days_unfolding

Woke up a little after my alarm at 9:30 AM.

My demo went very well yesterday. I like the Dean over at the Normal campus. The faculty were a livelier bunch than the ones at Lincoln too.

However, it was snowing when I went over to the Normal campus and when I left. I had lunch at home and picked up the work laptop. The snow stopped for a while when I drove down to Lincoln after lunch, and the drive wasn't too bad. However, it started snowing again in the afternoon, and the drive home was hair-raising. There was snow on the roads and blowing snow. (It was the first time that I had driven on the highway in serious snow since the accident except for a little while on Thursday.) I went nice and slow and let people pass me. My concern was not unfounded. On a curve that was also elevated like a bridge, someone flew off the road and landed in a tree with the nose of the car pointing down. I don't know what happened to the person driving, but there were a ton of fire trucks and police cars at the scene. I also saw someone in a ditch. When it finally stopped snowing, we had gotten over four inches of snow.

My unofficial title at work seems to be the "person that makes things happen". My library director and someone at the Learning Resource Center at the Normal campus have been really talking up the new system for getting books from other libraries. However, I was the person who asked, "How are we going to get books from the Lincoln campus to the the Normal campus?" My library director gave me a blank look. I asked if there was a mail service from the Lincoln campus to the Normal campus, and he said that he didn't know, but the bookstore people handled the mail. The bookstore people said that they just ask if anyone is going over to the Normal campus and send things with them, but there is "a box at the Business Office". So on Monday, I'm going over the Business Office to find out what the story is. I also asked our library consortium if we could make the Normal campus a stop on the interlibrary loan route, but I'm not holding my breath that we can. I think that the upshot is going to be that I'm going to be the courier, given that I live in Bloomington-Normal and work in Lincoln. Maybe I could ask the person in the Learning Resource Center in Normal to call me when there are books to go back to Lincoln. However, that wouldn't set up a process for after I leave the institution, but I hope that won't be for quite a while.

I originally had planned to drop off my rent check and go to the grocery store last night, but decided not to given the weather. Today, there is freezing rain on top of snow, which doesn't thrill me for driving (although there are some empty spots in the parking lot, so people have made it out). I have homework to work on today, and I'll see what it's like later. I could go tomorrow, but I really want to get the ingredients to make garlic rolls so that I can make them tomorrow. If I really had my act together, I could have the dough prepared and rising during Downton Abbey, but I doubt that I'll be that organized.

Added: Yay, my bookcases have arrived at WalMart, so I need to pick them up also.