The Next Dark Age
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The Happy Hollisters
The other night at the Library, I spent a whole bunch of time individually listing a bunch of old children’s books for sale on Amazon. The Happy Hollisters was a mystery series and the books I saw were from about 1955 – 1965.
Great condition, including dust jackets, which is pretty rare.
There were eleven of them and I was listing them from $7.00 to $9.00. When I got home, I asked my mother if she had ever heard of them. She came out of her chair to squeal about how that series introduced her to mysteries and she loved, loved, loved them! I showed her the selection from our Amazon Storefront.
“Do you want them for your birthday?” Which is in August.
So as I go online to unlist them, I called our director to explain why I am doing all of this listing and unlisting and that I will pick up the books on Saturday.
She was very happy when I said, “So I showed her the books from the Storefront…”
Then I decided those books are really the kind that require covers for the dust jackets and I am starting to run low. So I went to my source on eBay and bought a new roll of adjustable, archive quality covers.
This is an expensive volunteer gig.
P.S. I went to Amazon to look up my favorite childhood book, The Little Witch. $100 for the 1987 hardcover. Lucky I still have my 1979 paperback.
P.P.S. Mom. That was not a hint to buy it for me. Do not buy it for me.
The Digital Divide
We talked a lot about the “digital divide” in my e-commerce class last semester. I found this chart in an article on msn.com by Steven Musil who talks about the haves and have nots of technology. If you can’t read the little numbers, it says that 30% of us have never used a computer to create a document, like in Word or Excel. 21% have never used e-mail, looked up a website or used the Internet to search for information. Toward the end of the article, Musil says that after we get past the economics and education we still won’t have everyone online because people just don’t understand how the Internet can help them in their every day lives.
Relatively speaking, I am not particularly tech-savvy. The only reason I have my own computer is that I went back to school and I needed my little brother to pick it out for me. I am on Blogger because it was a school assignment. Even so, I have no idea what I did before Mapquest was around to give me directions.
And I was just making fun of my brother for buying a GPS.
Rescue Dogs and Teens
Chicago has, more than once, been name the Most Dog Friendly City in the U.S. The Chicago Tribune is pretty good about indulging us with local stories. This article talks about a Keeshond Rescue Group that has partnered with a residential facility for teens. The kids work on training with the dogs, making them more likely to be adopted. The kids gain skills and insight and perhaps relate to animals in a way they may not be able to with people. A dog that lost its home to foreclosure, another that was bait for dogfighters, etc.
The article mentions a story about a program for inmates in a South Carolina prison. Inmates were paired with puppies for a similar purpose and the results were fabulous. I remember reading about it and thinking it was the best idea I had ever heard. In some college psychology class or another, we were taught that violent and anti-social behavior toward people is often preceded in youth by violent behavior toward animals. Part of the idea of these programs is the opportunity for the inmate or “troubled teen” to experience empathy with the animal.
I am pleased to see a local group has implemented such a program.
New Library Link
I have included a new link on the sidebar to the Storefront of the Library’s Used Book Store. I don’t think Amazon customers are likely to have “Favorite Sellers” the way they do on eBay, but I am hoping to at least post it where local people might see it and remember that we are around.
Also, for those local, these books are available onsite at the Library Used Book Store. So we can avoid the shipping.
I think the best part about this is being able to see the covers. Unfortunately, not all covers have been loaded to Amazon’s web site and we are left with the standard filler. I have the same problem with LibraryThing, another of my favorite web sites.
But use the tools we are given, I think. So please check it out!
At the Refuge – Babe
Babe is one of several birds at the Refuge with whom I have fostered a respectful “don’t touch me and I won’t touch you” relationship. I would let her out of her cage to hang out of awhile, and she would go back in very nicely once her dinner was ready. And she ate her vegetables – lima beans were a hit, if I remember correctly. But Babe didn’t get on with a couple of volunteers that I work with, so she didn’t get as much time out as I would like.
When the construction started at the Refuge (finally back on track, yay!), Nikki and Jerry, two of our very experienced volunteers took Babe home. Jerry is great with birds that I generally find impossible and Nikki is always ready to offer time and patience to a bird learning to trust. Someday I should tell you about Curli.
Well. Sometimes all a bird needs is time and patience. This is part of a write up that Nikki wrote for Babe’s page on the Refuge site:
“She never gets off her cage, so she is allowed total freedom to be in or on top as she wishes. She never bites and LOVES to cuddle and play. She steps up willingly and enjoys one-on-one time with me. She regularly spends time on my shoulder, a privilege only granted to birds that I completely trust.”
Babe is available for adoption and you can read the rest of Nikki’s story here.
Best Friends Puppies
If you look down my side bar, you will find a “widget” for Best Friends Animal Society. They are raising funds to build a Puppy Care Center to help all of the dogs being rescued from puppy mills.
As a member of Best Friends, I received an e-mail about the project. Clicking into their site, there was an extremely easy link to post the widget on my own blog.
I don’t volunteer directly with Best Friends, but if they are going to make it that easy to spread the word, I really have to support it.
Now I wonder how we can make that work from the Refuge site.
Airlines
In case you think this is an outraged consumer rant, please let me establish that I was perfectly in favor of dropping complimentary meals and adding snacks for the $5 fee.
The airlines, quite rightly, went to some lengths to encourage passengers to check baggage more and carry on less. After delays, before even security, the most annoying part of air travel for me is the other passengers that insist on pushing the limits of the carry on rules so they won’t be required to check any bags. This leads to:
Running out of overhead space – I have seen the competition lead to shoving
Big hassles in boarding and disembarking (read as: delays)
Slower through security – even assuming the offending passenger is prepared and knowledgeable about the “liquids” rules
Absolute fire hazards at the gate area
With this one fee, American Airlines has taken a major step backward.
Perhaps this is not much trouble for the frequent business traveler. Already the worst offender in the carry on game, the business traveler is least likely to be bothered by a $15 fee that the employer will be paying. I imagine that since the business traveler is the meat and potatoes of the industry, American thinks it can get away with this stunt.
Think about the family of four headed to Disney World. Four plane tickets. Hotel room. Park tickets. Disney cost of food and everything else. As you are making your budget, you have to build in $90 – $120 roundtrip for checking luggage. I’m thinking that driving is starting to look more attractive.
My hometown airline, United, has not implemented this fee yet. But when one airline increased the “changed flight” fee, the others followed. When one did the “second bag” fee, the others followed. So I am not optimistic.
Lucky for me, I like a good road trip.
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