Subfield "Z" giddiness

Because I'll be at Special Olympics basketball practice tonight, I'll have to post early, and be brief. First, you'll note, or maybe not even notice, Dear Reader, that I began with the causal "because" and not the temporal, sloppy "since." Proof only that I read James Kilpatrick's recent columns, and haven't forgotten the lessons they contained, as of this moment. I was creating some original bibliographic records today. At work. They were records of hearings before the Oregon State Water Resources Board. The easy, efficient thing to do was to derive each successive record from the previous one. Edit dates, pagination, river names, and geographic subdivisions of subject headings. That's all. Easy. Really. Well there was one record of a hearing that covered both the Malheur River and the Owyhee River. I checked the authority records for both geographic entities. "Malheur River Watershed (Or.)" and "Owyhee River Watershed." No parenthetical state designation. I went with it. The first subject heading would be "Water resources development|zOregon|zMalheur River Watershed." The second, simply "Water resources development|zOwyhee River Watershed." I checked them. They were, they are both correct. But why? I couldn't let go. I had to know. Or die a spiritual death trying to find out. I went to the The Subject Guy and asked. Without any pause for reflection upon my query, he answered. Since the Owyhee River flows through three states, it is subdivided directly. I understood. Clearly. All I could say was "Cool." Geographic subdivision is so much more fun than mathematical long division. But that goes without saying. Doesn't it, Dear Reader?

I got it covered

Penned by Richard Berry. Made famous by the Kingsmen. Hundreds of versions by, one would assume, hundreds of artists. Louie Louie. Covers. OK back to cataloging, specifically book covers. One of the Library Thing features that is neater than a cat's meow, is the ability to include the cover of a book with the bibliographic record. Not all book covers are available on line. I can live with that. For a while at least. But I cannot abide the wrong cover. One may change the cover in a record from the one that appears when a book is cataloged. But if the cover that matches the edition/printing being cataloged is not among the choices, it cannot be blanked. I prefer to display no cover at all rather than a cover that doesn't match my book in hand. It gnaws at me. Disturbs my slumber. I take the books in with me to work, scan the "correct" covers, and upload them to my catalog. This seems reasonable enough. I have no plans to systematically scan and upload all the covers that are missing from my catalog. No plans to do so "systematically." I'll get it done piece-meal. Somewhat arbitrarily. I did a search of Hemingway. Of the eleven entries retrieved, eight had covers displayed. So I took the three books for which covers were needed in to the library, scanned them, and uploaded them. I promise to do only a few a week. Scout's honor. Modern Ukrainian is already in my backpack for tomorrow.

The Trickster strikes again

Another weekend begins soon. My son, Paul, a.k.a. The Boy, will be coming for a visit beginning in a few hours. A hockey game tomorrow shall be the meat, sandwiched between a couple of slices, really thick slices of nothing. Well, TV and some movies. Maybe Sunday's fixture pitting Arsenal v. Bolton will be televised here on the left coast of the colonies. He'd better have some homework with him as well. But for the most part, it should be a relaxing weekend, free of farm chores. It seems that practical jokes, good clean ones, have arrived recently as frequently as The Boy does. Poor Boy. Hello Kitty birthday cake. Hello Kitty bed sheets. And now, something completely different. I bought a box of Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick. Yeah. They really do exist. Jon Stewart wasn't lying. I purchased the chocolate chip pancake variety. Several days ago, while talking to The Boy on the phone I mentioned a new "corn dog type of product with what look like peppercorns in the coating." Note well the quotation marks. Well, the boy absolutely loves peppercorns, and he's always hungry when he arrives at my place. I plan to offer to make him something to eat. I'll suggest they taste pretty good without any mustard and/or catsup/ketchup (whatever yanks your chain). Remember if you will Dear Reader, he's a teenager. Yeah, he's gonna listen to a suggestion from his old man. He'll go right for the mustard and the red stuff as well. There is a lesson here, I think. Oh yeah! Now I remember. Keep an open mind, even to suggestions from a parent. I should have been a coyote.

Sorry about the capitalization

I had a "work-related cataloging question" today. It sounded funny to say that, and the cataloging guru whom I asked thought so too. That's it. I have nothing more to share about it. Now I am getting ready to tackle another shelf of paperbacks. I thought I would, for a change, post something here first. I received a personal honor yesterday. I made a top eight list of 2006 things. I was credited for my "Payday cheesecakes." The list was alphabetical, sadly. Not in call number order. That's OK though. I came in sixth. Had the list been classed according to the Library of Congress, I think I would have lost a couple spots, slipping to eighth. Assuming I would have been in the TX range. Maybe seventh, depending on the classification of the Tacqueria. And then there would have been cuttering decisions to make. Cutter for "Payday" or "Cheesecake?" "Paul" or my last name? What would the main entry have been? No. I am quite content with an alphabetical sixth place finish. Let's face it. I'm happy just to have made the list. Incidentally, payday is next Wednesday and I'll be making a Minty Chocolate Cheesecake.

Nuts!

Well, Library Thing is going to be down for at least three hours, beginning soon. All too soon. What am I going to do? My catalog sits at 790 titles. Just sits. 800 clearly in view. Looking at the shelf I plan to catalog next, I can see the tenth title, which will be number 800. The Ends of Power by H. R. Haldeman. It's part of my mini-collection of Watergate products. G. Gordon Liddy to Jeb Stuart Magruder. It'll have to wait though. My cataloging project has been quite useful in helping me to become more familiar with the Library of Congress classification system. It has been invaluable in making my real job easier. I have a new confidence when poring through the schedules. Confrontation has become consultation. Epiphanic. Turn on the computer, pop a couple of orange Pez (which taste remarkably like St. Joseph's children's aspirin), turn the volume up for Enter Sandman, and catalog. It doesn't matter what. I just catalog. Catalog. Catalog. Catalog. Sunday, while watching the NFL conference championship games, what was I doing? Yep. Cataloging. Rapt. I even forgot about the holiday. Did you, Dear Reader? Just wait until next year.

Taped at the Emirates

Scrolling through the channel guide. English League Soccer. Oooh! Who's playing? Manchester United at Arsenal! Yes! After reading Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, I became interested in soccer. It was that good a book. Sure, I follow, well, sort of follow the World Cup when it rolls around every four years. But that quadrennial pleasure just wouldn't be enough any longer. For no other reason then it's Nick's favourite (English spelling deliberate), I decided to wade into the F.A. Premier League by adopting Arsenal as "my team" too. It also allowed me to associate Fever Pitch with soccer, and take my mind off of the Boston Red Sox and all the ugliness of "that" baseball post-season. Last year I watched an Arsenal match against, well I don't remember against whom. Maybe it was Tottenham. Doesn't matter. Tottenham scored in the first couple of minutes of the match. That was it for the rest of regulation play. Ninety minutes had elapsed and Arsenal was down one-nil. The referee added three minutes of additional time, and Arsenal equalized about halfway through that time. The match ended. Tied. 1-1. It was as though it never had happened. A couple of hours just gone. Without a trace. After six-plus hours watching the NFC and AFC Championship games yesterday, it was a pleasant surprise to find the Man United/Arsenal match on the telly. The sports equivalent of methadone, as I enter the temporal wasteland between the end of the NFL season and the beginning of the baseball season. (I just don't like the NBA). But something was scratching at my brain. Gently. Ticklish. The Monday game just didn't seem right. I went to the F.A. Premier League web site. I have it bookmarked. No sign of a match scheduled for today. I clicked on Arsenal and there was my answer. The match took place yesterday. Arsenal beat the league-leading Manchester United 2-1. I'm watching it anyway. Half time now. Still no score. A couple of really spectacular saves by the Arsenal goal keeper as time expired. Should be a thrilling second half. I'll need to pay attention or I may miss the goals. At least I know it won't end in a draw. And Arsenal will win.

The cat came back

Priceless. No not some credit card commercial quip. Sometimes the response to a practical joke is just priceless. I ran across some Hello Kitty bed sheets. They cost a mere ten bucks. I didn't think twice. I grabbed 'em. When I arrived home I immediately put them on my son's bed. The next visit would be special when he pulled back the blankets to go to bed. As I already wrote, it was priceless. Him: "What the...?" Me: "Now you can get in touch with your 10-year old female side. Or your feline side." I have encountered more cats recently. The Cat in the Hat, for example. I still have my Dr. Seuss books from my childhood. I cataloged them. The Library of Congress classes Dr. Seuss' works in the PZ call number range. Fiction and Juvenile Belles Lettres. Well, Dear Reader, I don't care for that schedule. So I found an author number for Dear Mr. Geisel. PS3513.E2. Cutter for individual works. A local cat-aloging decision. Sorry. Except for the Cat in the Hat Song Book. That's an ML number. Dr. Seuss didn't write the words anyway. I also added a new Pez dispenser to my collection. Diego, from Ice Age. A Saber-toothed Cat. I tried to give a link in the title of this post. Not to Ice Age. Not to Pez either. A link to a special place. Apparently one cannot do that. So, I'll say it again. The cat came back. It really did.

Confession : the heat is on, at long last

My apartment is on the top floor, east side of the small complex. There is ceiling heat in both bedrooms and the kitchen. A heat lamp warms the bathroom. Ceiling heat is silly. These days. There was a time in the Pacific Northwest when hydro-electric plants were coming on line that we had an abundance of dirt-cheap electricity. Ceiling heat was the cheapest to install during construction. You get the idea? I should reap the benefits of the people who live below me, what with heat rising and all. I don't. They're pretty stingy. On the wall in my living room is a heater. Six years ago, during the first really cold snap after I moved in here, I turned it on. And then off. I recall a glowing orange coil in the wall. With the somewhat crowded furniture situation, I feared a fire. Death and destruction. That was that. I resigned myself to sweatshirts and keeping the curtains closed to preserve heat. Well, I have been suffering for a week from a pretty persistent cold. We have been having another really cold spell here in the valley. Friday, I looked at the thermometer inside my apartment. 44 degrees. Farenheit. I couldn't take it any longer. I moved furniture to clear the area around the wall heater, and turned it on. Oh, Dear Reader, the shame. There was no fiery ember in the wall. It was a warm air blower. What could I have been thinking six years ago? No more will my breath be visible in the living room. I am wallowing in warmth. 74 degrees of it. A few more days of sofa rest, healthy food, vitamin supplements (especially vitamin C) and I began to get better. The Hello Kitty fruit flavored snacks helped as well. They do have 100% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C. Tangy too. Almost a Gummi Bear texture and consistency to them.

Not in my house

On the socialist state. On the United States of America. State and revolution. Karl Marx. Two tactics of Social-Democracy in the democratic revolution. What the "Friends of the People" are and how they fight the Social-Democrats. Materialism and empirio-criticism. What is to be done? Indeed. What is to be done? Cataloging along. Humming. Passing 600 titles and heading higher. I neared the end of yet another shelf of books and these eight titles were at the far right. (No ironic pun intended.) Selected works of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. Lenin. Even some of the titles are as ponderous as Nietzsche's stuff. What the hell is "empirio-criticism" anyway? I stopped cataloging before I added them to my on-line catalog. I wanted to ponder. That and Library Thing is going really, really slow right now. There may be more Lenin on other shelves. I'm not sure. When I put these on line, will the possession of them raise red flags in some basement of some bureau somewhere? Probably not. Leninism has been pretty thoroughly discredited. It's not like I have the Koran or anything like that. Oh, wait. I do have at least one copy of the Koran. Like Lenin and Nietzsche, I haven't read it either. That has to count for something. The preponderance of books in My Library even remotely associated with Russia, or the Soviet Union, or former republics of the Soviet Union has been trying. With all the different transliteration schemes, I have been encountering scary numbers of split author files. All split files are scary. They just ain't pretty. Since the catalog is for me, I have decided to go with the Library of Congress transliteration tables. It's safe. It's comfy. It's like home. I try to catch and fix things as I add them, but am sure I miss some. Future database maintenance is a certainty. Something to do on a rainy day. In Oregon? Oh, and I'm just blowing off all diacritics. I don't need 'em.

Didn't you? Aren't you? How have you been?

Aside from my Army service, I have spent my entire life here in Eugene. People have come. People have gone. Some have been born. Some have died. Paths that long ago diverged from one another cross again, if only briefly. I'll recognize someone in the checkout line. Even the express line. "Excuse me. Didn't you go to Spring Creek Elementary School?" Perfunctory "What are you doing these days?" and compliments extended to my memory. Then it's over. Paths again head out in their own directions. An author's name crossed my path. It was familiar. I thought a moment. I went to high school with her. Now she's a professor of anthropology in the Midwest, and writing. Last Saturday morning, I was on my way to catch a train north. I had some fruit in my bag, but stopped anyway at McDonalds to grab an Egg McMuffin for the trip. (This is the only situation in which I enter a McDonalds.) There are three other customers in front of me. One, a guy just waiting for his food. Two, a lady, also waiting for her food, but pacing. Three, a guy I recognized from elementary school. He's talking a lot, and fast. Something about his Egg McMuffin, hold the egg, substitute bacon. The floor manager turns to the food preparation area and says something. Number three asks somewhat loudly "What are you talking about?" He turns to the lady pacing and tells her about the gas-powered trailer he "got" last night. Then to One. "How ya doing? Would you vote for me for President? I'd get rid of the CIA and the FBI and rename the whole place Tweaker Island." One doesn't flinch. His mistake was making eye contact in the first place. He is fortunate though. His food is ready. He leaves swiftly. Two gets her food and bolts as well. At last, Three gets his food, sits down, recognizes (he thinks anyway) someone across the lobby, and begins to tell them about his new trailer. I did not say a word. No "Excuse me, but didn't you... Aren't you Richard D?" I know better. I see this guy occasionally, on his bike at odd hours, peering in car windows, surreptitiously and clumsily. I wonder what happened, aside from the obvious, that turned him into a critter.

How now brown cow?

On December 31st I went to WinCo Foods for the first time. The prices are really good. Really, really good! I had to bag my own groceries though. But I usually bag my own groceries for ease of walking, or of riding the bus. The cereal. The cereal. Oh my, the cereal! As you may recall, I won't pay over two dollars for a box of cereal. I hit the proverbial mother lode of mother-loathed breakfast treats. I am not ashamed to admit to you, Dear Reader, that I purchased fifteen boxes of cereal. I'm maybe even a little proud to admit it. Two boxes each of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Reese's Puffs and Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp. Single boxes of Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles, Cap'n Crunch, Crunch Berries, Peanut Butter Crunch, Honey Comb, and, on a slightly healthier note, Honey Nut Shredded Wheat. Where to begin? Don't get me wrong. So far, I have had one bowl of Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp, which I didn't even know existed. I had heard only of the regular Cookie Crisp. Ahh! Novelty! I also had a bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch. That's it. That's a bowl of cereal every five days. Not bad. Moderate even. Nevermind that I've been out of milk and have been meaning to go to the store to get some. Today, I remembered to stop by the store on my way home from work. Chocolate milk. One gallon. Two percent. Or should that be two per cent? Maybe I should have just used the percentage sign.

The cereal post can wait

The allegation is untrue. It is unfounded. And in light of current conditions, plain silly. I bought a new cookbook today. The Chicken and Poultry Bible. It was 50% off, so cost only $7.49. A bargain for a nice big hardcover cookbook. And the pictures! Mmmmmm. I can almost taste the chicken. At least smell it. As is my habit, I digress. It was alleged that I bought the cookbook because I might have been afraid I'd run out of books to catalog. Well, I have 31 shelves of books still to be cataloged. I'm not even half way through the project. And the project keeps taking unexpected turns. For example, I have printed a paper copy of each of these posts and put them in a three-ring binder. The notion struck me today that I shall catalog that binder. I'll even include a note that it is also "available in electronic format." I can also provide the URL in the bibliographic record. There's already a widget on Pedestrian Subjunctives displaying random book covers from my library. When I finish the cataloging, I can provide a link from here to there. And back. Things could get scary. Meta-scary. Somewhere in all of this lurks infinite regression. Or perhaps simply pretentious narcissism. I'm thinking of a number between one and ten. Not really. I'm really thinking of a confused Sonic Youth guitar solo played backwards at a slower speed than was intended. Time to rein things in. Dear Reader, believe me when I tell you that I bought the cookbook just because I like chicken. Do you like chicken Dear Reader?

Where's it all going to end?

"I am a sick man." So begins Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. So, Dear Reader, begins this post. I am a sick man. A cataloger. A pathological cataloger. A metadata creator. As I have wrote of before, that is one one of the reasons I love my job so much. I can quench, in part, my compulsive need to organize stuff, and to describe that organization. I have a spread sheet of my record albums, another of my compact discs, yet another of my DVDs. (I haven't undertaken one for my VHS tapes. Yet.) Yesterday, I even created a catalog in spread sheet form of my Pez dispenser collection. It's sortable by individual dispenser name, group name, and the color of the bases, or the "stumps" as I call them. Truly sad. No? Yes. About a week ago, my supervisor showed me something. Something I probably shouldn't have seen, or even known about. It's called Library Thing and I am understandably hooked. What cataloger wouldn't be? So now I am cataloging my personal library. Not just a list of all my books mind you. No. That just wouldn't be enough. (There's that word again!) No Dear Reader, I am classing my entire library using the Library of Congress classification system. Call numbers are being uniformly formatted. Split files are being reconciled. Bibliographic integrity is being verified, and maintained. I am tagging each book for ease of my use. This is a large part of the reason that I have not posted recently. The holidays are not to blame. (We did watch all five of the Planet of the Apes movies as I had intended. It was a very hairy Christmas.) But now, I catalog books all day at work, go home, and spend a few hours each evening cataloging books. I have a chart of each wall in each room of my apartment showing book shelves. When I finish a shelf, I cross it off the chart. Sooner or later I will finish. Then I can begin database cleanup and routine maintenance. One of the really cool things about my Library Thing thing is that I can include images of many of the covers of the books in my library. Incidentally, there's a widget in the works.