Happy Blog Day 2007!

Today is the 3rd Annual Blog Day and I thought I would play along by listing my 5 "new and/or interesting" blogs. I won't be giving much of a description for each blog I list due to a time crunch (aka packing for a vacation at Disney) and I will not be blogging again until mid-September at the earliest. I am leaving my laptop behind and unplugging for the entire vacation. Without further ado, my five "Blog Day Blogs":

Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit -- I love everything about cupcakes, especially experimenting with new recipes. I also love to read about them and Cupcake Bakeshop gives me lots of visuals to see the process. I actually follow more than one cupcake blog and I have to say that I read and adore Cupcakes Take the Cake equally as well. So many cupcakes, so little time.

Sandusky History -- I received an email earlier this week from Dorene Paul, Reference Assistance at Sandusky Library in Ohio, that led me to a wonderful local history blog that is "inspired by the collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center and Follett House Museum". The photos are fascinating, the accompanying stories are engaging. This is local history done right!

Trashionista -- Great for keeping up with chick-lit on both sides of the pond. They have a great tagline too: "We read books like they're going out of fashion".

MomsRising Blogs -MomsRising is a grassroots, online effort that has a goal of "bringing millions of people who all share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America" and they have several bloggers helping to move their cause forward.

The Gadget Blog -- There are lots of gadget blogs that I check and read regularly, some well-known and others that are not. Keeping up with the world of gadgets is important to my job, even if my budget can rarely afford the newest and the coolest.

See everyone again in a few weeks -- enjoy the Labor Day weekend!

Five Blog Meme

Nancy Dowd tagged me for the five-non-library-blogs-that-I-read-meme.

I'm going to skip a few favorites since they've gotten a lot of mentions already. (If you're not already reading Creating Passionate Users, do yourself a favor and start.) So here are the non-library blogs that I read that I haven't seen mentioned too often:

1. Work Matters, by Bob Sutton. I came for the Weird Ideas That Work, I stayed for the No Asshole Rule. You may have heard of Bob Sutton recently as the author of the #14 Amazon ranked book,"The No Asshole Rule". It's unbeleviable to me that the New York Times won't print the title of this book. (I mean, hey, they had no trouble printing the word scrotum again, and again, and again...)
   
   
2. Horse Pig Cow: A marketing blog from Tara Hunt. Oink. Moo. Yup.
   
   
3. Presentation Zen: Garr Reynolds on presentation design. I'll take all the help I can get :-) Check out Ira Glass' Tips on Storytelling. Good stuff!
   
   
4. How To Change the World by Guy Kawasaki. I love the ideas, the interviews, and Guy's playful, generous spirit that shines through all his posts.
   
   
5. Service Untitled by... hmmmm, I have no idea who writes it. No matter! I love this blog for it's very practical writing on customer service, like this article on what to do when a customer is cursing at you. (Funny, they forgot to mention the never-fail strategy, "I'm the rubber you're the glue..."
   

There are my five. And I tag: Joyce Valenza, Jennifer Macaulay, Iris Jastram, Sophie Brookover.

Meme Mashup

Back in the early days of 2007 when the “5 things you probably don’t know about me” meme was circulating I got tagged 3+ times and intended to play along. I actually composed most of the post, but then lost it when my laptop froze and never found time to write it again. Now I have been tagged by Meredith for the new meme about 5 non-library blogs we read, so I am mashing the memes together into one big post. How efficient is that?

First, 5 things that you may or may not know about me:

Even though I have lived stateside for over 10 years now, I remain a Canadian citizen. My first 7 years of working in the States was accomplished via a series of TN NAFTA visas, but I now have a green card and will likely get American citizenship eventually (when I find some spare time, so maybe not too soon).

I have lived above the Arctic Circle and also in Bermuda and have moved 27 times in my life. My stint at PPL (close to 9 years and counting) is the longest time I have ever worked in a single place. It really feels weird to me that I will have soon lived in my current home 5 years as I have never called an apartment or house “home” for longer than 2 years since I started college. Needless to say, I am an expert at packing and moving.

It shocks people when they visit as I own relatively few books, especially for a librarian -- partly due to the 27 moves and partly due to the fact that I am a minimalist. My son, however, has overflowing bookshelves. I love children’s literature and especially picture books. One of my cooperative work terms while at library school was working in the Children’s Literature Service of the National Library of Canada (a truly wonderful experience).

Downhill skiing is one of the few athletic pursuits that I have ever achieved any sort of higher level abilities (other than highland dancing). I met my husband in a ski club and, when given my choice of things to do on vacation, I will choose a ski trip almost every time.

My musical tastes are eclectic (pop to hard rock to opera) and I have a special fondness for world music and in particular Celtic music, which stems from my undergraduate days of as a dancer in the Queen’s Bands.

Now, for the five non library blogs ( the first 3 directly related to the 5 things above)

CBC Radio 3: Helps me to stay current with Canadian culture and news. I also love Rick Mercer’s blog (but wish he would post more frequently) and frequently read Political Notebook as well as a few other Canadian blogs that help me stay connected to all things “north of the border”.

Book Buds: Even though one might argue that a site reviewing picture books is not really a non-library blog, I am including it since it is not related to my job duties and I read it more for the love of pictures books than anything else. In a similar category is Reading Moms, a blog that meets both my personal and parenting reading needs.

The Echoes Blog: The companion blog to Echoes.org where there is lots of musical goodness to discover – including Celtic and other world music.

Kevin’s Blog on Training: Good training tips and advice from Kevin Eikenberry. In fact, I have several of his blogs in my aggregator.

Gizmodo: The Gadget Guide: The tag line says it all "... So much in love with shiny new toys, it's unnatural."

I am tagging Nancy Dowd, Elizabeth Burns, Stephen Abram, and Darlene Fichter (I want to see what other Canadian and NJ librarians are reading in their feeds) and anyone else who wants to play along.