Anyway, all the above was by way of reporting that thanks to my tweets and an email or two live from the convention, several colleagues were intrigued enough to ask if they could try out the adventure. I wasn't sure it would be a good idea as the environment and social interaction and everything would be so different, particularly with newbies to role playing much less Traveller, but I was persuaded. I'm now back in nervous excitement mode as we're going to tackle it tomorrow evening. I've booked a table in a nearby hostelry where we meet for book group, we've found six people for the game including former colleague S who is stretching comfort zones, as well as a couple of others who are actually vaguely familiar with Traveller. I've no idea how it will go but it's been a good motivator to tidy up some of the corners of my document so that it can eventually be submmitted to Andy for - dare I hope? - publication and it will certainly be interesting to compare the experience from the convention with something completely different. And it's a nice escape from work which is sorely needed at present.

I've mentioned Traveller here before although I don't tend to go on about it as it's a bit obscure (even for me!). The productive year of writing I had last year, seems to have gone on this year - though I'm still waiting for that first adventure to see the light of day. I've just written a 'second' little which may well beat it into print - in a different publication. Well, I say print, but of course these days role playing game material like that is almost always web-based or PDF. Back in March though I attended a convention for the fourth time in four years. Have really enjoyed them, but last year came away thinking maybe I could, after all, do more than just turn up to play. I'd had this idea for an adventure buzzing around in my head since living in Africa three decades back. I'd not done much with it save jot down down a couple of pages of notes that I think are still in a filing cabinet somewhere. For some reason - possibly connected with the birth of a deaf nephew - the idea seemed to come back to very powerfully. I dumped it on the poor chap who travelled homewards with me after the convention and he said "yes, I'd play that" which I took as encouragement. Next day I sat and wrote some 7000 words in a splurge that I'm not sure I ever recall happening before. There was still lots of work to do and a lot of questions to answer and of course I put it aside for 11 months, until I realized at the end of January this year that if I was seriously going to run this as an adventure at this year's convention, I needed to get moving. Having a booked a place I'd also said to the convention organizer that if he was willing to take a chance on a newbie referee, with very little experience of anything, I was up for giving it a go. Of course he was up for it - he has 16 four hour slots to fill and 4 six hour slots across a weekend! *Anything* would have done no doubt! Anyway, any spare time in February was completely sucked into creating what I thought I needed: Player Characters suitable for the adventure, starship deckplans, world maps, system data (for half a dozen worlds and lots of satellites), animal encounters, a whole society. I even managed to some of my own graphics and illustrations. I realized I'd set myself no small task. One of my bright ideas was to produce a 'diary' which would be found in the course of the adventure, but realizing that was another labour suggested to my 17 year old daughter who enjoys writing, that she might like to produce it. I gave her a two page briefing of what was required. By the end I had some 70 pages and more than 25,000 words - although the core of the adventure was still pretty much the text I'd written the year before. Somewhat tidied up and questions answered. Nothing from daughter however, until the Saturday before the convention when I pointed out that if I was going to print the diary, the deadline was Wednesday as I'd need to get it printed Thursday before travelling for much of Friday. My biggest worries were whether it was 'complete' enough, whether it would fill anything like a four hour time slot, and whether it would actually be any fun. Still, what was the worst that could happen? In a fit of enthusiasm, given all the work I'd done, I even said to Andy the organizer that I might as well run it twice if I was going to run it all. He did kindly allow me to have one of the slots on the first evening though, so I could get it out of my system and not be up for (another) night worrying. The week before the convention was hectic with every waking moment not at work devoted to finishing things off. To my astonishment, daughter emerged from the troglodyte existence of her bedroom with a diary exactly along the lines I'd requested. Just short of 10,000 words she'd written in five days! Only she'd handwritten it - I had to type it and as I did so I was completely drawn into the lives of these characters and moved almost to tears by some of the events and daughter's writing! I'd expected it to be usable, I'd not quite expected it to be brilliant and it did look great properly printed up and bound as if it were really a diary. Come the afternoon of arrival and helping set up tables etc, if Andy had said he had too many games, I'd have happily dropped out I was that apprehensive. Then the sign up sheets for the first four games went up - six seats in each game. And my game suddenly had six real people expecting fun and entertainment for four hours. Gulp! In the end, however, it went really well. In fact, I was rather astonished by the overwhelmingly positive reception. We should have finished around midnight but we carried on for another 45 minutes such was the interest. There were moments when I thought it might all go to pot, but we got past them. All the handouts I'd prepared were useful and in some cases really poured over in detail. The structure seemed to 'work' for the players and tricky bits didn't cause the problems I thought they might. The diary was a big hit and from the moment it was 'found' in the game, it was never out of someone's hands as they tried to read and digest as much of it as possible. Possibly my favorite accolade was that it was "really Traveller". Wow! I couldn't believe the buzz that was generated at the close of play and then around the convention as word spread around. It was almost embarrassing. I'd expected "it was fine" or even a mediocre rating and pointers to improve on for next time, but this was totally unexpected. The snag now was that it was setting up expectations for the second running of the game on the Saturday afternoon. A different group of players might have a completely different experience of it and a different reaction to it. The other snag was that now I couldn't sleep for the excitement rather than the worry! Much to my relief, second time around it went down as well. Which meant a lot considering one of the players was a referee I'm in awe of with his ability and writing skill. One young chap even said it was the best RPG he'd *ever* played - but I put that down to his youth and hyperbole! Poor Andy - hearing this kind of enthusias - was even moved to observe that it was this kind of reaction that was likely to get him motivated to returning to publishing Traveller books which he'd done a dozen or more in the past (including my bibliographies) but had to give up for work/family commitments. I did enjoy the rest of the convention and the three games I got to play but a final surprise was to come. At the end of the convention before everyone heads home, there's normally a small awards ceremony for the bravest and the stupidest character actions, thanks for those who deserve it, and an auction of any remaining beer, books or other items to raise money for a very worthy charity. I'd told Andy that rather than carry my game "book" (spirally bound stack of paper!), the handouts and the nicely printed colour map home, he might as well auction them off if he thought they'd raise a couple of dollars. Some beer went for a few dollars, a couple of other things made a little less but for some reason he saved my 'junk' till last. I'd though $5 or $10 would be quite fair although I'd heard that someone was threatening to bid $30. In the end two bidders (one from each of the sessions interestingly) went head to head and the lot eventually went for $110 which totally blew my socks off (and everyone else's I think). I felt for the losing bidder as he'd been the chap who'd patiently listened to my outline the year before - but he very kindly donated another $15 to be 'allowed' the PDF files. Of course, there's one remaining problem - how to follow that next year!

In all the excitement of travelling last week to the other end of the country for a one day meeting of science and technology librarians (Well worth it by the way and got to see some of the old stomping grounds of my Mom and Dad when they were younger), I may have forgotten to mention that the paper I wrote a little while back with my junior colleague R, has won an award. Only $80 but great to be cited as "the most informative, entertaining and inspiring article" of the year. In an sad bit of 'karma' if you will, I also managed to leave my iPad bluetooth keyboard (cost: $80) in a lecture room after demonstrating it to the Malaysian teachers I was telling about iPads and apps in education. Needless to say it wasn't there when I went back. C'est la vie.

Three of us sat down to shortlist candidates on Friday. Now I know what to expect it was a pretty straightforward 90 minutes and no surprises. I still think I've uncovered a fundamental failure to understand some basic math when I get into discussions about the scoring system we used last time we had to rate someone. [1] Anyway, I had an insight an over the weekend. The whole process of looking at the applications, shortlisting candidates and interviewing them, isn't to get the right person for the job. It's to give the panel time to adjust to the idea of having to appoint the person who happens to come out 'best' by a restricted set of criteria. I.e. let's rate people against a job spec and try and quantify their performance in interview, but take no account whatsoever (or very little) of personality, who they have to work with, or 'rightness' for the job. You can see why such woolly measures get ignored and I suppose I can give some kind of intellectual assent to the system being the best that there is. But it still seems to me, well, rather flawed. Does this ever get any easier? [1] If you have several 'woolly' criteria to rate between 1 and 10 but *tend* to uses numbers between, say, 4 and 9, and you have one criteria that's measurable and uses the whole scale from 1 to 10 then it seems to me obvious that an outlier on the measurable criteria is going to skew the points of someone who is conservative with marking. Apparently that's not obvious to others even *after* I've pointed it out and shown the mathematics.

Library book group tonight. Or LyBree as I was encouraged to use this morning. (Debate over whether the word has two or three syllables). Apparently I'm the only one to have bothered with the book at all. Jane Smiley's Moo, set in a midwestern university. Can't say I enjoyed it much at all and can see why no one else even tried it after the first few chapters. I suspect it will be a short discussion.

Latest in the advice I'm getting about helpful things to try. From two different sources I've been told I should have massages to release toxins in my muscles. I quite agree. But easier said than done. The place I found - and tried a couple of times - near TheOldPlace isn't an option any more. Even then I found it weird; not sure that will have changed.

OK, probably not going to be able to post here just yet on the interview process. I think one of the candidates may be reading this, so probably unwise. News later.

Looking forward to seeing who has applied for the two posts to be my two (half) assistants. Deadline was Friday. Heard rumors that there are some. Whole reality of it about to hit home.

One thing about having a chronic illness is that you're fair game for the host of suggestions you receive about cures from diet improvements to herbal remedies; from specialist doctors to vitamin (etc) supplements. This morning I was accosted by another person with advice. Always well meaning, I'm sure and always offering that little glimmer of hope that *this* could be the thing that changes everything. I've long 'believed' in the 500mg Vitamin C tablets I take daily knocking all the colds I used to get on the head. I used to catch everything going and one 'in between'. But since starting the Vitamin C some years back have barely had a cold since. But in addition to that I've had my Mum recommending Vitamin D [1], a Christian lady I meet on the bus swearing by coconut oil [2], a friend of my wife's suggesting a couple of things I'd need a presecription for. It's hard to keep track and I endeavour not to try everything at once so that I can see if it makes a difference - not that it is a very scientific trial with just one patient and no 'control' subject. This morning's enthusiasm was for specialists 100 miles away who focus on CFS, immune systems and 'environmental factors' and can test for a whole host of things that aren't normally looked for apparently. My accoster's husband had 18 blood samples taken. Of course, none of this is cheap. $2000 just for that much... not to mention what any course of (daily) injections subsequently might cost. I shall wait to hear of any results with interest. None of this, is to say, of course if you're reading this that I *don't* want to hear of any miracle cure you might have come across. But it might explain why it gets treated with a certain amount of - if not sceptism - at least patience. Yes, I do want to hear, but it can go in the queue... [1] Perhaps not so unwise having heard a doctor on the radio the other morning saying that in this particular climate/latitude none of us obtain Vitamin D from the amount of sunlight we receive between October and April. Of course, neither is this suggested as a 'cure' for CFS - just as a support to a compromised immune system. [2] I had thought this was a medicinal kind of thing - you know - take a spoonful before bed or something. I'd imagined some oleaginous liquid such as cooking oil, or ground nut oil. But it turns out to be a dietary thing. Comes in sizeable jars or tubs of a white solid 'paste' - more like butter. It can be used as oil to cook, butter to spread, or lotion to rub into skin. Two snags: firstly since a poor experience with illness from bites of coconut sold off trays on the heads of kids in Nigeria, I've never really been fond of the taste of coconut; secondly, used as butter it makes everything taste of coconut! Whether it will make the tiniest bit of difference I don't know, but I heard twice in the same week of it being a 'miracle' cure for an alzheimers patient.

Last Friday advertisements for both of my assistant posts appeared. The subject one I share with the science librarian and the promotions one I share with his/her enquiry work. Both internal only at this stage which rules out my brother looking for a changing of scene. (Now that would be weird! Little brother as an assistant!) Next Friday is the deadline for applications. No idea who might be thinking about it so anything could happen.

My subject assistant (the one who applied for the business post)... got the job. She starts today. (So from my point of view has now finished.) Congratulations to D and I'm sure she'll be good at it.

On the other hand that means I've lost both my assistants in very short order. To lose one might be regarded unfortunate, to lose two just looks like carelessness.

There's a part of me however that, recognizing she's been more than a little involved with helping at other posts for the last couple of years of our restructuring, thinks that it will be a good opportunity to start again. At least I understand that both will be replaced, but it will be a couple of months most likely.

What was interesting, just before Easter, was the person who approached me about the possibility of replacing D and making it a job share. But that's supersecret and I promised I wouldn't breathe a word of it until personnel have worked out some details.

Nice to have had three days away from work. I was beginning to struggle the last week or so and feeling very rough.

Actually have the rest of this week of as well however to go to an Easter celebration of teaching and worship. That won't be so restful and after last year's experience I'm a little concerned about how it's going to go. Plus we're sharing a chalet with a friend from way back.

Great to see my brand new nephew yesterday at my parents'. There were 18 of us around the table (Mum, Dad, us four 'children' and our spouses, eight grandchildren!) The newest one was only born on Wednesday and balances us all out to two a piece for myself and my three siblings. Any bets on whether that's us lot 'maxed out'?

So farewell to my *other* assistant. The one I've just had for a couple of months helping with promotions. Time for him to retire just as I felt I was beginning to get to know the old curmudgeon (as he styles himself!).

(The assistant mentioned in the last post is on the subject / liaison side, although throughout our staff restructuring she's pretty much been doing another role so assistance has been limited).

So, now I'm looking at a job description and advert for his replacement. It will take a little while, but at least he is being replaced. That's something of a relief. In the meantime, it's just his (brand new) assistant - the one I had such a trauma over appointing - and I to hold the fort.

All the best to K for his retirement though.

Not sure that I'm cut out for management. We've now had the *first* stage of interviews for the replacement business librarian. We had so many good candidates hat they could get 26 only down to 8 and they neither wanted to weed any more interesting looking possibilities based solely on paperwork, nor wanted to interview 8 in one go.

So a two stage process was designed where the 8 would be invited to give a presentation and have a half hour peer group discussion, followed by some
of them being invited back for a formal interview.

The first part was where I came in. Two and a bit hours of 10-15 presentations. 40 minutes of lunch with all the candidates. Four hours of peer group discussions. One hour of peer group discussing who to invite back (large based on 'points' accumulated by various measures in the candidates' two performances.

So 10am-6pm. Without a break really. I should have protested more vigourously. It would be exhausting without all the emotional extras, but as it was I arrived home way past any ability to do anything.

And just to add to the fun my assistant (shared with science librarian) was he one internal candidate - but at least she made it though to the interview stage despite running on far too long in presentation. (Given 10 minutes with 4 for questions, 17 minutes of talk is really pushing it).

At least I'm nothing to do with the interviews. We'll see how they turn out.

Last night went to see a terrific actor on stage in a dear little intimate theater where I couldn't have asked to be much closer to him. It wasn't a play, or even the readings from his new biography that I thought was on the cards. It was just him on stage for 100 minutes or so without break telling us the life story of a long dead writer who had inspired him.

With no props (except a table on which a glass and a bottle of water stood) he kept us spellbound not so much with an interesting story - although it was that - but with his presence and manner and wit and words. It was entrancing.

I can't work out whether he's inspired me more to Write something or take up a life on the stage!

Learned some scary things today from The Candidate himself and from elsewhere which only confirmed my worst fears about the process. Know any good buses I can thrown myself under?

We'll just have to see how it turns out but I think my faith in the 'system' has taken a blow from which it may never recover. I can't help feeling I would have got as good a result (almost certainly better) by rolling dice. It was best summed up by a former colleague who said "it does sometimes seem that the meticulously fair tick-box approach to performance on the day can be unfair in a wider sense."

What an awful day yesterday. One I hope I never have to repeat although I may be going through something similar in a few months time.

It was interview day for the post I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The assistant to my assistant (who will soon be retiring himself).

Four candidates, all internal, all suitable and no doubt capable. I knew it would be trouble. Two of them I don't know so well; two I know better from book group and work social events; and one of the latter I get on really well with.

Two of the candidates were real artists which was a bonus in promotions work. For me they stood out - one for his interview and his experience - the other for her poster in the exercise we asked them to do and her enthusiasm.

All things considered it was an extremely close run thing but utterly frustrating to find in the end that the way the panel discussion and assessment goes that there's no room for feelings about how well you think you'd work with someone or how ideal you think someone might be. Or for including knowledge about the experience you know someone has which simply didn't get expressed. With some input from the exercise, it's mostly down to how well the questions were answered.

The upside was that all four were "appointable" as the expression goes; the surprise was that, asked in the exercise to create "promotional material", everyone focussed on producing a poster rather than also thinking about how they might put something on a web page, our plasma screen, or social media. I know they didn't have a lot of time, but a hint or a tweet wouldn't have taken a moment.

Physically it was a demanding day - 11am to just before 5pm with virtually nothing in the way of a break. I'd been prepared for that and knew it would be hard. Emotionally/socially/psychologically - well, I knew that would be hard too but I had absolutely no idea of just how utterly impossible it would be. Especially having to face a result that will probably be the hardest and strangest for me. And you're so aware that there's only one job and therefore three very disappointed people. Why can't I have all four?!

I cried all the way home and having taken the phone to bed I was so nearly unable to move, called each of the four for ten minutes apiece and slept the sleep of the dead. If I never have to do that again, it will be too soon.

I had a letter published in a paper of note this week. Still glowing from that. Not quite sure why it was so exciting. It was inconsequential enough in an ephemeral form that will soon disappear. I'd emailed them a couple of times before but this one was a bit more thought out and obviously hit the mark for whatever reason.

The letter itself was responding to an article I'd seen two days before celebrating one of their crossword compiler's 40th year. I recognized him as my old music teacher at school and commented on his still haunting me and still teaching me all these decades later.

Most amusing was my wife's response. Despite the professional book chapters and peer reviewed articles I've had published; despite the hobbyist books and articles I've had published and even earned the odd cent or to for; this was the first time she admitted finally a modicum of being impressed. Ah well. Such is life. Sic transit gloria.

From one end of the personnel process to the other. Yesterday, along with two others, I was shortlisting candidates for my assistant's assistant as it were.

All internal, all very capable.

But as I have to deal with personnel from this end of the works, I suddenly see why everything seems to take so long with them... .

To a party at the weekend thrown by the map librarian who has turned 50. He'd invited quite a large number of people from several of his different 'lives'. So there was a good gang from the library there.

Fun evening. But as some of us were the last to leave a little after midnight, and I had a couple of boxes of books to drop off, and I was doing the driving for three others, we took a turn around the Library at 12.30 to see how 24/7 opening was going.

We were all somewhat taken aback by just how full the place was on a Saturday night and how much actual study seemed to be happening rather than just chaos and rambunctiousness which we were expecting.

Bit of shame the the library system had fallen over. It happens very rarely but did mean self-issue was a non-starter for those who wanted it. But it's good to see that with exam period on us, the extra opening certainly seems to be being used.



[1] Well, old Science Fiction magazines from the 50s that I accumulated somewhere along the line) to give to the SF society.

Just an update although the news is still officially embargoed I think.

Didn't get the job - but really the best of outcomes. Performed really well, didn't let myself down and was apparently considered 'appointable' which was encouraging. But beaten by more experience of leading
large teams and managing big projects.

I think I'm relieved really as not at all certain I would have loved the job. I wish the candidate who got it all the best and will watch with interest. But surprised to find it wasn't who I thought it would be.

All done now.

50 minutes of grilling.

Actually, it wasn't as stressful as it might have been. I had feared I might have been humiliated as I was in an interview a couple of decades back for a school library post. (You can get away with not being able to answer one question, two might look a bit bad... but three? Really they wanted a teacher not a librarian.)

I think I did as well as I could and it's now down to the panel (four, not three as I expected, the head of IT was there too) and what the other candidates were like.

At least I'm not too stressed about the outcome either way! But I'm relieved not have let myself down.

Book group now. Definitely time for a drink!

They're running way behind now. So still not been in.

On the up side though, several people have told me that my presentation was by far the most interesting. Which is encouraging. (Not that 'interesting' necessarily equates to 'good', and even if it did may only say that it was in poor company or not be what they were looking for.

Good grief. I can no longer run on adrenalin for 9 hours straight. Used to thrive on it.

Well, I'm through the presentation, sit-around-making-polite-conversation and lunch stages.

I think my presentation went well. Nervous, but I kept to time, didn't hurry and enjoyed my first outing with Keynote and the iPad direct to the screen.

Now it's the interview (brought forward to 3pm as one of the five candidates has chosen not to come). Not sure that I'm at all prepared for the searching questions about my (in)ability that I'm expecting. OK, maybe not inability - but lack of management experience. And one of the other candidates seems very strong from chatting with him...

Nerves have definitely set in now.

But I'm as prepared as I think I can be. For the presentation at least; not at all sure about the interview later this afternoon.

Time to go...

New Year and back to work.

Atrocious weather, awful headache - it's not boding well already.

But I've sorted some outstanding problems I couldn't fix before Christmas so that's good and I've had an eye-test that's unsurprisingly revealed that I do indeed need new glasses - of the varifocal kind - not so good.

But before I go home I thought I'd better write about the next BIG thing.

Last year one of our two deputy librarians retired. Off to sunnier climes. We duly advertised his post - managing cataloging and acquisitions and systems.

Now for some reason I managed to miss the adverts and even the fact that they'd reached that stage in the proceedings so I accepted that what with health and not being at all sure I'd really want the job, that was that and it wasn't meant to be.

However, only two people applied - one internal - and we didn't appoint anyone. Human resources and the Library Head decided to review the job spec and see if that was the problem. I'm not sure they changed it much, but by the time I did catch the advertisement second time around I was wondering if I shouldn't give it a go. Several factors came into play:
- I'd been stung by former colleague S, somewhat dressing me down for not applying for the other Deputy post when it had come up
- I can't let illness put me off - it's up to them to tell me they don't want me
- what if they had appointed the internal candidate and I'd not even bothered?! (The fact that he was the guy I beat to my present job also confuses things!)
- can I really keep doing what I've been doing for the last fifteen years?

on the other hand:
- would I be promoted to the level of my incompentance? (the Peter Principle)
- would it be all the tedious bits of my job and non of the fun bits?
- (related to the last) would I mind no longer being an 'academic'?
- and related to that and the differing pay scales, is it worth it for the small increase in salary?

Well, for better or worse I put in an application. And although it took an astonishing amount of time before I heard from HR, I was offered an interview.

That takes place on Thursday. I'll keep you posted.