Our first grandchild

Just got home tonight after a 14 day road trip to see our first grandchild, Carter James McGuire in South Carolina. Ed and I traveled 3,590 miles through 11 states (we made a side trip to see my only sister in my home state of West Virginia). It was awesome to be able to spend 10 days with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. We will forever cherish the memories of holding Carter and spending time with family. We even had fun with their dog Maggie. It was the trip of a lifetime and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. Ed and I had lots of time to talk and we listened to some great books together in the car, but, I am glad to be home. My recliner missed me and I can’t wait to get a good night’s sleep in my own bed. There’s no place like home.

Being who I am, I have to share the technology side of being a grandparent. We left Dodge City on a Friday before noon and traveled to Lawrence, KS to visit our younger son before he moved to Colorado. We left for SC on Saturday morning. Our grandson was born on Saturday evening at 5:07 pm and we had a text within a few minutes of his birth, followed by pictures from the delivery room to my Blackberry. We still had hundreds of miles to travel and a full day yet on the road but we already had pictures to help us make it through the long trip. We called Ed’s parents to share the news that they were now great-grandparents. The next day they visited our niece and she showed them the pictures of Carter posted on Facebook. They stopped off at their nearest Wal-Mart and picked up prints of Carter that our son had sent to be printed there for them to pick up. Before we left SC and that sweet grandchild, I installed a webcam on our son’s computer and we helped our daughter-in-laws’ parents connect up their webcam. I will install our webcam tomorrow and we can all be a part of Carter’s life. Technology, don’t you just love it!

It feels great to finish this project and to be a part of the KS library community that made it to the end. I learned something every lesson and had some fun along the way. Many of my assignments were done late at night when the house was quiet and I could think. I found myself staying up so late because I had to try just one more thing and make it work like I wanted. I really appreciate all the hard work that went into developing this project and carrying it out. I know it took a lot of time and effort on everyone’s part.

I don’t have problems talking to people face-to-face but struggle with what to write to communicate what I know or feel. 23 Things Kansas helped me to face this issue and proceed. Some of my favorite topics were blogging, cloud computing, video sharing, screencasting, and Shelfari. I still do not find Twitter useful to me personally though. Something that surprised me was being able to share my feelings and emotions about the loss of a friend on my blog. Not many people read my posts but they were more for me to get out of my heart than for anyone to see. Last, I really enjoyed reading other people’s blog posts and finding out a little more about the library people in Kansas.

I have a few ideas to share on ways to hopefully improve the project for next time. I would offer partial credit for every four modules that were completed so that people who could not do the 16 weeks could still participate. I would give a 1-2 week break after every four modules for people to have to catch up as we went along. I would give a little more expanded reading and instruction for people who want to go further on a particular subject. I would also offer one online session per module that could be archieved because some people learn better that way.

Would I do this again? YES! It was time worth spent. It just goes to show that you can teach an “old” tech person new tricks.

I can see the benefits to creating wikis to share information about conferences or collaborate on projects. I use them when I am attending a conference. I also use Wikipedia as a jump-off point at times or for a quick idea on a topic. I found it difficult to edit Wikipedia due to all the rules and best practices. I also did not feel like an expert on anything. I ended up adding Screencast-O-Matic to a list of screencasting software. I did not create a new page for the entry.

I edited the 23 Things Kansas Wiki and created a new page under the 23 Things Kansas Participants. I edited the page to share my experiences with the 23 Things Kansas project, then I linked the page back to my name on the participants’ list. http://23thingskansas.wetpaint.com/page/Charlene+McGuire

This was one of my favorite weeks. After reading and testing the personal library tools I decided on Shelfari. The comparison chart was most helpful. I also liked Library Thing but the 200 book limit was a “deal breaker”. Shelfari was so easy to use and fun. I added almost 100 books in one setting. I have lots more to go and will fill in reviews and tags as I get time. The thing I like most was being able to keep track of what I have already read as well as an easy way to search for things I want to read in the future.

My Shelfari page is http://www.shelfari.com/allthingscharlene.

Over the last few months I have used this blog to share my thoughts about my friend. I don’t know if anyone has read these posts, but it did help me to put into words what I was feeling. Today my friend got her wish and prayer. She wanted to leave this world and to die at home. She died early this morning in her own bed. My husband and I will miss her. We will miss our visits, the sharing of flowers, stories and the meals and treats I would cook and share. I will always remember our friendship, especially when the flowers start to bloom. Yes, we will miss her but we are glad that she is with God now, no more pain and suffering.

Slide sharing was fun. I tried Animoto because I liked the motion and music. I can see that if I were going to do much slide sharing I would go to the paid account so that I could produce a longer slide show.

Click on this link to my slide share
Dream Come True.

I already knew how to do screencasting before this lesson but still learned a few new things. My favorite screencasting tool is Screencast-O-Matic.com. I love that you can redo. I think that screencasting is such an awesome tool, so easy to use, and free!

Here is a screencast I created for KLA. The first one is uploaded to YouTube.

This link is directly from Screencast-O-Matic

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c6f1V51At

This was my first time to shoot and edit a video. I can see that practice will help with future projects. I did have problems deciding what to subject to pick until we planned to go to the drive-in on a Saturday night. I almost got in trouble for bringing a video camera into the drive-in, I had to promise not to video the movies. It turned out to be a fun project. Here goes….

My favorite TV show: Big Bang Theory

My friends and family will totally get why I love this show. Thanks Steve for introducing me to Big Bang.

Embedding was turned off for this clip so you will have to paste the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2FjLcEqVN4

It’s been several weeks since I have written about my friend who is dying. I don’t think she will be in this world much longer but then again she has lived months past the time the doctor gave her. It is so hard to visit her now. She still talks some but none of the words make any sense. She is confused now and sleeps more. I think she knows who I am still. When I went over today she was asleep and when I started to talk to her son she came out and sat by me. I just try to talk about what is going on in my life and about the things going on around her and I ask questions that can be answered with a yes or no. We keep her in bright colored flowers. I have no idea if my visits make a difference. I usually leave in tears. I think that this may be the last time I see her and then I hope that it is the last time.  I know it is not up to us and it is God’s will. I pray that God free Miriam and her family from this test. If you are so inclined, I hope that you too will keep my friend in your prayers.

I had an IM account with ICQ years and years ago when we first got Internet. I used it to connect with my kids when I was at work and they were home from school. This was great in the days of dial-up when you could not connect when they were on the Internet. It was a great way to know they could contact me without calling. It was MY safety blanket. We graduated to MSN and my boys set me up a Hotmail account that I still use today. When the boys moved away from home we all got cell phones and we never IM anymore, we call or text.

For this week I tried out Meebo and connected both my MSN and Facebook chat. I liked the idea that I could get every account in just one place. We used IM when we were at DCPL. We haven’t used it office-to-office in several years, but maybe it is time to bring it back. IM may be less intruding than popping into someone’s office. I can see a place for IM at work to connect with libraries. I haven’t set anything up yet but am giving it some thought.