One of the recurring discoveries of my life is that everything connects. Get interested in something, and it leads you to something else. That leads you to the next thing. Before long, you're interested in anything.

Following connections is great fun in your personal reading habits. It's fun for organizations, too.

For instance, the Douglas County Libraries is deeply interested in its many overlapping communities. The more we know about them, the more we can gather resources - people, information, facilities - to help the larger community succeed.

Dean Ruppelt is a patriot.

He served in the Army Reserves from 1982-1987. He served another stint in the Navy from 1987-1991. In September of 2007, he joined the National Guard.

In August of 2008 he got married (on 08/08/08, in fact - a brilliant stratagem to make the date itself memorable.)

And on January 2009, he got called up.

At Fort Hood he got two months training. He left for Kuwait at the end of June, where he got two more week's training, this time in dealing with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).

On July 12, 2009, he arrived in Iraq.

Former county commissioner Melanie Worley told me recently about her first job.  She was a fairy princess.

A local movie theater hired her, gave her a gown, cape, and wand, and instructed her to supervise the frequent hordes of children. Sometimes, she said, she had to bonk them with her wand.

It was excellent training.

Douglas County Libraries has learned some things. Beginning with our experiments in Roxborough, then Lone Tree, we discovered that a combination of self-check technologies and displays meant that we could move far more books, movies, and music with the same staff and space. In fact, we have almost 7% fewer staff this year than last.