more pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uf_infocommons/sets/72157603402212677/

The Nanowrimo Event at work was a success! We had 27 people show up to work up some final word count, hang out and dish about writing, and hear the two guest speakers offer encouragement and inspiration. One participant made it to 50,000 words and we all gathered around her computer to cheer as she submitted her novel to Nano for verification. It was great! Everyone stayed caffeinated and sugared up on the donated Starbucks coffee and treats. Seven of us made it to the very bitter end and wrapped things up at 1am. What a fun night and a super-cool bunch of folks! :D

you can see more pictures of the event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uf_infocommons/sets/72157603364596428/

I had a weird sort of horror-movie moment this morning on my way to work. I got in around 6:45am, parked over by the architecture building, and walked across that part of campus over to Library West. It was eerily quiet and empty during my short hike up the hill. Once I got to the Plaza d’Americas, I cut across the grass through a small stand of trees. As I neared the stand, about four or five squirrels raised alarm and all started barking at the same time. When I walked underneath, they simultaneously started shaking the branches and suddenly, millions of acorns rained down upon me!! Ow! Dammit! Ow! Seriously- I’m not making this up- I think they were out to get me. I looked up in time to see one of the squirrels pluck an acorn from his branch and throw it at me- hitting me on the forehead! Spooked, I kept walking and didn’t look back, hearing their chatter slowly fade as I hurried away. I certainly wasn’t going to stick around to see if they were of the flesh-eating sort. *shudder*

Woohoo!!! My new journal arrived yesterday from Etsy seller, Christine Renee. It’s even better than I thought it’d be. She even included a supa-sweet pin that says “I Have a Zombie Escape Plan” …rock. It’s always great to start out a new semester at work with a new notebook! wheeeee! ;D

Even MORE exciting news!!! Tim will soon be teaching drum lessons at a new music academy in Gainesville called Great Southern Music!!! They have a GORGEOUS new facility with individual studios for private lessons and a larger room for group study and recitals. There is a very comfortable waiting room for parents to hang out while waiting on their kids and the entire space is very warm and inviting. The owners are wonderful people- so very nice and when you meet them it’s so obvious how much they care about the music! Gainesville is about to gain a VERY amazing resource! We’re both excited for him to begin teaching there!! Open House is on August 11, 2007. Keep an eye on their website for updates and more information: http://www.greatsouthernmusic.net