A sneak preview of the opening page is up at Closed Circle. Not that it’ll tell you much…the link buttons aren’t on it yet and there’s nothing live, but I can say that page will have links to all the major internal pages. That’s what the buttons are for at the bottom.
I’m exhausted, but I think we’re getting somewhere. Wish us luck…
And we’re testing the paypal shopping cart. For some reason, the delete function works fine in IE, but not firefox. I’ve got a query in. Hopefully, will have an answer soon. Spent a lot of the day beating my head against the wall because the shopping cart wasn’t showing up. Finally realized…I’d never activated the sidebar widget. I had in the free version, but for downloads, we needed the paid version. (Which means, we have to sell at least six of the backlist books! :D) I upgraded and forgot that step.
These plugins and their spotty at best documentation. Not for the weary of mind, I tell you! But…we’re making progress. I’m hoping to get it functional so that I can take a couple of days next week to actually get a couple of my books ready for download!
Oi…multi-tasking. Hard on my old brain….
Hang in there!
…to all of you for keeping our spirits and enthusiasm up through what has been a tumultuous (to say the least) year. Without all of you cheering us on, Closed Circle might have slowly faded away as a cool idea, but way too much work, in a year with so much else needing to be done.
One of the problems in getting CC launched into V-Space has been the distance between the purple circle and the red and teal circles. We talk by phone and email, but that’s not the easiest way to “read” someone’s state of mind. Last week, after finally taking the time to dig into the Joomla site and investigating some of the pros and cons, I took a deep breath, grabbed the bit in my teeth, and asked Lynn if it would be helpful if I took a stab at the CC site with WordPress. She’s had so many calls on her time and spiritual energy, I thought, maybe, she would appreciate same, but at the same time, it was kind of her baby, conceptually, and creative toes are very sensitive.
I’m happy to report, her toes remained intact. She said “go right ahead”, so I did. After playing with my blog the last few months, I’m pretty comfortable with its capabilities, plugins, and language, so I’m not starting from scratch, and it’s moving along pretty quickly. After playing with themes and shopping carts for the last week, I’m going to take a deep breath and say that CC will be in business by the first of December. We won’t have a lot of stock on the shelves, but we should have the framework into which we can stick a lot more as we concentrate on production.
Thank you all for your patience and encouragement. We seriously could not have done it without you.
YIPES! On second thought…I just looked at the date…I meant the first week of December, of course! (Oooo, I love to dance a little sidestep…)
Ja ne!
Our own black panther. Well relatively speaking. A lovely, sleek black kitty was slithering around the dry falls this morning. I didn’t get a picture of him, but I’ll try. This isn’t his first visit. He took an unscheduled dip in the pool earlier this fall. I didn’t see the whole thing, but I while I was working in my room, I heard a splash, looked up and saw a black streak hightailing it out of the pond and over the fence. I’m sure it was the same fellow. Likely he had delusions of sushi.
He’s probably after the birds now. He might get a couple, but I doubt he’ll make a dent in the flock. I hate to sound cruel, but I don’t really have a problem with it. That’s nature. Not to mention, it’s the only thing that keeps sparrows from taking over the world! (Along with cockroaches. :D) And while the food lures the birds here, they’re pretty canny. I honestly don’t think he’ll have much luck. (More to the point, he looked almost as prosperous as Efanor, and while Efanor’s spirit might be willing…)
Ja ne!
Survived filking last night, in fact had a wonderful time, tho Patty and Mike and the whole Tri-Cities contingent couldn’t make it. Patty’s got a GOH gig in Portland next weekend and needed to write. So…disappointment there, but had a great time.
Got up this AM to, yes, snow! Yay! Not a lot, but enough to get a few pix.
Ja ne!
It’s filking time!
Gotta a call last week from the local filk group. They’re having a get-together tomorrow and Patty and Mike Briggs are coming up for it. Patty suggested they call me, and, well, here we are, looking forward to the get together, tho with no small trepidation, considering we haven’t done this seriously in, oh, fifteen years!
Filking, for those who don’t know, is SF/F folk music, i.e. music written by and for SF/F folk about subjects, be it books, movies or spaceflight, that are of interest to us. For decades now filkers have come together at conventions and home gatherings to share gossip and music. It’s a fun community within a community which has gained increasingly public acknowledgment in recent years. I understand there’s even a filk radio station somewhere.
The work “filk” allegedly comes from a typo in a program book back in the stone age of conventions. Whether or not that’s true or whether some clever fan or pro came up with the term, it’s stuck and filkers wear it proudly.
Filk isn’t the reason Carolyn and I got together back when…that was her work and my wild notion of doing a graphic novel adaptation. But once we met, Carolyn, who was heavily into filk at the time, introduced me to it, and it certainly became part of the glue that holds us together.
I’ll never have the voice my mom and sis had and has, I’ll never be more than an average amateur (and now PPA) with the guitar, but it’s brought me many hours of enjoyment over the years, and I’m looking forward to getting back into it.
We’d already begun to drift away from it when we were in OKC. We moved the guitars with us, but apartment life was not at all conducive to practice. Then, we met Patty and Mike, and they were into filking and we sort of brushed back into it, briefly dusted off the guitars, then kinda drifted away again, because of those too-close quarters of an apartment. Once we moved into the house, we hoped to turn the basement into a filking area, but we’ve just not had it at a top priority. Now, with this little event looming, we’ve dusted off the quitars, restrung, and am desperately trying (in two days) to reconstitute calluses and break in the nylon strings (on my classical baby. Carolyn’s 12 string beast is doing just fine).
Hence, the Band-Aids. And the WD-40? My vocal chords are beyond rusty and all the way over to frozen solid.
Wish us luck!
Flash: our correspondant in China has been made privvy to exclusive photos of an alien invasion in China. Naysayers maintain these photos are fakes, pointing out the subtle effects of photo-manipulation. Drug companies protest character assassination.
Tell this to the locals whose lives are being disrupted by this huge creature.
Is it alive? Or some sort of Alien Ship? A 21st Century Trojan Horse perhaps? Thus far, no damage has been done other than the local water supply being drained and local plants trampled, but who knows what will be next?
UPDATE!
Proof positive the pictures were a hoax. The correspondant in question has been fired:
Tee hee…With many thanks to my darlin’ sis for the great birthday present. Himself definitely approves!
Update: I haven’t (nor do I expect to) heard from Reebok, but I rather suspect, giving them the benny of the doubt, that what they’re doing is going for the most lucrative market as a test. They must be having to do major conversions of production facilities, and it’s highly possible that they’re waiting to see how much of their marketing can be done by word of mouth. If these are as effective for other people as they seem to be for me, sales should be through the ceiling, once people realize they actually work. So…hopefully this is the case and we will be seeing them for men … soon. But…write anyway! Give them feedback that the market is out here!
The campaign has begun. I wrote to Reebok this morning. Let’s change the world, one pair of feet at a time!!!! :D
I don’t think I’ve ever had a pair of shoes that one of the first things I think of in the morning is getting them on. Even greater shock: Carolyn, the barefoot queen, has the same reaction. These shoes really are something. My ankle gives me only the occasional twinge now, with or without the shoes on.
You’ve got to be a little careful the first few times you squat down to work because they play subtle games with your center of gravity, but stretching to reach top shelves and standing on tippy toe has never been easier! And no inserts and no plantar fasciitis! Like…wow.
But they don’t make them for men! How cruel is that? They’re being touted as these great exercise aids, for butts and thighs…which I know is a huge selling point for the 21st C female market…but…don’t guys want to have good butts, too? 
I know I want guys to have good butts!
Probably they don’t want to advertise the orthodic advantages of the shoes…that being not nearly as glamorous as a good behind…Weird world we live in.
But still…why not make them for guys?
Shoes both Carolyn and I not only can wear but want to wear because they’re so comfortable.
Carolyn’s feet and mine are about as different as frogs and ballerinas. Mine are flat as pancakes; Carolyn’s got these great high arches…which make finding tie shoes that don’t cut off the circulation durn near impossible.
I’ve been having terrible problems getting rid of the tendonitis in my right ankle. Probably if I spent two weeks sitting with it elevated and iced 24/7, I’d make some headway, but that’s just not going to happen. The other day, I just happened to see an internet reference to the Reebok Easytoners. (We have black on black ones.) Rather than flat soles, rounding up at the toe, they have three rounded lumps on the sole, one at the heel, one on the metatarsel arch and one at the toe. They’re touted as adding 28% (why 28 and not 30? Who knows? We live in the day of digital clocks.) to any workout, but what I liked about them was that it looked like they might quietly activate the small muscles all around the foot and ankle that control balance. I was especially interested in those side muscles, considering my chronic problem.
I decided to try them out, but I needed to try them on: no internet surprises where it comes to my feet. Trying to find someplace that had them was another matter. Finally went to Reebok and found Lady Foot Locker was the only Spokane source.
In my attempts to find the easytones, I’d tried on their marketing competitor, Sketchers Shapeups. These were amazingly comfortable, and my ankle didn’t hurt a bit in them, but they didn’t have the side to side stability challenge. I also found a good anecdotal site at About.com: Reebok Comments
So…Wednesday, I headed for Lady Foot Locker. I tried the Reebok on and they were more than I’d hoped for. Though not was immediately comfortable on the ankle as the Sketchers, they did ease the pain, and there was this wonderful added benny…that lump at the toe encourages you to really use your toes…all of them, because it’s right in the middle, so from the outside in, they all work. This is unique in my experience of shoes, and what your toes absolutely must do inside the shell of the figure skate.
Sold!
Two days later, the ankle is feeling great with just the occasional twinge, my knees and back, too. And although they’re designed to accommodate orthotics, I haven’t needed mine at all. The pesky fascia is doing great, even with lots of walking both days.
To top it off, they’re cute.
Thursday, I kidnapped Carolyn (I was driving) took her to LFL, and made her try some on. Her feet are sooooo different from mine, I was dubious about suggesting it, but guess what? She walked out of that store with a pair just like mine, and such a spring in her step, I had a hard time keeping up with her.
I’m very excited. I’ve never paid that much for a pair of shoes, but I think they’re going to be worth every penny.
P.S. the more I’ve looked into it, I think both Reebok and Sketchers are doing their own take on MBTs, but at about a third the price. Likely MBTs are the cadillac this type of shoe, and someday, if I ever get the chance, I’m going to try them out, but somehow, I don’t think I’ll like them as well: like the Sketchers, they don’t have that toe action.
I love my Reebok!
