Airstream Cruisette Diary 5

Old trailer philosophy.
I'm one of those people that adheres to the belief that to use the term "restoration" one needs to be returning a trailer (or car, or airplane etc) to as close to the same state it was in when it was new, using vintage or OEM parts, materials, colors, and finishes. If the trailer was mint green inside when new, you keep it that shade. If there was no A/C you don't add one, and so on. Its important to have restored or survivor objects extant as touchstones to the past.
The hot rod car hobby has a variety of terms such as "resto-mod" or "restify" to describe cars that have been overhauled and upgraded while retaining an original appearance. My project will follow that path, though I tend to stick to the term refurbish. Our trailer has enough changes and modifications made by prior owners that to truly restore it would be exceedingly difficult and perhaps impossible. I also would like to add some modern systems to upgrade its usability and make it a more pleasant place for our family to camp.

Learn & Play @ CML Bonus

10 Random Things

1. I'm left-handed.
2. I studied German for 6 years but never used it.
3. I'm a proficient self-taught tailor/sewer. At the fabric store the clerks keep
trying to help my wife, she points them to me, they act confused.
4. I hated mowing grass until I got a riding tractor.
5. The first car I ever drove was a ragged out VW Bettle, in a field, when I was
about 10. I'll never make that mistake again.
6. I like vanilla much better than chocolate.
7. I'm a lapsed Methodist and a failed Boy Scout.
8. I love to travel but have nearly debilitating anxiety packing and preparing to go.
9. I took Kelly, my wife, to see the Bounty on our first date at the Eastland Plaza
cinema in 1984.
10. I can be seen on numerous pages in 9781574270532

Learn & Play @ CML Thing 23

This post will close out one aspect of this blog, ie. the work-driven project called Learn & Play. Of all of the staff development oriented projects we've had here at CML in my 22 years this has been by far the best. I found that I wanted to complete it incentives be damned. I also appreciated the self-driven nature of the course. Some of the exercises were grounded in familiar topics such as podcasts, but others were quite novel. I've always found myself slow to embrace new tech, though not tech averse. I found myself pleasantly surprised at my level of tech proficiency.
When I first heard about blogging (years ago)I found that it didn't hold much interest, and I absolutely loathed the term (I hate most newly coined geek terms), but after L&P I find myself a disciple. My blog will continue, as I built it around an ongoing element of my life. Kudos to LibraryJoy and the rest of the Learn & Play folks for a fantastic project.

Learn & Play @ CML Thing 22

Well I logged on to MOLDI and decided to do a search for videos. I was a bit....shall we say....less than enthusiastic when the first title retrieved was Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory (really). All was redeemed, however, when I found a concert video from The Reverend Horton Heat and an IMAX airplane video. The checkout process was E-Z!!!!! I'll download it and view it later at home. There looks to be lots of decent content to try out once I download the Overdrive software.

Learn & Play @ CML Thing 21

I've been following podcasts for years, but have always sort of stumbled across them. I lnked some of my regulars to my Bloglines account back in the thing about RSS feeds. Since I'm ditching Bloglines for Google reader I'm not going to update it. I liked the user interface for Podfeed.net but the subject link "Automotive" did not bring up any of the regular car podcasts that I listen too--CamaroZ28 podcast, NPR's Car Talk, or Cruise Control Radio. The content wasn't as up-to-date as Feedburner (as an example) either. It is significantly better that Yahoo's subject searching nonetheless.
I could see CML exploiting podcasting by partnering with WOSU for instance. Robin regularly talks books on Open Line and it would be a real boon for us to be able to disseminate that content to our customers.

Learn & Play @ CML Thing 20

Ok, when you're talking You Tube videos its hard to get funnier than Chad Vader:




Even though it probably violates copyright its very cool to be able to find old music videos and commercials. I could see a library pushing out book talk content in this format for customers.

Learn & PLay @ CML Thing 19

I'll concur with the top posting about Mozilla Firefox--It flat-out mops the floor with MSIE. I have been using it almost exclusively for about a year now. Things like the session restart option say to me that the designers give a damn about the end user by sweating the details. I initially got exposed to it at work because it would work with our primary vendor's database when Explorer wouldn't. I get mixed feelings when raving about it to someone because I fear that if too many people start using it that malicious hacker-scum out there will see it as a bigger target, reducing its security advantage over MSIE.
Many of the power tools I've already used as part of this program. I looked at 2 that I hadn't seen before. I'm pretty certain that I'm far too square to be the artsy-fartsy target demographic for BoingBoing. The site MAKE was utterly fascinating--not that I understood how a lot of the stuff works--in the way that people DIY technology.

Learn & Play @ CML Thing 18

I checked out the Web 2.0 award winners and I LOVE Google maps. I was even able to find a picture of my bitchin' Camaro--from space!!!!!!(It's the black one for you non-gearheads).
The only thing I don't like is that the street view of my house shows the garage door half painted. I wonder if I can get them to come by for a do-over?
I have used it to get directions to branches when going out for visits. Being able to toggle into different versions of the map is nice. I also love to start out zoomed all the way out and use the mouse wheel to do a "landing" from space.