Thanks for noticing!

I used to wonder why I bothered to blog. I really didn't think anyone read what I wrote, let alone cared if I did or didn't. Fortunately, my friend JoAnn, always writes to remind me that she's reading. Now, thanks to the friends I've made via Charlie's blog, Highland Dreams, I am actually getting comments checking to make sure I'm okay since I haven't posted in a while! That is so cool! Thank you Middle Child, for asking.

In case anyone else wonders where I've been, here's the scoop: I've been working too freaking hard! The last post outlined the "fun" day I had when I had to update 37 computers. Well, things haven't slowed down a bit since then. On Monday, which should have been a holiday for me as it is one of the holidays the library recognizes by closing, I was working. Our new phone system came in and needed to be installed, and what better day to do it but a day when we're closed? So...

Monday AM I met our installer at the library and we set about installing the new phone system and voice mail system. I had no part in the installation of the phone system; that was his domain. But I had a major role in the installation of the new voice mail system. First, a word of explanation. Our existing voice mail system runs on a 486SX-25 and is DOS based. That gives you some idea just how old it is. We first installed it in 1995 or '96. It ran on a 386 then. We upgraded the hardware a year or two later when the 386 croaked, but the software didn't change. That system has been running 24/7/365 since 1997. It's a wonder it was still alive and every day I held my breath, praying it didn't just die on us. We were well past due to replace it. In fact, we were the last client still using that old system! So... back to Monday.

We were installing a new phone system so we can run voice-over-IP (more on that later), and a new voice mail system with all sorts of bells and whistles. So, as soon as the voice mail system was up and running, Michael set about showing me how to configure it. It is a lot more complex than our old system, but it's not user unfriendly, is Windows-based, and is fairly easy to administer for me. Michael's pump on his well went out and he was without water at home (a home populated by a wife and 3-year-old twins), so he was anxious to finish up with me and get home to address his water problem. I was eager to let him do just that, so after a cursory review of how the system worked, I sent him on his way, leaving me to set up all the mailboxes and whatnot. Part of the whatnot involved recording all our prompts - the greetings you hear when you call the library at various hours, holidays, etc, that direct you to push this button for reference, that button for overdues, and this other button for a human being, among other things. You see, no one else wants to be "the voice of the library" so that task falls on my shoulders. Someone who knows me but has never called the library before, and does so for the first time, is usually taken aback, sometimes amused, when they realize it is my voice welcoming them to the library and directing them to the various departments. I hate my voice, of course, but others have said it sounds quite professional. Pffft! Anyway, our prompts are long and involved. I had to listen to the one on the old system so I'd know what to say on the new system. That meant I pretty much had to write down, in some sort of shorthand, what I was saying and where I was directing people with the various key presses. Ugh.

By 3:30 PM Monday, I had set up all the user mailboxes and was ready to start recording the prompts. I entered the supervisor menu using the method I had thought Michael had shown me. When I pressed 4 to record greetings, I was told by the generic lady's voice that I didn't have access to that feature. ???? So I tried again. And again. No luck. I called Dave, Michael's boss, and played the lady's voice for him so he would know what I was facing. He didn't have any answers. Michael was out of reach, probably down in his well replacing a pump. Okay, enough. I went home for the day. I had at least recorded a "we're closed" greeting while Michael was still there, and better yet, I could plug our old system back in with the holiday greeting until I could get with Michael on Tuesday and figure out where I had gone wrong, which is exactly what I did.

Monday night we had a great dinner. Tom had gotten a gift certificate to this wonderful shop that specializes in fresh homemade pastas, breads, sauces, and great wines. I decided to get dinner from them. My choice for the night was veal and spinach cannelloni for me, and Italian sausage and peppers ravioli for him, both with marinara sauce. YUM! While the cost of my order was being calculated, I spied some sharp provolone in the cheese case. I am a sucker for good cheeses, especially pungent, tasty ones. I had her add the wedge in the cheese case to my order. I could almost taste it already! As soon as I got home, I cut myself a chunk of the cheese. It did not disappoint me! If the only provolone you have ever tasted is the bland stuff they sell in the local grocery store, you have no idea what you're missing. REAL provolone, the imported stuff, is very flavorful, much drier than the soft, almost gooey stuff they pass off as provolone, and is amazing! One chunk was not nearly enough. I cut myself another. Then just another little bit. Then just a tiny bit more. Before I knew it, it was gone! Thank goodness Tom hates the stuff. Okay, so time to start cooking the pasta. The ravioli would just boil for 4 minutes or so, but the cannelloni would take half an hour of baking. At exactly the right moment, Tom walked in the door. Dinner was on the plates, waiting to be consumed, in a matter of seconds, freshly baked sourdough bread, smeared with melted butter and cut into chunks, accompanying the fresh pasta and sauce.

It was a delightful meal and I ate way too much! I paid for it. At about 1:30 AM I woke up hotter than blazes. I kicked off the blankets, letting the 65 degree air in the bedroom wash over my overheated body. My mouth felt as though I'd been living on a desert island, so I got up to get a drink of cold water. I downed three glasses of water. My stomach sloshed as I walked back to bed. I was bloated with water, undigested cannelloni, and who knows what else. I felt like I was going to be sick any minute. I tossed and turned for the next two hours, unable to find a position in which I could lay without feeling like I was going to lose my dinner. I fell into a fitful sleep around 3:30 AM, with the alarm blasting me from my troubled sleep a scant 60 minutes later. I made Tom's lunch, his espresso, and his coffee-to-go, all the while lugging around a belly so bloated it felt like it would explode any second. When he left for work, I fell back into bed and fell soundly asleep for another hour. Unfortunately, I had to get to work by 8 AM so Michael could help me with my prompts problem.

It was all I could do to get ready for work. I didn't even bother with makeup, which is pretty amazing for me. When Michael got to the library, it took only a few seconds for him to show me what I'd done wrong. I was trying to access the supervisor menu using the old method, which works to a point, but there is a different way of doing it with the new system which allows me access to the company greetings. Doh! By the time we went over all the other questions I had, it was 10 minutes until we opened and I had yet to record our "open" prompt. Michael left, and I set about recording prompts, and re-recording them, and re-re-recording them, until they were satisfactory. The rest of my day was spent working on the details of the system, making it work efficiently, and finally, helping staff set up their mailboxes and retrieve their messages from the old system. One really cool thing about our new system is that it has voice recognition. So, instead of a caller having to press 1 for hours or 2 for the information desk, they'll be able to say "hours" or "information desk" or "check on a hold" or "Gina" and get to the right place. I have yet to inform the whole staff of this new feature as I wanted to get it all set up first. I will be recording new prompts telling our callers of this option in the next week or so. They are going to LOVE that as long as I can come up with every possible way they might ask for different departments and enter that into the system. Anyway, it's pretty cool.

As for the VoIP feature, what that means is that we can put a phone in our branch 32 miles away and call them on it as though they were an extension in our building. Right now, we have to actually call them, tying up a line on our end and their only line on their end. With the new system, their phone lines remain free (and ours) while we talk between branches, something we do quite often. We use the internet connection between branches for this new method of communication (hence the term voice over IP (internet protocol). There are companies that make this technology available to home users - Vonage and Skype for example - so it's becoming better known. It's pretty cool! And.....

In addition to all these recent projects, I just ordered 39 replacement PCs from Dell to replace all our staff workstations. They should arrive in about 10 days, which means I get to:

• unbox 39 PCs and 39 monitors
• install all application software on each one (MS Office, Acrobat, circulation program, etc.)
• copy each staff member's profile (desktop settings, favorites, etc.) to their new computer
• take down their old computer and find somewhere to store it (????)
• put new computer in place, hook up, join to network

I figure this will take, on average, 4 hours per workstation. So, I have about 160 hours of work ahead of me, not including all the stuff I have to do normally anyway (maintain web site, help patrons, network administration, etc.) So, I figure I'll have all 39 workstations up and running in about two months. I'm going to need a looooooong vacation!

Oh, FYI to my readers - I do not blog on the weekends...family time and all that you know. :)
Thanks for noticing I was MIA for a week or so.