This week it’s the Houston Roller Derby Exhibition Bout DVD Screening.

You won’t see Catazon on the DVD, but she’ll be working the door of the Axiom during primetime.

Got some bad news yesterday that I may miss our first bout due to another of my extracurricular activities. Nothing is official yet, because HRD is buying a portable floor and it may not be delivered by March. What else happens in March that holds a huge place in my heart? The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo! I’ve been volunteering for three years, and I can’t imagine anything except for family issues that would make me betray my commitment. My derby team will be devastated if I miss the very first HRD bout, but what can I do? If anyone knows of anyway to prolong the delivery of that floor, please feel free but don’t tell ‘em Catazon sent you.

If you want to know how Catazon works, check out the Jan. 18th Wikipedia page on Librarians. I resemble that.

Read about more people I know in the Baytown Sun. Also, watch Fox 26 in the morning to see Houston Roller Derby in action. See if you can spot Catazon.

The lineup has been announced, and our meeting is Thursday night (where I will also pick up my badge). Derby is going to help me get back in my Rockies. This will be the best year yet…I AM SO EXCITED…who’s ready to party with me???

As an employee of an academic institution, I get a little extra paid time off around the holidays, and we all know it’s hard to come back after a little extra time off. It only took me a couple of hours to get caught up on e-mail and voice mail, which parallels a news flash from my boss’s boss this morning. We need to get more people using this library, and he’s going to take time out of his busy schedule to discuss this the next time he’s in Houston. I can’t wait.

Then I can tell him all the obstacles that stand in the way of getting people to use this library, which he really already knows, but they may have slipped his mind over the long holiday. First, I don’t have a budget, and since I don’t have a budget, I don’t have any current resources. What? You don’t have the December 2005 issue of AAPG Bulletin? That’s right, I don’t!!! And I don’t have the December 2004 issue either. In fact, I don’t have anything later than December 2003, IN ANY TITLE!!! That could definitely be a good reason why people aren’t knocking down the door. Second, it’s that budget thing again, but this has do with paying professional dues. How could that get people in door you ask? If I joined the Geoscience Information Society, I could network with other librarians that would in turn tell their users of another great resource for geoscience information, albeit dated information, but valuable nonetheless. Alas, my institution refuses to pay professional dues, and I took a huge pay cut when I accepted this position (for more personal reasons than the money, or lack thereof), so I can’t afford to pay them on my own.

I’ll leave it at those two for now, but I also want to say that serving eleven users in a month where I only worked sixteen days looks pretty good to me. Oh, and half of those days were spent babysitting visitors to our fine conference facilities, which is a huge part of my job (listed prominently on my job description) and does interfere with my work in the library. As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to come back, but sometimes are more difficult than others.