play time

Hope you can see that this wonderful star flashes, courtesy Imagechef, and also says, We're all Tech Stars, Right? Well, we are, aren't we?
These sorts of things are such fun. I can't imagine being the person who thought up how to make this work, but I appreciate it and the fact that we can use this, and other equally fun things, easily and at no charge. Way cool!

Rss is a great idea, but....

RSS? I started a bloglines account several months ago and was quite diligent about doing my professional reading. Along came The Big Read and bloglines went by the wayside. I should probably mark everything as read and start over.
But, in case you want to see how embarassingly behind I am, here's my list of what I'm not reading.
http:///www.bloglines.com/public/stafflines

figured there should be a flower here

OK--this isn't related to Tech Trek 2.0, but any blog named Flowerspot ought to have flowers. A couple of shot of the newest bed we dug and planted this year.

IM

I have a Meebo account and for quite a while I was very good about logging in and chatting. Well, it's been weeks now since I was on. I'm surprised they even recognized my account name.

It's a great way to keep in touch and to catch people for short bits. We even had some of the Web 2.0 meetings this way, although that was a much bigger challenge! (There's that word again.)

Seems like the 7 1/2 habits should have covered repetition and (ugh) discipline. I'd like to say that I will log on every work day now, but I know that until The Big Read is over, I'll likely fall back into my I'm too busy mode... meantime I just IM'd a co-worker from a previous job. Now that's a great way to use IM!

Lifelong learning

OK, confession time. My hardest habit, often, is Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. Of course it depends on what I'm trying to learn, but some things feel too hard to even attempt, don't they? I mean I can figure out to start a blog, but can't imagine that I would ever be able to learn to draw. Never got past stick figures. I've read that anyone can learn to draw, and maybe that's so, but I suspect that's where the confidence factor comes in.
The good news is that confidence can be built. I would have never dreamed a year ago that I could learn some of the things these quests are built around, so maybe there's hope?

Easiest habit? Habit 3: View problems as challenges. Something that's come with working in libraries for so long. I had a boss that used to say, " I have an opportunity for you." Code for, here's a hard one. I used to laugh and hate hearing that, but I came to see that he was right. It does help to try to see things that way, even though that's often the biggest part of the challenge, isn't it?