mattlary’s weblog

I read an article the other day about the ‘invisible web’, or the parts of the internet that you can’t find from google or other search engines. There are a lot of fee based databases out on the net, but they cost money so most people don’t know they’re there. For example, at work, we make an extensive legal database (westlaw) that lawyers use to research cases, statutes, etc… You can’t find the stuff on there unless you pay.

Anyway, the article went on to say that many good libraries will give their card holders access to a lot of valuable databases, some of them from home. They also said that in most cases, you can get a card to any library in your state for free. The New York Public Library is one such library, and I just got my card today- they have a lot of encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases and other databases available for free, and my card came in just 3 days! They even have a lot of databases from Thomson Gale, a sister company of Thomson West. (No westlaw though).

It’s really easy to sign up for a card there, so if you live in New York State, try it out, it could be nice to have around if you need to settle an argument, or if your kids need to do research for school.

Today was a good day- nothing spectacular, but it just turned out that things worked out; Calin went back to work (already), and was feeling a lot better. I think she regrets that she put in a full day because she was sore from holding herself up in her office chair all day, but other than that she was fine.

I had to change my plates and registration on my car, so I was assuming it was going to somehow end up being a tremendous pain in the ass, but it turned out fine- You can save a ton of time at the DMV if you just read the instructions and fill out the forms before you get there. Plus, the rain held off for a while so I didn’t have to remove and replace license plates in the rain. I got a sub at Galleria, and the guy behind the counter said God Bless You, and I didn’t even sneeze (ok, he does that for everyone, but good nonetheless)

And one last thing- it turns out there was an unexpected episode of House on the DVR! See- lots of good things; just figured I would share.

In case you haven’t heard already; Calin had to have an appendectomy on Friday; it was quite an ordeal because the doctors couldn’t definitively determine if she had appendicitis, so they decided to just take it out and have a look around. Turns out that it wasn’t appendicitis, but we’re glad they took it out because it would have been bad if they left it and found out they were wrong.

Calin is up and about now, she’s not 100% better yet, but she’s feeling a lot better than she did this weekend.

Thomson West Named One of the “Best Places to Work in IT” by Computerworld Magazine

http://west.thomson.com/news/releases/best_workplace.aspx