February 28, 2007

It’s good to have friends!

I related to you a week or so ago some of the problems I encounter when trying to use spell checker in a multi-lingual society. My friend hyphen8 had something to say about that:

“Don’t feel two bad. Even wen ewe ewes spell Czech, awed things can slip buy it.” That’s about the size of it. Turns out that it was somwhat prophetic, also. Hypen8 went shopping recently and found something that brought me to mind. I received the benefit of her largess in today’s mail, a too-perfect little pad of sticky notes:

*Dew knot trussed your spell chequer two fined awl your mistakes. - Brendan Hills

Mahalo, my friend! Owe you one … yet again!

[tags]friends, grammar, spelling[/tags]

February 27, 2007

Postie Carnival!

The Postie Carnival has been posted over at my friend Marisa’s Place! We were asked to submit themed posts this time, the theme being pets. Get on over there & read a collection of fun posts from a variety of bloggers.

A blog carnival, if you’re new to the term, is a gathering of posts from a lot of blogs, all in one place. Sometimes it’s themed and other times anything goes. This one is special because all of the writers are Posties, which means they all blog for pay at PayPerPost, just like me. If you have a blog and you’d like to make some decent money for doing what you’re already doing, you should check it out. There’s a “Review My Post” button at the bottom of this post (and every post in my blog) that will allow you to try it on for size by getting paid for a single review. If you already know you want to get paid to blog about the things you love, click the big PPP icon on my right sidebar and it will take you where you need to be. Once you get started, you can submit your own posts for the next Postie Carnival. Good deal all around!

[tags]blog carnivals, Postie Carnival[/tags]

February 26, 2007

Getting to know WordPress

I really had no idea how easy my life was on blogspot until I moved to my new location. I like the new place just fine, but I stay in a perpetual state of confusion. I’ve installed a few features and ended up uninstalling because I couldn’t figure out how to get them to function or, worse yet, couldn’t even get them properly tucked into the right spot in my editor. I’ve set those aside and will deal with them later when I’ve learned a little more. Since none of them are “must haves” I’ve decided not to ask for help just yet, because I need to learn how to do these things for myself. Everyone should know by now that I’m technically deficient, so it’s a steep learning curve.

I’m studying several learning sites that were recommended by friends, but I’ve found that the info that is the most useful to me for specific tasks is on tech blogs, written by people who know that their readers come with varying levels of expertise. Their writing tends to be more user-friendly, just what I need right now. So many things that occurred automagically on blogspot require a lot of user interaction in WordPress. It’s more useful for me to read someone as they ramble about the widget or gadget or plugin so that I can get a “feel” for it instead of just dry instructions that say “install this plugin.”

Today I’ve spent several hours at JMH Techtronics and have found several articles that apply to my needs right now. While my primary concern is regaining my voice and revitalizing my content, I also have to be concerned about building page rank and decreasing my alexa score. Towards that end I know that a sitemap is essential and I’ve decided that I need the Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress. Several people had recommended it, but it was the article above that helped me make the final decision that this is the way to go. There’s a wealth of information about what it can do for you and some tips about making adjustments so that it suits the needs of your blog. This plugin not only enables google notification of posts and other data, it’s also supported by Yahoo! and MSN, so all of the big guys will soon be receiving my stats. If you’re on WordPress and want to optimize your blog, you really need this plugin.

I haven’t decided yet whether to install the aLinks WordPress Plugin. I’ve got a WP plugin for that, but it’s one of those things I mentioned above that I just could not get properly installed. My keywords did not transfer with my content from blogspot, so I need to rebuild them. The aLinks plugin will turn keywords to links whenever I use them in a post, eliminating an extra step in the process. The only reason I haven’t decided whether or not to install it is that Jimi (the author of JMH Techtronics) highly recommends it for Amazon affiliates. I might post a comment over there and try to open a dialogue as to whether it’s equally appropriate for non-Amazonians.

My blog is a work in progress and probably will be for a long time to come. I’m not likely to be turning into a techie, but I’ll probably let you know about updates and other gee-whiz stuff as I discover it.

[tags]WordPress,tools,friends,blogging[/tags]

February 25, 2007

Letters

Reading the Sunday paper was a family affair when I was a child. After church we all changed out of our good clothes and then helped Mom in the kitchen. Once our Sunday dinner was out of the way, we sprawled in the living room with the paper split up among us. When I was in grade school I only read the news and current affairs if they were assigned for a school project. I read the society pages during carnival season, because many of my friends served as pages and maids in some of the large Mardi Gras krewes and it was fun to find their names and pictures. The full-color magazine was a treat, and of course all of us read the comics. My favorite feature though, was just for kids. Since my brothers and sister didn’t care to read it, I’d carry it to my room and usually doze off for a Sunday afternoon nap with it collapsed across my face. I can’t remember now if the whole page was syndicated, or just the column by Aunt Jane. She became my anonymous friend in much the same way that we now form cyber-friendships. She shared fun ideas and stories, and she encourgaged letter-writing. Toward that end, she hooked us up with penpals. I don’t remember now how the system worked. We were less jaded then, so maybe my full name and address were printed in her column, or perhaps I sent her my information and she made the match-ups. Too many years have passed for me to retain such details. I do recall the specifics of several friends with whom I carried on pen-pal relationships until we were well into our teens. I’ve never been quite sure why those exchanges ceased. I know that I was disappointed when each one dropped out and allowed several letters in a row to go unanswered. The last to go was Carla, who lived in the Great Lakes area. We corresponded for six or seven years and I still have her picture in a dusty shoebox of other memorabilia from those years. I don’t remember disposing of her letters or any of the others, but they’re long gone. Did I toss them in the trash years after the fact, or perhaps burn them in a effort to sear away the pain as each friend was lost? Maybe I carelessly lost those letters when they no longer held a significant place in my life. I was young and foolish, so I could have done that. They were, at one time, neatly tucked away in a file box, each friend assigned an index card where I tracked who owed whom a reply and noted the small gifts we exchanged. I guess that implies that I chose to empty out the box and dispose of its contents, because it’s still with me, though filled with recipe cards these days. What was the name of the boy, from which South American country, who turned out to be only using me as a source for English-language books? You’d think I could remember that, because I certainly recall how shattered I was when his scheme became evident. Still, he was part of that first group of friends with whom I learned the binding power of written correspondence. They all played a part in the commencement of what I once thought would be a life-long habit of letter-writing.

I know what happened to the few letters that I got from my ex, back in the days when he was passionately in love with me. When his betrayal and abandonment came, I did burn those, trying to purge his vile wickedness from my aching heart. Again, young, rash and foolish. Our son might have treasured those letters one day. I might have even enjoyed re-reading them myself when time had mellowed me a bit, but I robbed us both in a fit of anger and despair.

There have been others over the years who kept me watching the mailbox in anticipation. A few summer camp friends, high school buddies who scattered to the four winds shortly after graduation, my last “best friend” in Louisiana, with whom I maintained a lively correspondence for a few years after I moved to California. Those few relationships that still survive at all have dwindled down into Christmas card contacts. Some of them now tuck printed newsletters into their card each year; some take the time to handwrite a brief note and their well-wishes. I’ve done both myself.

My last true correspondent was Uncle Cliff. He was seventeen years younger than my father. His first clear memory was seeing Dad in his uniform, headed off to war. Uncle Cliff always hero-worshipped his big brother. It was a natural thing for us to begin truly sharing each others lives when I brought Dad here to live with me and my son. Cliff was the only one who knew or was even interested in the day to day stuff of our lives. He was my rock when Dad deteriorated and his care consumed every hour of every day. He built me up and shared my worries, constantly reminding me that I absolutely must take small breaks and find some time for myself. Only Uncle Cliff knew how devastated I was the first time my father needed a diaper change while my son was out. I tired to handle the task with dignity for both of us, and Dad said it was okay, it was fine, he understood. It eventually became just another task, but Uncle Cliff knew what it cost both, and sent bawdy humor to remind us that it’s okay to laugh. I discovered through one of his letters that he liked Rod McKuen, the poet who had scripted the background for love in my youth. I found a used copy of Listen to the Warm and sent it to Cliff. Thus we began to get outside of ourselves and discuss music and poetry and other fine distractions.

Through it all, Cliff penned memories of people and events that most in our family had forgotten or never deemed worthy of passing on to a new generation. My great-aunt Tinny, who had always been just a name to me, came alive with her eccentricities and unbridled passion for life. I began to see my grandmother and grandfather as young parents, making life and love out of nothing at all. How sharp was their memory of taking the boy who would be my father into depression-era cotton-fields so he could help them earn a pittance to live on! I began to understand why cousin Edith was the one person Dad had insisted he must visit in Dallas before I flew him here to be with us in Hawaii. No one had ever shared those stories with me until Cliff put them on paper and affixed a little postage.

Cliff was too sick to travel when we flew Dad home that last time to rest beside Mom. When the funeral and its attendant business were over I rented a car and drove to his home half a day away. Cliff stood shakily from his chair to hear the words my son intoned as he presented the flag from Dad’s coffin, the words with which the flag had been placed into his own hands: “On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation …” Cliff collapsed, his grief overwhelming, but he later insisted that he must hear the speech in its entirety, those final words in remembrance of his big brother/hero. We had a few more days of rest and healing, and then I flew home, knowing that we would not likely have such times again.

Dad’s passing left me with the small inheritance I used to start my business. This necessitated acquiring my first computer. Cliff had been online for years. Writing had become difficult for him, yet his hands flew across the keyboard, and our correspondence resumed. He wrote to me daily with silly limericks and thoughtful remembrances and all of the wisdom and stories that he knew he had only a short time left to memorialize. I told tales of my island paradise and the wonderful times we would share when he came to visit, a harmless fantasy we both enjoyed embroidering. He called on his years of success in business and became my mentor as I stumbled inelegantly into entrepreneurship. We had about two years of that blessed online relationship before the dreaded phone call came. My aunt had gone out briefly, and returned to find that he had left us. He was at his computer, perhaps even preparing to write once again to me, when he breathed his last.

I didn’t have a chance to save those precious emails when my hard drive suddenly consumed itself and my computer had to be replaced. But I have a box full of his handwritten letters and a few that were typed when his hands refused to grip a pen. These will not be tossed or burned or carelessly lost. They preserve his spirit, his wit and his unbounded love for his family, including one far-away niece who missed him then and still misses him very much. I feel his presence scrawled across those pages, and I love the feel of them in my hands.

He rewrote the Song of Hiawatha for me once, calling it Hiawatha Slandered, and ensconced it in a ten page letter to me. The remainder of the letter takes it to Hollywood, where he selects John Wayne to play my father, Meryl Streep for me, Jimmy Stewart for himself and “… Jack Nicholson playing John (the ex), whom I never knew, but then, Nicholson can play anyone.” Francis Ford Coppula and Steven Spielberg co-direct the masterpiece, Tennessee Williams assists in the screenplay and Carl Sagan (or his ghost?) provided authenticity to a scene involving protons and neutrons and electrons. When my son comes into my life, Cliff pens “… Note to self: keep T. Williams out of this segment entirely; fire him, pay him off, but be sure that he doesn’t even get on the set.” This wonderful letter was ended with a P.S. that answered my puzzlement as to what could have inspired it: “You mentioned love letters yourself. And I thought I heard a wish in your voice. Always be careful of wishes - you never know when you will get them. Remember that leprechauns, genies and, sometimes, weird Uncles can grant wishes - but usually there is a price to pay.” I guess he was referring to the “chore” of writing back to him (which was not a chore, but a pleasure,) because that was all he got in return and he never sent an invoice for some other fee.

This is not what I started out to write, but my mind is subject to (dis?)associative wandering. I wanted to talk about the beauty and joy of handwritten letters, which are well along the road to becoming a thing of the past. Instead I’ve strayed, but that joy is still contained herein. I’ll tell you some more about letters soon, and share with you the event that set my mind on this path. Stay tuned.

The update has been posted for your reading pleasure.

[tags]letters, penpals, memories, family[/tags]

February 23, 2007

Getting back in the groove

I haven’t visited many other blogs for the last week or so. The fatigue from this virus has got me falling asleep at the keyboard several times a day, and I don’t remember much of the little that I have gotten around to. I suppose I must finally be getting better, because I’ve been cruising blogs tonight and have actually retained a little of what I’ve read.

The fellow who writes Guitar Licks reminds me of my brother, his mind always on music. He’s got some great recommendations on musical equipment and accessories. What sent me back to the past and memories of my brother, though, was his reminescent post about his early attempts to make it big in music. Reading that took me right back to junior high and high school, spending my afternoons and weekends in garages and rec rooms, watching the guys, supporting them on their road to stardom. Life got in the way, as it does for many, and none of them went on to careers in music. I suspect that all of them, though, still revert to their pasts on a regular basis, and I’m sure they also all still partake in the ultimate male bonding ritual. Check out Guitar Licks. There’s too much good stuff for me to mention it all here.

[tags]music, blogs, memories[/tags]

February 22, 2007

Southern Fried Carnival

It’s Southern Fried Carnival time again. I’ve been terribly disorganized lately and missed the chance to participate several times, but this week I’m in the lineup and I’ll certianly try to remember it from here on out. There’s still time for you to sign up too. Go to Cass Knits and our favorite hostess will hook you up. The Carnival will run tomorrow, Friday, February 23, so get it in gear & get your stuff talked about!

[tags]blog crnivals, Southern Fried Carnival[/tags]

February 21, 2007

Fun widget!

Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

I told you this morning that my designer is ready to begin putting together a new blog template for me. I’ve had an email from her asking what new features I wanted to install in addition to the standard editing and organizing tools. I immediately thought about how often I’ve wanted to share my local music with my readers. You’ve all heard of Iz and a few other artists, but there’s so much more that you aren’t yet acquainted with yet. Well, it turns out that several of my friends have installed the Box.net Widget recently and they can’t quit talking about it. With this handy-dandy little flash player I can share my music and also podcasts, photos, videos and any type of file I want. It comes with unlimited bandwidth and the Box.net.Widget folks will host up to 1 gb of files for me for free. I’ve put it right there where I can try it and you can, too. I’m still getting acquainted with it, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be asking my blog designer to tuck it into a sidebar so I can always have it handy. Give it a try and let me know what you think. The Box.net.Widget sponsored this post and they’d like to know what you think of their new toy, too. Try it out and let them know!

[tags]tools, technology[/tags]

I am adored

It’s nice to be the center of their world. It really is. Everyone needs to feel indispensible sometimes. Everyone needs a little privacy sometimes, too. That’s not asking too much, is it? A cushy bath pillow, a good book, a warm tub, the subtle fragrance of lavender wafting from the bubbly froth. Bubbles? Is that bubbles, Mom? Looks fun. Can I have some? Can I Mom? Ewwwwwww, Mom! Tastes nasty. Looks scary now, Mom. Whatcha doing sitting in that nasty, scary stuff that doesn’t taste good? Huh, Mom? Huh, Mom? Huh, Mom? Whatcha doing, Mom? Huh?

[tags]pets, dogs, humor[/tags]

A change is gonna come

I’ve finally heard from the woman who is going to custom design my site. I’m really excited about the world of possibilities. I had been thinking about the look only, but she’s asked about features and widgets I’d like to have. I’m hoping that that means you’ll soon be able to come here to listen to some of the local music I’ve been wanting to share with you. (No, I will not install an auto-play audio device. The decision to listen or not would be in your hands!)

I’m fairly new to the blogging world. Suggestions from my more-experienced friends are very welcome. Are there features you think would enhance my blog, from my own perspective and that of the visitor? Are there special additions to your blog that you think I might want to know about. I’m totally green here, so I’m counting on your insight to help me make these momentous decisions!

[tags]web design, blogging[/tags]

February 20, 2007

Shed a little light on the subject

I’ve embarrassed myself and regaled you, my readers, with the tale of how badly I screwed up my last home remodel project. I’m pretty sure there will be other stories at my expense in the future. My thirty-something year-old home still has almost-untouched bathrooms and kitchen and I’m champing at the bit to get working again. The wiring in my house was not top-of-the-line when it was installed, so I’ll have to start there. I may not be the slickest pebble in the stream, but I know better than to try to re-wire the whole house myself. That will be done by a professional later this year, I hope. Once that little task is done, I can move on to the fun stuff. I love shopping for building materials. I’ve already got the paint on hand and I’ve selected the flooring I want. The shed is full of birch and a cabinetmaker is standing by, waiting for my call. Next up will be the fixtures for the kitchen. Today I bookmarked some Kitchen Lighting that I really like. I know that I want to be able to focus spots on my prep area and stove, so I’m looking at track lighting for that. I’ll also have an undercabinet florescent fixture over my sink where so much of the action is. I haven’t decided yet whether I will install lighting in the glass cabinets that will hang over the bar, but probably so. I like that look. Of course, there’s the possiblity that I may change my mind a dozen times before I actually make my selections. I’m still in the dreaming and early-planning stages right now, but I’ll be sharing my stories and misadventures with you in the coming months.

[tags]lighting, electrical[/tags]