Vacation

Bev and I are off to Indiana to visit family for the week of 12/23 - 28. We're taking the dogs, and this will be Barney's first long road trip. We're not planning to give him a full meal before we go, as he tends to get carsick. I'm hoping that our vet friend's advice to rub Bach Flower remedy on the inside flaps of his ears will help him out. It'll be interesting. Once we get to the Bloomington area, we've rented a cabin that takes dogs, and he should get some fun time out in the woods. Come to think of it, they may not have as much snow as we do, so we'd better bring the dog shampoo. Chelsea is going on 15 minute walks (3-4 per day) at this point, and may be up to 20 min. by next week, but she's not allowed off-leash activity yet, so I don't foresee her getting terribly muddy. I'll post some photos when we return.

So Proud

Hey, I followed your instructions and, voila, I got my LibraryThing list to appear on the sidebar of my blog. Next time I do it I'll edit the appearance of the list so it doesn't look so text-heavy. You have to scroll down a little to see it, as I moved it under the slideshow. Somehow I think the slideshow has more general appeal.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Scroll down and have a look at the slide show I added in the sidebar. I can't wait until I can download enough photos of Chelsea and Barney to make my own slideshow on Flickr and post that. I also have created two lists of links on del.icio.us - one list is favorite dog websites, and the other is a list of sites that have book discussion guides for kids and teens books. I successfully bundled the tags for the sites with book discussion guides, but I don't think I bundled the tags for the dog sites quite right. My next list will be storytime resource sites, and I'll bundle the tags for that list, too.

Worth A Thousand Words

I've noticed that I get more comments on my posts that have photos.

Also, I'm wondering how to get my Library Thing book list to appear in the sidebar of my blog, so it doesn't get archived. And for some reason, when I tried to sign up for del.icio.us I couldn't download the necessary file, and neither could the staffer at automation. I'll give it another try next week.

I'm glad we get a few weeks of catch-up time because there are several things I still want to try to do. I'm definitely signing up for semester 2 of PP. I like having a reason to take the time to try out these tools.

Wiki Work

Well, the brain's not working at 100% this week - I've had two migraines in a row the last few days. But, one obvious application of library wiki's would be to invite the public to create lists of their favorite books, movies or magazines with links to the library's catalog for more descriptive information. I love how easy it is to edit the wiki. And now that I've had a look at PBWiki, I'll create a personal one for family and see how that works.
Wikis should make creating collaborative bibliographies, or collaborative planning of some events such as Summer Reading Program events easier, and possibly could reduce the need for face-to-face meeting time for some aspects of planning.

But First, A Word From Our Sponsors...

Hi all you canine enthusiasts, here are a few more pics to brighten your day. I took these pictures before Chelsea had her surgery - so no bald legs in these photos. Photo above, left - "Couch Potatoes" Above, right - "Barney Rakes Leaves" And right - "Chelsea deep in thought."

Chelsea's Surgery

Chelsea's knee injury from last March never healed completely, so on Wednesday she had TPLO surgery. If I get a chance I'll put in a link and you all can have a look at her x-rays, there's a before and an after picture of her right knee. Not for the squeamish, though. She had to have a plate put in with screws to hold her tibia together so the bone can heal. Once she's healed she'll get back to running and playing and being a dog.

Survey Working Again

The Dog Survey is up and working again. Also, I joined a group on Library Thing. Cool place to discuss children's literature with other professionals. Also, cool way to create rotating, topical book suggestion list for blogs. I like this tool a lot.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jstAwr1wxiB1l_2b9qJGbvDQ_3d_3d

Dog Survey Disabled

I tried to check on results from the Dog Survey I created with SurveyMonkey, and discovered that I couldn't get to the survey using the link that I was providing. It seemed like the link wasn't working, it would just take me to SurveyMonkey's Homepage. I will try to fix it, but I'm not sure quite how to do it.

More Fun with Library Thing

So, I went back to Library thing and added about four titles. Next I returned to my blog and saw that the first seven titles I had listed had changed to a random seven titles from the list of now eleven titles. Cool.

Recomended Titles WITH Cover Art!

Howdy. Here's my stab at using Library Thing. I'm kinda guessing how to put my list here. Hope it works.

Puppy Pic.s from Flickr

Well I had to look at dog photos, what else? I like this one and since I'm a bit fuzzy about where on Flickr I would find copyright information, I'll just link to this photo of Kirby the Westie studying up on his ancestors.
http://flickr.com/photos/ezz_eddie/1736050365/in/pool-dogs/

I tried to use Spell with Flickr, but once I got the line I wanted, I couldn't figure out how to upload it onto this post.

Okay, next time I have a bit of extra time I'll set up my own account on Flickr and put together a set of pictures.

Some Pup Pics

Chelsea and Barney at play, and being so polite.

I Promised You a Dog Survey

Here it is. Remember, it's just for laughs. My intention is to collect responses for a few weeks, then make the responses available for all to see, as they should be pretty funny! -Karen


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jstAwr1wxiB1l_2b9qJGbvDQ_3d_3d

I Promised You a Dog Survey

Here it is. Remember, it's just for laughs. My plan is to gather answers for a few weeks, and then make the answers available for all to see - as they should be pretty funny!

Still Learning and Having Fun

As you can see on the left, I figured out how to add a list of web sites and blogs. I did open up comments to anyone, and I did choose to moderate comments. Now, I'm going to create a short survey about dogs, and learn how to moderate comments. I can see that using more interactive ways of inviting participation would be helpful, especially for teens who are already visiting Madison Public Library's "Teen Topix" blog. I'd love it if we could have a "click here" to download a coupon for a free library rental during Teen Read Week. Also, it'd be great to have some quick, entertaining surveys to encourage more participation on Teen Topix.

More about dogs

For my birthday yesterday, we took the dogs to a photo place, and got their pictures taken. We took the usual shots of us with the dogs, and some of the dogs sitting and lying together. We also took a few of the dogs playing and got some fun shots of flying ears, play bows and belly-up behavior. I'll post a pic or two on a later post. Anyway, here's another favorite book about dogs written by one of my favorite writers. I read the story of Ceasar out loud and could barely get the words out I was laughing so hard, but keep some hankies handy as you read, too.

My Life in Dog Years, by Gary Paulsen

RSS feed assignement

I successfully subscribed to 14 blogs, some library, some not. I have a few questions. Firstly, I made a folder - called it "For Fun" and put two blog subscriptions into it. I have some blogs about dogs that I'd like to move into that folder, but I'm not sure how to edit/arrange the list of blogs (is that called a blogroll?) on the left side - though I did notice the easy "unsubscribe" button available on Bloglines. Secondly, I see a message that says "you haven't set up a clip blog yet click here to do so" What's a clip blog? Should I make it public, not??

2nd Post

This is a pic. of our newest addition, Barney, at about 10 weeks. I still wonder if there's a way to move pictures to the bottom of a post. Oh, by the way, Barney is a Treeing Walker Coon Hound/Terrier mix. We don't know how big he'll get, but he's about 40 lbs. right now, at 6 months.