In college the running joke is that if someone called you told them you were at the library. Better than a parent hearing you were on a date or taking some road trip when you should have been pulling an all-night. When I was in undergrad I told my roommate to never tell my mother that if she called. She’d see right through it. I don’t care for libraries.

Books. I love books. I love to read. I’m writing this in our personal library at home. It needs a name, and we’re working our way toward one, but I feel the name of your private library should be carefully considered and evolved naturally. Unless you have a benefactor. And if someone gives you money for more shelves and books, then you name your library in their honor, send them cards every Thanksgiving and Christmas and let them borrow books whenever they want.

Anyway. I dislike libraries. Mostly because you go there with the idea of getting something done. A student goes to study. A reader goes to pick up a new book. I never checked out a great deal of books, but I’ve had to study once or twice in my academic career. And the library, I’ve found, is built for opposite purposes. There are so many books there! So much to read! So many things to learn! And, also, there’s this stuff I have to learn. I’ve come to accept this as one of the complex contradictions that make me the inscrutable individual I am.

But I had to visit the library today. There was a book or two I wished to pick up for my studies. I found them in the online catalog, made note of their numbers in the Library of Congress system and then set out for a visit.

I walked in, pulled out my spouse card and said “My wife is on the faculty here. Can I check out books with this?” The young lady deferred to her colleague. Again, then. The new person asks about fees. We’ve discussed them. I think I’ve paid something. The card works for other scanners on the campus. She makes a phone call to the department from whence the card was assigned. They’ve decided I should pay for the pleasure of checking out books.

Fine.

“How about this card?” I produce my faculty card at Samford. No.

“How about this card?” I produce my student card from Alabama. No.

This is a friendly chat, but frustrating. I’m an alum. My wife is on the faculty. I have two cards from other research institutions. But yet it will still require $20 to check out books. “That’s $20, annually, not $20 each time.” And thanks for that.

The supreme irony being that were I at Samford or Alabama today I could check out these same books from this library via the Interlibrary Loan agreements. They’d ship them across the better part of the state. Someone would even bring them to my department. This would all be done for free.

I have a better idea. The Yankee can come help. But the very nice lady quickly sends me an Email. Turns out I can check out books, as a graduate student from Alabama. So I grab a stack of books and visit one desk, the very nice lady, upon hearing all of this agrees, “Oh that’s bad.” She sends me to the first desk, who brings out the second woman. So, after five pleasant conversations and two phone calls, I have a stack of books.

And they are good, helpful books, so it all worked out.

I include this picture because there’s nothing else to tell you about but reading and writing and breaking a plate in the kitchen and starting a very small fire on the stove. I dropped a cup on the cracked plate and the little bits of paper met a warm stove eye. So there you go. So this picture, then. (Click to embiggen.)

The picture is from our New Year’s Eve Pie Day and I’ve been saving it for a slow day such as this. We were at Jim ‘N’ Nicks, where the light is a little low. In the shot with The Yankee she’s moving from menu to glance at the waiter as I took the picture. That’s why her shoulder somehow disappears. Despite all of that, this is fairly promising.

I’ve been searching for a good (and by good I mean usable and free) panoramic app for the iPhone. This one is that. The picture above was my first experiment.

For some reason it didn’t include the last photograph on the right. The app handles the stitching by itself. It isn’t perfect — but this is on a phone. If I were doing panoramas as I did on our honeymoon I would use my SLR and stitch them together the old fashioned way, by hand at 1400 percent magnification.

The big problem is that the shutter button isn’t exactly sensitive. On the upside, it makes the composite for you and saves it directly to the photo album. And it is free.

Also, I’ve picked up two other photo apps. I’ll let you know.