Those were the days

Working hard, or hardly working?

There aren't a whole lot of pics of Nat-Wu and C-biggie's days at NW together, but I remembered this gem tonight. C-biggie made the mistake of sending this to me on a dare, and I've kept it for retribution since then. I don't really know what they're up to here, except I seem to recall it was some project of Meredith's.

So you wanna destroy the Earth?

The Fate that Awaits us All

Have you ever wondered about all the ways you could possibly destroy the Earth? This guy has. His site is not only amusing, but also very informative. In all seriousness, you could actually learn a little bit about physics reading the various ways the Earth could be annihalated, including "Total Existence Failure" and "Gobbled Up By Strangelets". Check out it.

New Kid on the Block

The face of fun

Remember the Star Wars Kid? Well, apparantly he has a successor. At least, that's what this guy says. Everyone should have so much fun.

The Real Incredible Hulk

My friend David was telling me about something he heard from a friend. Apparently, a friend of their's used to be real into steroids, and had been in prison and so forth. Anyway, after he got out (this was in LA) he was jumped by three gang members - and, pumped up on 'roids, he proceeded to beat them all to death! He went to jail for 6 months on manslaughter charges.

The shaving!

I shave--every couple of days. It's nerve-wracking.

Worst spam mail (porn) subject lines

One I just got was "adams make her cry from anal pain"

What's your best (worst)?

Ha ha! Guess he went too far up! While he was at it though he should have removed that godawful dress...

pictures

Hey Im a new member of the web blog. Love the new picture's that someone in the library took.

Drunk Hit Batmobile

Christian Bale, who plays the title character in the upcoming comic-book movie Batman Begins, told SCI FI Wire that a drunk driver sideswiped one of the film's stunt Batmobiles while it was being moved during a break in shooting on the streets of Chicago last year.

"There were a couple of times driving down the street in Chicago and when it was like, we can load it on the truck or just drive five minutes down there, and they just drove five minutes down there, and you see that thing just going down the street, and everybody is stopping and looking," Bale said in an interview at WonderCon in San Francisco over the weekend. "There was even this guy who crashed into it, this poor drunken guy who didn't have a license. [He] said he got so panicked when he saw the car that he thought aliens were landing, and he put the pedal to the metal." Bale wasn't in the car at the time, and no one was hurt. Bale said that several Batmobiles were built for the film, with a design unlike any from previous films or TV incarnations.

"They've done such a radically different thing with it," he said. "And what I love about it is that, aesthetically, it kicks ass. It looks f--king stunning. ... It looks nothing like any Batmobile that has come before it, and it completely has practical applications that are explained, and [are] very smart and make complete sense. And that's indicative of what we've done with everything to do with the movie, including the explanations of the suit, the cowl, all the different gadgets that he comes up with and where he comes to them." Did Bale eventually get to keep one of the stealth-black vehicles? "That was the first question," he said with a smile. "They looked at me, and they went, 'Are you f--king kidding?' I didn't." Batman Begins opens June 17.

LOL Customers!

Given the patrons you guys see at IPL, you all can probably relate to some of these stories over at Something Awful. Here's an example:

I'm tech support for a large satellite tv provider. Woo boy do I have tons of these. Probably one of my favorites:

Me: Well, seems like everything is working, is there anything else I can help you with?
Her: Yeah, don't use anti-perspirant! Wanna know why?
Me: Not really, but I bet you're going to tell me. (Uhmmm why?)
Her: Because it causes cancer! Look at the first ingredient, it's alluminum! It gives you the cancer!
Me: Well, that's good to know ma'am, have a good day!
Her: Wait!! Do you know why 9/11 really happened? George Bush ordered it! There were secret Nesara computers in the sub-sections underneath the WTC!
Me: Wow, amazing.
Her: I'm part of this secret agency tied to Nesara, and we're planning on overthrowing the government! Here's a few links you should check out, and tell all your friends about!
Me: Will do ma'am, thank you for calling.
Her: No no! Wait! Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara !!!!!!

The call lasted about 40 minutes after I fixed her problem, and since I can't hang up on a customer I had to sit there and listen to these awesome stories. She went on and on about Nesara, and how I should watch the news because something huge was going to happen in the next few days. Of course nothing did. God I love my job.

Awesome. There's more. Go read 'em.

Costco Caskets

What the f*ck?

http://www.costco.com/Common/CategoryMain.aspx?cat=20595

Chris, the Mutant Snapshot Collection has begun

Chris, it is now up to me and you to get these mutants on file. I got the first two, we need to keep this up.

One-Eyed Sneezer

Chris....duck!

Mironack

Mironack attacking some lady's kid in a stroller

MUTANTS!

Alright guys, I actually snapped a photo of Mironack...and there will be plenty more to come. I'm not sure if I can post them from here, but if I can't I will when I get home.

WOO HOO!

Following Alex's lead

Ok, so I just remembered something funny that happened a couple of weeks ago... I was having dinner at a friend's house with several other friends, some of whom are Mormon including the renter of the house. They had invited some missionaries from the Mormon church and they had dinner and conversation (and prayer) with us. When they were about to leave I said they they were "nicer than the Sisters I grew up with." Everybody laughed. I continued "yeah, I grew up in private school." Then they realized what I meant. Apparently, everyone thought I meant my real sisters (of which I have none) instead of Catholic nuns. Even though everyone else was wrong, I felt a little embarassed, cause I think that's a pretty stupid joke taken that way. Oh well. It turned out to be pretty funny afteward.

An Indecent Proposal

This picture has nothing to do with this post



Okay, so I don't know if everyone has noticed this, but lately we've had a lot of library-work related posts going on. Like, seriously...a lot. So I started thinking the other day about maybe trying to put together a forum for the more serious library-related discussion, since I actually think the format of a forum is more conducive to discussions like that than a blog is. Actually, I've been thinking about it for awhile, since C-Biggie, Nat-Wu and I are routinely trading serious work-related stuff, and I thought maybe a forum would get everyone else involved too. Anyway what's the consensus on this? Yay, nay, don't care?

Are shelvers really circ?

Ok, I'm sure that most of you know that here at Central, shelvers (LAIs mostly) belong to Circulation. In a way that sort of makes sense, as they are grouped together in the location that actually handles the books. However, I've come to the conclusion that this causes a lot of workflow problems and communication problems (or the latter causes the former). As you branch guys know, you can talk to your librarians about any issues you have with the stacks. For example, you go over to the 600's and you see don't have any shelving room. You can go to your adult librarian and say, "Well, the 600's are packed really tight and we don't even have shifting room. We either have to do a massive shift or some weeding." Either way, they make the decision but with your input. Here at Central, any such requests have to go from department head to department head. If the children's shelvers can't shelve because the shelves are too tight, they have to tell Susan who tells Sara. Sara then informs the Children's librarians that her shelvers have noted a problem and makes a request. Then they either take 6 months to respond for whatever reason or basically say no. Recently we had a situation where the fiction shelvers wanted to shelve the books with co-authors only by author and title, disregarding any extra authors. However, it is established that we shelve by both author's names (ex. Norton first, then Norton and Moon). Well, instead of just talking to the fiction librarians directly, Arthur brought it up in a staff meeting where Sara assigned him the task of asking all the branches how they do and reporting back to her so she could as fiction if they could possibly change it. I haven't heard any further progress on this.

Basically, what I'm saying is, do you guys think that shelvers should belong to the librarians or to the SLAs? That's basically what the division comes down to. My idea was to put all SLA and LAII positions in Circ and give the shelvers directly to the librarians. This relates to my other idea of creating a non-SLA but non-librarian position for those SLAs who are doing librarian jobs (such as Raeside and Laroche and the children's SLAs) and giving them to their departments. I say all SLAs and LAIIs should be in circ where we would have a more discreet function and be more unified in roles, whereas shelvers should not be in circ simply because that's where they come to get the books. They don't have work areas back here aside from the holding shelves. Their work is in the stacks. I think we need to change it around because shelvers can be a very valuable asset to the librarians if they can actually use them. Anyway, you guys hit me with some thoughts on it.

Alright, fine...

If library business is the talk of the town, then I'll pipe in too.

Let's talk about Branch Mangers vs. Senior Librarians for a minute. Here at NW, and likewise at other branches, the Branch Manager is a librarian that handles librarian duties and the Senior Librarian is...well...the same thing. It ends up being a system with a handfull of employees divided up into two pseudo-deparments and two bosses. I, for one, think this is needs to be changed.
Now before I go on harping on how things are bad, I acknowledge the need for a "manager" to be on the premesis at all times, and thus I understand why there are two "bosses" at the branches. My problem is that librarians, for the most part, don't make very good managers. The solution, of course, is that there should be an actual Branch Manager and an actual Senior Librarian...who would have guessed!
I think the Branch Manager should be a manager; i.e. a person trained to completely manage a library. And, realistically, that person would need professional training in both the library and business fields. The Senior Librarian(s) need to handle every librarian duty that exists at the library (reference desk, children's programs, book clubs, book orders, etc...). They wouldn't be able to sit on the reference desk all the time, they wouldn't get their other duties accomplished, and that's where the SLA's step in.
So, in summary, what I am saying is that the Branch Manager and the Senior Librarian should have completely different jobs. The Branch Manager needs to be occupied managing the library: making executive decisions, hiring and firing, handling/endorsing all movement of money, handling all staff issues, mediating disputes, attending Managers' meetings, etc... The Senior Librarian would have none of these duties; they would be creating book order lists, running library programs, handling reference duties, and whatever else their job entails. The SLAs should be, in my opinion, Senior LIBRARY Assistants, not SENIOR LIBRARIAN Assistants. In other words, their only boss is the Branch Manager; who would assign them their duties and make sure everything works the way it is supposed to. The only change I would propose for them is time helping on the reference desk while the Librarians handle other duties. The LAIIs, likewise, would assist the Library, not the Senior Librarian, and thus their boss is the Branch Manger as well. This streamlines the entire chain of command quite nicely, and puts authority and decisions in the proper hands and position.
The only time that the Senior Librarian would assume extra duties is in the absence of the Branch Manager. But this isn't really that often and any real issues could be temporarily deferred to the Branch Manager until their return.
My comments here really only pertain to branch libraries, Central has this pretty much worked out.

What do you guys think?

NoShare cards

Just in case everybody hasn't heard this, as part of the continuing de-Nancy Smith-ization of the library, the TexShare program is being tightened up immensely. It was announced at the last SLA meeting that borrowers will have to have a completely clear record -- including overdues--for six months to be issues a TexShare card. As John can attest, some area libraries regard IPL as a TexLaughingStock, and we were the most permissive issuer around. However, I think the new policy is ludicrous. First, we can't guarantee that patrons' materials will be checked in within the three week/10 day window. Sometimes it takes a location 48 hours to check something in if it is busy on the weekend-- we are punishing patrons for something they didn't actually do wrong. Furthermore, our no overdues policy sends the clear message to our patrons that it's OK to return items a little overdue, as long as they bring them back (just like Blockbuster).
I would suggest that patrons be barred from having a TexShare for losts, and even extend the clean record period to a year or more, but nothing about overdue library books should reasonably indicate that a borrower will abuse the TexShare system.

Hmm

Ok, I'll have to post more on this later, but in short, it seems to me that we can't legally allow patrons to retain items they have damaged and paid for. According to Irving ordinances, we are to give all withdrawn items to the Friends (assuming we don't destroy them). I don't have time to post the proof right now, so I'll do it when I get back to a computer tomorrow. The problem basically is that a lot of SLAs want to let the patrons have the stuff because it truly is worthless and we won't give it to the Friends, we'll just throw it away. However, our civil ordinances (16-14c) says that we can't sell property to the public, our only options are to give it to the Friends or trash it. At least, that's what it seems to say. I raised the issue at the meeting and was met with confusion, resistance, and mild outrage that I would bring it up and say we might be doing something wrong, even though it's clearly written in our policies and in the City code.

Uh oh.

Mildred found this on CNN.com

http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/14/news/economy/blogging/index.htm?cnn=yes

So don't let your bosses see this.

Bad Patron!

Actually it was two. These stories were related to me by Mildred.

Mildred was working Sunday and I was there at closing to pick her up from work. I was sitting at my computer most of the time, so I missed the first patron. At closing time Loretta made the closing announcement as usual. An older lady was returing her items at the time to Mildred. The lady heard the announcement and asked if that meant she wouldn't be able to check out. Mildred told her that she would not be able to check out, at which the lady stamped her foot in the classic gesture of frustration and said, "Aw shit!" and proceeded to leave.

Just after that lady had walked off, I went up to Mildred and she told me that story. Now at this point she had shut down her computer and was preparing to leave. Another lady walked up and wanted to return her items. She said something to the effect of "I just need to get one thing". Mildred told her, "I can take them but they won't be checked in until tomorrow. If that's ok, you can just leave them here. You also won't be able to check out tonight because we're already closed." The lady asked then, "I won't be able to checkout?" Mildred answered no. At that point the lady left her items in the bookdrop and proceeded to wander into the library. We just watched her go. Mildred and I went over to checkout and shut down the remaining computers and told Loretta that some lady had just gone in. Then we went to the back area and since we saw Debbie there, Mildred told her too. At that point it was about 5:06 or 7 and we left. When we got back on Monday, Mildred told me that Debbie had seen the lady when she first walked in and told her then that she wouldn't be able to check out! And yet this lady just thought she'd do as she pleased. Eventually Debbie got rid of her. I just don't know whether she was really stupid or really stubborn.

Well gawrsh.

We've had some good, library-related posts here recently, and I'd like to keep the trend going. I'd also like to push that stupid banana case off the page.

Misuse of workers?

I just wonder if you guys think that it's ok for an SLA to be tasked with actual librarian's duties. I'm specifically thinking of the situation at East Branch where the full-time SLA that was added was chosen specifically for the ability to do children's programs. In case you all weren't aware of the situation, when Alex left his job, the position was transferred to East Branch (which is why I was transferred to Central). Around the same time, after Miriam Rodriguez left her job, the people upstairs decided they wanted Maria Redburn to take over her duties as liaison to other organizations regarding our multicultural programs. Actually, they wanted Maria to take Miriam's job and Maria wanted to do it, but Miriam got paid less than Maria does so she stayed as the EB manager. After that, those in charge decided that she'd do Miriam's job anyway, without getting any more pay or transferring. This meant that Maria had to give up her storytime. She hired the new full-time SLA based on that person's ability to do children's programs as well as normal SLA duties. Actually, over at EB, the SLAs have way more responsibility than anywhere else. I mean, we were actually ordering parts of the collection. Now, that's ok when it's just occasional and time permits, but when it becomes part of your regular duties your job has fundamentally altered.

What I'm saying is that I don't think it's ok to put the responsibilities of a higher position (with higher pay) on a person in a lower position (with lower pay) and expect them to fulfill those duties the same as the person in the superior position. We don't expect the LAIIs to be SLAs, nor LAIs to be LAIIs, and we should maintain that stance for the SLAs. In my opinion, not only is this unfair to the individual in the position, but even if they like the job, it's setting a bad precedent. For one thing, it's saying that we don't actually need librarians to do librarian jobs, and that it's ok to pay non-professional staff less than professional staff to do the professional's job. It's like letting the para-legals go to court! What do you guys think?

Claimed Returned and the Double Check-in

On a topic somewhat related to Nat Wu's post, I did a report for my operations management class in Fall '02 about claimed returneds and how their excessive use is causing chronic waste of library materials. Based on staff interviews and some mathematical extrapolation, I conservatively concluded that $40,000 is wasted by just setting things to claimed returned.

Now, I know that there is the issue of things that don't get checked in and really were returned. We have our controversial "double check in" here at VY, which does cause extra work for the librarians and SLAs, but it catches plenty of mistakes. I've been keeping detailed statistics on what mistakes are made since November 2003. Our rate of mistakes has remained steady at about one per 2.66 carts--I computed a random cart to be about 225 books. That means that for an item to be scanned and missed by two people, the odds against this are conservatively 1/50,625 and, less confidently 1/358,000. Either way you slice it, it certainly makes it easy to rule out the "I already returned this" scenario.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Six Sigma quality assurance metrics, but we are 99.9985% accurate with double check-in (about a sigma level 3.5), which is pretty damn good for an unautomated system.

I don't know if strategic thinking has ever been a part of the library's plan, but if we really want to ramp up or collection rate, I think we have to increase our successful check-in rate to an unimpeachable level.

To continue...

In my last post I was talking about the lifetime average rate of return. Naturally it's lowest with the newest submittals and highest with the oldest ones, because by the day I submit them some of those people might not have been contacted at all. So the lifetime average is about 50%, whereas in the latest period, August through January it was 34%. The agency doesn't formulate reports on a month by month basis, only by periods. In truth, the return for the last three periods I looked at was around the 35% mark, not exactly stunning. I think the higher lifetime average is caused by actions on older accounts, like them either being waived and deleted or bankruptcy claims (not that there's many of those), as well as actual returns and payoffs. But that means that we can expect about 70% of items to be returned after as long as five or more years. At any given time, we're losing items that are current (think popular dvds) and only getting back 30% of those being collected on. This brings me to the point I really want to make. I don't think there's a stat for this out there because we don't want to advertise how much of our collection is missing.

First off, there's items that just go missing. They're misplaced and nobody knows where it is. Second, there's items that are stolen. That's most of East Branch's dvd collection. Third, there's items people lose but we claimed return them. Fourth, there's items that are checked out that go to lost. Of all these, we only make efforts to retrieve items in one instance: when lost items on a patron's card exceed $50 in value and fees, with the exception of when those items are on temp cards, which we do not collect on.

Let me illuminate the issue for you. Last year, in September I think, I was asked to process a list of expired temp cards (they hadn't been used in at least 3 years). I was to delete all those that didn't have fines and fees and keep those that did as well as total up the fees on those records. Some of those temp cards that had only two items on there had in excess of a hundred dollars in fees. At the end of this list, which was several hundred cards, we still had 200 borrowers with temp cards who had fees of over $10,000. Keep in mind that was only temp cards from about 97 to 01. There's at least 3 more years worth of cards to go through, and the newer ones would have higher amounts because of all the dvds we've added and the higher fees we have now.

At the moment I have no way to even guess how much stuff is in the hands of people with regular cards that are lost but are less than $50. I have one very solid number, which is that we have sent almost 12,000 people to collections. I bet that the other category, those not sent to collections, also has a very significant number of people in it. I don't know, but I would imagine it would equal those sent to collections. Remember that paperbacks cost maybe $4.99 plus a $5 fee, so there's plenty of cases where people could have lots of items but not be sent. Now some of those 12,000 are still in there simply because they haven't paid the $8.95 fee, but most just haven't returned their items, and because most of them have multiple items, you can easily imagine they have something like 10-40,000 items out. It's conjecture, but I would guess that people (of all categories) not in collections have another 10-50,000 items out. Because of the inexact nature of the numbers here, I would say that the range of items lost can vary between as little as 25,000 items and as much as 100,000. Either way, that's some serious numbers, and I'm telling you we're not doing much about it.

Are we getting our stuff back?

Alright, as most of you know I handle our communications with the debt collection agency. That means I send them lists of people to add to debt collection and updates for people already in collections. I also receive reports from them detailing their progress. I can't be sure of exact percentages, but every week I get a report of all the leftover processing fees that come from people returning items that have been lost without the fees being waived. This list has about 30 to 50 accounts on it, although it's always hard to tell because of how it's formatted. Then on Wednesday I get the lists of accounts to submit and update. Now normally there's about 55 accounts to submit; that is, accounts with lost items on them valuing over $50 (including proc. fees) that have been lost for 75 days. So on a week-by-week basis, there's about 50 accounts that have gone to lost who's items are returned, and 50 accounts that have gone to lost who's items are not returned.

Ok, that's the basics. I'm also the only person besides Sara herself who can access the collection agency's database. That means that we're the only two people who see the reports of what the collection agency is doing. While I wasn't thinking about the implications of this for the past few months (since I've just been too darn busy), in the past couple of weeks I've used some spare time to look at the reports and see just what's happening. Now of course the agency wants to phrase things as favorably to themselves as possible, so I started adding up numbers for myself. They have language like "Dollars in Process" and "% of Dollars Activated" which is 90%. However, I used my own method to determine a percentage of how much money we're getting back from the amount we send to collections. For you non-mathematically inclined persons, it's very, very simple. If you divide the smaller part by the whole (say 2/5), you get the percentage of the whole. 5/5 is 100% and 2/5 is 40%. Well, taking the numbers for the money the agency actually recovered for us in the entire period they've been collecting for us up to January 31, it's $895,065.05 in materials recovered, fees paid and dollars waived. That's out of a total of $1,702,186.13. If you divide the first by the second, you get 52.58% (approximately). That means that up until now, the collection agency has only gotten back a little under 53% of the stuff that gets lost.

What do you guys think, is this agency worthless, or is that about as good a return as we could expect?

Say it aint so!!!!

LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman was sentenced to two and a half years in jail Thursday for ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused her sex.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage in May last year after Geoffrey Jones, 37, who had ended their long-term relationship, rejected her advances.

She grabbed him by the genitals, tearing off his left testicle, then hid it in her mouth before a friend of Jones handed it back to him saying "that's yours."

Monti, of Birkenhead, near Liverpool, pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding at an earlier hearing.

What the hell.....I don't believe!

Its so simple. I reformatted my hard drive and now my comp works great, I alos found a product I like better than Norton, System Mechanic 5.0 Porfessional. Its also cheaper. Anywho, I was just wondering if there was a chance that we all might start playing The Matrix On-line when it comes out, like City of Heroes days. I miss playing a game like that, plus its about the only way I can do anything with my friends back in Texas. Also if you don't know, my Barracks phone number is (253) 427-3466.

Banana Bunker

Cultured Containers has developed the BananaBunker® to protect this delicate fruit from brusing when placed in your backpack, nap sack, soft carrying case, or briefcase. The container also protects your backpack’s valuable contents, such as CD players, textbooks, binders, and business documents.

Whether you are on a hiking trip, day trip, athletic event, between classes, or at a board meeting, the BananaBunker® will keep your fruit safe until you are ready to snack. Go ahead, eat healthy!


You know, guys, my question is--can you use this as a hard case for your bananaphone?

Fire!

I was going to put a picture with this, but I can't do that at work and I won't be at home for a while, so too bad. You'll just have to enjoy the story as is.

Monday night, at 6:45Pm I was at checkout and I noticed flashers reflecting off the glass of the doors on the Irving Blvd. side. I hadn't heard that anything was going on, but then, it's not like I would. I thought maybe some old person collapsed again, so I sent Kristina to see what it was. She said it was a couple of fire trucks; no ambulances or cops. I wondered what was going on, but since the fire alarm wasn't ringing, I figured no big deal. About 6:55 then, the alarm went off. The emergency gates in front of the elevator closed and a few people were leaving the building. I was still at check-in helping a patron and nobody had yet made any announcement about the alarm. Kristina came back and told me Linda had something about it probably being a false alarm. I wasn't too sure of that, because although the alarm system itself is buggy, that only results in the sensors reading wrong. It's never actually made the fire alarms go off before. After about a minute of the alarm, Loretta decided to take it upon herself to announce that it was a false alarm and people didn't have to leave. So some people started coming back and acting normal. Then, about 2 minutes after that, we finally got a call from upstairs telling us to announce that people needed to leave the building. Kristina made the initial announcement, but nobody could hear her, so another minute after that Rachel made the announcement again. At this point, it was 7PM, so we all headed outside. I told Kristina that if there was a fire there was no way I was letting my car burn, so I moved my car from the underground garage to the big one next door. Then we came back to stand with the crowd in front of the building. It was cold that night and most people were shivering, since they hadn't brought their coats. When we got over to them, I started asking Linda and Loretta what had happened, but they said they didn't know. Mike Kirwan was standing in front of the doors on the Rock Island side, so I asked him what had happened. He said Helen and somebody else had reported a mysterious "burning smell" on the third floor. They got verification from some other folks and decided to call the fire dept. Patty Landers happened to be here that night, by the way. She evidently "took control" of the situation and stood around talking to the senior police and firemen who showed up.

Anyway, once I heard that it was third floor personnel, I understood why we hadn't been called downstairs and told what was going on. I mean, that's their modus operandi. I went back over to Kristina, who'd been talking to John. John then said that he was in the elevator going on break when the fire alarm had rung and consequently he was stuck in the elevator as it kept going between floors 1 and 2 without opening! He said how he got out was by shoving the door open when it stopped at the first floor. He just grabbed it and shoved. Of course, if he'd been told something was going on, he probably wouldn't have been in the elevator, but hey, we're not important enough to know what's going on.

We stood outside for a total of 50 minutes, with patrons coming up and trying to go in. I mean, we were a crowd of about 50 people to start and 20 finally but people kept acting like nothing was wrong. Only a couple of times did people in cars drive up and ask what was happening. Also, in all this time I only noticed 1 person in the 20 minute parking leave. Hmm.

We were allowed back in at 7:50, with no explanation for the burning smell having been found. They did determine that it wasn't an active fire, so they figured there was no danger, as the smell had dissipated. I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned here, but I welcome you to try.

Horadrim Unofficially Under Construction

You're kidding..right?

This story is about a fight that broke out at a girls high school basketball game. They interview a few people and for the most part they give half way smart responses. But read through it and then check out the very last sentence or two. Out of all the things going on...tasers being fired, chairs thrown, numerous fights....and she's concerned about cell phones. Of course, it did come from a cheerleader......


Top Stories - AP

Fan Melee Erupts at Girls Basketball Game
1 hour, 13 minutes ago

Top Stories - AP
PRATTVILLE, Ala. - A fight broke out in the stands of a girls high school basketball game, prompting police to fire Tasers to stop it and clear the gym, authorities said. Nine people face charges.

Witnesses said Tuesday night's melee, involving dozens of fans, began in an upper deck and spilled onto the floor. It was apparently sparked by an earlier dispute between students of the two rival schools, Prattville and Stanhope Elmore.
"There were chairs being thrown and people running all over the place," said witness Stan Davis. "I grabbed my 8-year-old daughter and we just tried to stay out of the way."
"Initially, there were 30, then it started spreading like cockroaches," said another parent, Joanne Heningburg.
Arrest warrants were issued for three adults and six juveniles, including three teens taken into custody Tuesday night, District Attorney Randall Houston said Thursday. Among the charges were assault, disorderly conduct and refusing to obey an officer, he said.
There had been a fight between students at the two schools at a fast-food restaurant last week, authorities said.
"Apparently the same two groups met up at the basketball game tonight, and the altercation continued," Police Chief Alfred Wadsworth said.
Police hit some participants with Tasers, which can incapacitate a person with an electrical jolt, Wadsworth said.
The fight was captured on video and shown on television.
"People were screaming and running," Prattville cheerleader Cherish Cartee said. "Girls lost their cell phones. Keys got lost. It's something I will never forget."

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