I really love my Google Desktop Sidebar. It has a slew of gadgets to choose from and I've even gotten used to the look of it while I'm on the web. And if I don't, I can minimize it to my taskbar. My favorite feature is the Live-RSS notifyer. As soon as one of you upload a new blog entry, you appear! What a time-saver that is. The customizable slide show isn't bad either.I don't mean this to be a plug, I'm just really jazzed about this thing.
Since I moved this blog back to my domain my visitor count has decreased by at least 50%. Hm. What to do. Most "Increase Your Blog Traffic" articles list the following ploys:
The thing is, I don't keep a blog to harvest hit counts. I keep a blog to communicate. And is a large readership really all that important? I'd rather have a small readership of people who actually like to read my stuff than a huge one of people who are just trying to drive up their blog traffic. That just seems like so much mutual stroking off. All of this has made me wonder lately if blogging isn't simply a way of nabbing a little attention. Back when I was young and chasing down the fame demon (or he was chasing me), I wasn't really after the money, attention, or groupies. I just didn't want to be obscure. I wanted to make a mark, let people know that I existed. Now that I can blog, post pictures and promote my projects, that hunger has sunsided considerably.
So what do you think? Is garnering a large readership important to you? (And now we'll see if this post attracts any attention.)
Honestly, I haven't seen this much rain since I lived in England. Checking the weather channel this morning, I saw that rain is predicted every day this week, but then, that screen has looked like this for weeks now. In southern California there is a condition known by us natives as the "June Gloom". Looks like it has moved east this summer. I don't mind, really. I like rain, but this is so unusual...
It was one of those evenings when my heart took a picture. In fact, my heart took a whole roll of pictures. Geor3ge and Noelle were in town over the weekend and we had one great and memorable evening! I made three pans of enchiladas, Mexican rice, and frijoles (from scratch). There was a lot of wine and Coronas, too. Here are a few pictures. Bear with the low light—the flash on my camera is broken...
My dad's baby sister was about 21 years old when I was born. She was a newlywed to boot and she adored me. For the first 4 years of my life she took me with her everywhere she went. She even had me come stay at her and my Uncle Don's house in Reseda on many weekends after they moved to the Valley. When she was 8-months pregnant with their first child, she took me to the community pool, where a kid pushed me into the deep end. Although she was as far along as she was, she dove in and rescued me. She actually saved my life because I very nearly drowned. She told me silly stories; she was the most fun and imaginative adult I knew, and when my life at home was so bad that I had a nervous breakdown as a small child, she was always there. She didn't know what was going on, she always took my side against the other adults.
Understandably, we lost some of our closeness as she and my uncle set into raising their 4 kids, but when Joel was born, she was there for us. She took care of him for me when I needed a break, and she bought him baby clothes. She adored him and she adored me. We both adored her. The last time I saw her, we sat around drinking boxed wine together, talking about the family that was once so close, but had splintered after Grandmother (her mother) died.
Since my father's death in 1993, my aunt and I have corresponded only occasionally. She and my uncle retired to Lady Lake, Florida but I kept tabs on their well-being (via email) during hurricane season. She likewise kept tabs on us during tornado season. Our last communication was on the 6th of last month and everything was fine. Just a few moments ago, however, I received a phone call from Uncle Don, who told me that she passed away this morning. Now, there is more of my family on the Other Side than there is here.
My uncle also told me that he has been diagnosed with cancer and that he begins his chemotherapy tomorrow. My family could never boast happy marriages, but my aunt and uncle were true soulmates. Whenever I have needed role models in parenting, I have always looked at them.I'll see you soon, Aunt Pat. Until then, enjoy your reunion with our family: Grandmother and Grandad, Mom, Dad, Uncle Bob and Aunt Rena, Uncle Dickie, and especially your son, Kenny.
This is the hole that broke my elbow. This is me holding the grass back to show only part of the hole.
The gardeners are using two rider-mowers and the workmen on the street are using a jackhammer. Notice that to get this job done, it takes one guy to actually use the jackhammer and three others to watch. No wonder this job has been going on for nearly two years. Here are the jackhammers. Now, just allow your imagination to add the mowers. WTF!
Here is one of the best transformations I've seen. I wouldn't mind doing this to my old HP Pavilion. Seriously.
So you get pictures from yesterday's walk instead.
So I went for a walk and was out for about an hour. Really, I can't believe that I've lived here this long and I haven't taken advantage of the beauty in my neighborhood. Except for this. This construction is what we've been living with for nearly two years. I've never seen it take this long to widen and repave a 1-mile stretch of country road...
Thanks to a friend’s journal entry that I read back in the mid-1980s, I pretty much gave up lobster. He wrote about the “screams” emitting from the boiling pots and I have been traumatized ever since. These days, I can order lobster from a menu, but I could never prepare it myself, and every time I walk by the lobster tank at the supermarket I feel so badly for them. It doesn’t help that their claws are rubber banded shut, either. Well, all that has changed as of Thursday morning when I read that lobsters don’t feel pain.“According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), when considering the concept of pain, it's the "subjective, emotional response that's considered important" and not the "activation of pain sensors in the body."All right, fine, but it’s that “something different” that now has me worrying. Maybe it's as bad as, or worse than what we feel. Probably not. Still, I feel a little silly for this relative sense of relief and lack of guilt that I’m experiencing. This study also confirms a theory of mine. Like most tree-huggers of the 1960s and 70s, I read The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and The Findhorn Garden by the Findhorn Community, and for years I felt guilty every time I had to prune back one of my houseplants.
"Only animals that can experience emotions such as fear, anxiety, distress, and terror can feel what we think of as pain."
This article from ABC News seems to back up these findings. When asked whether lobsters feel pain after being placed in boiling water, Tony Yaksh, a professor of anesthesiology, responded that because they lack the emotional component, lobsters feel something different than pain as we know it. Additionally, an independent study funded by the Norwegian government found that the nervous systems of lobsters are too simple to process pain.”