Hergest Ridge

I’ve added a few new links to the External Goodies section, including my YouTube and Last.fm profiles. You won’t find any vids of mine on YouTube, only favs, but that may change soon. The mod for choosing link order is not doing its job, so links are listed alphabetically and not by order of importance.

Akismet has been busy keeping the blog spam free, and passed the ‘10K spam removed’ mark, early Saturday morning. Thanks go to the Akismet folks, for they rule!

With this entry, the total posts for the month is 10. Why is this so special? Because 10 is the highest number of entries in a month since the blog went online over a year ago. With a couple more entries ready for publishing, a new high will be set any day now.

“This would be a wonderful opportunity for someone like you. Think of the potential secondary income.”

I have my own business and various sources of income, thank you very much. The various sources of income are called clients. Ever heard of them? If you want to help me diversify my income, refer my way those in need of Web Design and Internet Marketing.

Why would I at my point in life start selling insurance, catalogue products, raffle tickets, or legal services for commission? If I need more money, the most logical thing for me to do is find more clients that need my services, not start selling the services of others via what often is MLM.

It’s obvious that anyone trying to convince me to ‘diversify my income’ via selling what they offer is only thinking of their own bottom line. I know my industry and what my clients need. Why would I go and waste time learning all about insurance just to sell a couple packages to my friends and family? This isn’t going to help me in the long run, but it sure would help the person trying to talk me into it.

I realise that there are people out there jumping from one ship to another, selling Tupperware, then vacuums, then life insurance, but these people are just trying to chase a buck. I’m not one of those people. I’m confident in what I do, and your are wasting oxygen by asking me to join you in selling for a commission. Plus, it’s getting annoying.

“If you truly knew the gravity you’d know which way to go | Well let it drop | Let it drop”. Nuff said.

I created a couple new categories for the blog. If you look at the category listing to the right, ‘Hergest Ridge News’ and the ‘Soap Box’ have already been added to the selection. Pending is a section for posts which contain some of the photos I’m busy taking, with a few already used in past entries.

News section is for entries like the one you are reading, for times when I want to alert you to changes and additions. For the most part, it’ll be a utility section.

The second new category was conceived while I was working on one of my upcoming pieces. I realised it will stir some emotions and anger. My first thought was to precede the piece with a disclaimer, but decided that this would set the wrong mood for the article, and that a disclaimer may be perceived as an apology of sorts. That not being the case, but still trying to remain sensitive to you, my reader, I decided that a new section was in order.

The ‘Soap Box’ is a place where I voice personal opinions with the sociological filters turned off, and hopefully an extra dose of tact and civility. In some pieces sarcasm will be the lens that brings my words into focus, and I think you’ll quickly recognise when such is the case.

I’ve yet to decide on a name for the category that highlights the photos I’ve taken and added to my entries. Watch for it in the next few days.

In the meanwhile, I’ve already tagged appropriate posts with the News and Soap Box category tags.

At last, my new dinning room is complete! Wish I had a before and after pic, but all I have is the new one. All of this - table, chairs, place mats and chair pads - for under a hundred bucks. How sweet is that?

I’m looking at taking some classes at the University of Winnipeg this fall. I started out thinking about graphics, design, and journalism, but have expanded my considerations to include creative writing courses.

I can waddle my way through basic to moderate graphics and design, but am looking at getting more formal education to ease my process along. So much of my current process is trial and error, I’m often left in tears from frustration. Graphics courses alone won’t help that much with design directly, but I’m aware that there are some graphic design rules that could improve my overall design. Besides, how cool would it be to draw your own little creatures, icons, and worlds?

With journalism, we’re talking a rather large undertaking, which I’m fine with. I’m not looking at jumping industries with my work, just improving my process and the end results. The journalism classes would help with the Internet Marketing aspect, I think.

Creative writing - the new kid on the thought block - came into my consideration with the increased amount of writing I’m doing as of late. Again, I’d like to discover some tricks of the trade, and things to avoid. One of my upcoming entries already has about six hours invested into it. Research and finding sources were a large part, but the entry is not yet complete and already longer than anything else I have published here.

I have some time to think about the concept of further education, and for doing more research on it, but I expect that sometime around fall I’ll be attending classes. 12 years of public school and awaiting the end, and now I’m eager to pay for more education. George Bernard Shaw was right when he said ‘The folly of youth is wasted on the young’. If only I could see today, that which I’ll see 10 years from now…

Jumping the classes train-of-thought, I picked up a 5 disc boxed set released in honour of Mozart’s 250th birth anniversary. I’m on the second listen of the second disc, but instantly recognised the melody of the fifth track: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Yup, history tells us that at the age of four or five, Mozart wrote a piece which is known as “Andante in C for Keyboard”, and today is most recognised as the melody to the nursery rhyme. Makes all I’ve done so far feel like really not enough, but I digress.

Monday night I went to bed around 23:00. That is I fell asleep at about 22:30, and woke up again minutes after 23:00 to turn off the lights and officially call it a day. I was awake by 7:00, and watched cartoons in bed for an hour before getting up. I even had terrific dreams - the average individual would find my regular dreams quite disturbing - despite the fact that the last thing I saw was CBC’s news coverage of the Virgina Tech massacre, “… the worst campus shooting in American history”.

With the warmer weather, I’ve decided to start jogging again. This is the perfect time for jogging, when the bugs aren’t yet out, and the weather is still cool.

First time around my body screamed ‘Bloody Murder’ fifty paces into the jog, but I managed to overpower the desperate desire to collapse and never ever move another muscle again. By day three - today -, the experience feels a bit less like suicide. Lets see how long I can keep this up before my feet get too sore to continue (No, I am not pushing myself too hard. The bad feet are strictly a result of two years at a metal plant without proper shoes. Yes, I could use better shoes for jogging, and that’ll be taken care of in the next few days.).

I’ve started on ‘my book’ a few days ago. Got a bit discouraged after re-reading the first few pages, but I think I do have something there to work with (read: so far I didn’t scrap anything). I jump around with my ideas a bit too much, and I have the impression that to those outside of the experience, it all will be too chaotic. I’m thinking of fleshing out what I currently have, and putting in some good, hopefully ‘poetic’ bridges. To me, the whole text so far sounds very utility like. I need to learn to play with words a bit more!

The kitchen table is 100% complete, a feat I am proud of. I picked up the table Thursday night. By Sunday night, I’ve gone through exchanging a broken piece, assembling everything, purchasing and painting a coat of stain on the chairs, two on the table, and cleaning up after everything.

Like most guys, I tend to start a project and abandon it when it reaches about 80% completion. Not this time. Nope. Even had to get a new screwdriver to finish the job - special trip to the Dollar Store was made, and a $3 purchase was made. Isn’t that some sort of false advertising?!? Anyway, the whole ‘completing a project’ feels so good, I’m thinking of making it a habit. No tripping over, or working around unfinished details for seven and a half months before finally tossing in the towel and completing the damn job. What a brilliant concept!

Next up is taming the balcony. Cleaning out the flower pots, chiseling six months of grime off of the outdoor furniture, vacuuming the bits and pieces of god knows what (there are a lot of god knows whats that floated down to the floor from god knows where). Lets see if I can get all that done with the momentum I’ve achieved with the kitchen table…