Blogging Tips and Tricks
There are "tricks" used in the blogging community to simplify, prompt, and facilitate frequent blogging. One of these is Wordless Wednesdays. I haven't done wordless anything as yet, because I do not have a good camera to capture the sort of images that I love to hunt. Never have. Silly really because we are not poor. But there is always a larger need for the $400 or so buckeroos that the camera I want costs.
Fragment Fridays is something I just learned about.... so I guess that is what this post is. It may be something I repeat. It sounds good to me as it takes time, lots of time, to string my thoughts together sometimes. Now I will just post them on Fridays! The first mention of them I could quickly find from a Google search is from the same person, Mrs. 4444, pronounced Mrs. Fours, who wrote a post today that I read because she follows me, and I now follow her, on BlogHer.
Writing Equipment
Right now I need a new laptop. I'm a writer. I've authored only a few things but I've written tens of thousands of things: letters, essays, poems, stories, nonfiction, some fiction, blogs, email, journals. I write all the time. I've written all my adult life, all my teen life, and a bit before. I bought an electric typewriter when I was 16. I've used Apples or Macs since the early 80s. I have a great desktop computer with a huge screen (for graphics) that I purchased with some of the small inheritance I received when we sold Mom's farm house, paid her debts, and split the remainder 5 ways. Now my MacBook laptop from 2007 has died and I'm on an older laptop of my daughter's an iBook that would randomly not recognize the keyboard and type gibberish, which I've kluged into working for a while, cross your fingers, but that has melted power cords like lunchtime grilled cheese sandwiches for its entire working life and currently has pink duct tape holing the power cord together. I have to have a portable computer of some sort that is reliable before BlogHer.
Unemployment
I've been unemployed for the last 7 months. I need to go to BlogHer in early August as my writing career, low to no pay though it is at times, hinges on this network of savvy women writers and entrepreneurs. Fortunately, I can drive to San Diego where the conference is this year, after I get a cruise control issue on my car fixed. Damn, these effing uber elite greedy sons and daughters of fascist ruling families that are tanking our economy for a few more coins in their off shore bank vaults. My husband has worked so damn hard his entire life and his work is for the benefit of human kind, and the rewards just haven't come monetarily. Huge corporations will benefit after his patents expire, but they are just biding their time. While they have all the rights of people, they are immortal and can wait to profit from any given scientist's labors.
The Last Shuttle Flight
I'm sad. I'm watching the very last shuttle launch as I write. T minus 31 seconds. Pause. Then 10, 9, 8, 7, 6.... Lift-off. WTF, I'm tearing up. I'm crying. What happened to My America? Where did it go? Why did the conservatives want to kill it? My Uncle Carl worked for NASA. I remember the Challenger disaster clearly.... I was living on Sylvia Street in West Lafayette when I saw that horrible Y of smoke and debris. But there are good memories too, I will always treasure getting into Edwards AFB as a VIP for the first test of the on board computers when the shuttle still reached the sky piggy-backed on a Boeing 727 to then coast in and land on a dry lake bed at Edwards with my uncle and three friends in the late 1970s. I grew up believing that I and America could do anything... largely because of the space program that put men on the moon. The development of our space program has been given over privatization.
It is July 8th
Today is July 8th. Six months ago my life changed. I'm a Tucsonan. January 8th is forever etched into our hearts, minds, and memories. Why? I still don't understand why. A man obviously in need of mental health care killed and wounded many people on that day because he was not on medication nor receiving the counseling or environmental setting he needed. Why? To my mind at least it is because Republican Presidents have led the way to dismantling every social service that was put in place between the 1930s and the 1960s. It has taken them since the time of Nixon's presidency to now to do it, but the SOBs are so good at lying, making alliances with people for the short term, that will eventually f*ck those partners, but benefit Big R Big Bigness in the long run.
Blogger and Wrap Up
I'm still not sure about this new interface that Blogger dropped on us. I think I like it.
These were all supposed to be fragments, but somehow I think there is an undercurrent of a theme here. Maybe?
Showing posts with label blogher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogher. Show all posts
Friday, July 08, 2011
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Repurposing This Blog: Build Peace
Over the last six months I have given a tremendous amount of thought to starting a new blog that better reflects my current take on "life, the universe and everything" than my build peace blog. Everytime I would find the perfect domain name for a new venture and begin to build a new whirling mass of me-ness in cyberspace I'd find that I missed this blog into which I had put so much energy for so many years. Please allow me to be a bit self-reflective here and a bit self-reflexive too as I deconstruct my thought processes about writing and blogging about inner peace, world peace, paths to peace, tools of peace, tools for peace, and... well you get the idea.
I have to admit I heaved a huge sigh of relief the evening of the election, Tuesday November 4th, when I gathered with a couple thousand other Tucsonans to watch the returns come in at the University Marriott. I will never forget standing next to a long retired colleague of my husband who came to the U of A after being booted from the California University system during the highly political days of the free speach civil rights era turbulence of the early 1960s and who helped establish ACLU to this Old West enclave. As McCain was conceeding defeat I happened to see this man's face as complete and utter joy washed over it.
At that time I decided that I was going to take a couple days off for R & R. I ended up taking off six months. Long story, short version: I had continuing pain after a bout with the stomach flu and ended up finding out I have Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver between Thanksgiving and Christmas. After my esteemed scientifically-gifted genius research professor husband (he might read this, lol) looked at the literature, we think that the combination of anti-depressants I've been on for many years could have contributed to the development of this condition as well as my being significantly overweight. It could relate to the invasive and often toxic medical tests and treatments I underwent as a child. I never had hepatitis nor am I an alcoholic.
I don't do well with being ill. It makes me depressed. I have been working on, and off -- a lot of off, some on -- on a book about my childhood experience on the receiving end of my mother's instability that I have come to realize falls into the range of behavior that has been termed Munchause Syndrome by Proxy. At least partially due to being "sickly" and kept out of school and shuttled from doctor to doctor when I was little so that it was not uncommon for me to miss up to 100 school days a year during my primary education.
My journals during the teen years are painful to read but allowed me as a middle-aged adult to see that my isolation during my childhood coupled with being thrust into the socially topsy-turvy, psychedelic and sexually liberated world of the 1970s as a totally naive, socially incompetent, pathologically shy human being were the primary factors that contributed to multiple rapes, exploitation, and emotionally abusive relationships, and less than wise choices that pretty much characterized my teens and young adult life.
Writing helped save my life time and again when the blank page or screen was the only tool through which I could communicate - even if that communication was basically just me talking to myself. I became fairly good at this apparently, and the winning of a state-wide writing competition in High School allowed me to win scholarships that made it possible for me to attend college. Writing continued to be my main communication channel with the world as I wrote essays, exams, reports and post-graduate research reports and theses.
Then the internet evolved into the web and I reached out through words and found that while I was a social mutant (and mutations can be a very good thing that allow the process of evolution to happen) I was also thinking things and making observations that other people found interesting and sometimes even amusing when I wrote about them. I was blogging long before a thing called a web log existed.
Then CODEPINK and I found each other. This blog, Build Peace, has been the most consistent and meaningful body of my writing to date. It allowed me to enter the BlogHer community of women's online voices.
A few days ago I was talking to a Second Life friend about my dilemma of attempting to shift my peace activism and writing from a broader and more tempered perspective than I had in Build Peace. She said, "Repurpose the blog." Initially I thought, "Ugh, corporate speak. Yuck. Ptooey." But then, trying to live the peace and be the peace I write about, I decided that I can continue writing/blogging about info that helps me build my own peace and share that with others that is the only way peace in our world will ever be built - person to person, one word at a time.... and with my bias showing I will further state that a sustainable peace must be built by women talking to each other and creating the world we want for our children.
-------------
Words like emergence, energy work, calmness, spiritual, belief, attraction and the like will be far more common here than in the past. I will talk about my struggle to lose weight, the challenge of shifting to an empty nest at home, and about healing. Politics will undoubtedly creep in... I've been political since I was about 10, but I will try to mediate my outrage and use words like Fascist and F**k far less often and perhaps not at all from this time forward. Maybe I can even get the Huffington Post to end their ban on links to my site in their comments. Purportedly this is because of profanity. We'll see.
Anyway, consider this blog repurposed. The appearance will change dramatically. The content may too. Peace to you all.
I have to admit I heaved a huge sigh of relief the evening of the election, Tuesday November 4th, when I gathered with a couple thousand other Tucsonans to watch the returns come in at the University Marriott. I will never forget standing next to a long retired colleague of my husband who came to the U of A after being booted from the California University system during the highly political days of the free speach civil rights era turbulence of the early 1960s and who helped establish ACLU to this Old West enclave. As McCain was conceeding defeat I happened to see this man's face as complete and utter joy washed over it.
At that time I decided that I was going to take a couple days off for R & R. I ended up taking off six months. Long story, short version: I had continuing pain after a bout with the stomach flu and ended up finding out I have Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver between Thanksgiving and Christmas. After my esteemed scientifically-gifted genius research professor husband (he might read this, lol) looked at the literature, we think that the combination of anti-depressants I've been on for many years could have contributed to the development of this condition as well as my being significantly overweight. It could relate to the invasive and often toxic medical tests and treatments I underwent as a child. I never had hepatitis nor am I an alcoholic.
I don't do well with being ill. It makes me depressed. I have been working on, and off -- a lot of off, some on -- on a book about my childhood experience on the receiving end of my mother's instability that I have come to realize falls into the range of behavior that has been termed Munchause Syndrome by Proxy. At least partially due to being "sickly" and kept out of school and shuttled from doctor to doctor when I was little so that it was not uncommon for me to miss up to 100 school days a year during my primary education.
My journals during the teen years are painful to read but allowed me as a middle-aged adult to see that my isolation during my childhood coupled with being thrust into the socially topsy-turvy, psychedelic and sexually liberated world of the 1970s as a totally naive, socially incompetent, pathologically shy human being were the primary factors that contributed to multiple rapes, exploitation, and emotionally abusive relationships, and less than wise choices that pretty much characterized my teens and young adult life.
Writing helped save my life time and again when the blank page or screen was the only tool through which I could communicate - even if that communication was basically just me talking to myself. I became fairly good at this apparently, and the winning of a state-wide writing competition in High School allowed me to win scholarships that made it possible for me to attend college. Writing continued to be my main communication channel with the world as I wrote essays, exams, reports and post-graduate research reports and theses.
Then the internet evolved into the web and I reached out through words and found that while I was a social mutant (and mutations can be a very good thing that allow the process of evolution to happen) I was also thinking things and making observations that other people found interesting and sometimes even amusing when I wrote about them. I was blogging long before a thing called a web log existed.
Then CODEPINK and I found each other. This blog, Build Peace, has been the most consistent and meaningful body of my writing to date. It allowed me to enter the BlogHer community of women's online voices.
A few days ago I was talking to a Second Life friend about my dilemma of attempting to shift my peace activism and writing from a broader and more tempered perspective than I had in Build Peace. She said, "Repurpose the blog." Initially I thought, "Ugh, corporate speak. Yuck. Ptooey." But then, trying to live the peace and be the peace I write about, I decided that I can continue writing/blogging about info that helps me build my own peace and share that with others that is the only way peace in our world will ever be built - person to person, one word at a time.... and with my bias showing I will further state that a sustainable peace must be built by women talking to each other and creating the world we want for our children.
-------------
Words like emergence, energy work, calmness, spiritual, belief, attraction and the like will be far more common here than in the past. I will talk about my struggle to lose weight, the challenge of shifting to an empty nest at home, and about healing. Politics will undoubtedly creep in... I've been political since I was about 10, but I will try to mediate my outrage and use words like Fascist and F**k far less often and perhaps not at all from this time forward. Maybe I can even get the Huffington Post to end their ban on links to my site in their comments. Purportedly this is because of profanity. We'll see.
Anyway, consider this blog repurposed. The appearance will change dramatically. The content may too. Peace to you all.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wooing the Blogging Mama Demographic -- my notes on Hybrid Media session
I am so amazed by the energy put into commercial support of this conference. That is both good and bad. Corporatization (is that a word?)-- changes the game.
----------------
Panel:
redbook, essence, bravo
Lisa Stone (moderator), Stacy Morrison, Lesley Inckney and Lisa Hsia
----------------
Bravo -- old media &. new media
revenues from this
also learning how to monetize and grow the audience
project runway (Hsia)
1-2 % respond in most interactive polls
98% respond to bravo and project runway
-------
Redbook -- diary of V. Diary of E. biggest draw. 2nd referer after giveaways. authentic -- comments have to
2nd largest web mag. property.
but if you like redbook please buy one once in a while.
--------
Time Warner/ Essence not as restrictive as they once work. have loosened up.
media is inherently is grassroots now
malest oldest rooms she's ever been in.
-------
fox & nbc
huloo (spelling?)
trying all the new ad models
kaboodle -- hearst
redbook
i only want to make the best mistakes
essence
try telling these old male folks that they will
never be dominant
never be perfect
-------
constant effort to tell personal stories
-----
sex life roadtest
take it to tv
----
shoot em up kill em
romantic comedies
oscar winners
-----
recruiting bloggers
creating an ad network
--
ivillage = nbc = fox
-----
innovation
corp. won't do quick......
time warner wants to own twitter not use it
smaller network and just do it
it's not don't do it
it is you have to wait
redbook reaches across the country evenly
except washington and oregon
not just shoes and cosmopolitan
thinks that redbook is a family magazine
change the font - lose the audience
she is a professional empath.
she represents an openness to every idea
but she has to censor 25 % of her self
-----
use versus be the media
-------
would be nice to have mega corps change from support incubation .....rather than just buy/own......
--------
big furry beard
snowboarder
mike dunn
if you see him at a meeting it is going to be big
---------
----------------
Panel:
redbook, essence, bravo
Lisa Stone (moderator), Stacy Morrison, Lesley Inckney and Lisa Hsia
----------------
Bravo -- old media &. new media
revenues from this
also learning how to monetize and grow the audience
project runway (Hsia)
1-2 % respond in most interactive polls
98% respond to bravo and project runway
-------
Redbook -- diary of V. Diary of E. biggest draw. 2nd referer after giveaways. authentic -- comments have to
2nd largest web mag. property.
but if you like redbook please buy one once in a while.
--------
Time Warner/ Essence not as restrictive as they once work. have loosened up.
media is inherently is grassroots now
malest oldest rooms she's ever been in.
-------
fox & nbc
huloo (spelling?)
trying all the new ad models
kaboodle -- hearst
redbook
i only want to make the best mistakes
essence
try telling these old male folks that they will
never be dominant
never be perfect
-------
constant effort to tell personal stories
-----
sex life roadtest
take it to tv
----
shoot em up kill em
romantic comedies
oscar winners
-----
recruiting bloggers
creating an ad network
--
ivillage = nbc = fox
-----
innovation
corp. won't do quick......
time warner wants to own twitter not use it
smaller network and just do it
it's not don't do it
it is you have to wait
redbook reaches across the country evenly
except washington and oregon
not just shoes and cosmopolitan
thinks that redbook is a family magazine
change the font - lose the audience
she is a professional empath.
she represents an openness to every idea
but she has to censor 25 % of her self
-----
use versus be the media
-------
would be nice to have mega corps change from support incubation .....rather than just buy/own......
--------
big furry beard
snowboarder
mike dunn
if you see him at a meeting it is going to be big
---------
Friday, March 14, 2008
Assist the BlogHer Network
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Ups & Downs of Computers, Activism, and Life.
Sorry about the hiatus in posting.
How many hard drive failures is normal for a laptop user who works on her laptop for hours every day? I've either had logic board or hard drive failures (not just crashes) every few months for the last several years. I'm on a Mac. I try not to be paranoid, but.... I'm beginning to be suspicious. Of what I'm not sure and I don't live my life walking around in a general state of paranoia... but I , and some CODEPINK friends, do tend to have our hard drives fail within a week or so of major national level actions. It could be coincidence, but the probabilities are slim. In any case I have a new hard drive and am raring to go.
Thank the Great Pink Goddess in the sky that my laptop is new and under warranty. Thank the GPG that Macs exist. Thank the GPG for my resilient nature. Thank the GPG for all the women who compose the contemporary peace net that shifts to compensate for the fluidity of women's actions that compose the net.
Been doing less and less local activism and trying to find the perfect balance that allows me to operate in a non-frantic manner and write about the things that are truly meaningful to me. I also work toward finding a significant position as I re-enter the job market with a "real" job.
I do not regret a minute of the last many years of effort I have directed toward peace. I'm into the 6th very active year of making positive protests for peace (pro + test = for + statements) as it was in February of 2003 that I honored the call for women to join together to march together in public affirmation of American women's desire that their children not be used to make war upon any people and to direct every resource possible, including our children's efforts, into making peace. That simple act of finding a pink item of clothing to wear and taking the Metro into D.C. to join together in protest with other individual women as a visual cue in a huge march and to then march again with thousands of pink clad individuals (women and men) a couple weeks later in an affirmation of values of peace and positive action under a pink banner forever changed my life. I will never be able to leave the peace movement. It is now part of me.
Efforts change over the years though and I find that now I have to dedicate a much greater portion of my time to paid work. Six years is a long time to donate most of your services to a cause. While I have focused on my child and my parent through this time period I no longer have to dedicate myself so fully to family and work in my peace work around that. My daughter is in college now and I will have time to write and work in the evenings and weekends via social networking technologies, so you won't see a real change in my blogging, but the framework for me will be very different.
If you think you know of worthwhile job in the Tucson area that calls for someone with my skills, please do consider linking me up with it.
How many hard drive failures is normal for a laptop user who works on her laptop for hours every day? I've either had logic board or hard drive failures (not just crashes) every few months for the last several years. I'm on a Mac. I try not to be paranoid, but.... I'm beginning to be suspicious. Of what I'm not sure and I don't live my life walking around in a general state of paranoia... but I , and some CODEPINK friends, do tend to have our hard drives fail within a week or so of major national level actions. It could be coincidence, but the probabilities are slim. In any case I have a new hard drive and am raring to go.
Thank the Great Pink Goddess in the sky that my laptop is new and under warranty. Thank the GPG that Macs exist. Thank the GPG for my resilient nature. Thank the GPG for all the women who compose the contemporary peace net that shifts to compensate for the fluidity of women's actions that compose the net.
Been doing less and less local activism and trying to find the perfect balance that allows me to operate in a non-frantic manner and write about the things that are truly meaningful to me. I also work toward finding a significant position as I re-enter the job market with a "real" job.
I do not regret a minute of the last many years of effort I have directed toward peace. I'm into the 6th very active year of making positive protests for peace (pro + test = for + statements) as it was in February of 2003 that I honored the call for women to join together to march together in public affirmation of American women's desire that their children not be used to make war upon any people and to direct every resource possible, including our children's efforts, into making peace. That simple act of finding a pink item of clothing to wear and taking the Metro into D.C. to join together in protest with other individual women as a visual cue in a huge march and to then march again with thousands of pink clad individuals (women and men) a couple weeks later in an affirmation of values of peace and positive action under a pink banner forever changed my life. I will never be able to leave the peace movement. It is now part of me.
Efforts change over the years though and I find that now I have to dedicate a much greater portion of my time to paid work. Six years is a long time to donate most of your services to a cause. While I have focused on my child and my parent through this time period I no longer have to dedicate myself so fully to family and work in my peace work around that. My daughter is in college now and I will have time to write and work in the evenings and weekends via social networking technologies, so you won't see a real change in my blogging, but the framework for me will be very different.
If you think you know of worthwhile job in the Tucson area that calls for someone with my skills, please do consider linking me up with it.
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Heartland Heats Up For Peace
I am pleased to see that some "mainstream" media coverage of CODEPINK's vigilance on Capitol Hill even if it is in the form of an ABC blog.
Things and thinks are rapidly changing here in the heartland. I'm beginning to stick my head out into the community after the time spent with my mother during the last few months before her passing and the following weeks of closing up a very full house.
Sentiment on the streets is decidedly pro-peace... a first ever Peace Float was cheered on in the Three Rivers Festival Parade in Fort Wayne, Indiana last weekend. This weekend there are Peace Church meetings and on Monday CODEPINK's own Mz. Zanne will be at an action at Evan Bayh's office in Fort Wayne. She will also be stopping in South Bend and Hammond.
I'm tempted to leave early and not attend the BlogHer Conference in Chicago so I can caravan with Zanne, but I really want to attend that conference and meet all those wonderful "be the media" women. And truth be told I still have a couple weeks of stuff to get done here.
Anyway the float shown below is evidence of some very good news. Do check out The Fort Wayne Agitator for up to the minute (it seems) info on peace happenings in NE Indiana.
Things and thinks are rapidly changing here in the heartland. I'm beginning to stick my head out into the community after the time spent with my mother during the last few months before her passing and the following weeks of closing up a very full house.
Sentiment on the streets is decidedly pro-peace... a first ever Peace Float was cheered on in the Three Rivers Festival Parade in Fort Wayne, Indiana last weekend. This weekend there are Peace Church meetings and on Monday CODEPINK's own Mz. Zanne will be at an action at Evan Bayh's office in Fort Wayne. She will also be stopping in South Bend and Hammond.
I'm tempted to leave early and not attend the BlogHer Conference in Chicago so I can caravan with Zanne, but I really want to attend that conference and meet all those wonderful "be the media" women. And truth be told I still have a couple weeks of stuff to get done here.
Anyway the float shown below is evidence of some very good news. Do check out The Fort Wayne Agitator for up to the minute (it seems) info on peace happenings in NE Indiana.
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