Category: Books & Reading

I made a difference…

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And I only had to get hurt to do so!

On the way home yesterday I stopped at the library to return some books. The book return inside has a very heavy wood door that swings open so you can shove the books in. It’s fairly new (redesigned earlier this year) and is much heavier than the old door. Well it swung closed quicker than I expected and it smashed my finger. Oh the pain! I felt lightheaded. I immediately went to my car to assess the damage. Blood had already pooled underneath the nail. I started to feel panicky and sick, so I called Joe. I knew he’d make me feel better and he did.

When I got home we decided to burn a hole through my nail (by heating up a paper clip until it was red hot) to release the pressure caused by the subungual hematoma. That was quite an ordeal. I could feel the searing heat so it took several tries, and a resting period of a few hours, before I finally got a pin out to finish the job. I felt so much better after the blood came out, and it’s been “draining” ever since.

I saw my doctor this morning to have her look at it and she said I did the right thing. She said the draining part is normal too. She gave me some antibiotic ointment so it doesn’t get infected. The part that sucks is there’s no telling whether the nail is damaged to the point it will fall off or never grow again, but since it’s already looking better, I’m hopeful it will eventually be fine. Keep your fingers crossed!

I called the library this afternoon and spoke with the Director about the incident. My main concern was that if I got hurt this much that a child could really get hurt. The Director was very understanding and sympathetic. I met him after work so he could refund my doctor’s co-pay. He apologized again and told me they are removing the door tomorrow.

So the positive thing from this experience is that I’ve saved someone else the pain I’ve endured. Also that I got good “customer service” which isn’t the norm these days.

New library

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Yesterday we registered at the new and improved Wheaton library. They just expanded it and re-opened to the public less than a month ago. The main reason we decided to sign up is after taking a little self-guided tour, it looks like a really nice place to take the kids when they are visiting. Since it’s a little further away, we probably won’t use it as our main library, but will borrow CDs and other materials we can’t find at ours.

Let me tell you, the library is huge inside! I haven’t been to a larger library since visiting the Harold Washington library in Chicago. There are three levels with books as far as the eye can see and they have a very respectable audio/visual section.

The entire lower level of the library is all kids’ stuff. The most interesting thing we found was the bank of computers pre-loaded with educational software. There are two tables with six computers each. One table is for preschool and kindergarten aged children and the other table is for 1st-5th graders. They also have a ton of computer software that can be checked out. All the shelves are kid-height which is not only logical, but really cute. They keep the books geared toward the youngest children closest to the entrance which makes sense since those kids usually have to be carried or pushed in a stroller.

Everything in the library is organized well with plenty of places to sit and relax with a good book. Even the lighting changes depending on the area. The kids’ area is brighter than the adults’, yet the lighting is thoughtfully reduced in the computer areas. I love that they thought of everything! Kudos to whomever designed the layout of the library. Now if only someone could re-design their awful website!

TGIF Sleepyhead

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Ahhh Friday night. The sweet spot of the week. It’s all downhill from here, folks! I am getting so damn old that I took a bath and afterward was reading my 24-inspired novel, Operation Hell Gate, on the bed when I got sleepy and took a little cat nap. All before 9 pm. Can you say loser? This is what happens when your husband becomes addicted to World of Warcraft. Anyone want to be my online buddy? ;)

Oh and I’m pretty miffed at LaSalle Bank at the moment. I logged into my account earlier and spotted a $25 service fee. When Joe called to ask what it was for, they explained it was due to our combined account balance falling below the threshold they have in place for our account type. This was due to us taking money out last month to put in our IRAs as well as pay off a portion of our home equity loan we had transferred over to a Discover card last year so we could lessen the interest we were paying.

We don’t recall this minimum balance rule before and learned it was instituted in July 2005. They claimed to have sent notices in the bank statements at that time. My beef with them is two-fold. First, why send such an important notice of a change in policy with the statement? They have to know a lot of people just file them quickly or even destroy them. I would think they should send a separate letter like they do whenever their privacy policy changes. Also, why didn’t they put notices up on their website so customers would see them when they logged onto their online banking account? Oh I know the answer to both those questions: they didn’t really want people to know about it. The banks make their money off those fees. They are ridiculous to boot. I have to pay them a fee because I’m not letting them use enough of my money for investments as it is? Greedy much? Plus $25 every month the balance is below the amount they’ve set is rather excessive especially considering the fact there was no threshold before and the new one is $25,000!

Joe was so pissed he had them downgrade our account type so our required combined minimum monthly balance is lower and we’re transferring the rest of the money to another bank account where we can get more interest anyway. The girl didn’t even seemed fazed by his request which to me is the worst part of all this. These companies just don’t care about customer loyalty anymore and don’t make any effort to retain their business. Near the end of the call the representative told Joe she was waiving the fee, but the damage has already been done. The money is still being transferred because when Joe first complained, that is when she should have taken action to appease a long-time customer who had a decent chunk of change invested. Oh well, HSBC will profit from their mistake now. Hope that $25 they just had to have was worth losing thousand of dollars of investment money.

King vs Coben

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Speaking of the DVR … we had Constantine on there since April 9th! I couldn’t believe it had been waiting for us to watch it that long. I almost deleted it a few times since it was taking up so much space, but then my friend said it was good so we watched it, and she was right. A little confusing, but interesting throughout the entire film which is what matters most.

We also watched two episodes of Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It’s an eight episode series adapted from Stephen King’s book of short stories of the same name. So far I’m not impressed. The only one I really felt was worth my time was the first one, Battleground. A hitman kills a guy who owns a toy factory and the next day receives a package from said toy factory containing toy soldiers who come to life and try to kill him. The effects of the army men when the camera got down on their level was cool. I think they used real actors painted green for those shots but I’m not sure.

There’s also a Stephen King made for tv movie called Desperation on there too that Joe recorded. I think I am over Stephen King. I liked his older stuff but haven’t enjoyed any of his books from the past 10 years now.

The author I’m really into now is Harlan Coben. I don’t think this guy can write a bad book. I’ve read four now and they are always so good! The general story lines are the same – someone is hiding a big secret from their family member, friends and family get into trouble, disappear, or are killed, etc. There are more twists and turns than you know what to do with, right up to the very last page of each book. I end up reading a book in two or three days because I just can’t put it down. I’ve been up past midnight a few nights already which I haven’t done for so long. Probably not since I was into Stephen King’s older work. I think Coben’s books would make good movies depending on the director.