Exploring what's possible with punctuation.
Trying out another photo viewer plugin. This one is the NextGen gallery by Alex Rabe. If anyone happens to visit please let me know if the pictures make the page slow to load. Thanks.
The pictures were taken around where I live in a part of Chester County, SC known as Armenia.
20 Photos
This is late news but it’s worth mentioning: the Sanford (NC) Pottery Festival was held on May 2 and 3. This event started in 2002 and has now become the largest pottery festival in NC. If you missed it this year (as I did) then try to make it next. You won’t be disappointed.
In a state known for pottery, Sanford and the surrounding area is probably the richest place in the world for this art form. I would hazard a guess that there are more potteries in and around Sanford, NC than anywhere else in the world.
And more than that, there are artists of all kinds living and working in this area. Painters, sculptors, wood-workers, musicians, jewelry makers, poets and writers all seem to be drawn to this area in central North Carolina. Maybe it’s the beautiful countryside with its gently rolling hills and deep rivers that attracts and then sustains these creative spirits; maybe it’s something in the water. Whatever it is, this place has a spirit and a charm all its own.
Go visit when you can but be forewarned: you may not want to leave.
For more information visit SandfordPottery.org and the Chatham Artist’s Guild web site.
This is just another post to take up space and force the previous post down a notch and, I hope, out of view. That last one is really a waste, as posts go, and as so many of mine are. “Why not just delete it?” you might ask. Well, one of the rules of blogging is that you don’t delete posts: once published, they must stay.
Which causes me to ask myself, “Why are you doing this at all?” And further, “Why do you create and maintain seemingly worthless web sites and spend time learning programming languages and worrying about snippets of code that you don’t understand and can’t figure out?” Why? Hell, I don’t know. Some people play golf, right? Nobody asks them why, do they?
This computer stuff has sort of a stigma attached to it for those who really don’t understand, though. I mean, sometimes in the middle of the night I’ll get an idea and slip into my office and go to work. Harmless, right? No. My wife thinks I’m in there chatting with young girls and looking at porn. I’ve never chatted in my life and I don’t look at porn anymore. I’m just writing stuff, trying to learn a little PHP and MySQL, uploading files to my servers, tweaking a little HTML and CSS and generally wasting time and bandwidth. I guess that’s the problem, the wasting time. If I could only make a little money at it, that would show her, ha!
Anyway, I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life and will probably waste a lot more if I live long enough. Heck, time’s free isn’t it?
I also spend (waste) time playing classical guitar. Again, alone in my chamber. I work on scales and obscure 19th century pieces and struggle with difficult passages and lose sleep over bad practice sessions and (the other day) got so frustrated I almost destroyed my guitar. Why do I do this? Hell, I don’t know. If I could only make a little money at it, that would show her, ha!
That’s it, isn’t it? The money defines the thing. If it makes money it’s not a waste of time. I’ve never been good at making or holding on to money. When I don’t have it I can’t spend it and when I do I spend it up. Savings? Forget about it.
But I keep trying and wasting time and, yippee! I wrote my own autoresponder using PHP and MySQL and I nailed that Bach piece I’ve been working on and…hey, I think that about did it, didn’t it? Pushed that last post slam out of view.
Business at my “real job” has been a little – no – very slow here lately so I have had time and have felt the necessity to work and focus more on some of my side stuff.
For several years I have thinking about and laying the groundwork for the day that I could quit the rat-race and make a living doing things that I really like. I mean, who wouldn’t love to be able to turn their hobbies into income-producing businesses?
There are a lot of things that I like to do, but I have narrowed the list down to those that seem most feasible for business ventures. I must add that I am particularly interested in Internet marketing and all of my ventures lend themselves well to that.
I have heard it said that it is best to find one thing that you do well and focus on that. I have always found that difficult to do – I’m interested in too many things. The neat thing is that now, with the Internet, it’s possible for someone such as myself, with limited means and broad interests, to start and run an on-line business (or businesses).
Well, here’s a list of my endeavors.
There you have it – Booshink Enterprises!
All of the domains mentioned above are mine, bought and paid for, and I intend to create sites for each of them (some I have already, obviously).
Necessity is the mother of invention (please excuse the cliche) they say and necessity is forcing me to begin work and the promotion of myself and my sites in earnest. That being said, may I add that if you haven’t noticed may I point out to you that I am affiliated with several companies and that I feature ads over there in the sidebar occasionally promoting same. Those aren’t there just to make the site look better – I’m trying to earn a little revenue thereby. I sell books, art prints, posters and t-shirts through these affiliates and would appreciate it if you would remember me the next time you’re in the market for such items – or, heck, just go over there now and click on some of them (they won’t bite) and check things out. Of course you can also just give out of the goodness of your heart and to further the cause.
Well, that’s about it for now. Thanks for visiting and come back often.
I hear crickets. The night is clear and cool, almost cold, and there is a slight dampness in the air and I hear these bold, Southern crickets out early in late winter, eager for spring.
The crickets and the daffodils come first, then the whippoorwill. But now it’s just the cool March air and the twinkling dark sky and the waving rise and fall of the crickets’ song.
My grandmother Maggie was a wonderful, proper Southern lady of the old school – a Methodist preacher’s wife and well suited for the position. The only time I ever heard her curse was when she used the word damn and then only in reference to Yankees (not the ball club). She had a great sense of humor.
I and my brother, sister and cousins spent a lot of time at Granny’s house when we were growing up. I remember her saying, “Ya’ll go take your baths – and be sure to wash possible.” I never really thought about what she meant by possible – I just knew she meant to scrub everything real good.
That got to be sort of a family saying, then – be sure to wash possible. Later, when I was older, I asked her what that meant and she told me.
She said that she and my grandfather Raymond had known a doctor in one of the towns where they had been appointed by the Methodist Conference. He was a member of their church and he told them about a patient that had visited his office one day for a checkup. He pointed out that she was not the cleanest patient he had ever examined.
After the examination was over he told her that everything looked OK, but that she should be more attentive to her personal hygiene.
She said, “Well, I wash up as far as possible and down as far as possible.”
He replied, “That’s very good – but don’t neglect to wash possible.”
Well, there you have it. Granny got a big kick out of that and it’s been quite a joke and a saying in the family ever since.
Oh, and don’t forget to wash – well, you get it.
Obama’s first budget aims to cut away at deficit — Newsday.com.
How?
To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes.
Thank goodness. I’ve been concerned that I wasn’t contributing my fair share.
Obama also seeks to increase tax collections, mainly by making good on his promise to eliminate some of the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003.
Those nasty tax cuts have really infuriated me.
Obama also proposes a fairly aggressive effort on tax enforcement…
Yeah, turn Geitner loose and let him catch all those nasty cheaters out there.
Folks, Obama’s change, I’m afraid, means you better start saving yours.
(All quotes courtesy Newsday.com.)
