Video Game Day Pics

We had a real nice group turn out for an afternoon of open play video gaming. I got to hang out at this one for a change. We had the Wii out with all of the sports games, the Gamecube with Smash Bros, and the XBox 360 started with GH World Tour and ended with Call of Duty. Thanks for the cleanup help guys! See you in July!

Bhangra Dance Pics

A huge thank you to Rishika and Akanksha for a great program introducing us to Bhangra dance! A few pics below. Video coming tomorrow.

Weekly Challenge July 5-10, 2010

The Reference Staff loved this one last year, so i brought it back. Have fun with it!

Do a magic trick for a member of the Reference Staff.

Rocket Launch Video

OK, finally getting to the rocket launch video. A big thank you to my wonderful assistant, Meaghan, for getting the footage, and getting it such a way that I didn't really need to edit. While we were at the launch, the tech guys were replacing my computer, so I came back to all either new versions of software, or completely different software. In the case of video editing, it's completely different software that I haven't had a chance to really play with yet. Anyway, I know she lost most of the rockets in the air, but they're darn hard to track just looking up at the sky. Even tougher trying to do it through a video camera lens. Again, thanks Meaghan! Enjoy the video!

A little PS - I've been having issues trying to upload the video. It looks like it didn't upload, but I suspect that it did. I won't know for sure until I actually publish the post. When I do, if the video isn't actually there, I'll delete the post and try again. If that happens, my apologies.

What Mrs. N's Been Reading - The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To

Finished D.C. Pierson's The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Needed To a few days ago. Honestly, I'm still deciding how I feel about this one. Darren, one of the main characters, is a relatively nerdy high school student who likes to draw. He pretty much keeps to himself, until another, even nerdier student, Eric, notices his drawings, asks serious questions about them, and doesn't make fun of Darren or the drawings. In fact they quickly discover a shared love of sci-fi, and soon are hanging out together, developing a full-scale series of movies, and books, based on their character and story ideas. Eventually Eric confides in Darren and tells him something about himself that he has kept quiet. He never sleeps. Never has. Ever. He doesn't get tired either, but Darren later sees the periodic, near-breakdowns, that Eric suffers as a result of never having the down brain time that everyone else does. Together, they start trying to test the limits and consequences of Eric's "ability." Along the way, a girl comes between them, and Darren breaks the confidence in retaliation. Suddenly big, mean men are looking for Eric in order to run tests on him. When Darren and Eric go on the run, Darren learns something even more fantastic about the extent of Eric's "ability" that makes it even more dangerous. Due to a bit of language, and some mature, though not really graphic content, this one is for high school, not middle school students. Generally, pretty funny, with some teenage angst, and sci-fi stuff thrown in as well. Enjoy!

Author Visit - Chris Grabenstein

I'm a little behind in posting. Video from the rocket launch is coming - I'm not at my computer, where the footage is, at the moment. I'm hoping to get to that later today, if not tomorrow. In the meantime I do have some pics and a report on our visit with author, Chris Grabenstein last Thursday. I was disappointed in the number of people who came out for this one, especially once Chris got rolling and I saw how fabulous his program is. But on the bright side, the folks who did show were incredibly enthusiastic! Chris has extensive experience doing improv comedy, and that was wildly, wonderfully obvious! After a quick run-through of the basic parts of a story, Chris led us through the process of developing our own group ghost story, Who's Line style. After taking random suggestions that included a Civil War cemetery, an accidental suicide of a women dressed as a man to take someone else's place in the army, a dwarf, a zombie helper and a chocolate bar bigger than Hershey Park, Chris put them all together and came up with an absolutely hysterical story. After the program was finished, we gave away several of his books as door prizes (all of the teens who attended got one) and Chris graciously signed each one. If you missed it, the pics don't come anywhere near doing it justice, but here they are anyway.

Rocket Launch

Build day was great! Launch day was even better! We didn't bake as badly as I thought we were going to. We had just enough shade and enough of a breeze to provide a little relief for the humans, but not so much as to mess up the rockets. Although that big tree that provide some much-appreciated shade, did gobble up one rocket (sorry Zach!) But like Andrew explained on build day, you put 'em up with the realization that you may never see 'em again. It was a great day! Pretty much everybody got 3 or 4 flights in, except Zach (tree ate his on it's maiden flight) and a few people who didn't quite pass later safety inspections. It was nice to get out of the library for an afternoon. An extra thank you to the gang that was still there toward the end who treated me to a wonderfully awful rendition of "Happy Birthday." It was flat, off-key and spaced out a few measures by the end, but it was heartfelt and enthusiastic. I loved it! Couldn't think of a better way to spend a birthday!

Rocketry Build Day Pics

We actually got quite a few good pics from both days of the rocketry program so I'm going to post them separately. I'll get to the video eventually. My computer was replaced while we were out launching yesterday. All of the programs were upgraded, and a few things aren't exactly playing nice, so it's taking me about 5x longer than it should, to do anything today. Hang in there - the video will be up soon (I hope!) A big thank you to our rocketry expert, Andrew Nowakowski, for lending his guidance and expertise again this year!

Weekly Challenge June 28 - July 3, 2010

Unscramble the words below to form the titles of Teen books.
Hint: If you get stumped on some, all of the titles are books listed in the genre booklists located in the Teen section of the library.

HET MIET RAAXPOD

MRVAIEP DYAAMCE

EHT KBOO FITEH

TEH RRPOEHSITC LIKLRE

FIIENRVLS

HTE GHRUEN MSAEG

BDEOLU XHILE

SLNIIOEKLRT

Rocket Launch is On!

Here's the official decision - we're going to go ahead and hold the rocket launch today at 1 pm as planned. Yes, I know Friday looks a bit nicer, but that's as of right now. This time of year, that forecast could easily change between now and then. We'll be at Fiala Field. Park at the Camp Hill United Methodist Church on S. 22nd Street and walk into the field. Remember to bring sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, a drink, and, of course, your rocket. Spectators of all ages welcome. See you in a few hours!
Oh, and I'll post pics from yesterday, as well as pics and video from today's launch, tomorrow afternoon when I'm in the library next. Look for them then.

Aquapalooza Permission Slip

I can't believe that people are already asking for the permission slips for Aquapalooza! The program isn't until July 27. I also couldn't believe that so many people thought that I would have been efficient enough to have it available already, but once folks started asking I pushed it a little further up my to-do list. You can now download one here, or there is also a link just below the list of upcoming programs on the right. We had a great time last year! Hoping to see even more of you this year. Permission slips can be turned in ahead of time, or just brought with you the day of the program. Start doing those "nice weather dances" now, please. We really lucked out last year and had a perfect day. Let's hope for another one!

Forensic Science Program

We just finished two sessions of a great program presented by Sherry Brown, who heads the Forensic Science and Criminalistics Department at York College. We've had Sherry in before and she's always a lot of fun. She has cool stories from her days of working with the New Jersey State Police on cases. And we always learn a lot about fingerprints, handwriting analysis, and evidence handling, and try our hands at chromatography. She always counts as my annual gross and disgusting program, with some of her stories from the field, but she also gets extra gross points for the mummified human arm that she brings along with her. This year she also had an embalmed human heart. Very cool! Pics below.

Weekly Challenge June 21-26, 2010

This week's Challenge is simple. Bring in a brochure, menu, newspaper ad, or printout from the web page, of any 3 of our prize sponsors, and show them to the a member of the Reference Staff. Hint: Look on the back of the rules sheet that you received when you registered for the summer program.

Duct Tape MP3 Player and Cell Phone Covers

Haven't had a chance to count precisely yet, but we had 40-some kids here in two different sessions yesterday to make a cell or MP3 player cover, using everyone's favorite craft material - duct tape! As usual, everyone went home with something pretty cool. A few examples below if you missed it. Also, for those of you who missed it - no, there aren't really instructions available online. We custom make them for each phone or player. But if you pick up a basic duct tape craft book and master the basics, you can probably figure it out. Very cool stuff!