Musings from the Mountaintop

Some thoughts on various things:

• LA has been experiencing its usual summer weather - "Late night and mornings partly cloudy, clearing away to sunshine later in the day." The past couple of days the mornings have been crisp, and the sun's actually out!
• My ALA conference badge has arrived! It's posted on the fridge, along with my e-ticket. I'm flying Southwest, which (a) is much cheaper than the other airlines I looked at; (b) leaves from Beautiful Downtown Burbank, rather than from LAX; but (c) isn't a straight shot. I've forgotten whether I change planes in Phoenix going and Vegas returning, or if it's the other way around. The tasks yet to be completed:
• Connect with the cat-sitter
• Pack (my cleaning lady - who does my laundry - will work for me on Wednesday, rather than Thursday, which is the day I leave)
• Make SuperShuttle reservations

• The library has finally purchased an integrated library system, and we've begun the process of cleaning up our current catalog database. Polaris - the vendor - and our powers-that-be say we should be ready to go live in August.
  
• The Dodgers may have started their June swoon. We've lost two of the three games we've played on this road trip to San Diego. This weekend the guys will not only get home cooking, but they'll play the Toronto Blue Jays. (If I ever become dictator - or commissioner of baseball - my first acts would be to eliminate the designated hitter and interleague play.)
• After more than a year and a half, I've found the most efficient bus routes to get me to work and back. It involves taking three buses - the 201, which takes me from Silverlake and Berkeley to Third and Vermont; the 754, from Third to Martin Luther King and Vermont; and the 740 from MLK and Vermont to Manchester and LaBrea, about a block from the library. Going home, I reverse the pattern, although I'll sometimes get a 711 to Florence and Vermont. The trip takes me about 90 minutes, including waiting for transfers. I have a tight change at Third and Vermont, and if the 754 is at all pushing 7:10 (the time the 201 is supposed to leave Sixth and Vermont), I look for a blind man and his seeing-eye dog. If they aren't there, and it's around 7:15, I take the 754 to Santa Monica and hope for a 304 (limited).