text:
So in another thread, a goon mentioned a guy expelled from school for watching porn during class. I was honestly curious what kind of porn he was watching, because I worked for a public library for over a decade, and part of my job was busting pervs for looking at porn in a public facility. They were never looking at something as vanilla as cute Playboy models, it was always super raunchy hardcore poo poo. Anyways, I mentioned in passing that I could do an A/T on crazy library stories, got some "yes, please!" replies, and here we are!
Let's start with one of my favorites, the guy we nicknamed "The Shooter".
Most public libraries have some scrap paper and a cup of pencils by the computers, so when you're looking up the Dewey number/author/name of a book, you can write it down and take it with you to the stacks. One of the shelvers' jobs was keeping those stocked, they usually did that at closing time.
At some point, the shelvers were refilling the cups at night with our little golf pencils and noticed there was a.... substance in the bottom of them. A sticky white substance. Yeah, someone was serial jacking it into our pencil cups. Our security guard had her suspicions on who The Shooter was, but we could never bust the guy busting his nut and get the police involved. After a month or so of this, admin comes up with a solution:
Replace the solid pencil cups with mesh ones. :facepalm: Yeah, good job admin, problem solved, surely that will thwart him, glad y'all are making 5x what I am.
The Shooter now turns to ripping out bits of our plastic garbage bags and blowing his wad in that instead (we keep finding torn bin liners) and leaving them everywhere. Our maintenance guys and shelvers start wearing gloves 24/7, and my security guard is about to have an aneurysm if she doesn't catch this guy so we can get him banned and arrested.
FINALLY we nail this motherfucker watching porn with his hands down his pants and get to call the cops. Of course by the time the cops arrive there's no immediate evidence, but he did have weed on him, so they took him away for that and got him banned from the library for life. As a pro-legalization person, that kinda sucks, don't like to see people do time for that, but good riddance to bad rubbish.
Other potential stories:
My first crazy patron, when I was 15 and got my very first job at a library: "ELECTRICITY!"
The woman who got shot to death outside that first library job
"Emotional support" animals (yes we totally need a parrot flying around and making GBS threads on books)
Bicycle shorts guy
Shrimp in the bathroom guy
Antonio, my crazy stalker
What do y'all wanna hear first?
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 17:24
|# ? Sep 30, 2023 01:50
Mmmm... That sounds like some extreme extra spicy crazy. Let's go with shrimp in the bathroom.
Also, does your library have an activity room? Any strange or crazy stuff getting scheduled or happening in that?
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 17:35
I only have school library experience and most of my "wacky" stories involve children going apeshit when I tell them we don't have the next book in a series (which usually does not exist yet) but I'm excited for this thread!
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 19:01
I've been working in public libraries for the past 10+ years starting a reference aid and then as a full librarian after getting my MLS (reading this right now at the ref desk at work). Can confirm a lot of stuff like this happens at public libraries.
I know an ex-coworker who had to interrupt a John getting a blow job in the computer lab. I've had to clean up vomit while people tried to walk through it to find DVDs. For a while at one library I worked at the upstairs restrooms weren't working and people were being directed to use the ones in the basement but the signs up read "For bathrooms please use elevator" (no clue why that phrasing was used) so at least a few people used the elevator as a urinal.
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 19:35
Ceiling fan posted:
Mmmm... That sounds like some extreme extra spicy crazy. Let's go with shrimp in the bathroom.
Ah, that's my specialty! That was my job for the bulk of my tour of duty, between our 2 branches we had 6 community meeting rooms, plus a 300 seat theater. I was the head audio-visual wench, doing stuff like running sound for concerts, setting up LCD projectors and laptops (and for a couple regulars still living in the Paleolithic age, our Kodak slide projector), and cleaning up 75 pounds of glitter every time we had a children's craft event. ("Glitter is the herpes of the craft world" was my department's motto)
But first,shrimp guy.
Naturally, a public library attracts a lot of homeless folks. We're warm in the winter, air conditioned in the brutal southern summer, have comfy chairs and free entertainment in the form of books and Internet. And, of course, nice multi-stall restrooms.
One day I'm minding our desk, probably dicking around on these here forums, and a male patron comes up with a very confused look on his face. "Ma'am? Uh, there's a guy, um, in the restroom, and he's....". He pauses, with a thousand yard stare.
Great, we got another guy whacking it, I think, and start for the phone to call a male staffer to deal with this (we only had security on nights and weekends).
"...he's got one of the sinks full of shrimp."
Now I'm the one looking super confused. "Shrimp?"
"Yeah, he rinsing off shrimp in the sink. I, uh, just thought you'd want to know."
"Huh. Yes. Thank you for the heads up."
LT, one of our facilities guys, happens to be passing by, and I get to confuse the gently caress out of him by asking hey, would you mind checking the men's restroom, there's supposedly a guy with shrimp in there?
He does so and reports back. "It's that homeless guy, the old white dude? He got the shrimp in a bag, like a Food Lion bag. It's frozen, he thawing it out."
"Is it raw or cooked?" I ask, immediately realizing the absurdity of this question.
"Cooked, it just frozen. Nice lookin' shrimp, too, big ones!" (LT was known for always being hungry and eating anything and everything.)
I've been drat close to being homeless myself, so I have a lot of sympathy for hobos. The fella in question had never caused us any trouble; who am I to begrudge a poor guy a nice seafood dinner? Dude scored big time on his pound of shrimp, I wasn't about to kick him out for that. I told LT to put up the "closed for cleaning, please use other restroom" sign, and got him to scrub the sink when homeless guy left.
Bonus story: one of my co-workers had her indoor/outdoor wedding reception at a hall across the street from the library. The same homeless guy saw the party going on and wandered over to the buffet tables outside. My co-worker and her husband are pretty chill hippy types, so they politely told him it was a private party, he had to leave, but he could help himself to some vegetarian lasagna if he liked. He filled up a paper plate and wandered back to the parking garage he lived in, no fuss from either side. All us drunk library folks were dying laughing, though. "Girl, you just got your wedding crashed by The Shrimp Guy."
Blendy (or any other library workers), feel free to chime in with your war stories! The more the merrier.
JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Oct 23, 2018
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 22:17
JacquelineDempsey posted:
That�s awesome and you�re awesome for that.
(So is your co-worker letting him snag food from the buffet)
|# ? Oct 22, 2018 22:45
Proteus Jones posted:
That�s awesome and you�re awesome for that.
Aw, thanks! Your av is pretty awesome, too (though I miss the Zatanna one).
I'm in a writing mood today, so I'll go ahead and share My First Experience with Library Crazy
My first ever real (ie., getting a paycheck, not babysitting or raking leaves) job was as a page at our local library. In NY in the 80's, you could get a legit job in some not-really-hazardous workplaces at 15 instead of 16 if you had kept up good grades in school and didn't work past certain hours. Being a book nerd, the library three blocks away was an obvious move.
For reasons still unclear to me, that library had separate pages for the kids' sections vs the adult section, so I solely sorted and shelved the kids' books as they get returned. Another task of the page/shelver is what's called shelf-reading, which is when you just go down the stacks book by book and make sure all the books are in order after patrons pull out one, decide they don't want it, and randomly shove it somewhere it doesn't belong.
So I'm shelf-reading non-fiction, probably hiding over in 567.91 doing dinosaur books because I like dinosaurs, and I hear a toddler start crying over in the picture book/easy reader corner. This kid's wailing like a fire truck, but I'm used to being in the children's section, I'm no stranger to kids in that area throwing tantrums. I ignore it and keep shelf-reading. Then things get odd.
Kiddo is sobbing away, and then a second crier joins in. At first I roll my eyes, thinking "great, we gotta chain reaction going on", that happens all the time when you have multiple toddlers together, right? But something's off; the second crier doesn't sound like a kid. And now the kid has stopped, but the second voice is still going, at dB levels that would shame a jet plane.
I get up and walk around the stacks to see wtf is going on, just in time to see a worried mom scooping up her teary-eyed son away from a 50-something year old woman who is mimicking the crying child. She's not actually crying, she's just sitting on the floor in the picture book section going "waaaaah! waaaah! waaaah!", mocking this poor kid straight in the face and scaring the piss outta him.
As a librarian approaches to defuse the situation, this woman gets up, pushes past the staff, throws her hands straight up in the air and screams "ELECTRICITY!" at the top of her lungs just before going out the emergency fire exit and setting the door alarm off.
"What the hell just happened?" I ask my co-worker, Jeff, once the dust has settled and the fire department had been told, no, we're not on fire.
"Oh, I heard we had a field trip group from [local psychiatric hospital]. She was with them."
"Ya think maybe someone could give us a heads up next time we have a bunch of unattended schizophrenics roaming around?"
Jeff just shrugged. That's library life. But after that, any time things got a little super busy or stressful there, Jeff and/or I would fling our hands in the air and yell "ELECTRICITY!"
JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Oct 23, 2018
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 00:36
This is loving amazing. What is the stalker story?
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 01:20
Got any microfilm/fiche stories? I know all the reaction they're likely to cause is exasperation from young people who have to do a school project and need to figure out how to work such archaic machinery but I have a soft spot for them. They're a uniquely library thing.
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 04:11
Bluedeanie posted:
Got any microfilm/fiche stories? I know all the reaction they're likely to cause is exasperation from young people who have to do a school project and need to figure out how to work such archaic machinery but I have a soft spot for them. They're a uniquely library thing.
I have no good tales about fiche save for my own personal boring stories of using it to find my estranged father via census records. I was never in reference, I was circulation/shelver until I moved over to "program servIces" which encompassed mostly a/v set-up, and also strangely my dept got put In charge of security so I was always tasked with looking over the cam footage and privy to hearing about the latest man* we needed to get banned.
*Or woman, but I can only think of one example of a woman getting arrested/banned after 12 years there. Woman filled up two shopping bags full off expensive coffee-table art books and waltzed out. A decent patron tipped us off about it the next day, and I spent the better part of a shift watching hours of cam footage at 4x speed until I finally pegged her, to get her banned. Then I did a little googling to find out where she lived, because we need to send a certified letter to make the ban official.
loving woman lived in a half million dollar gated community McMansion, and she's stealing from libraries. There's a special place in hell for her.
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 05:42
Uncle at Nintendo posted:
This is loving amazing. What is the stalker story?
Ah, Antonio. I guess "stalker" is a bit of an exaggeration, but you'll see why I got him banned.
As I said, I worked for the theater/conference room dept, and we had our own entrance because we'd often have events before the library proper opened or after it closed. (Best one was an annual fall fundraiser for a non-profit organization, and they ran a cash bar. The woman running it would sneak us library employees beers all night as a "tip" for working until midnight and having to clean up after them. You got overtime AND tanked; we used to fight over who got that shift.)
My desk was right by this entrance, so I had a constant view of people coming and going. One summer, I start noticing this guy coming in all the time. And by "all the time", I mean he would walk through my door dozens of times in one day. He would come in my door, head into the library, and apparently go right back out another door, then come back in through our entrance, staring at me.
Aside from this, he stood out because he was absolutely expressionless, never talked to anyone or even checked out a book as far as I could tell, had a stiff gait, wore a parka in Virginia summer, and looked exactly like a slightly chunkier Michael Jordan. I think my first conversation with my second-in-charge, Rob, about him went like:
"Rob, have you noticed that guy---"
"Zombie Michael Jordan?"
"loving YES!"
So picture Zombie Michael Jordan for the rest of this story.
We chalked him up as Library Weirdo #739, and didn't pay him much mind; as I said, he would just be doing laps and walk through our door 8 times a day. Whatever. But Pitbull, our security guard, started telling us that he was creeping out patrons and staffers in the stacks. Apparently after coming in my entrance, he would head for the stacks and then just stand there, staring, giving a lot of women (and libraries are predominately staffed by women) the heebie-jeebies.
Pitbull finally gets fed up with hearing complaints from patrons, and calls the police non-emergency line to see if they know anything about this guy. The PD was literally across the street, we shared a parking lot, so a few minutes later two officers show up.
One of them looks almost exactly like ZMJ.
He's his brother.
He tells us that while Antonio has some mental issues, he's harmless. Pitbull and our boss, The Skipper, are not totally satisfied with this response; he's freaking out both patrons and staff, can't you tell him to go creep out people somewhere else? But it's not a crime to just stand and stare at women in a public library, the police aren't going to do anything. Especially when it's a family member.
Well, things start escalating. Antonio disappears for a while, and Pitbull, who, being Pitbull, reads the police blotter in the newspaper for fun and to keep track of our "problem patrons", tells us he got arrested for standing in the middle of a busy road throwing rocks at cars. A few weeks later a co-worker whose car broke down and was taking the bus tells us Antonio was on the same bus as him and kept going up to women and getting very all up in their personal space. When the women got up and switched seats, he was following them. Bus driver kicked him off and wouldn't let him on for the next few days, but he would still stand at his usual stop and glare at the bus. Even this fit male co-worker was kinda spooked by Antonio.
One day, I'm coming in for a late shift, 2-10. As I'm walking towards our entrance, guess who's standing outside? He's staring at me all the way up, head swiveling as I ignore him and go in.
About 15 minutes later, an elderly woman walks up to my desk looking a bit perplexed and frightened. "Excuse me, miss? There was a man outside, and he said to give this to the lady with the red hair at this desk. I guess that's you?" She's got a couple pieces of folded-up papers her hand.
As I warily take them, I ask, "Tall dark-skinned guy with a shaved head?"
"Ok, thanks. And just... Stay away from him."
She jets as fast as her geriatric little legs will allow her, and I open up the notes. They're on our scrap paper we keep by the computers, in pencil.
The first note, in the bizarre melange of uppercase and lowercase that is a pretty classic sign of crazy (my MA is in art therapy), is asking me to meet him at the Motel 6, room number and all.
The second has what first appears to be absolute gibberish of number and letters. Then I notice they're all strings of six or seven characters.
Huh, they look like... Virginia license plate numbers.
Huh, that one's... MY license plate.
Huh, I'm working after hours tonight and will be closing the library entirely by myself.
I get Pitbull, Skipper, and the head of reference (who is in charge when admin has left for the day) down to my desk so fast, it would make your head swim. Skipper calls the cops, and has the presence of mind to specifically request that we NOT get Officer [Antonio's bro] to respond. Skipper immediately drafted the ban letter, emails were sent to all staff, and I had a friendly cop waiting in a marked car to make sure I got my car okay when I closed up shop that night. I also got special parking privileges for the rest of my days there; employees were supposed to park in the garage across the street, where Shrimp Guy lived, but I got to park as close to the building as I liked.
We had occasional Antonio sightings around town after that, and folks were always quick to tell me about them, but fortunately that was the end of him coming in the library.
JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Oct 23, 2018
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 17:18
I've been a librarian for five years in both academic and public libraries.
Oddly, I have more weird stories from the university libraries than the public libraries. At the public libraries it was mostly just mentally ill people, homeless people, drug addicts, conspiracy theorists, and old men sexually harassing and occasionally assaulting female staff. Often various mixes of the above.
One of the times I caught someone watching porn in the library, it was a twelve year old kid in the children's section, and it was the most prosaic, poorly drawn and animated, animated porn I'd ever heard of. I almost wanted to tell the kid that if he had to watch porn in the library, he could at least watch some decent quality stuff.
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 18:50
What's the most distressing book you've been asked to order in?
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 21:10
LizzieBorden posted:
What's the most distressing book you've been asked to order in?
If I can chime in as a librarian who's not the OP? Probably the book of erotic BDSM retellings of Disney princess stories by Anne Rice under a pen name.
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 21:11
I found discarded ham on the library floor three separate times last year. Then I found a smear of cream cheese underneath the European History shelf.
I do not understand.
|# ? Oct 23, 2018 22:43
Cythereal posted:
If I can chime in as a librarian who's not the OP? Probably the book of erotic BDSM retellings of Disney princess stories by Anne Rice under a pen name.
You, and other library vets, are welcome to chime in at any point!
Fleta's post about ham reminded me of another great subject: what's the craziest poo poo y'all ever found in the book drops (or anywhere else, for that matter)?
Mine's a toss up between literal poo poo --- someone dumped (pun totally intended) a bunch of soiled diapers at our branch out in the sticks --- and the time I reached in our main branch's drop box and nearly sliced my fingers off because someone had thrown a circular saw blade in with 23 overdue VHS tapes.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 00:52
JacquelineDempsey posted:
You, and other library vets, are welcome to chime in at any point!
Two years before I started at one of the public libraries I worked at, someone shoved a kitten in through the book drop. The cataloger adopted the cat and Dewey, as all library cats are named, was still doing fine when I started there.
Craziest I've personally seen was a blue plastic dildo in an outside book drop at the university I worked at. Around that time, someone was hiding dildos in various places around campus for some reason, staff's best guess was a frat or sorority thing though none of them ever owned up to it.
One of the funny things about working in an academic library is that porn is in fact allowed on library computers. There are students who have legitimate academic reasons to be watching it, and as long as you weren't spanking it we didn't have an issue with it. Oddly, it was women much more often than men we saw watching it. One night when I was working the graveyard shift while we were open 24/7 for finals, I even found a student who had fallen asleep in a group of chairs put together like a couch watching porn on her laptop.
Also, hands up any other library vets who have caught people having sex in the library.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 01:17
Dawwww, I wish I got kittens in my book drops! Instead I just got to clean books after stupid kids thought it was funny to throw in mulch from the flower beds surrounding our drop box. Fuckers.
Cythereal posted:
Two years before I started at one of the public libraries I worked at, someone shoved a kitten in through the book drop. The cataloger adopted the cat and Dewey, as all library cats are named, was still doing fine when I started there.
And I never caught any actual fuckers. One of our favorite gross stories during my a/v days, though, was when I was up in the sound booth, where I had a birds eye view of the whole theater. I'm sitting there, minding the sound board and bored out of my mind during some lecture, and then notice a genteel old southern lady picking her nose like it's her job. I mean, she's seriously rooting around in there.
A co-worker comes into the booth to ask me something, and I point her out: "Check out the lady with the blue hat in the sixth row, she's been picking her nose like crazy. Look, she's doing it again."
Just after I say this, we watch in horror as she examines her catch, and eats it. Surrounded by a packed theater, and as I said it was a lecture, so the lights weren't off, it wasn't like we were showing a film.
In the next five minutes, I think we had half the library staff up in my tiny sound booth, watching this woman and giggling like 10 year olds, waiting for her to strike more gold and gross us out some more. Good times.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 02:22
JacquelineDempsey posted:
Dawwww, I wish I got kittens in my book drops! Instead I just got to clean books after stupid kids thought it was funny to throw in mulch from the flower beds surrounding our drop box. Fuckers.
Fortunately my case was not dramatic. I was doing a sweep of the library at fifteen till closing (about 1:45 AM, I was mainly a night shift person) to tell everyone, and passed by one of our small group study rooms - which have extensive glass windows next to the door - and my mind looked just closely enough to realize what two African-American girls were doing on the table before I looked away, knocked on the glass, politely told them we were closing in fifteen minutes, and went on my way.
Then back at the desk I called custodial services to alert them to potential bodily fluids in that particular study room that would need to be cleaned up.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 02:34
Cythereal posted:
Fortunately my case was not dramatic. I was doing a sweep of the library at fifteen till closing (about 1:45 AM, I was mainly a night shift person) to tell everyone, and passed by one of our small group study rooms - which have extensive glass windows next to the door - and my mind looked just closely enough to realize what two African-American girls were doing on the table before I looked away, knocked on the glass, politely told them we were closing in fifteen minutes, and went on my way.
Fwiw, sounds like you did the right thing. That's about the same call I would've made. Though I could be biased because the first time I ever kissed a boy was when I was 8, in the underground parking garage of that library I got my first job at. Had my first cigarette there too, when I was 12.
Libraries: Temples of Knowledge, and Dens of Corruption.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 17:47
JacquelineDempsey posted:
Fwiw, sounds like you did the right thing. That's about the same call I would've made. Though I could be biased because the first time I ever kissed a boy was when I was 8, in the underground parking garage of that library I got my first job at. Had my first cigarette there too, when I was 12.
Yeah, I sent an email to my boss explaining what happened (not exactly covered in our policy manual) and she confirmed I did the right thing. It's none of my business, I just want the library to stay clean for everyone. And really, a study room with so much glass for anyone to look in and see is probably not the best place for that sort of thing.
For weird poo poo in an indoor book drop, one public library I worked at quite recently has one of those very fancy RFID conveyor belt book sorters. Enter a kid (middle school, maybe early high school) who was a recurring thorn in our side for riding a hoverboard indoors, turning on the volume of his music so loud it bled out of the headphones and could be heard throughout the library, and generally being a troublesome little shithead who gave us lots of attitude when we tried to enforce the rules with him. After we finally gave him a one week ban on entering the library, he came in and spilled some sort of gunk out of a Starbucks cup into the indoor book return onto the book sorter. I have no clue if it was just some sugary horror from Starbucks or something else, but it rapidly congealed and solidified into a solid adhesive goop.
Good news was, we caught the little poo poo doing it on camera. Bad news was the shitstorm when we called up his parents to permanently ban him from the library and bill them for the three hundred dollars it cost to repair the book sorter.
I think the county legal department was still working on that mess when I was laid off a couple of months later.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 18:11
Kid sounds like an absolute shithead either way (riding a hover board? Man, back in my day all we had to deal with were those stupid sneakers with the wheels that popped out), but just to clarify: did he deliberately or accidentally spill the Starbucks cup?
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 18:30
JacquelineDempsey posted:
Kid sounds like an absolute shithead either way (riding a hover board? Man, back in my day all we had to deal with were those stupid sneakers with the wheels that popped out), but just to clarify: did he deliberately or accidentally spill the Starbucks cup?
Bosses decided it was deliberate given his record of behavior. Management at that library was generally awful, but they did bring down the hammer on anyone damaging library property.
I'm not clear on all the details, though, as it happened on a day when I wasn't working.
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 18:34
Sometimes kids would put leaves in our collection box although we did find a dildo in the bushes one day.
The library I worked at was in a small Midwestern city and generally quiet and we only had about two regular weirdos who were really harmless. I always like hearing insane stories, though, I just get to be relieved I didn't live it.
The most interesting thing about my library was that it was attached to an awesome two hundred year old mansion and I could just go explore it when it was quiet (most of the time)
|# ? Oct 24, 2018 20:09
Fleta Mcgurn posted:
I found discarded ham on the library floor three separate times last year. Then I found a smear of cream cheese underneath the European History shelf.
someone's trynna make a library sandwich.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 01:57
I've had a really lovely day, so how's about a fun story?
The Day I Got to Feel Up Boris Karloff's Daughter
One month, we were doing a cross-promotional series of events with the local university, based mostly on Frankenstein. We had some really cool lectures on 19th century science, including demonstrations of legit early electric devices, we were showing Frankenstein films in the theater every day, book club discussions about the novel, etc.
The highlight was that we were having Sara Karloff, Boris's daughter, coming to not only speak at our theater, but bringing home movies, unavailable and previously unseen by the public, of her father. COLOR home movies, and unreleased color test footage where you can see that the monster is green, even though the release is black and white. As a fan of old monster movies, and mad science in general, you best believe I volunteered to work that shift.
So my job is to make sure her laptop is happily married to our 6000 lumen LCD projector, and the remote is working, and then I have to put a lavalier (lapel) mic on her.
Sara Karloff is a striking woman. I mean, "striking" is the best single adjective I can come up with because she's tall, imposingly built, and looks like Boris, but... sexy? And a snappy dresser. I've got an instant crush.
"Ms. Karloff? Hi, I'm JD, I'm your a/v person tonight," I squeak, wringing my hands and sweating. "I need to give you this mic, and get a sound check?"
She smiles graciously, then shakes (read: crushes) my hand. I fumble with hitching the lapel mic to the transmitter, and when I look up, she's pulled her blouse away from her waist. I stand there like a deer in headlights for a second, then realize she's waiting for me to be the one to thread the mic cable under her shirt. Usually, people like to do this themselves, so this throws me even more than the fact that I'm a little starstruck. I quickly, and as professionally as possible, snake the cable up her shirt past her magnificent rack, and clip the mic to her lapel and the transmitter to her hip.
A consummate professional, she thanks me, and tells me she's ready whenever I am. And goes on to give a really stellar talk about her father, movie studio life, and I got to see some incredibly rare footage.
It was events like that which kept me working there for 12 years despite all the annoying patrons and creeps and weirdos.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 02:47
Man, I'm jealous now. I've been in libraries for years and dedicated library A/V person would be my dream job. Doesn't seem to be a position libraries in my country do, though.
Not caught, but during a meeting at my last job one of our assistants cheerily informed us all we had a dedicated sex study room. I went around afterwards and found one without windows. Probably that one, then.
Cythereal posted:
Also, hands up any other library vets who have caught people having sex in the library.
Once I happened to look into a study room and saw the occupant lying prone on the floor. Took me a second to properly register that and go "hang on, I should probably actually check on them." Then I saw they had their shoes neatly put in a corner, cleared themselves some space, and were just taking a nap. Most people just put their head down on the desk but whatever, they booked the room, it's theirs for the day.
I don't think I have any great stories about our patrons. Coworkers and management though, and the building itself, hoo boyo.
Just this week I had a job interview where they gave me a scenario: a student needs to use a PC terminal to finish their essay, all the terminals are occupied, but I spot someone playing a video game on one, what do I do? I paused for a second and said, well, there's a chance they're doing that for academic research so first of all I'd go and figure that out, and one of the interviewers kept giggling at that for the rest of my reply.
Cythereal posted:
One of the funny things about working in an academic library is that porn is in fact allowed on library computers.
And they offered me the job
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 08:57
My Lovely Horse posted:
Just this week I had a job interview where they gave me a scenario: a student needs to use a PC terminal to finish their essay, all the terminals are occupied, but I spot someone playing a video game on one, what do I do? I paused for a second and said, well, there's a chance they're doing that for academic research so first of all I'd go and figure that out, and one of the interviewers kept giggling at that for the rest of my reply.
My experience with academic vs public libraries about that kind of thing is that academic libraries have fewer rules, but they enforce them far more consistently and strictly. One public library I worked at, management was completely spineless and didn't want to make an official paperwork record of a patron threatening to come in and shoot us. The academic library I'm working at right now, my boss told me on my first day that we are allowed to tell anyone to leave the library if we think it's necessary oh and the police are on speed dial on all the library phones.
I'm only part time for now, but a full time position opened up recently that I applied for. I really don't want to go back to public libraries.
One little story from my previous work at a different academic library: "Um, excuse me. Are you the person in charge? The second floor men's bathroom is covered in blood."
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 14:49
I sub in my school's library sometimes. We have a team of parent volunteers who are all kind and generous, but not always the most helpful.
A new parent came in to help today. She spent most of the time texting and, when asked to shelve, walked around in a circle, sighed, then asked, "Where do the books go?"
I explained the layout- elementary on the right, reference in the middle, adult literature on the left.
"Oh. But where do they go?"
"On the shelves?"
I made her Aironfix instead.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 15:23
Once I had to tell a lady that she'd already racked up �80 in late fees for some books she wanted to renew. I braced myself for a big ugly discussion, but all she said was "oh really? Shoot, but I guess it happens", all very calmly. After she'd paid and left I looked in her account to see what she'd been so hooked on.
Ten books on conflict management.
e: speaking of which. We had a policy that anyone who triggered the theft alarm got written up, accident or not. Most people were understanding, once a guy kept complaining about how ridiculous it was as I was writing and topped it off with "you must feel so great doing this." Yeah mate, fantastic, it's the only reason I come in on Saturdays, I've been sat here the past six hours just waiting for you.
My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Oct 25, 2018
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 15:34
My Lovely Horse posted:
Once I had to tell a lady that she'd already racked up �80 in late fees for some books she wanted to renew. I braced myself for a big ugly discussion, but all she said was "oh really? Shoot, but I guess it happens", all very calmly. After she'd paid and left I looked in her account to see what she'd been so hooked on.
Well, poo poo. Looks like she read them at least.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 15:43
The worst fees I've seen are actually in my current job. That was a fun phone call.
Hi, I can't register for modules because the system says I owe the library late fees and need to contact you guys. How much do I owe?
Alright, what's your student ID number... you owe $800 in lost and overdue books.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 15:48
Just the other day I read about a lawsuit where a professor sued her university library for charging her �2250 in late fees. 50 books, more than a month late, presumably none on conflict management.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 15:54
Aside from the bathrooms and computers, did any section attract more weirdos than others? More weirdos in history than in periodicals, that sort of thing?
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 16:26
It's that time of year. Tell me about your haunted libraries
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 16:35
Fleta Mcgurn posted:
I made her Aironfix instead.
What's Aironfix in this context? Google is giving me a bunch of results in Spanish about contact paper.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 17:22
ZamBOOni_Rodeo posted:
What's Aironfix in this context? Google is giving me a bunch of results in Spanish about contact paper.
Yeah, it's like, uhhh, plastic sealing sheet...stuff? We put it on the paperbacks to protect them.
I wasn't sure if it was a standard term or not, like Kleenex or Jello.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 17:40
Cythereal posted:
One public library I worked at, management was completely spineless and didn't want to make an official paperwork record of a patron threatening to come in and shoot us. The academic library I'm working at right now, my boss told me on my first day that we are allowed to tell anyone to leave the library if we think it's necessary oh and the police are on speed dial on all the library phones.
Our admin staff was pretty quick with the ban hammer, but nights and weekends, when they weren't there, the senior-most reference librarian would be in charge. Most of them had less spine than a well-worn picture book.
The most wishywashy one was the department head, so that put him in charge more than most. One day a patron complained to someone at the circ desk that there was a man at the computers with a hand down his pants. When the circ employee told Wishywashy, and asked if they should ask him to leave or call the cops, he responded,
"Well, now, we don't know for sure what's going on. Perhaps he has a hand deformity and is embarrassed by it."
That became a running joke for years.
When they put Skipper in charge of security, we started banning people left and right, it was great.
|# ? Oct 25, 2018 21:18
I'm not a librarian, but my office is in an academic library so I get all the fun stories. We get jackers and porn occasionally but the layout is definitely not conducive to that.
The best story was the naked guy though. Just ... hanging out completely nude in one of the side rooms. Not jacking it, just sitting there. The person who happened upon them was quite perplexed. Many theories were concocted to try to explain the nudity, but we never got a good explanation even after the nudist's discipline hearing. A drat fine day to be nude, I guess?
|# ? Oct 26, 2018 02:19
|# ? Sep 30, 2023 01:50
Bluedeanie posted:
It's that time of year. Tell me about your haunted libraries
One branch I worked at briefly (I was mainly at another branch of the county) had a phantom shitter while I was there, does that count? Starting about a month before I was seconded over there for a bit, the staff started finding turds scattered throughout the library. Always just one or two, and never in the same place twice.
The phantom shitter defied the library's efforts to find them until a couple of weeks after I returned to my normal branch. Turned out there was a woman who didn't believe babies should wear diapers, so turds were just occasionally falling out of his shorts as he and his mom went through the library.
|# ? Oct 26, 2018 02:53


text:
Deadly Spider Sews Industrial-Strength Silk Strands
Venomous brown recluse spiders produce incredibly strong web silk that could be copied for multiple uses, including snagging space junk.
Most of us try to avoid brown recluse spiders, given their potent venom, but a team of scientists recently dared to study the arachnids up close and were amazed by what they saw: spiders in deep concentration crafting an industrial strength material for their webs with a sewing-like motion.
If the spider's unique silk and technique are applied to synthetic materials, the researchers believe that the results could benefit space travel, lead to better parachutes, allow for more impressive Hollywood movie stunts and more. The findings are published in the journal Materials Horizons.
The spider uses its silk-producing organs, called spinnerets, to sew the strands. The large spinnerets form a loop of silk thread before the smaller spinnerets close the loop with a speedy clamp-and-release action.
"The motion is similar to how one might roll up an extension cord: by drawing out a length of cord, clamping it into a loop and bundling the looped portion with the prior loops," said Hannes Schniepp, an associate professor in the department of applied science at William & Mary College and the study's lead author.
The resulting material, as seen by Schniepp and his colleagues under high magnification, consists of multiple micro-loops that boost silk's strength. Sean Koebley, a graduate student who co-authored the study, said that even a single loop "significantly enhances the toughness" of the material.
The brown recluse's silk is the only known spider silk to be thin and flat instead of round. Schniepp likened the sticky silk to a piece of Scotch tape, but 2000 times thinner.
Video: Brown recluse spider crafting its web. Credit: Schniepp Lab RELATED: Device Spins Super-Strong Spider Silk That Could One Day Repair Nerves
"Its thinness makes it very floppy, very sticky and a lot of other really unique things in the materials world," he added. "It is the thinness that makes the self-adhesive loops possible in the first place."
The spider's distinctive silk and web-crafting technique evolved to catch prey. The brown recluse is a ground-dwelling spider, which make the requirements for its web very different from those of a spider that catches flying insects.
The reclusive spider's web, with its tiny threaded loops, functions as a death trap. Its stickiness is like fly paper, but the loops make the web more flexible and prevent it from collapsing onto itself.
"Have you ever tried to wrap a Christmas present with an extremely long piece of Scotch tape?" Schniepp asked. "When I do that, I end up in a huge mess that can never be sorted out again; the tape ends up being all crumpled up and in wrinkles. Through the loops, the recluse spider is able to avoid all of these problems."
Other research teams in the past have attempted to strengthen synthetic filaments with tiny loops built into the material, but they failed because the fibers would easily break. Observation of the recluse spider offers a breakthrough solution, which is to use thin and flat nano-scale ribbon-shaped fibers to create the many loops.
The scientists have not yet created a man-made version of the material, but efforts are underway. They have developed mathematical models to describe the web's structure and properties in detail and have already submitted a patent application to produce a spider-inspired synthetic product.
They imagine the material could be used in space travel.
"By weight, spider silk is already five times stronger than steel," Schniepp explained. "Adding the loops makes it even better. In space, there are micro-meteorites or space junk that can do enormous damage. We envision protective webs around space structures and vehicles to protect from this kind of incident."
RELATED: Jumping Spiders Hear You from Across the Room
Another application, he said, could be in the production of lightweight bungee cords that could absorb enormous amounts of energy, "say, if James Bond needs to jump down from a very high building or bridge."
Yet another use could be in manufacturing more effective cords to hold up parachutes, since they need to absorb a lot of energy when the parachute opens.
These are some of the more remarkable possibilities, but many more exist. The loopy material could potentially improve upon any existing man-made fabric or cord where strength, weight, flexibility and lightness are needed.
"It's great to get this kind of inspiration from nature to develop the next generation of high-performance material," Schniepp said. "Spiders do this in such an incredibly benign way; all they need is to eat a cricket every now and then, and they can produce this amazing material."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
What you should know about hip labral tears in young athletes
Labral tears are a common injury of the hip, particularly with young athletes who may have underlying hip anatomy issues, such as hip dysplasia or impingement. Treatments for labral tears range from rest and physical therapy to open surgery. Recovery (and time away from sports) can take days, weeks, or even months.
It's important that anyone with hip pain see a physician as soon as possible in order to limit pain and damage to the hip. Dr. Young-Jo Kim, a pediatric and young adult orthopedic hip specialist and director of the Child and Young Adult Hip Preservation Program at Boston Children's Hospital, discusses the causes of labral tears and his treatment philosophy.
When you see a patient who has labral tear, how does that appointment usually go?
If I see a new patient, I usually start out with their history and a physical. I'll ask them, "How did this injury happen? Where is the pain located? What makes it hurt more?" If it's an athletic injury, the pain could have started pretty suddenly, but more often, the onset of pain is gradual.
Hip impingement is friction in the hip joint caused by abnormal contact between the femur and acetabulum.
Certain sports and activities may predispose people to labral tears. It's more common among athletes who do a lot of rotating and twisting leg motions, such as golf, soccer, ice hockey, ballet, and football.
What kinds of athletes do you see most often for this injury?
I see labral tears most often in hockey players — particularly goalies — and dancers. These athletes seem to put unique stress on their hips, and labral tears are quite common, unfortunately.
What is the difference between a labral tear in a younger person versus an adult?
When people are older, they can get labral tears just from the wear and tear of aging. But if you are talking about someone in their teens or early 20s, the injury is often the result of activity. In many cases, it's also due to certain issues of anatomy, such as hip dysplasia or impingement. The majority of the patients I see have some sort of underlying issue with the shape of their hip joints.
Would you say that's the main driver behind labral tears or hip pain?
That's the current thinking — that there's some susceptibility to labral tears from problems in the underlying hip anatomy. Combined with the demands an athlete may put on their hip, this can damage the labrum.
When you see patients who have hip anatomy issues along with a labral tear, do you usually suggest surgery?
If they have hip dysplasia and a labral tear, which is a common combination, we talk about most likely needing to fix the dysplasia surgically. For a person with hip dysplasia, their hip socket is too shallow and the labrum is not well supported. If you just fix the labral tear, it can often re-tear. If we were to do surgical treatment, we would try to fix the underlying cause as well as the labral tear.
We do a lot of nonsurgical management, however, especially with patients who have small labral tears and minimal or no hip anatomy issues. We work closely with the sports medicine primary care physicians here at Boston Children's to help patients get the best access to therapy.
Some athletes not only have a labral tear as well as a lot of tendonitis around the hip. In that case, we would do therapy and injections to try to calm that down. What's nice about our Sports Medicine Division is that Drs. Pierre d'Hemecourt, Andrea Stracciolini, and Sarah Jackson know a lot about therapeutic hip treatments. They're also the ones who do ultrasound exams and injections. We have complementary skills.
If a patient has underlying anatomical hip problems, do you suggest surgery right away, or do you try nonsurgical options first?
There's a spectrum. If an athlete comes in with a labral tear and has mild hip dysplasia, we will try treating them without surgery first. If their symptoms improve, I will let them return to sports, but advise them that the labrum can re-tear. If they have symptoms of another labrum tear, they should come back for further treatment, and it will likely be surgical.
If a patient has severe dysplasia or impingement, I'll offer nonsurgical treatment, but it often does not work. That's a discussion between me and the patient.
In general, I think of each patient's condition and injury as unique. There isn't going to be one best answer for every patient. Our shared decision-making is based on each patient's situation and what's best for that person.
Learn more about Boston Children's Child & Young Adult Hip Preservation Program.
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text:
Alexander Academy
625 Brandt St. Spring TX
High quality child care. The mission of Alexander's Academy is to enrich the life of each child by providing high quality childcare in a healthy and fun learning environment. We believe that each child is a unique individual. We are sensitive to a child's social, emotional, intellectual and physical needs. We provide developmentally appropriate programs that focus on the process of learning and help children enjoy successful experiences.
We encourage not just learning, but the love of learning through play.
Business Type: Education
Main Products: Child Care, Summer Camp
Contact Info


text:
|Timer Job
|Bamboo Update Dashboard List
|This timer job runs every 30 minutes. It updates changes made to the items in the Portfolio Dashboard List. The portfolio site's Gantt View of Active Projects widget on the Schedules tab uses the Portfolio Dashboard List as its data source.
|Bamboo Update Summary Project List
|Running every 59 minutes, this timer job updates data from the project site's Task, Issues, and Risks lists to the portfolio site's Summary List. The charts on the portfolio site's Project Central or Overview tab are connected to this list to display the chart data. Check this timer job if the charts do not show data.
|Bamboo Update Task, Issues, Project Health List
|This timer job, which runs every 59 minutes, updates the Project Name from the Project Health List to the Project Name in the project site's Task, Issues, and Risks lists. It also updates the Start Date, End Date, and % Complete from the the project site's Task List to the Project Health List. Check this timer job if the information does not update.
|Bamboo Reporting Calculation Timer Job V4
This timer job runs once a day. It improves the performance of the resource allocation and capacity planning reports in the portfolio site's Reports tab. When a report is configured to use the timer job, data for that report will generate at the timer job interval instead of each time the report is viewed. When the timer job runs, it updates the items within the Report Info Cost Project Site and the Report Info Project Site lists on each project site based on data calculated from the project site's Tasks list. When the timer job is done, the reports within the project site pull the data from these two lists.
|Bamboo Reporting Top Site Calculation Timer Job
This timer job runs based on the report query saved in the Reporting Information list. When it runs, the timer job queries the Report Info Cost Project Site and Report Info Project Site lists based on the report query the user originally submitted in the Report Center. The timer job then attaches the query results to the original request within the portfolio site's Reporting Information list.
|Bamboo Gantt Chart Timer Job
This timer job runs every day to improve performance for resource assignments in the portfolio site's Resource Assignments page of the Resource Center. Before the timer job runs, you will not see the Gantt Chart Information Backup list or the Gantt Chart Information list. Either list can be used as a data source for the Resource Assignments tab in the portfolio site's Resource Center to show the resource assignment and the Gantt timeline.
When the timer job runs for the first time, it creates the Gantt Chart Information list; extracts data from all project sites' tasks lists; saves the items; and displays the data in the report.
When the timer job runs again, it extracts and copies the data from the Bamboo Gantt Chart Information list to the Bamboo Gantt Chart Information Backup list; adds new items to the list; and then deletes the Bamboo Gantt Chart Information list.
The next time the timer job runs, the data from the Bamboo Gantt Chart Information Backup list is copied into the Bamboo Chart Information list; new items are added to the Bamboo Chart Information list; and the Bamboo Gantt Chart Information Backup list is deleted. (While the timer job runs, you will see two lists because the report is still required to show old data.) This process is repeated every time the Bamboo Gantt Chart Timer Job runs, where only one list is used at any one time to display data in the Resource Assignments report.


text:
Two French films have been honored at the recent Venice Film Festival:
- "Le grand voyage" by Ismaël Ferroukhi - Venezia Opera Prima - Leone del futuro - "Luigi De Laurentiis" Award (Best First Feature Film)
- "Les Petits Fils" by Ilan Duran Cohen - Venezia Orizzonti Award (Best Film in the Orizzonti Section)
French films were particularly well-represented at Venice this year, notably in the Official Competition, with three films presented: "5x2" by François Ozon, "Rois et reine" by Arnaud Desplechin and "L'Intrus" by Claire Denis.
French artists in attendance: François Ozon, Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi, Stéphane Freiss, Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Claire Denis, Michel Suborand, Béatrice Dalle and Lolita Chammah.
First and second features were also in the limelight in the festival's other competitive sections:
- "Les Revenants" by Robin Campillo
- "La Femme de Gilles" by Frédéric Fonteyne
- "Les Liens" by Aymeric Mesa-Juan
- "L'oeil de l'autre" by John Lvoff
In the presence of: Robin Campillo, Jonathan Zaccaï, Géraldine Pailhas, Clovis Cornillac, Frédéric Fonteyne, Aymeric Mesa-Juan, Julie Depardieu and John Lvoff.
Claude Chabrol was in Venice to present his film "La Demoiselle d'honneur" (in the Official Selection), accompanied by Laura Smet.
Maria Manthoulis
In connection with this news
Venice International Film Festival - 2001
Feature film and short film festival


text:
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The "I Am..." book series, is published by UK based publisher - Regency Book Publishers
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Kenya Gazette
The Kenya Gazette is an official publication of the government of the Republic of Kenya. It contains notices of new legislation, notices required to be published by law or policy as well as other announcements that are published for general public information. It is published every week, usually on Friday, with occasional releases of special or supplementary editions within the week.
1st day 3rd January a.m. Place.—Law Courts Acting Colonial Secretary's Acting Governor BANKRUPTCY ORDINANCE boundary of L.O. British Empire Colonial Secretary's Deputy Colony and Protectorate Conservator of Forests Court of Kenya Creditors and Public Dahyabhai Date of Public day of December day of January Debtors declare the area Eldoret Excellency Sir Jacob Excellency the Acting Excellent Order Government Notice Governor and Commander-in-Chief H.M. SUPREME COURT Hannington hereby give Jacob William Barth Karura Kigoma Kisii Kisumu Kitale Laws of Kenya Meeting of Creditors Mohanlal Mombasa Nakuru native Njoro Number OFFICIAL GAZETTE January Official Receiver Old Secretariat Buildings Ordinance Chapter 36 p.m. Place.—Official Receiver's Patel Place.—Official Receiver's Office power of attorney powers conferred PROBATE AND ADMINISTRATION Proclamation Protectorate of Kenya Public Examination Public Examination.—8th February Public Seal Rajkot Registrar Registration Revised Edition Schedule hereto Shillings Sir Jacob William Soroti Sotik thence Trade Mark UGANDA Ujiji undersigned W. M. KEATINGE Zanzibar


text:
Outskirts Press author, Faye Hunter, recognized that children needed an alternative to the dark wizardry of the Harry Potter series and wrote an ageless Christian tale for young children to help teach them the power of faith.
Seen through the eyes of seven year old David Cornerstone, the story offers a little "soul food" in order to restore and increase one's Christian faith. After being faced with the frightening news of his father's illness, young David discovers that sorcery and wizardry are not needed. All that is needed is faith in Jesus. Miracles then occur.
"There's no wizardry or darkness about the truth. Just light," says first time author Faye Hunter, who has taken as a title for her full color, illustrated children's book a play on the quote from Psalms 118:22: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."
As a survivor of childhood abuse, the author became passionate in 1995 about establishing a home for abused children. "God gave me the vision of funding this home, The Olive Branch, through this little book," the author said.
Faye Hunter is from south Georgia and the sixth child in a family of eight. She has worked with the federal government since 1986. From 1986 to 1991, she served in the U.S. Navy as a Hospital Corpsman during Operation Desert Storm. For her service on the Home front, in Desert Storm, she received the Navy Achievement Medal. As a survivor of childhood abuse, Faye has been passionate about establishing a Home for abused children since 1995. God gave her the vision of funding this Home, The Olive Branch through this little book. Please know this, that your purchase of this book makes you a part of this vision and God's Home for His children.
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Jon Langston Throws a Party On the Lake For 'Now You Know' Music Video
Jon Langston just dropped the music video for his latest single, "Now You Know," and it's one big party. Directed…
Jon Langston; Photo by Andrew Wendowski
Jon Langston just dropped the music video for his latest single, "Now You Know," and it's one big party.
Directed by Chris Hickey, the video finds Langston living his best life with a large group of friends on a giant party barge in the middle of a Kentucky lake. Drinks flow as the Georgia native and his friends soak up the sunshine while cruising around the lake. The group caps off their fun-filled summer day with a performance from Langston, who takes the stage as the sun begins to set.
Check out the brand new music video above.
"Now You Know" was co-written by Langston alongside Brad Clawson and Brock Berryhill. The singer had a good feeling about the tune from the moment they wrote it.
"The day we wrote ['Now You Know'], I was like, 'Okay, this is radio, this is a jam, this is a show-opener. This is the whole package," Langston previously told Country Now of the song. "I sent [the demo] to everybody. I was just fired up about the song."
The track will be featured on Langston's long-awaited Now You Know EP, which is slated to release October 25. The singer/songwriter co-wrote all six tracks included on the project.
Langston will soon wrap his time on Luke Bryan's Sunset Repeat Tour and will continue to headline his own Bird Dog Tour through the end of November.
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Author: David Bridger
Language: English
Published: 27th July, 2019
Publisher: Beaten Track
Edition: 2
ISBN: Paperback ISBN: 9781786453570
eBook ISBN: 9781786453587
Length: 23,600 words (approx.)
Category: Fiction
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance and Relationships, LGBTQ+, Adventure
Purchase Links:
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About the Book:A science fiction alternative history with alien invaders, spies, and assassins.
*spoiler* Trump is still a baddie!
Aliens invaded Earth and occupied the UK and the USA. They assumed the roles of the human upper classes, many existing members of which welcomed and collaborated with them in order to maintain personal wealth and power. Resistance movements were formed, but their effectiveness was limited by the constant and deadly threat of an orbiting alien spaceship.
Thirty-five years later, when two spaceship slaves escape down to Snowdonia in possession of humanity-saving information, New Scotland Yard detectives Carmen Wood and Thomas Able are sent to find them in a race against time and overwhelmingly well-resourced alien agents. The next five days will change the world forever.
About the Author:
David Bridger settled in England's West Country after twenty years of ocean-based mischief, during which he worked as a lifeguard, a sailor, an intelligence gatherer and an investigator. Then he got hurt, came home a bit physically broken, and for good measure caught a severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) virus in a military hospital. Now he writes science fiction and fantasy novels. Sometimes they're informed by his experiences out on the crinkly blue. He writes what he loves for... Read More
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- You will find the purchase links in the full listing for each publication.


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#1 Labor Only Company in the State
The families and businesses who acquire our services to handle their relocations all have different budgets and unique needs. Our wide range of moving labor services are designed to reflect that. We offer customizable moving labor packages to fit any type of move regardless of size, distance, or budget.


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WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday, President Donald Trump signed into law the Congress-approved resolution of disapproval of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's guidance on dealer participation — ending the regulator's attack on a key source of dealer income exactly five years and two months since the regulator issued its controversial rule.
The enactment of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution not only rescinds the bureau's fair lending guidance, it prohibits the bureau from ever reissuing a substantially similar rule unless Congress authorizes it do so by law. The president's signature also marks the first time the CRA has been used on a rule that has been in effect for several years.
"This is a great day for consumers, as Congress and the President have helped to preserve their ability to receive auto loan discounts from local dealerships," wrote Peter Welch, president of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), in a blog posted on the association's website. "NADA congratulates the U.S. House and Senate for their focus and perseverance on this issue, and the president for signing the new law to protect consumers."
The signing comes about two weeks after the U.S. House approved the resolution by a 234-175 vote and more than a month after the U.S. Senate approved its version of the resolution. Its enactment also comes more than five months after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Congress has the power under the CRA to repeal the bureau's dealer participation guidance.
Under the CRA, both houses must approve resolutions of disapproval by a simple majority and receive the president's signature to kill a regulation.
"I thank the president and Congress for reaffirming that the bureau lacks the power to act outside of federal statutes," CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney said in a statement issued after Trump signed the resolution. "As an executive agency, we are bound to enforce the law as written, not as we may wish it to be. In this case, the initiative that the previous leadership at the bureau pursued seemed like a solution in search of a problem. Those actions were misguided, and the Congress has corrected them."
The statement goes on to note that given a recent Supreme Court decision distinguishing between antidiscrimination statutes that refer to the consequences of actions and those that refer only to the intent of the actor, "and in light of the fact that the bureau is required by statute to enforce federal consumer financial laws consistently, the bureau will be reexamining the requirements of the [Equal Credit Opportunity Act]."
"Today's action also clarifies that a number of bureau guidance documents may be considered rules for purposes of the CRA, and therefore the bureau must submit them for review by Congress," the statement notes. "The bureau welcomes such review, and will confer with Congressional staff and federal agency partners to identify appropriate documents for submission."
The CFPB alleged in its five-page fair lending guidance that bank policies which allow auto dealers to mark up interest rates on retail installment sale transactions as compensation for services rendered create a significant risk of unintentional, disparate impact discrimination. It also warned lenders active in the indirect auto finance channel that they would be held liable for unlawful, discriminatory markups.
The bulletin goes on to state that lenders operating in the indirect auto finance channel "should take steps to ensure that they are operating in compliance with the [Equal Credit Opportunity Act] and Regulation B as applied to dealer markup and compensation policies." It then listed a variety of steps and tools they could employ to address the bureau's stated fair lending risks, including "eliminating dealer discretion to markup buy rates and fairly compensate dealers using another mechanism, such as a flat fee per transaction, that does not result in discrimination."
Auto industry trade groups have argued that the bureau used its guidance to indirectly regulate the activities of dealers, which are mostly exempt from the bureau's oversight under the Dodd-Frank Act. They also claimed the bureau was aware its methodology for determining disparate impact and potential harm to protected classes was flawed and prone to overestimation, yet pushed forward with claims of discrimination that resulted in enforcement actions that imposed millions of dollars in fines on auto finance sources, including Ally Financial.
The guidance also caused several finance sources, including BB&T and BMO Harris, to switch to a flat-fee compensation model. BB&T switched back to a dealer spread compensation plan earlier this year, while BMO switched to a three-tiered flat-rate model last summer.
The guidance was also behind consent orders the CFPB entered into with Fifth Third Bank, Toyota Motor Credit Corp., and American Honda Finance Corp regarding their dealer markup policies. As a result of those orders, the bank and two captives agreed to lower their markup caps to 1.25% and 1%.
In a May 1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Toyota Motor Credit Corp — better known to auto dealers and car buyers as Toyota Financial Services or "TFS" — announced it would raise its markup caps after earning early termination of its three-year-old consent order the captive entered into with the CFPB and the U.S Department of Justice. The captive plans to raise that limit to 2% for finance terms of up to 72 months and 1.5% for terms of up to 84 months, according to Auto Finance news.
Fifth Third's consent order is set to expire this September, while Honda Finance's consent order is set to expire in July 2020. The two finance sources have yet to say whether they'll raise their markup caps when they do.
"There's no question that this is a rule masquerading as guidance. The CFPB never submitted the guidance to the GAO. They could have done so. Had they done so, the 60-day clock would have run, we wouldn't be here," David Regan, the NADA's executive vice president of legislative affairs, said during a press briefing a week before the House vote on May 8. "They chose not to submit that to Congress because they did not want the additional exposure to public notice and comment. Within just a few weeks of the guidance being issued in March of 2013, the congressional inquiries started pouring in asking very specific questions about the methodology that we now know was flawed. And yet, the agency repeatedly refused to respond to these questions."
Congress had attempted to kill the bureau's guidance through the legislative route. In November 2015, the House of Representatives approved the Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Finance Guidance Act by a 332-96 vote. The bill, however, was not acted upon by the Senate before the end of the 114th Congress.
Last March, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) asked the GAO whether the CFPB's guidance on dealer participation falls under the CRA. The agency delivered its answer this past December, 16 days after former CFPB Director Richard Cordray informed bureau officials via email that he was stepping down. Cordray officially resigned on Nov. 24, 2017. The White House named Mulvaney acting director the same day.
When it initially issued its guidance, the bureau argued that because it had no legal effect on regulated entities, the CRA does not apply. The GAO, however, stated in its response to Toomey's request that the bulletin "fits squarely within the Supreme Court's definition of a statement of policy," because it provides information on the manner in which the bureau planned to exercise its discretionary enforcement power.
And according to the GAO, the CRA "establishes special expedited procedures under which Congress may pass a joint resolution of disapproval that, if enacted into law, overturns the rule." In a statement posted on its website just after the GAO delivered its answer, Sen. Toomey said he intended "to do everything in my power" to repeal the bureau's guidance under the CRA.
"We welcome the action of Congress and the President," said Chris Stinebert, president and CEO of the American Financial Services Association, which played a key role in the industry's defense of dealer participation when it delivered a study critical of the bureau's approach in November 2014. "We are working with our members to assess the impact of the vehicle financing industry as it continues to fully comply with all state laws and regulations on vehicle financing."
Join F&I and Showroom's Gregory Arroyo and Hudson Cook LLP's Eric Johnson on Wednesday, June 6 (11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET), for Part One of the magazine's compliance webinar series, "Who Will Take Up the CFPB's Torch." To register, click here.


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ABT-450/r-ombitasvir and dasabuvir with or without ribavirin for HCV.
Ferenci, Peter, Bernstein, David, Lalezari, Jacob, Cohen, Daniel, Luo, Yan, Cooper, Curtis, Tam, Edward, Marinho, Rui T, Tsai, Naoky, Nyberg, Anders, Box, Terry D, Younes, Ziad, Enayati, Pedram, Green, Sinikka, Baruch, Yaacov, Bhandari, Bal Raj, Caruntu, Florin Alexandru, Sepe, Thomas, Chulanov, Vladimir, Janczewska, Ewa, Rizzardini, Giuliano, Gervain, Judit, Planas, Ramon, Moreno, Christophe, Hassanein, Tarek, Xie, Wangang, King, Martin, Podsadecki, Thomas and Reddy, K Rajender (2014) ABT-450/r-ombitasvir and dasabuvir with or without ribavirin for HCV. The New England journal of medicine, 370 (21). pp. 1983-92. ISSN 1533-4406Full text not available from this repository.
BACKGROUND The interferon-free regimen of ABT-450 with ritonavir (ABT-450/r), ombitasvir, and dasabuvir with or without ribavirin has shown efficacy in inducing a sustained virologic response in a phase 2 study involving patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 infection. We conducted two phase 3 trials to examine the efficacy and safety of this regimen in previously untreated patients with HCV genotype 1 infection and no cirrhosis. METHODS We randomly assigned 419 patients with HCV genotype 1b infection (PEARL-III study) and 305 patients with genotype 1a infection (PEARL-IV study) to 12 weeks of ABT-450/r-ombitasvir (at a once-daily dose of 150 mg of ABT-450, 100 mg of ritonavir, and 25 mg of ombitasvir), dasabuvir (250 mg twice daily), and ribavirin administered according to body weight or to matching placebo for ribavirin. The primary efficacy end point was a sustained virologic response (an HCV RNA level of <25 IU per milliliter) 12 weeks after the end of treatment. RESULTS The study regimen resulted in high rates of sustained virologic response among patients with HCV genotype 1b infection (99.5% with ribavirin and 99.0% without ribavirin) and among those with genotype 1a infection (97.0% and 90.2%, respectively). Of patients with genotype 1b infection, 1 had virologic failure, and 2 did not have data available at post-treatment week 12. Among patients with genotype 1a infection, the rate of virologic failure was higher in the ribavirin-free group than in the ribavirin group (7.8% vs. 2.0%). In both studies, decreases in the hemoglobin level were significantly more common in patients receiving ribavirin. Two patients (0.3%) discontinued the study drugs owing to adverse events. The most common adverse events were fatigue, headache, and nausea. CONCLUSIONS Twelve weeks of treatment with ABT-450/r-ombitasvir and dasabuvir without ribavirin was associated with high rates of sustained virologic response among previously untreated patients with HCV genotype 1 infection. Rates of virologic failure were higher without ribavirin than with ribavirin among patients with genotype 1a infection but not among those with genotype 1b infection. (Funded by AbbVie; PEARL-III and PEARL-IV ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT01767116 and NCT01833533.).
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Ross Bonander The Hockey Writers
2015 Draft Eligible Players At Least Six Foot Seven
You saw the title and wondered, 'Could that really amount to a list long enough to be article-length?' and the answer is yes. If I had included players listed at 6'6″, it would be twice as long.
Of the 471 players ranked by NHL Central Scouting this past season, seven are at least 6'7″.
It will surprise no one to learn that six of them are defensemen and one of them is a goalie. None are ranked especially high, but this isn't to suggest they aren't good hockey players, or that they're only ranked because they're so tall. This isn't the NBA of the Manute Bol era; hockey is too difficult a sport to simply go scouting in foreign countries for young men with overactive pituitary glands.
That said, I doubt you can find too many hockey fans blind to the trend towards bigger players.
Unfortunately, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lacks accurate data regarding the percentage of US men who are 6'7″ and there are no reliable international stats in this regard. The best HHS can do is inform us that approximately 3.1 percent of US males are taller than 6'2″.
If the US-based percentage of 3.1 held true among this international class of ranked players, I would expect to find about 14 players taller than 6'2″.
I found 77. Sixteen percent.
So without further ado, here they are, your 2015 6'7″ prospects:
Chris Martenet
Central Scouting, North American Skaters: 81
Martenet is a defenseman for the London Knights of the OHL, and by all accounts represents the best prospect of the basketball bunch. His two seasons at Shattuck St. Mary's do not fail to impress.
Brendan Ross, writing for McKeen's, says of Martenet, "His lanky long stride allows him to cover ice quickly and with his wide-wingspan Martenet has shown to be very difficult to beat on the outside. For a big man, Martenet owns good mobility and he hasn't been shy to carry the puck up ice either …"
Stepan Falkovsky
Central Scouting, European Skaters: 44
Falkovsky is Belarus-born, and he has spent the past two seasons playing in the MHL, which is to the KHL what the AHL is to the NHL. While he struggled a bit in his rookie MHL season, this past season he has faired much better, scoring 4-7-11 points in 22 games, compared to just 2 points in 33 games his rookie year.
Nikita Pavlychev
Central Scouting, North American Skaters: 153
Pavlychev is a bit of an anomaly. Born in Russia, this past season he played for the Des Moines Buccaneers of the USHL, and he has committed to playing for Penn State in the fall.
Watch the big man take a penalty shot for Des Moines:
Colin Fontana
Central Scouting, European Skaters: 88
This Swiss blueliner weighs the least of the bunch, coming in at just 190 lbs.
Jack Van Boekel
Central Scouting, North American Skaters: 180
This 6'7″ 208 lbs defenseman plays for a much-improved Saint John Sea Dogs team in the QMJHL.
(feature image credit of Jack Van Boekel: David Connell/Saint John Sea Dogs)
Jack Flinn
Central Scouting, North American Goalies: 26
Flinn is a goaltender for Owen Sound Attack of the OHL. His page there says he's actually 6'8″.
Jarrett Meyer
Central Scouting, North American Skaters: 201
Meyer, who also plays for Owen Sound, also comes in at 6'8″ (although he's 26 lbs heavier, at 246 lbs.).
Not that we needed any perspective, but it's quite something to imagine a player who was almost 6'7″ (6'6″) who was not only not a defenseman, but also a player who was not ranked by Central Scouting anywhere past the number one slot from the get-go in 1983-84: Mario Lemieux.
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Americano Ground Coffee (8.8 oz)
Roast: Medium
Description: Ideal for the perfect American coffee, with a light bodied and delicate aroma. For best results it is advisable to use a paper filter. This grinding is specially designed for preparation with filter or hand infusion. The beans of this blend are carefully selected and roasted separately to create this full-bodied, aromatic and balanced filter coffee.
Suitable for drip coffee machines.
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Ohio steel family sells South Beach condo for 48% off ask
The 12th floor condo also sold for 14% below its previous sale price
UPDATED, June 2, 9:55 a.m.: An Ohio family of steel magnates who tried to flip their South Beach condo for a big profit ended up selling it at a loss.
Property records show Majestic Steel Properties Inc., led by Todd Leebow, sold unit 1200 at Glass, at 120 Ocean Drive, to Samuel Susi of Boca Raton for $6.75 million.
Majestic Steel Properties paid $7.9 million for the three-bedroom, 3,389-square-foot unit in 2015 when the building was completed. The company then tried to sell it in 2017 for $12.9 million.
It sold for 48 percent off the 2017 asking price and for 14 percent less than Leebow's purchase price. It most recently was listed for $9 million with Miltiadis Kastanis of Douglas Elliman. Ethan Pickett of Elliman represented the buyer. Both agents declined to comment.
Price cuts are becoming more common during the pandemic as some sellers try to cut short their losses.
The buyer, Susi, financed his purchase with a $5.4 million loan from Quicken Loans.
The unit features wraparound terraces, Gaggenau kitchen appliances, white oak flooring and custom Ornare closets.
David Martin's Terra developed the 10-unit, 18-story boutique project and Rene Gonzalez designed it.
Majestic Steel Properties also owns unit 1100, which it acquired in 2015 for $7.3 million.
Cleveland, Ohio-based Majestic Steel USA has processing and distribution centers throughout the U.S., according to its website.


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Missed a Sunday sermon recently? Or just wish you could hear it again? We've got you covered! We have all sermons available online for you to view. Grab a cup of coffee, click play and enjoy.
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Brad Kirby - November 20, 2022
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Final Challenge #REVIEW
final challengeREVIEW Pure ActionThe final challenge is all about
-/+ Immersion wasn't a top priority during designing
We always try to point out how immersive a specific game is. Marvel United, with all of its stunning components, and great art is trying everything to make us feel welcome but it lacks any flavor texts, short descriptions, etc. It would be great to add some short comics for each boss, or some famous quotes on heroes' and villains' cards. Unique names of the cards' skills referring to each persona is a bit lazy choice. Look at Chtulu's Death May die, and how a few sentences and even phrases here and there can change how we feel about the game.
+ Less is more, and it's addictive
I remember my first thoughts during the KS campaign, too simple game with a ton of chibi-minis, and about matching colorful symbols. But then we played the game for the first time, and after one week we played it already twenty times! The core of the mechanics is simple as hell, during your turn you play cards from your hand and use its powers and symbols, plus symbols from cards played by previous players to perform actions. And then you have master plan cards, which are used by villains to spread chaos you have to clean up when after solving enough crisis, defeating enough villans sidekicks of rescuing enough hostages, you can attack and defeat the villain. Up to this, we get end turn bonuses on the location you managed to save from crisis, some special behaviors of each villain and roughly speaking that's all. But so small amount of mechanics are enough to provide, at least from our point of view, very engaging sessions we want to repeat at least several times in a row. Add to this dozen of heroes with their special skills, new modes provided by add-ons, specific villain behaviors and you have a massive game with almost endless replayability.
+ It's tactical, not boring!
I've seen plenty of comments saying gameplay is boring, and I have to say I strongly disagree with that approach. During the original KS campaign, after seeing the rules and watching short how to play from CMON I was almost sure Marvel United will be too plain for my taste, and together with chibi-style, it will be targeted to the young audience only. Finally, the ton of miniatures and Lang's name convinced me to take the risk, and I do not regret any cent spent on the game. The fact that the game has so easy rules but provides a challenge at the same time only confirms years of experience of both CMON and Lang. I know I sound like the biggest fanboy, but it's not the case here. After my contact with Zombicide Black Plague, I was so underwhelmed I swore I will not go this road again, but both Cthulhu Death May Die and Bloodborne proved me wrong. And same is with Marvel United. The game is definitely mainstream designed, super easy rules, no-time set-up, everything is clear and easily trackable. BUT it's important how all aspects of the game are connected with each other, and how they provide challenge and engagement remaining simple at the same time. Everything matters here, from the order of card to help the next player, through saving your card for better occasions, order of saving the location from villains to use special location's skills, etc. Planning ahead, especially with the higher difficulty or when playing with some of the expansions is the only way to win the game.
And up to this, you have countless synergies and combinations between heroes. Yeah, they are not always balanced, some heroes work better against some villains than others, but it's up to you to discover it and have fun during the process.
+/- Chibi style we get used to, and even like now
Marvel heroes in chibi-style, Meh. I find it so repulsive at the beginning I just couldn't stand the thought of transforming my favorite heroes into kids' toys. But this changed too, and once we made an unboxing I fell in love with this style. Maybe it's because Marvel universe is everyone now, and infinity stones are laying literally everywhere, and that's why chibi-style is refreshing for me. I am the guy who collects and tries to paint everything to Marvel Crisis Protocol, so I do not need a second set of the serious sets. And it's hard for me to admit, but seeing some minis in their chibi-version is just hilarious, and pleasing to the eyes.
+ Works great with every player account
Solo, two players, three players, and more, with each player count game, is great, and the only thing that is changing is the amount of talking above the table. With more players game can be a bit more difficult because all of you should cooperate and plan everything ahead together to be as effective as solo players and couples.
– All-in or nothing
Everything in the game works for us, and the game keeps us engaged each time we play it, but it's a huuuuuuge credit to the fact we have everything from the original campaign. Let's be brutally honest now, the retail, core game version of the game is more a toy, less a board game, a demo with which you can have fun for a moment, and this moment can be longer when playing with kids. The retail core can bore you quickly, and without expansions, the game can't show its true colors. Also one note about the playmat. To cut the costs game doesn't have any kind of board you lay on the table, and without the playmat, this game loses a lot of its charm and cohesiveness. I understand business reasons against the board in the box but still, it's shame how the feeling of gameplay is different with or without the playmat.
Summary & Scoring
To be fair we should score the game from two points of view. The core, retail version deserves 6.5 scratches at most, content is soooo reduced to a minimum, that if this will be the only experience with Marvel United, you can be far from satisfied. But with a few expansions and playmat game shows everything it should be, and we have no regrets scoring it for 9 scratches and grant it with our Mark of The Beast. If you are interested in which expansions are the best ones, and which you should get first to have full fun with the game, watch our second material when we rank all Marvel United add-ons. That's all for today, see you at the next game.
final challengeREVIEW Pure ActionThe final challenge is all about
MARVEL UNITED REVIEW – VIDEO TRANSCRIPT – -/+ Immersion wasn't
SOLOMON KANEREVIEW – VIDEO TRANSCRIPT – + Immersion and narration
BOOGEYMAN THE BOARD GAMEPREVIEW KICKSTARTER PAGE – BGG description –