And the massive shelving effort is...going pretty well, really.

Yesterday, got standard-size paperback, author last names A-L, shelved, and M-R sorted. This morning, got M-R shelved and S-Z as well as anthologies and series titles sorted (as far as keep/not keep) on my part. Scott needs to sort those books and then I can shelve them, and that's all the paperback fiction.

We're actually getting rid of quite a few, including an embarrassing number of either undetected or, in some cases, ignored duplicates (ones both he and I owned that we were pretty sure we had more than one, but it really wasn't worth the effort...). In one case, we had three copies of a book. :P Heh. Might make a nice little bit of money off of selling some of these back; I'm pretty sure some of them won't be worth anything, but others will, and sheer bulk will make it worth a bit.

Probably a couple shelves' worth of returnees, so far. Heh.

Then we do the hardcover fiction, then the non-fiction. So far, it's looking like we may need a shelving unit in the closet for the non-fiction.... Have I mentioned we own too many books? It's very cool, though. And at least we've weeded it down to the ones that someone wants to read or reread, instead of everything we ever picked up whether we liked it or not.

Also planning a system whereby books that intrigue neither of us on first read never make it on to the permanent shelves. This should be sanity-saving.

Ahhh. Accomplishment.

All the paperback fiction books (except the escapees - hopefully there aren't too many scattered around that we didn't get) are categorized; the ones that are keepers are shelved, and the ones that are waiting to be evaluated by a full read by one or both of us are stored where we can tell what is what, more or less. (Not yet where I want them, but in a holding place that will do for now.)

The hardcovers are next. *grim* We have too many of these, from over-eagerness to read a given book. This is going to be hard to whittle down and shelve; it may be worth replacing them with paperbacks in some cases. (There are hardcovers that need to be such, books whose paperback edition is so thick it just falls to pieces when you read it...but not very many.)

I'm going to wait and see how they cull out, though. I was worried about the paperback volume as well, and they fit with a couple shelves left empty. We'll see if one of those shelves goes away to leave a single hardcover shelf, or if we manage to fit the hardcovers above and can put some sort of non-fiction there instead.

I've taken the role of leading the support spheres (building, code, and relations) on Ashes, so a part of tonight was spent getting up-to-date on the building sphere. I was the building wiz way back when ("why in my day, we had to edit the bits to change a piece of text....") but there have been a lot of improvements and additional tools since then, so this was making sure I was up to date on what was going on there. It was actually kind of fun, and I even did a simple inspection. I'll be doing those at least part time for a while (we're short on building admins just now), so I guess I better get used to it. But it's fun, in moderate doses.

I also drove downtown earlier today, just for the fun of it. Took some pictures (which came out okay, but nothing really spectacular) and wandered around. There were some pro-war protesters, and some pro-troops protesters who may or may not have been pro-war. It was clear when I walked out of the parking garage, and it shortly started to rain lightly - very fine mist, to the point that I wasn't troubled that I didn't have my umbrella or hat, having left them in the car.

Had a good walk, and then started to worry - was the rain getting just a trifle heavier? Perhaps it was. So I doubled back toward the parking garage, also toward Saturday Market. Since the Market was between me and the parking anyway, I wandered in. The food court tempted me with its smells, but had nothing I actually wanted at that hour (I'd arrived just 10 minutes or so after they open on a Sunday).

So I wandered through and was just to the part under the bridge when the light rain (which had come out of the light mist, but was still totally within 'wandering freely' parameters) turned into an utter deluge, heavy enough to make vision more than 30-40 feet away a pain. It only lasted perhaps five minutes, but I was very very glad to be under shelter for it - and I remember sparing a moment to think the merchants must be glad they were all set up (with some degree of protection up, for those not under the bridge!) and not carrying things back and forth just then.

The man who makes wooden ties was there. I asked if I could take a photograph of his booth, but he wasn't comfortable with that. I could email him my address and get a brochure, but a brochure costs money to make and I hate to have him spend his when I've no intention of buying - I just want people to see what they're like. I wonder if my dad could find his. They're really kind of cool.

Several other booths I'm very accumstomed to seeing are once again back, though I didn't buy anything - it just wasn't very tempting in the end, except tempting to wander. Good entertainment, as was the walk and the weather.

It was raining moderately by the time I headed back to the garage, though by the way people were scurrying, you'd think it was still pouring outright. I was only damp after walking all that distance, after all. Sheesh. It did that all the drive back, too - no rain, light rain, no rain, POURING BLINDING RAIN, light rain, nothing here but us mists folks, SPLAT all your rain in five seconds, clear sunny moment....

A good Oregon rainstorm, in other words. Stopped at Home Depot on the way back to get a shovel, look for shelves to place in the closet (that would have to be better than the sets we have now that will fit but are college cheapies), and browse. Browsed, and saw shelves that would coloring-wise match the cabinet in the living room, that is missing two. Didn't have the measurements with me; have gotten them. The one I looked at won't work, but perhaps the one next to it that I didn't consider would. I'll have to go back.

Went to look for shelving units for closet, failed to turn up anything worth the price difference over free. Forgot the shovel. Given the shortest line was five people, not particularly interested in the shovel, either. I do hope I remember it when I stop after work tomorrow to look at those shelves again, however.

A day in the life of, and all that. I found a book in the hardcovers tonight that amused me deeply, mostly because I just finished reading it from the library. Oops! Well, and that's part of "we don't know what we have." It's been fun, refinding old friends. And rereading them...when I should be doing other things.... Much fun.