Feeling flat

I began my week full of presentations with a rough start today. I can't put my finger on it, but I just didn't come out at the end satisfied with what I did. Maybe it was the room, the time of day, the subject matter, what I had prepared, or maybe I just didn't have it in me today to give a good presentation.

I've had worse, but I've certainly had better. Whatever it was, I hope I find out what went wrong before I present again on Thursday.

Let's Get Busy!

And so begins a few weeks of insanity for me starting tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I will be in Omaha as part of a book discussion for a reference class. From there I drive straight to Grand Island to be a part of the Ms. Wheelchair Nebraska annual meeting and pageant. Next week I'm planning on doing an afternoon of training on some of the newer features of the Nebraska Library Association webpage to some of the current board members in Seward. The following Tuesday I'm giving a brown bag talk at work about Relevance Ranking and how it applies to libraries to warm up for a future presentation. That Wednesday I go to the NLA/NEMA conference where I am part of three presentations, plus the the Thursday night activity. The week following that, I speak at the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries conference in Lincoln, presenting the relevance ranking session I talked about a little earlier.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Interesting dining experience

I got back from celebrating my grandfather's 80th birthday in Ericson. It was good to see everyone, but the highlight was the location. The Ranch Cafe is a traditional small town cafe. Decent food, friendly folks, you know the stereotype. It all fit this cafe. What was noteworthy to me was the fact that it was part of a sale barn.

If you don't know what a sale barn is, please let me enlighten you. A sale barn is a place where livestock auctions are held. There is usually an area that the livestock, like a horse or a cow, is brought into with risers all around. Think of it as a very small version of the Roman Coliseum. This allows many people to see the livestock at once. I believe this is mainly used for breeding stock, but I could very well be mistaken. There is also a place for the livestock to be held before the sale and the proper chutes and pens to hold them properly.

Now since it was part of a sale barn, standing in the parking lot outside the cafe you were greeted with the sounds and smells of the cattle waiting to be sold. Vegetarians would probably not feel very comfortable here. However; once inside the mooing was replaced by a dining room full of people, chatting away after the church service held just down the street, and the smell of fried chicken replaced any possibly offending bovine odor. I soon forgot I was even in the barn once the birthday party started up in the back room.

I can only imagine what someone not familiar with this way of life would react. To me, it seemed just a little quirky, but not completely crazy. I'd like to hear from you about your reactions to this - especially you "city slickers" out there.