Goodreads

I've just learned about a social networking site for book lovers! It's called Goodreads. There you keep a list of books you've read or books you want to read and you can get recommendations from other people or give recommendations. So you can find people who read something you liked and see what else they have read to get new ideas! I love it! I've added myself and I'd love to see you there too.

In today's Pioneer Press

...you can find a couple packages of stories with my handiwork. The first is about parking tickets in St. Paul. It's a story I've been working on, off and on, since last summer. (we had a lot of delays for various reasons). It includes an interactive map that I built using software called ArcIMS.

The second is the annual school test scores. We decided to publish this in kind of a "pieces-and-parts" fashion so there isn't a big long story. Here's the intro story. And the main piece is a searchable database that I built with test scores and all kinds of other data about Minnesota schools.

The best of both worlds

I'm sitting at my cabin on a Saturday morning, looking out over the perfectly-still lake. It looks like a mirror with the trees from the other side of the lake reflected in the water. Just heavenly! Of course, you're probably wondering how I'm connected to the Internet. Well, we got high-speed Internet at our cabin about a month ago. Wild, huh?! A new company came into town offering service. They beam a wireless signal out of Spooner and then mount a device on your house to pick up the signal. It is faster than our DSL at home.

My husband, of course, loves it since he hates to be disconnected. It's nice for me on a day like today when I need to check in on some work stuff. It makes it possible to work and be here at the same time...something we couldn't do before.

On the one hand, I'd like to be like my grandfather who wanted this cabin to be completely disconnected to the world (my grandparents refused to put a telephone in here and we didn't get one until my grandmother died in 1983). But it's also nice to have the Internet.

A couple weeks ago we needed a recipe. Internet to the rescue! We're talking about trying to work from up here more often next summer. Perhaps drive up on a Thursday night to avoid the traffic and work from here on Friday. Sounds pretty good to me.

Buyouts

The Pioneer Press accepted buyouts from employees today. 10 people signed up from the newsroom, plus two part-timers are leaving and several vacant jobs will remain unfilled. I haven't heard yet how many buyouts are coming from other departments. The newsroom has dropped by almost one-third compared to where it was at when I started just 2 1/2 years ago. The place is definitely not the same. It's very sad to watch.

The plant department

I'm not doing so hot at keeping plants alive this summer. I just said goodbye to my favorite English ivy because it got attacked by spider mites (I did take some cuttings that hadn't been affected and hope I can re-grow). This ivy was part of a set of plants my sorority sisters gave to my mother just before she died, so it's got sentimental value more than anything. But it was also the most beautiful plant I have.

And then I looked out a side window of our house, to the side of the house where we never go (it's kind of a dead end) and saw that all of the Lily of the Valley were brown. I haven't watered them all summer and it's been dreadfully dry. I hope I didn't kill them, too.

Then I decided I better water, and as I was watering a bed of hostas I noticed that something seemed wrong. I realized that two of the variegated hostas - which are my favorite - had been eaten all the way down by the damn rabbits that live in our yard! A couple other hostas are looking like they are the latest buffet for these pesky creatures. UGH.

Our grass is almost completely brown. We've barely had to mow this year. We've decided it's not worth the cost of water (not to mention the waste of water) to put out sprinklers like all our neighbors. We'd rather have brown grass. It does look a little sad, though.

What's wrong with newspapers

City Pages published a story recently, "Trials and Stribulations" about the problems plaguing the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune. It's the best overall picture of the trauma in my profession that I've read lately. It pretty much reads like a soap opera and it's all true. And the scary part is that the end of the story predicts this will be a one newspaper town very soon.

Family party

A little over a week ago, we had my mother's family to our cabin for our annual summer birthday party. When I was a kid, we did this every summer. These weekends are firmly etched as some of the best childhood memories for not only me, but also my cousins. Now, most of my cousins have children of their own and we're trying to re-create that for them.

This picture shows the oldest of the kids. There are two babies who were born last February (they were napping when we snapped this pic).

We spent hours pulling the oldest two girls around the lake on tubes or trying to teach them to waterski (haven't quite got it yet!).

The day went by way too quickly! Can't wait for next year.

The Neighbors

Our neighbors held a little "welcome to the neighborhood" gathering on Sunday night. It was just the five other couples who live in a square around us. Three across the street and one on either side. All but one of the families are middle-age with grown children and even some grandchildren. The other family has a 12-year-old and has been in their house since she was born. So we are definitely bringing down the average age on the block.

But we were really impressed by our neighbors. They are so friendly and obviously very succesful in their lives and careers. Lots of very smart people.

It'll probably be a few years before the neighborhood turns over and young families move in. Even then, we doubt it will truly be "young" families like ours. The houses are far too expensive for the typical starter family. We got the cheapest house on the block.

The neighbors said they were grateful we were helping to "bring up the property values" in the neighborhood by our remodeling project. They were also grateful the previous owners were gone. Apparently the outdoor cats attacking birds and general craziness of the previous family had been a bit of a blight on the neighborhood.

It's starting to look like a house!

The last couple of days I've finally gotten around to hanging pictures in our newly-remodeled house! After more than 9 months with bare walls, it's almost foreign to walk into a room and see something on the wall. And even better...my pictures seem almost brand new since I haven't seen them in so long! Opening the boxes and unwrapping the pictures was almost like Christmas. My husband can't quite understand my glee, but he garnered up some enthusiasm to help me hang some along the stairs -- making sure they lined up just perfectly and were evenly spaced. His attention to detail paid off, and they look fabulous. Even he admits that it does add some "personality" to the house. I told him that was exactly the right word for it. It's something I hadn't realized before.

As for the rest of the remodeling....we're down to a bunch of little stuff like: light fixtures in the dining room, mudroom and two bedrooms. Trim along some of the closets and in one bedroom. Handles on closet doors. Vanity, mirror, sink and window treatments for the half bathroom. Covers for the heating vents. Light switches and outlets to be replaced. And shelves in the basement for long-term storage.

Right now our living room is half filled with boxes of Christmas stuff and other items that belong in long-term storage. The basement is a disaster and doesn't have the shelving we really need. So we put them in the basement to free up space for installing the shelves, but that was two+ months ago and still no shelves. UGH. The scary part is that I'm sure once we do move them, I'll feel like the living room is suddenly empty without them! (Or an even scarier thought: it will be Christmas and we'll just have to unpack them instead)