jay toups

We got a bunch of snow this week and that makes foraging a lot more difficult for the wildlife. These two are part of a herd of about 40 that live nearby.

Tamera and I have our hands full most snowy days just keeping the road driveable and the porch and deck cleared. This is a time lapse of Tamera shoveling out to the driveway taken by our web cam. (The cam is also great for snapping pics of visitors when we’re not around. So don’t get any ideas.)

Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy and more prosperous 2009!

Photo taken last summer from our deck by Monica Campbell.

Yes last year was a real bummer. But any year when you don’t die is a good year. And in 2008 I managed to tempt fate twice: breaking my left wrist in March and spending 7 weeks in a cast, and then a heart attack in June that nearly did me in.

Thanks to quick action by Michael Campbell,  a wonderful local chef, friend and neighbor, I’m still alive. And thanks to God, dumb luck, and karmic providence, for simply being in the right place at the right time. I could easily have keeled over in front of this infernal machine out here in the deep woods, but I just happened to be in town 20 miles away when it happened. I’ve been working from home for over 11 years now. I’m like never in town. But I was on that fateful day. Yay! How cool is that? Very cool. Dying and then being brought back to life is an experience unlike any other. Like winning the lottery or something huge like that.

So if you’re going to keel over, try to be fortunate enough to keel over where there are people nearby. Hopefully with the skills and strength required to apply CPR and mouth to mouth resuscitation if necessary, and for as long as it takes for the ambulance to arrive. Good luck because those skills, like most real skills, don’t grow on trees. Ask 50 people if they know CPR and you might find one person who received basic training at some point.

How close did I come to the great mystery of the hereafter and forevermore? You be the judge, read the newspaper coverage.

I’m enjoying the bonus period, and have been deeply humbled and changed for the better by the experience.

That’s a good thing.

It’s snowing finally, like it usually does in these parts.

The wild turkeys have been plentiful this year. As in dozens upon dozens.

And the deer usually aren’t far behind as they traipse over to the neighbors for lunch.

These guys are sticklers for punctuality. Gobble…

Is a Web guy that actually delivers NOW.  And then gets the bleep out of the way!

Photo: At The Wave, Paria Plateau, Utah by Jeanie Valentine

The average small business owner doesn’t maintain their company web site.  But more than ever they should.  Here’s why:  The tools to maintain and enhance a site are all now browser-based and can be shared with multiple team members with the click of a mouse. If the owner can use Crayons, they can manage their own web presence, even if they’re not doing all the work. And in the process of doing some of it themselves, they can reduce the costs and frustration of handing it off to someone who may or may not have their best interests at heart.

Small business sites in their first one or two iterations are usually handed off to someone, like a friend or a paid designer, to construct and maintain.  The results vary from beautiful to ugly, but there’s usually one constant: the site is usually hard to change by anyone other than the designer. As a result, content gets outdated, prices change, and the owner - designer relationship becomes a game of hide and seek when it comes time for updating.

Not here. I can be reached 24 hours a day. I build sites that are user manageable, and beautiful.  After a bit of training, I put the point of execution in the owner’s hands, and I’m always available to answer questions or fix a problem if the need arises.

Contrary to what some of my clients think I don’t walk on water.

But I can always dream.

Move over NASCAR,  even bikers are under the green microscope these days.  Guaranteed to be lotsa blowback.

“In fact, the average motorbike is about 10 times more polluting per mile than a passenger car, light truck or SUV, according to a California Air Resources Board comparison of emissions-compliant vehicles.”

Amazing. Right up there with the vaunted Hummer for emissions. Link to LA Times article.

Recording and Producing Music: Lots of Work But It Lasts Forever

Paul Boruff is a talented and diverse musician who lives the life of the road warrior musician to the hilt. I produced his Blue Jay (mp3 file) CD back in 1993. Check out his web site and tell him hello for me.

If you would like to listen to some of my earliest work as a music producer and sideman, listen to Paul Boruff’s CD “Blue Jay” for free on CD Baby. After 16 years it’s still nice piece of work for a bedroom studio project. Paul has sold lots of this disc from the stage at his performances.

Paul wrote, sang and performed all the songs live and we spent many hours getting all the parts dubbed in, then mixing and mastering everything over a sucky ADAT recorder that used SVHS video tape (long dead as a medium) for storage. Besides producing the disc, I played guitars and some percussion, and there are a bunch of great people on it too, Matt Flinner most notably, along with Steve Wesson on bass and Anthony Perry on drums, and a fiddler whose name escapes me at the moment.

Visit Paul’s site: http://www.paulboruff.com

Download and use a browser (Firefox, Google Chrome) that doesn’t put you and your info at risk. IE has more holes than Swiss cheese.

Link to latest warning from Microsoft.

Gentlemen, Stop Your Engines: A NASCAR fan makes the case to euthanize stock-car racing. Link to Slate article.