library stories

With spring in full force now the temperatures and humidity are rising. I have stopped walking outside at night and cycling on weekends. I've used my new bike trainer a few times and the adjustments are pretty good now. The first few times I had the resistance wheel too tight (despite what the bike store staff told me). It was shaving off rubber from the bike's rear tire and leaving rubber powder on the floor. I've moved the bike by a window so I can see outside plus I can listen to my iPod. I could also move the bike by the television so I could watch the Al Jazeera English news station. I don't think any North American stations have picked it up but it's worth viewing. One certainly gets a different perspective of the news and especially in the Middle East!

Abu Dhabi has been in the news lately as Vice-President Dick Cheney visited here and then made a bombastic comment from the safety of a U.S. aircraft Carrier about 20 miles off the coast of where we live. Then the following day Iran's President visited the city! I think that it was a shrewd move by His Highness Shaikh Khalifa to host those two in short succession. The UAE is definitely a moderate country in the Gulf. I learned that the UAE is Iran's biggest trading partner. Also read in the Gulf News about the tiny, exotic Iranian island called Kish. I wouldn't mind visiting it for a weekend and Kish Airlines has a direct flight from Abu Dhabi. The island is in the Arabian Gulf so it would be a very short flight. It's a popular destination for Iranian tourists and UAE tourists who want to renew their travel visas.

Today I discovered a very interesting online diary from Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive. He was recently interviewed by the American Library Association and his comments about daily life in Baghdad are sobering. The war/occupation there is bad enough but also the Middle Eastern bureaucracy is incredible! I know a bit what that's like with my proposal of creating a blog and a RSS feed for my library meeting resistance from our IT Department.

Darcy is busy with her bellydance class and rehearsals for two plays. Meanwhile I'm trying to maintain my twice a week workout at my school's new gym. So far my wonky back is holding up with the weight lifting. My Chinese accupuncture and massages are probably helping.

The last bit of news is that we have registered this blog with a RSS (Real Simple Syndicate) feed. Notice the orange icon near the top right of the blog's home page. What this means is that you can subscribe and receive blog entries in your feed that may be connected through your email account. This also means that I don't have to pester everyone with emailing updates! You don't have to remember the URL for our blog and just simply check your RSS feed for our blog.

So I think this will be the last time that we will notify people of a new posting by email!