Hello and welcome to another first Saturday of the month here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is April 6th.
Maybe it's just me, but in the last few years I've found it really easy to write the new new year on my checks. Here we are,already in April - the fourth month of the year - and I am fully engaged in 2019. It's like I've always been here. 2018? What was that? History!
This wasn't always the case. In my younger years - and I don't know which ones exactly - I recall struggling to accept the fact that I was in a new year. The cashier at the grocery store or bank would hand my check back and politely point out that I had written the wrong date. (Again.)
Now, not so! Is this one of those getting older things?
Anywho, I'm here today to give you the big heads up that next week, April 7-13, is National Library Week (Thanks, William Kent Krueger, for the heads up.) Kent will be visiting lots of little library branches all over the state of Minnesota. If you love this mystery author, then I can give you a personal double thumbs up recommendation that taking a road trip to meet him in person is worth it!
While I'm saddened to see Shopko close its doors across Wannaskan Country, the little villages of our much-loved region would simply waste away if we had no public libraries. Wannaska is linked to the rest of the world via the Northwest Regional Library - and blissfully further connected to the rest of the library universe through a heavenly portal called MN LINK. Why, just this past week, I received two armfuls of books requested from libraries across our great state.
Where else can I get such a vast sampling of reading (and viewing!) material such as what I have checked out in the last week alone? Amazon? For FREE? Pshaw. Surely, you jest.
I currently have 31 items checked out.
Movies
Big Hero 6 (DVD)
Surprised by love (DVD)
Power Rangers, mystic force. Dark wish (DVD)
The leisure seeker (DVD)
Sweet bean (DVD)
Power Rangers mystic force. Volume 3, Fire hear (DVD)
Audiobooks
Save Rafe! #6
The Tale of Despereaux
Novels
Still life #1 Penny, Louise (book and Audiobook via Overdrive)
Etiquette Research
The subtle art of not giving a f*ck : a counterintuitive approach to living a good life
Forgotten elegance.
301 smart answers to tough business etiquette questions
Kiss, bow, or shake hands.
Kiss, bow, or shake hands; Asia.
Kiss, bow, or shake hands; Europe
Tea drinking in 18th-century America
Tea and etiquette.
Children Books
What if ... ? Then we ... : short, very short, shorter-than-ever possibilities
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Henry and Mudge and the funny lunch : the twentieth book of their adventures
Froggy is the best
A fly went by
Arthur's reading race
Baby shark : doo doo doo doo doo doo
The Dumb Bunnies go to the zoo
Angels, angels everywhere
Dear Polar Bear--
Emily Brown and Father Christmas
Pete the cat. Valentine's Day is cool
The song of Francis
Despite the transparent good intentions of libraries, they continue to come under scrutiny be it the staff, the services, facility cost, patronage, access to free learning, free speech and all those other pesky things that libraries stand for. So, this week, send your library some love. Here are 8 sure-fire ideas to show your appreciation:
1. Give your librarian flowers. (Or some other token of appreciation)
2. Make a monetary donation. (Note: Please, please, let the librarians purchase the books. I know from reading Librarian Confidential websites, they do not want your moldy Tarzan collection salvaged from the recycle bins of Wannaska.) (But I do.)
3. Join your Friends of the Library Board.(If you can't volunteer for one more thing, please go back to Recommendation #2.)
4. Take your offspring, loved ones, and self to the library. Use their wi-fi! Read their local paper! Every click and visit counts!
5. Check out materials.
6. Return your materials on time.
7. Make sure the DVD discs actually make it back into their cases. (Sorry, Miss Kelly!)
8. Keep checking out materials. Once a week or once every 3 weeks.
1994 - The Rwandan genocide begins
The assassination of Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, triggered a mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis with up to 1 million victims.
1965 - The first commercial communications satellite is launched
Intelsat I, also known as Early Bird, facilitated the first live TV broadcast of a spacecraft splashdown when Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
1924 - A team of aviators begins the first round-the-world flight in history
Four aircraft left Seattle on a westbound route around the globe. 157 days later, two of them reached the same location.
1909 - Robert Peary allegedly becomes the first person to reach the North Pole
Peary's claim has never been verified and is widely contested. The first undisputed journey to the North Pole was the 1948 Soviet Sever-2 expedition.
1896 - The first modern Olympic Games are opened in Athens
241 athletes from 14 countries took part in the First Olympiad. The event took place over 1500 years after the last ancient Olympic Games, which originated in Olympia in south-western Greece.
1963 - Rafael Correa, Ecuadorian politician, 54th President of Ecuador
1929 - André Previn, German/American pianist, composer, conductor
1928 - James Watson, American biologist, geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate
1926 - Sergio Franchi, Italian/American singer, actor
1926 - Ian Paisley, Irish minister, politician, 2nd First Minister of Northern Ireland
Maybe it's just me, but in the last few years I've found it really easy to write the new new year on my checks. Here we are,already in April - the fourth month of the year - and I am fully engaged in 2019. It's like I've always been here. 2018? What was that? History!
This wasn't always the case. In my younger years - and I don't know which ones exactly - I recall struggling to accept the fact that I was in a new year. The cashier at the grocery store or bank would hand my check back and politely point out that I had written the wrong date. (Again.)
Now, not so! Is this one of those getting older things?
Anywho, I'm here today to give you the big heads up that next week, April 7-13, is National Library Week (Thanks, William Kent Krueger, for the heads up.) Kent will be visiting lots of little library branches all over the state of Minnesota. If you love this mystery author, then I can give you a personal double thumbs up recommendation that taking a road trip to meet him in person is worth it!
While I'm saddened to see Shopko close its doors across Wannaskan Country, the little villages of our much-loved region would simply waste away if we had no public libraries. Wannaska is linked to the rest of the world via the Northwest Regional Library - and blissfully further connected to the rest of the library universe through a heavenly portal called MN LINK. Why, just this past week, I received two armfuls of books requested from libraries across our great state.
Where else can I get such a vast sampling of reading (and viewing!) material such as what I have checked out in the last week alone? Amazon? For FREE? Pshaw. Surely, you jest.
I currently have 31 items checked out.
Movies
Big Hero 6 (DVD)
Surprised by love (DVD)
Power Rangers, mystic force. Dark wish (DVD)
The leisure seeker (DVD)
Sweet bean (DVD)
Power Rangers mystic force. Volume 3, Fire hear (DVD)
Audiobooks
Save Rafe! #6
The Tale of Despereaux
Novels
Still life #1 Penny, Louise (book and Audiobook via Overdrive)
Etiquette Research
The subtle art of not giving a f*ck : a counterintuitive approach to living a good life
Forgotten elegance.
301 smart answers to tough business etiquette questions
Kiss, bow, or shake hands.
Kiss, bow, or shake hands; Asia.
Kiss, bow, or shake hands; Europe
Tea drinking in 18th-century America
Tea and etiquette.
For My Own Sanity
Where you go is not who you'll be : an antidote to the college admissions maniaChildren Books
What if ... ? Then we ... : short, very short, shorter-than-ever possibilities
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Henry and Mudge and the funny lunch : the twentieth book of their adventures
Froggy is the best
A fly went by
Arthur's reading race
Baby shark : doo doo doo doo doo doo
The Dumb Bunnies go to the zoo
Angels, angels everywhere
Dear Polar Bear--
Emily Brown and Father Christmas
Pete the cat. Valentine's Day is cool
The song of Francis
1. Give your librarian flowers. (Or some other token of appreciation)
2. Make a monetary donation. (Note: Please, please, let the librarians purchase the books. I know from reading Librarian Confidential websites, they do not want your moldy Tarzan collection salvaged from the recycle bins of Wannaska.) (But I do.)
3. Join your Friends of the Library Board.(If you can't volunteer for one more thing, please go back to Recommendation #2.)
4. Take your offspring, loved ones, and self to the library. Use their wi-fi! Read their local paper! Every click and visit counts!
5. Check out materials.
6. Return your materials on time.
7. Make sure the DVD discs actually make it back into their cases. (Sorry, Miss Kelly!)
8. Keep checking out materials. Once a week or once every 3 weeks.
Kids' Corner (mom's version)
We're going to Worlds! F.R.E.D., aka the Fighting Rednecks Engineering and Design, had a two-fer win last Saturday at the North Star Regional in Minneapolis. As the #1 pick of the losing alliance (3 teams) in the finals, they qualified for a wild card to the World Championship in Detroit, April 24-27, 2019.
But wait! There's more! The thrilling conclusion came at the very end of the tournament when our favorite FIRST emcee, Yoji Shimizu (Professor and Harry Kay Chair, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at U of MN - Twin Cities) announced that F.R.E.D. was the recipient of the Chairman's award, winning them, not only the most prestigious award in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), but also the Golden Ticket to Worlds.
While it's wonderful the team and the robot performed well and allied well with other teams (including ProDigi, Thief River Falls team who also made it to Worlds), Chairman's is a particular delight and honor because it's all about the lasting impact a team makes on their community and the world.
Here's the video:
About a month ago, The Oldest attended a #Night (read: hashtag night) called #ChangetheWorld at Iron Range Engineering (IRE). (Super impressed by this institution of higher learning, by the way.) Christine Kennedy, Director of IRE told the girls, "If there's only one thing you remember from this night it's this: Engineers solve problems to make the world a better place."
And indeed they do. If you haven't seen this article circulate social media this week, here's a story about a FIRST Robotics team in Farmington, MN who built a wheelchair for a kid.
A 2-year-old Minnesota boy's family couldn't afford a costly power wheelchair. These students built it for him
Sometimes kids can be pretty neat.
But wait! There's more! The thrilling conclusion came at the very end of the tournament when our favorite FIRST emcee, Yoji Shimizu (Professor and Harry Kay Chair, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at U of MN - Twin Cities) announced that F.R.E.D. was the recipient of the Chairman's award, winning them, not only the most prestigious award in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), but also the Golden Ticket to Worlds.
While it's wonderful the team and the robot performed well and allied well with other teams (including ProDigi, Thief River Falls team who also made it to Worlds), Chairman's is a particular delight and honor because it's all about the lasting impact a team makes on their community and the world.
Here's the video:
About a month ago, The Oldest attended a #Night (read: hashtag night) called #ChangetheWorld at Iron Range Engineering (IRE). (Super impressed by this institution of higher learning, by the way.) Christine Kennedy, Director of IRE told the girls, "If there's only one thing you remember from this night it's this: Engineers solve problems to make the world a better place."
And indeed they do. If you haven't seen this article circulate social media this week, here's a story about a FIRST Robotics team in Farmington, MN who built a wheelchair for a kid.
Sometimes kids can be pretty neat.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
1994 - The Rwandan genocide begins
The assassination of Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, triggered a mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis with up to 1 million victims.
1965 - The first commercial communications satellite is launched
Intelsat I, also known as Early Bird, facilitated the first live TV broadcast of a spacecraft splashdown when Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
1924 - A team of aviators begins the first round-the-world flight in history
Four aircraft left Seattle on a westbound route around the globe. 157 days later, two of them reached the same location.
1909 - Robert Peary allegedly becomes the first person to reach the North Pole
Peary's claim has never been verified and is widely contested. The first undisputed journey to the North Pole was the 1948 Soviet Sever-2 expedition.
1896 - The first modern Olympic Games are opened in Athens
241 athletes from 14 countries took part in the First Olympiad. The event took place over 1500 years after the last ancient Olympic Games, which originated in Olympia in south-western Greece.
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
1929 - André Previn, German/American pianist, composer, conductor
1928 - James Watson, American biologist, geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate
1926 - Sergio Franchi, Italian/American singer, actor
1926 - Ian Paisley, Irish minister, politician, 2nd First Minister of Northern Ireland
Remembering You
1992 - Isaac Asimov, American chemist, author
1971 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer
1528 - Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, mathematician
1520 - Raphael, Italian painter, architect
1199 - Richard I of England
Spread the love for your local library, check out a book or two, and and make it a great Saturday!
Kim
1971 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer
1528 - Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, mathematician
1520 - Raphael, Italian painter, architect
1199 - Richard I of England
Spread the love for your local library, check out a book or two, and and make it a great Saturday!
Kim
Thanks for the reminder to pop into the library. I have so many books in my little hermitage, I don't use the library as much as I used to.
ReplyDeleteYou have a Buddhist sense of time - here / not here / arrives / departs.
ReplyDeleteYour list of "checked out" library books is impressive! Somehow, I can never bring myself to check out from the library - when I choose a book to read, it's a friend for life. Like friends, I wouldn't give them back, but rather give them an honored place in my personal collection. At least I'm purchasing Kindle versions a lot, so my "library" is beginning to be in one easily accessible place.