A little more from BlogHer

Some photos and links from BlogHer...

Some of the people in the Community Building Birds-of-a-Feather group:
Purple Women
Catster
Erika's Outlook - a lovely young woman living with Lyme Disease
Shopwiki
Betsy Devine
The Provocateur
Silent I
it's not about your stuff
essuredecision
Redbook Magazine
nursing student hell
Sarah Mei

Some political and place-based blogs mentioned in the panel on political blogging

h20town - Watertown, MA
crossleft.org
wicked local
daily gotham
Fresno Famous
Modesto Famous
Ann Althouse
Dogged Blog
Now Texas

links for 2006-07-30

• Welcome to The City of Morgan Hill
  (tags: Morgan Hill)
• Welcome to the Morgan Hill Public Library
  (tags: MorganHill Library)
• Morgan Hill Times
  (tags: MorganHill news)
• Morgan Hill Restaurants
  (tags: MorganHill restaurants)
• Techcrunch » Blog Archive » US House: Schools must block MySpace, many other sites
  (tags: DOPA)
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: What's Wrong with DOPA
  (tags: DOPA)

More about DOPA

As an effort to educate myself a bit more about DOPA, here is some information and some links:

The issue is the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which would—among other things—require schools and public libraries to bar children from accessing social networking sites like MySpace. Despite widespread concerns about the Act, the US House of Representatives passed it by a 410-15 vote on Thursday.

Some people's thoughts on this:

• Danah Boyd's original post (" This legislation broadly defines social network sites as anything that includes a Profile plus an ability to communicate with strangers. It covers social networking sites, chatrooms, bulletin boards. Obviously, the target is MySpace but most of our industry would be affected. Blogger, Flickr, Odeo, LiveJournal, Xanga, Neopets, MySpace, Facebook, AIM, Yahoo! Groups, MSN Spaces, YouTube, eBaumsworld, Slashdot. It would affect Wikipedia if there wasn't a special clause for non-commercial sites. Because many news sites (NYTimes, CNN, the Post) allow people to login and create profiles and comment, it might affect them too."
  
• text of amendment (pdf): "To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms."
  
• Library Journal: DOPA Passes House by Wide Margin; ALA Dismayed
  
• weblogg-ed and their DOPA Letter Wiki
  
• Ars Technica posts, Dopey DOPA bill passes House and Deleting predators from MySpace
  
• Cool Cat Teacher: What's Wrong with DOPA
  
• Tech Crunch: US House: Schools must block MySpace, many other sites
  
• Good Morning Silicon Valley: All in favor of hysteria, panic and misinformation, say "aye"
  

Some people taking action:

• ALA - Take Action (send an email or fax right now to your senators)
  
• http://www.mobilize.org/SOS "Because we believe young people, who have grown up with the internet, should be consulted on solutions for internet problems. We want a seat at the table, and feel like we deserve one, especially when it concerns the technology we know so well. Congress, please listen to our suggestions and invite us to the table before your legislation silences the voices of our generation."
  

BlogHer, Day 2

I'm here at Day 2 of the BlogHer conference...

Got a chance to catch up with Amanda Lenhardt (thank you to Parker for tipping her off that I was here :)) Always fun to catch up with a college classmate and especially after having read many of her research reports (everyone's buzzing about the recent one on bloggers).

I re-introduced myself to Danah Boyd over at the vendor booths at lunch today (explaining that I had quoted her research quite a bit in my proposal to the local library to have a MySpace presence) and she asked me what we were doing about DOPA. Other than following her blog posts on the subject, I haven't done anything (except privately worry) and I don't think our library's doing anything about it. We'd better get involved before its too late.

Sessions I'm attending today: How are your blogs changing your world, Birds of a Feather session on Community Organizing, Is the Next Martha Stewart a Blogger, Business Blog Case Studies, Political Blogging, and Creating Your Platform.

links for 2006-07-29

I managed to set up the automatic posting of delicious links! So every night at midnight if I've tagged things in delicious, there will automatically be a record of them here. Neato.

• Common Craft - Social Design for the Web: How to Post Daily Del.icio.us Links to Your Movable Type Blog
  (tags: tags blog del.icio.us)

BlogHer Takeaways, Day One

S emailed to complain I wasn't live blogging the blogging conference... but unfortunately there hasn't been much I felt like capturing so far (and the wireless has been awful so every 2 minutes I get kicked off) Here are a few little things:

1) I really need to make the time to upgrade my Movable Type installation so I can take advantage of some of the cool new plug-ins and things that people are using
2) Conferences in real life are rarely as interesting as I think they will be, mostly because I don't excel at those between conference conversations that really make the gathering great
3) I need a microphone (probably a headphone/michrophone combo so I can skype with it, but there were some very cool external mikes and digital recorders that people had)
4) I really have to use flickr a lot more than I do - and to take and post a lot more (and better) photos. Good session with Heather Champ and Caterina Fake was one of the lunchtime keynotes.
5) Librarians are everywhere -- the very first person I talked to turned out to be one. She has a cool crafty blog, Cheeky Attitude.
6) I really should use del.icio.us or furl.net more -- starting with importing my bookmarks from home into it (if I can get my computer to turn back on, which hasn't worked since Monday's power outage), and using tags a whole lot more in general. I think I'll replace the links on my blog with my delicious tags -- and I like the idea that delicious will automatically post a daily link roll to capture what you bookmarked that day. In the meantime, I got my tag cloud working on my front page finally.
Brian -- Susan Mernit says Hi. I'm still waiting for a chance to say hello to Nancy White.

Sessions I've attended: Primp Your Blog; Audio/Podcasting; Digital Photography; Tagging, tracking & structured blogging ... more to come ...

Fun blog T-Shirts
"I'm blogging this"
Front: <body> Back: </body> (made me wonder if there was a matching <head$gt; hat?)

At BlogHer

I'm at the BlogHer Conference today and tomorrow, so will probably have lots to post from here. I really enjoyed the conference last year and am looking forward to this year's!

Harry and the Potters!

I finally got to see Harry and the Potters perform (plus Draco and the Malfoys of course). I've been hearing about them for ages (kinda hard not to in library-land). The concert was at the Milpitas Library and was SO much fun -- I was the oldest person in the t-shirt line but that didn't stop me from screaming and dancing along with all the crazy Harry Potter fans as they seriously rocked the library! And of course there were other librarians there... a few photos from the night -- librarians, Dracos, a true fan, the librarians who made this all possible, Harry & Harry, and lots of dancing fans...

Veronica Mars Marathon

Since its clearly too hot to do much of anything, we indulged in an afternoon long Veronica Mars Marathon (since the DVD of Season One is available from the library...)

For those of you tuning in late, here's the show's synopsis:

In the wealthy, seaside community of Neptune, California, the rich and powerful make the rules. Unfortunately for them, there's Veronica Mars, a smart, fearless 17-year-old apprentice private investigator dedicated to solving the town's toughest mysteries. Veronica used to be one of the popular girls, but it all came crumbling down around her after her best friend, Lilly, was murdered, and her then-sheriff father, Keith, was removed from office for naming Lilly's rich father as the lead suspect. During the day, Veronica must negotiate high school like any average teenage girl. But at night, she helps with her father's struggling, new private investigator business--and what she finds may tear the town of Neptune apart at the seams.

Now available for the first time, this 6-disc collection includes all 24 episodes from the first season of the hit UPN show.

Of course we're only 1 dvd through the 6-dvd set but I'm loving it. I've only caught a few of the episodes here and there so I really wanted to start back at the beginning and get the whole experience. I hate it when I'm so many years behind the curve -- why didn't anyone make me watch back in '04 when it started! Sheesh.

7 Brides for 7 Brothers

We headed over to Hollister last night to see S's colleague John in the San Benito Stage Company's production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We had gone to see him in Man of La Mancha in Oct 04. He played Mr. Bixby, one of the townsmen who go after the stolen brides. He also was very involved behind the scenes, so much so that the company awarded him the "Gypsy Robe", awarded to a cast member who has made a special contribution of time and energy to benefit the production. Congrats John!

Power Outage

Power was out here yesterday from about 2:30pm until around 6:30, not so much fun during a heat wave.

From the Mercury News, Heat records set as misery rises:

Temperatures topped 100 degrees throughout the Bay Area, and farther inland, the mercury climbed over 110. The heat and heavy power demands blasted out some of Pacific Gas & Electric's transmission equipment, blacking out 18,000 customers, mostly in South San Jose. A few thousand customers were affected in Morgan Hill and a few hundred in Milpitas, PG&E representative Jana Schuering said.
...
The hottest temperature in the Bay Area was 109 in Gilroy, toppling the previous record of 106, set in 1996, the National Weather Service said. Normally cool San Rafael broke a 1954 record of 95 when temperatures reached 108. Commercial weather sources recorded even higher temperatures in some places, including 114 in Morgan Hill and Antioch.

Happy Birthday Maria

Happy birthday today to Maria! Here she is at my wedding (along with Katy and Meag)

Congrats to Jean!

Congrats to Jean who, not surprisingly at all, just got offered a fantastic sounding academic librarian job. She's one of the smartest, coolest and most interesting people I've ever met -- and certainly one of the very best librarians I've come across! Best of luck to her -- it's just too bad its all the way back East (but that's where she wanted to be).

Congrats to Dad & Jane

Wow -- congrats to Dad and Jane who appear to be movin' on up to a deluxe condo just minutes from Pike Place Market with a lovely view of the Sound. Dad's been in that house for the last 30 years or so, so packing up and moving should be interesting... Hmm... we should try to plan a trip up to Seattle before then (or perhaps to help out...)

Afternoon in Tuscany

The Friends of the Library event was a great success, with over 100 people, 13 local authors, book sale, silent auction and an absoultely gorgeous setting. Alan and Margaret came up which was super wonderful of them (plus we finally got to show them our house), I learned that one of the City Council members had an uncle in Westport, and got to see Kay and her husband (hello!) and it sounds like Kay may join the ranks of bloggers soon herself (cool!) It was very very hot out in the sun, but a lovely party and a great start to the fundraising for furniture and art at the new library. Each author spoke for a few minutes about their books, and we bought two to be signed (Silicon Secrets for me and The Passionate Olive as a gift for some friends who like olive oil -- when Life, Death & Bilays comes out I definitely want to read that one too)

A very special thanks to Mom for her generousity with some silent auction items!

3 books

I'm on a roll with three really fun reads this week:

Triangle: A Novel by Katharine Weber
This one is our upcoming bookclub book and so far everyone has really enjoyed it. It features the granddaughter of the last survivor of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and her really great composer boyfriend as they piece together some of what happened to her grandmother. I'm going to have to pass this one along to Mom and to Aunt Susan, who I know is interested in books about that fire.

Literacy and Longing in L.A. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
Mom read this one when she was out here and I also loved it. (Lisa - I've left it on your desk for you) Booklist calls it "Book lust meets chick lit in this tale of a love-challenged bookworm." I mean really, how could we resist?

And a trip to my favorite bookstore in DC, Politics and Prose, yielded The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank (author of The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing) which I read on the plane home today. I loved Sophie and totally identify with her self-description of being a "solid trying to do a liquid's job" and she was even a Hebrew-school dropout like me... Good, quick chick-lit read.

Hot & Humid

Its not like I didn't know if was going to be hot and humid here, and it wasn't even that bad compared to what it could have been, but I really really don't miss living here in the summer. Its was a very nice day though -- we met up with Hila and Amit at their hotel and grabbed some coffee before walking down to the Mall. We picked Betty up at her super fabulous internship at The Castle and popped over to the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery where we were thinking of having lunch with John, who turns out to work right across the street. The cafe was small though, so John took us to a fantastic tapas restaurant a couple of blocks away which was scrumptious. Then we let him go back to work and we went back to the Mall and spent the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History where we saw the 3D IMAX movie Aliens from the Deep (which unfortunately put Hila and I to sleep). Then we walked through the outdoor sculpture gallery, walked over to the reflecting pool and up to Dupont Circle where I thought we could see a movie but forgot that it was the arts house and we were set on Pirates. So we cabbed over to Georgetown and caught the movie, which I enjoyed but I think the general consensus was that the cliff hanger left everyone pretty disastisfied. Tomorrow the zoo to see the baby panda...

Update: photos from the day:

Off to DC

We're off to DC for a couple of days to meet up with some cousins visiting from Israel and to see a bunch of our favorite DC-based siblings and friends. If you're around and want to meet up, you know how to reach me! (And yes, we know its going to be hot and humid...)

S pointed out that Terrapass lets you offset your carbon usage from flying (he just got his car sticker too). So for our flights, it reports that "You've calculated a set of flights that cover 9,748 miles, creating 3,946 pounds of CO2 emissions. The TerraPass Intercontinental offsets 7,500 lbs of CO2 emissions, so that you can fly carbon balanced."

According to the site:

Planes use a lot of fuel. A cross-country flight burns more than 100 gallons of fuel per passenger. Airline travel already creates a significant proportion of the world's global warming pollution, and it's growing faster than any other single source.

The best way to reduce those emissions is to cut back on unnecessary trips, or to use more fuel-efficient transportation for short trips. But when you have to fly, you can use a Flight TerraPass to balance out your impact.

So I paypalled them my $30 to cover the two of us.

In the news...

A couple of recent news hits:

Ranch Turns a New Leaf
About our commission and the James Boys Ranch: "The Morgan Hill Library, Culture and Arts Commission is working to create a plan to get the library furnished, funded and up and running, said commission chairman Einar Anderson."

What to do with the $7 million?
In Gilroy: "Since a new library is out of the question, the city council will be figuring out what it will do with the freed up $7 million that was earmarked for a library if the proposition had passed."

And I had a 9 minute panel interview this morning -- 3 questions, 3 people I knew and have worked with quite a bit (which surprised me). Rankings in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and mark your calendars:

Aug 5: Morgan Hill Centennial Day Old Fashioned Family BBQ Picnic at the Community Center from noon to 6 pm and then a band/dance afterward. There will be games, prizes, a variety of music, entertainment,  and a huge cake celebrating Morgan Hill's birthday year and there will be appearances by Mr. and Mrs Hiram Morgan Hill and horse drawn carriage rides from the Community Center down to Villa Mira Monte. S and I will be volunteering so come by and say hi!

Aug 7-13: Zero One San Jose, an amazing sounding week of art+technology all over downtown SJ. We got a sneak preview today at work from the curator and the projects are SO super cool. I'm hoping to volunteer over the weekend of the event.

Local Arts Advocacy

Just got back from my first commission meeting with a long list of things to research, prepare for, and jump right into. One of the items we put on our workplan (we spent all day Saturday planning our projects and goals for the year ahead) was to be active advocates for libraries, arts, and culture and particularly to particulate in Library Legislative Day (April 18, 2007), letter writing campaigns and other activities to be active on issues at the state level that affect MH. The California Library Association does a great job keeping people informed about library-related activities going on, but we wanted to pull together some arts advocacy sources as well.

Here are a few that I'll have to check out

California Arts Council
California Arts Advocates
California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies
California Alliance for Arts Education Advocacy
Sacramento Arts Advocates
Arts on the Line
California Alliance of Nonprofits
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

and of course nationally there is Americans for the Arts (with our family connection to that one...)

If you know of other good ones, please let me know!

Authors Coming to Fundraiser

There was a great piece in yesterday's paper about the head of the MH Library friends and the upcoming fundraiser!

Local Book Lover Leads Library Fundraising Effort
Saturday, July 08, 2006
When it comes to Morgan Hill's new public library now under construction, local resident Carol O'Hare is on a mission.

And I just got the updated list of authors that are coming to the Friends of the Library fundraiser next Sunday (7/16)

Catherine Burr is a multi-published author of contemporary fiction novels and parenting humor books. Silicon Secrets, "A rags-to-silicon Chick Lit offering", sounds like fun.

Carol Firenze who wrote The Passionate Olive, ultimate guide to olive oil.

John Hamamura author of The Color of the Sea, which follows a Japanese language teacher raised in Hawaii as he finds love and as the U.S. and Japan drift into war.

Janet LaPierre, author of the Port Silva Mysteries, set in a fictional town on the chilly but scenic California north coast.

Phyllis Mattson's memoir, War Orphan in San Francisco, is a coming of age story told through family letters.

Kat Meads is the author most recently of two short story collections: Not Waving and Stress in America. She has also published a volume of literary essays, Born Southern and Restless. Coming soon: The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan, a mock biography.

Peter Orner, author of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, set at a remote Catholic school in Namibia and based on the author's own year teaching in the veld. His story collection, Esther Stories, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award, and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction.

Caroline Paul is an author and retired fire fighter! Her newest book is East Wind, Rain, "a compelling debut novel of innocence, identity, loyalty, and betrayal set on a small isolated Hawaiian island in December 1941 -- based on true events."

Beth Proudfoot -- her first novel, a contemporary women's suspense story entitled "Escape From Paradise" is currently represented by Nancy Ellis-Bell of The Lit-West Group. Her second novel, still a work in progress, has a working title of "Visible" and is more in the genre of mystery/thriller.

Serena Richardson, author of the essay "An Italian Thanksgiving" in the book Italy, A Love Story: Women Write About the Italian Experience (Twenty-four women write about Italy, from Sicily to Tuscany and beyond, exploring the rich traditions and beautiful landscape of this ancient country, while also explaining how they were seduced by both.)

Dylan Schaffer whose new book Life, Death & Bilays: A Father/Son Baking Story, arrives September 6th. He also wrote the Misdemeanor Man series.

Sounds like some interesting authors to meet... tickets are available at Booksmart if you're interested in coming!

Gone with the Zephyr

Mom and Bill swing back through town on their way back from the Great Autos of Yesteryear Car Club's Gone with the Zephyr car show, and brought some of their photos from the event (It was a Gone with the Wind theme party) John and Jon won for Best Lincoln and received a lawn jockey trophy.

Angles 6, A's 4

S's colleague John from work organized a gang of people to go up to the baseball game in Oakland, so 9 of us were there to see the Angles (John's home team) face the A's. It was a gorgeous night to be out at the game, I got my cookie icecream sandwich (a new baseball tradition of mine since my Iowa trip with Carrie), and the A's had a great 4 pt rally in the 8th that kept the fans on their toes until the last pitch.

Update: Photo from Wonsook

A few books

Here's the last few books I've managed to read or listen to. I got bogged down for quite a while in The World is Flat, which set me back a bit. Got some good quality reading time this evening though while giving platelets again, so I managed to finish off Magyk (and will now have to go on the waiting list for Flyte)

The World is Flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century by Thomas L. Friedman.
This was our June bookclub book and it was interesting, but not a light read. It seemed to say the same things over and over, but they were interesting things so I tried to stick with it. Only 2 of the 8 people who came to the bookclub meeting had actually finished in time (I wasn't one of them) "The New York Times columnist offers a concise history of globalization, discussing a wide range of topics, from the 9/11 attacks to the growth of the middle class in both China and India."

Thud! by Terry Pratchett, Performed by Stephen Briggs.
S had listened to this one and from the little I heard I knew I was going to have to too. It is wonderfully funny and engaging. I'm really going to have to read more Terry Pratchett books. "A seemingly routine day in the life of City Watch commander Sam Vimes is abruptly interrupted by an unsolved murder, an impending war, an unwanted new recruit, and a pesky government inspector. By the author of Going Postal. It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win. It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium. It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself. THUD! It's the most extraordinary, outrageous, provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable supreme creator, Terry Pratchett."

Rowing in Eden by Barbara Rogan, Read by Anna Fields.
Another one passed on from S. "The surface serenity of life in the village of Old Wickham is disturbed by Sam Pollak's killing of his wife, a spate of arson, and the arrival of Jane Goncalves and her three foster children." Not something I would have picked up on my own, but I didn't want to get out of the car once I was hooked on it.

Septimus Heap, Book One: Magyk by Angie Sage
Had to read this one after so many people had asked for it at the library and I definitely enjoyed it and look forward to the next book. "After learning that she is the Princess, Jenna is whisked from her home and carried toward safety by the Extraordinary Wizard, those she always believed were her father and brother, and a young guard known only as Boy 412--pursued by agents of those who killed her mother ten years earlier."

And sadly I think that's it. I've been reading bits of The May Queen : Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s (which I learned about on Jennifer Weiner's blog) but haven't finished it.

Fundraiser Mention

The upcoming Friends of the Library fundraiser got a nice mention in the Gilroy Dispatch:

From Fireworks to Bike Rides, it's all About Spirit
Thursday, July 06, 2006
By Mary Anne McCarthy

I hope all of you socialites are planning to purchase tickets to an Afternoon in Tuscany July 16 at the elegant lakeside home of Mike and Mary Cox. The event benefits the new Morgan Hill Library. Tickets are available at BookSmart.

Don't mind me

just claiming my bloglines feed

4th of July Party

Thank you to Martine and Hussein for throwing such a lovely party to help us get some of our West Coast friends and colleagues together as a late wedding celebration. Here's a few photos:

Library Book Cart Drill Team

... and of course the library had a presence in the parade!

Happy Fourth of July!

Fantastic parade all around Morgan Hill this morning. Here are some of the floats and cars and things... we had great seats in front of the library (since we had left our chairs out last night) so had a great view.

July 3

Some photos from the street party downtown, and our chairs set out (with hundreds of others) for tomorrow's parade.

Cars

We finally saw Cars, the new Pixar movie, and absolutely loved it. I wasn't expecting much given the luke warm reviews, but it was fantastic. The landscapes are so realistic and it's hard not to get excited for the big race even if you don't usually care much about cars... The riffs on their other movies during the credits had us all rolling in the aisles.

It was a lovely 3rd of July -- I did some work in the morning and then we all went searching for civil war costumes for the party Mom and Bill are going to next weekend. Then the movie, dinner, and we walked around the amazing street party the town was having to celebrate the 4th of July. Tomorrow's the parade, and a BBQ.

Terra Pass

Mom read about this in the Times and it sounds like a great concept:

TerraPass is an innovative product that allows you to easily and affordably negate the environmental impact of your car. Cars account for 25% of carbon dioxide emissions, a major source of global warming.

With TerraPass, you can offset an amount of carbon dioxide that exactly counterbalances your driving. TerraPass requires no modifications to your car. So now you can finally balance your needs with your environmental responsibilities. TerraPass funds clean energy projects like wind farms, methane capture and more.

Word Play

Mom and Bill are here visiting for a couple of days, so what better thing to do than see Word Play, the fantastic new documentary about crossword puzzlers. Its like Spellbound with grownups and has great cameos from people like Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, and the Indigo Girls -- all doing the NY Times Crossword. The sound track is great too (especially the song about "If You Don't Come Across, I'll Be Down")

And, one of the coolest things was that the Indigo Girls are sitting at the Montalvo concert venue where we saw them last July! Other sites also noted that it was in fact their July concert there in Saratoga. Super cool!

Great movie -- especially if you're a crossword fan. I'm a crossword wannabe... I can only get through Monday and occasionally Tuesdays, but I appreciate a good puzzler when I see one.

Book Purse, Try #1

Here's my first attempt at one of those fun book purses people keep making (and which I was so excited to see for sale at a Friends of the Libary store when I was checking out the sites earlier this week). Since we were expecting house guests very shortly I didn't drag out the sewing machine and do it properly, so this is more a prototype than anything else (its held together with double-sided peel-and-stick fabric tape so I don't think it'd actually hold anything). We picked up a couple more books at the library's book sale today to try later, but here's the first. The handle and fabric is from Michael's. It definitely needs some embellishments...

Arystocrafts Tutorial (with great photos!)
HGTV instructions
Great examples

Friends of the Library Web Sites

I've been asked to provide some feedback on our new Friends of the Library web site, so I thought I'd better take a look at what other groups are doing these days. So here's a quick survey of a bunch of sites that had some interesting features.

	Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library Love the photos of the volunteers on the front page Prominent "How Can You Help?" on side menu Nice list of what their donations have been spent on
	Friends of Multnomah County Library I love their tag line, "Inquire ... Dream ... Create ... Discover. That's what Libraries are for. That's what Friends are for." Nice rotating images of volunteers, the library (what a fantastic tree!) Fun facts about the library (though there's only one so far) Emphasis on being a library advocate
	Friends of the Little Elm Library The design needs updating, but I loved their trivia contest idea, which raises about $10k! Among the ideas are placemat ads ($30). From the description: "Join us for Trivia Night for an evening full of fun, food and prizes, on February 2rd 2006 at 6pm in the Lakeside JR. High School practice gym.  Festivities begin with a myriad of gastronomical epicurean delights available for purchase at our cerebral stimulation station located in the cafeteria.  Team members must be seated and have their thinking caps on by 6:45 and the contest begins at 7pm sharp.  Rules will be strictly enforced by our crack goon squad: No food allowed (buy ours this is a fund raiser);  Only contestants seated at the table (bring all your friends to cheer your team from the peanut gallery by all means);  No use of cell phones (this is not “Millionaire” and there isn’t a phone-a-friend option, just get Regis on your team)." Photos from the event
	Friends of the St. Paul Public Library This one is an award winner with good reason -- so much good stuff here! Very nice paypal membership payment options!! Memorials and Tributes Online store of gift items
	Friends of the Juneau Public Library I just liked the purple
	Friends of Morley Library Plus the library itself is not afraid to fundraise!
	Friends of Lafayette Library One of their upcoming events is "Lafayette Juniors presents the Seventh Annual Tour of Lafayette Kitchens to benefit the Lafayette Library on Saturday, May 20, 2006 from 10 am to 3 pm. The tour will showcase six spectacular, diverse kitchens, all of which feature the latest equipment and amenities. Tickets are $35 per person ($25 tax-deductible) and a gourmet lunch may be purchased for an additional fee. "
	Montgomery County Takes credit cards on their membership page but its not a secure form (eek)
	Friends of the Encinitas Library Great construction and groundbreaking photos
	Collier Friends I like how they offer to provide speakers to local groups - "The Friends welcome the opportunity to introduce your organization to the many outstanding programs and services provided by the Library. To schedule a speaker, call the Friends office or e-mail us"
	Friends of the Palo Alto Library Lots of news headlines on the front page Book Games to play Amazon Affiliate program
	Library Friends of Payson Chefs' Extravaganza fundraiser Hand croched "Bookworm Bookmarkers"
	Friends of the Kirkwood Public Library Check out the great book purses! I totally need to make some!!
	Sugar Grove Public Library Selling a Beach Reading Bag -- "Includes 5 paperback books that are great beach reads, a bottle of water, beach gear, our wishes for a great vacation, and the cool beach bag all for only $10.00. Take a picture of yourself and your bag when you are on vacation and send it to the library! We’ll make a collage of photos of what the beach bags did on summer vacation!"
	Friends of the Houston Public Library "If you are looking for a great project, we would like to invite you to start a Book Drive. The Friends' Annual Book Sale is the most important way in which we raise money for the Library and provide affordable books for the community. To have a sale as great as we do, we need a lot of books. You can help! A Book Drive is an excellent activity for groups or individuals."
	Friends of the Pickerington Public Library iGive.com, ebay and Amazon Cookbook Patches for Progress: "Patches for Progress, is a Friends of the Pickerington Public Library sponsored elementary reading program that links the Public Schools, the Public Library, our community and area businesses together with a vehicle that is parent driven and makes reading FUN !!"
	Friends of the Jefferson County Public Library Having a membership drive: "This is a great time to join and all new members will receive a coupon for a free "used" book (select from "used books for sale" shelves at your local library) and a coupon for a $1.00 off a purchase at the Friends Gift and Book Shop at the Belmar Library . In addition, there will be a drawing for Caroline Kennedy’s book "A Family of Poems". The drawing is open to all patrons." Connie Willis, one of my all-time favorite authros was there in May A link to bookcrossing Holiday Book & Gift Boutique
	Friends of the Thousand Oaks Library Endowment Fund Photo Album
	Friends of the Johnson County Library Best Friends Forever Bookmark Contest Gift Giving Ideas Booksale at the local mall
	Friends of the Colleyville Public Library Amazon and B&N affiliate
	Pelican Rapids The Faces of Change is a photo and essay exhibit designed to document the changes in a small rural Minnesota community, which has undergone a large influx of refugees in the last decade, and the changes in the immigrants who came to the community of Pelican Rapids. In 2002 the Pelican Rapids Public Library staff and members of the Friends of the Library, created a tapestry of fiber art that represents the cultures that have immigrated to this community.
	Cardiff by the Sea Business Memberships "Above and Beyond" award
	Friends of the Oakland Public Library Bookmark Wish List (things we need) Ten Good Reasons to Become a Member ... Advocacy Center Join for $50 (Fifty Dollars) or more and enjoy discounts at the following fine neighborhood bookstores
	Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries What's Your Library Story Join the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries in our Book Fund Drive . Your donation is tax-deductible as allowed by Federal and State law, and we guarantee that your donation will be spent on books and media. Bookmending Workshop Sponsors
	Tippecanoe County Librarybooksales.org
	Seattle Public Library Community Outreach Events Friends are Library Advocates
	San Francisco Join online Donate online Publications
	Yorba Linda Public Library Shop on ebay
	Clayton Community Library Foundation Buy-a-Book: Place a bookplate in honor of a special person. $25 fiction, $50 non-fiction. Buy-a-Brick: Buy an engraved brick to line the walkway into the library
	Eldorado Library Paypal membership
	Fresno County Public Library Bi-Annual "Children's Party" Intermittent "Murder in the Library", presentations by authors of mysteries, proceeds from which are used to enhance the Library's mystery collection.
	Glendora Friends Foundation Lots of ways to give

Fruit Tasting and Orchard Walk

We went to Andy's Orchard this morning for their fruit tasting and orchard walk. I had read about it somewhere and marked the next event on my calendar so I wouldn't forget to go. We tasted apricots, cherries and peaches and then got a tour of the orchard where we were able to taste more fruit off the trees and pick some to take home. I'm enough of a city kid to still be amazed at the idea of eating fruit straight off the tree... and it definitely does taste its best that way.

The tasting (there was a guy there from Williams '97 so I said hello and that I was Amhert '97 and he said "I'm sorry"), peaches, picking cherries, Andy and S talk about pesticides or something, apricots, "Black Republican" cherries, the store.

Mapchangers

Two of the congressional races I'm following closely (CA-11 and CT-04) are featured as finalists on the Map Changers site. The winning campaign gets a fundraiser with Governor Mark Warner, chair of the Forward Together PAC.