Merry Christmas Everyone!

The Dog's Life family wishes each of you a very merry Christmas. 

Of course, I can't do this in a decorous and subtle manner.

That would be asking too much.

Drunken Santa. HeeHee!

I must go completely over the top.

and post every single one of the old Christmas postcards that I have.

Even the scary Santa.

Leave it to me to be totally undignified about the whole Christmas wishes thing.

Oh sure, posting one a day for a week or more would be so much more elegant but...

it wouldn't show the extent of the wishes that I send to all of you.

So when Santa steals into your home please don't shoot first and ask questions later.

Just know that he is bringing my best wishes for

a very merry Christmas and

a happy New Year.

Love,

M

Wine Cork Ornaments - A How -To

Remember how last week I was all embarrassed about the inappropriate number of wine corks I had accumulated in the last several years? 

I KNOW!  

It's sad.

Don't be afraid of the staring sea lion in this box.

I realize that most people don't have a bin o'wine corks like I do. I'm pretty sure that this is some sort of disorder that the psychological community will want to study. Something like; winecorkarecyclingaphobia. I've only got one thing to say to them; "bring it on".

You can buy new wine corks at craft stores or wine/beer making shops. I bet you could order them online also. I wouldn't really know. I come by my corks through hard work. :)

Well, a friend of mine saw that post and sent me some photos of a useful way I could use all these corks as:

Christmas ornaments.

Now, this is a great idea for several reasons.

1. I can hide my wine cork problem

2. Free gifts

3. Allows me to get my crafty hat on. (it is a very attractive crafty hat)

Upon which I thought AWESOME! Then I thought; I could do that. Then I thought; I don't even have to go to the craft store. 

I grabbed my craft boxes (yes, I am so organizationally anal that I have a box just for craft supplies. In that box is smaller boxes. jars, and zip-top bags that contain like items then sorted within the bags, jars & boxes, within the big box, etc.)

Picked out of my massive amount of wine 

corks a few likely victims.

Located my bag of beads. What? You don't have a bag of beads?

Riffled through my cache of old costume jewelry for dangly stuff. My MIL owned an amazing amount of gaudy jewelry. God bless her! She must have known that I would need all of it much later.

Gave a little thought to the mechanics of string through cork transfer. I decided on a large needle.

I threaded the needle with some heavy fishing line with the thought that I would just stab the needle through the cork and voila it would be more than half way done. 

This seemed like a sensible idea. 

Yeah, right!

Until things got a little sticky (pun intended)

Maybe beating the needle with a hammer would be a good idea.

Meh, not so much.

Figured out that I screwed up.

Then rethought the plan.

A large straightened paperclip was employed as a threading device.

 Success!!

Basic Directions

1. gather stuff - large paperclip (straightened with a small loop bent on one end.), beads, something a little bigger and heavier than the beads to hang on the end, thin wire or heavy fishing line, needle-nosed pliers.

2. Thread about 8 inches of wire through loop in paperclip. 

3. Using the pliers push the paperclip through the wine cork. It is very helpful if the wine cork has that hole from the cork screw. Leave about equal amounts of wire on either side of the cork. 

4. Thread beads onto one end, tie on heavy piece. Trim excess wire. Push the beads and corks as close to the heavy piece as you can. 

5. Thread a few more beads onto the other side of the cork. Fashion a loop at this end of the ornament.

 I'm so happy with the way these turned out that I will be taking these with me to Seattle as hostess gifts.

I think this would be a fun activity for a holiday party. Everyone could than take home a little something that they made to remember the event. It could also be done on Christmas eve or Christmas day during that lull in the holiday celebrations between opening the gifts and eating dinner.

Have a happy holidays everyone

Love,

M

If the zombie apocalypse comes I know just where I'll go

To Canada.

To Saskatchewan to be more specific.

There is a blogger there that is prepared. Keely from The Unmom has taken all the precautions, gathered all the equipment and done an exhaustive study of zombies in order to fend off the brain gnawing beasts. I want to be there when it happens. Hopefully, it won't be winter. I's got problems with the cold but I don't think that zombies do. 

Keely is more than just a refuge from zombie hell. She is smart, funny (OMG! is she funny), talented, and like me, she is just a tad on the hippy earth mother side. Let's deconstruct these attributes a bit, shall we. (said the spider to the fly)

She's smart. If you have read anything that she has written in the last few years you'll come to understand how smart she is. Anyone that can put a name to that 15% that you spend on yourself while Christmas shopping thus legitimizing it, has got to be smart. Plus, she went to university (as they say up north). 

She's funny. She can turn a situation that I know is tearing her up inside and make it entertaining (just one example. There are others) for others. I consider the ability to make light of a bad situation a gift. Keely does it with grace and a quirky sense of style. I like to think she is quirky. I like quirky. I do quirky. Which lead right to.....

She's talented. I am totally in awe of her drawing. Seriously? Did you check out her header? She draws that stuff. See my logo? Keely's work. I would not be even remotely cool without it. (okay, I'm not remotely cool but an old lady can dream). If I didn't know how hard it is to make a living from one's talent I would be urging her to quit her job to stay home and draw. Unfortunately, artists are not usually appreciated until they are dead. (that little tidbit was reaffirmed by JR this weekend when I was moaning about not wanting to go to work. I just wanted to stay home to paint. I think I answered with a bad word and the lift of a significant finger. Seemed appropriate at the time.) 

She's a bit of an hippy earth mother. How do I know? Beyond our email conversations, beyond the references to alternative medicines in her posts, beyond meditating with her mother, beyond the fact that I remember what hippies were, beyond all that I know because her kid wears beads. Which is the coolest thing ever. She lets him be. I don't mean that in a she leaves alone in a neglectful way, I mean that in a she lets him live in the moment way. If he wants to make a broom a toy. She lets him. Here is another example (as if you needed one) When she emails me asking a question and I give her a vague you have to do what feels right to you, everything's groovy response she understands. (I promise I'm not copping out on you, Keely. It is just the way I take life.)

Wrapped up around all that funny, talent, and smart is a woman that loves her family and friends. Who is not willing to stay within the status quo. Who is willing to seek. That is a gift. That willingness to seek. 

So Keely - Merry Christmas from your fans at It's a Dog's Life. And Merry Christmas from Me. 

See you in January,

Love

M

Kate over at the Recommended Daily Dose took on the Holiday Shout Out this year. Thanks Kate. Go check out the other special holiday wishes. 

RTT - McGyver's got nothing on me. Well, he did but not anymore.

All ya need is Keely

Ya de de da

All ya need is Keely

All together now

All ya need is Keely

Keely's all ya need.

(apologizes to the former Beatles, the remaining spouses, and Beatles fans around the world.)

I am a member of this committee to develop an encyclopedia on the web (does that make it a weblopedia?) of Houston and Harris county. Mostly, I monitor developments and do creative stuff when needed. This weekend a spat of emails were bouncing around the committee members about asking people to serve on the board. So who's name pops up? George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara. After my initial shock (okay a little horror might have been involved. The man won't eat broccoli! I'm not sure I can trust a man that won't eat broccoli. Not to mention his politics. Broccoli is what is important here.) I reconciled with this possibility with the understanding that while the Bushs accept tons of requests like this they rarely involve themselves. Which is good because the man DOESN'T eat broccoli! 

Painting's done.( Please discount the crappy picture. It was early today when I took it.) It is leaving today for sunny Florida. I've got a couple more lined up to paint. Not this big or on this kind of time limit  or framed (everyone's place is different. I checked with Jen before I framed it.) but a couple of more profiles of little ones. Those of you that I emailed please send me your pictures so I can get started on them after Christmas.   Those of you who might want one I barter real well. Mostly, because I have no idea what to charge. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

I hit a hundred followers! Thank you everyone. You are the best!

We had a conversation about this exciting news this morning.

Me: I've hit a hundred followers. (said rather boastfully I might add. I can't help it. I'm excited)

The Girlfriend: Think of the pressure? You'll have to write more now just to appease your fans.

The Boy: Don't sell out now.

Thanks kids. 

Now, the pressure is on to produce interesting and witty comments and posts. 

Oh No, I'm not sure I can stand it. 

Wait! You all come around no matter how pedestrian and witless I am.  

Whew! Scared myself there. 

I decided to try my hand at wine cork ornaments this weekend in an effort to reduce the embarrassing number of corks floating around the house. (why don't I just throw them out? Uh, yeah, well, it's like this. I was taught to never throw anything out because it might be useful later on. Thanks to JR's mother. Probably explains why I still have her candy tin full of buttons. Hey! They are cool. I'll someday have a use for them.)

I took some beads I had hanging around, the wine cork, and one of said mother-in-laws old costume jewelry earrings to make this:

I felt like McGyver.

Except for saving the world with a roll of duct tape, a marking pen, and 9-volt battery, that is. 

I've got a whole how-to post planned for this as soon as the wounds on my hands heal. Those corks are hard little buggers.


Okay, I'm spent. Please leave a comment (help a girl out about how much I should charge for a 18 x 24 inch painting) then go visit Keely and the gang.

Love,
M

1955 Houstonian, Side B

A few months ago the music librarian and I made a video out of the audio from a 1955 - 45 rpm record and images from the 1955 Houstonian Yearbook. That first video was side A. 

I, now, present Side B. Complete with dancing girls, guys being shipped off to war and the mambo beat.

Enjoy about 5 minutes of fun

Love,

M

WW - Heady the Hatter

In 1912 the last thing you want is for your hat to blow during the parade.

Love,

M

RTT-Christmas will be a bit shy this year

Well hello there. Come out from behind the gaily wrapped presents, the heavenly smelling Christmas baking and the brightly lit tree. 

What you say? 

There is no gaily wrapped packages? 

No heavenly smelling Christmas baking? 

No brightly lit tree? 

Where are the damn elves? 

I ordered all this stuff months ago!

 

I came to the sad realization that I have an embarrassing number of wine corks. Pulled from wine bottles that I drank the wine out of (not those pansy-assed ones you buy at the craft store). This occurred to me when we needed place card holders at work for the holiday party. I went online to find cheap and easy ones. What pops out of the internets? Wine cork place card holders. I mention that this would be a fun and inexpensive project. Someone else on the planning committee mentions that our budget won't support buying enough wine corks for every dish that will be brought. Then it was the moment of reckoning. I HAVE enough for every holiday party for the next five years.

only a small selection of the ever burgeoning collection.

Help Me!

From 1883 Texas cookbook

A Good Liniment

Equal parts of Iodide of ammonia and chloroform. Rub on the affected part.

I'm pretty sure that your muscles will relax just mixing this concoction.

The painting is almost done.

Just need to finish up the bushes in the right hand corner. I might be filling in along the right side as well. 

Go forth and visit others.

Love,

M

Tomato Sandwiches recipe

On campus we have a College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. I don't really know much about it except that I can go to the student run restaurant and eat lunch for about $5 and that they have a wonderful archives. 

This archives was started as part of the Hilton Archives and then sort of morphed. Have you ever watched Mad Men? The producers of the show came to the archives to get images, old advertising materials, and an idea of the look of that era. Pretty cool, no?

This archives has things like plates from restaurants and hotels around the world, a spittoon from God knows where, images, movies and vinyl records from Hilton and other hotels from around the world, a picture of Hemingway ogling a young starlet at the Havana Hilton opening, and last (and in my opinion) the best; cookbooks from the 1870s to current. Hundreds of them! Every edition of the Joy of Cooking! Not to mention the cooking magazines and pamphlets collection!  Yes, my friends, it is a Michele Playland!

We will be scanning some of these gems into digital to preserve them since most of the oldest ones are falling apart. This means that I just had to borrow a few to look at. I'll be sharing some home remedies with you later in the week but for now I'll share a recipe that I only had to tweak a little and it turned out wonderful. It is not what you think of as tomato sandwiches.

Tomato Sandwiches

1 - 8 ounces package of cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons dried seasoning mix, like Italian, Herbs d'Provance, Cajun, taco or whatever you have on hand. I say get creative.

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 egg beaten with a little milk

1/2 cup bread crumbs

4 medium to large firm tomatoes

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons olive oil

1. Mix cream cheese and seasoning mix together. Let stand until flavors blend. Usually an hour or so. This is a great mix ahead sort of thing. Just be sure that you take it out of the refrigerator to allow it to soften up before you make the sandwiches.

2. Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 to 1/2 in slices. (don't you hate it when recipes get real precise on the size of slices? Really, recipe writer? Do you expect me to whip out my handy ruler?) It kind of goes without saying that you will need an even number of these slices. Divide into two stacks.

3. Spread a tablespoon or so of the cheese mixture onto each tomato slice of one of the stacks. Top with another tomato slice. Press down to distribute the cheese mixture. See little tomato sandwiches. Now, you could eat them just like this, I know I would but let's take it one step further into the realm of deliciousness.

4. Place the flour, egg mixture and bread crumbs into separate dishes. Basically, you are setting up a breading station. I like to use salad plates. They seem to be the right size and shape but use whatever you have that's handy. We are now coming to the really messy part. 

5. Dip one tomato sandwich into the flour, coating it on both sides. Then the egg mixture, once again coating it on both sides. Then the bread crumbs. Yep, you'll be coating it on both sides. Place on a wire rack until you have all the sandwiches coated. I made them up ahead of time and stored them uncovered in the refrigerator until I was ready to fry them up. Gives them a little time to firm up before you put the fire to them. A little tip for you. Use only one hand to do the breading operation. That way you only have one breaded club hand.

6. Heat up butter and olive oil in a large frypan. Fry each side of the tomato sandwich until golden brown. Serve warm. 1 per person. 1 very large and 3 medium sized tomatoes serves about 6. 

They are awesome the next day. I warmed up the remaining two under the broiler while I poached a couple of eggs. Placed on a bed of fresh spinach, topped with the egg and some chopped fresh tomato. Yum!!!!

Uh, yeah, pictures. Sorry. We ate them too fast and I didn't think of it. If you need an image in your head think really thick fried green tomatoes, only not green and oozing cheese. Aren't I helpful?

I'm pretty sure that these would be wonderful with herbed goat cheese. In fact, I plan to try it this week and will pass on the results. Maybe, I might even take pictures. Wouldn't that be cool?

Give this recipe a try for Meatless Monday or any old day of the week.

Love,

M

I'm feeling maudlin today about spoons

I'm pretty sure there is a whole sordid history to spoons, spoon production, and spoon usage but I'm really too tired to look it up. So I'll leave it to your imagination. Instead I'm going to show you some of the decorative spoons that JR's maternal family collected. Leave it to women to collect and preserve something as simple as a spoon. 

Or are they so simple?

 JR's ancestress' collected a wide range of stuff and spoons seem to be a big part of that stuff. 

They range in date from the late 1890s to about 1920. 

I surmise that during the Great Depression you couldn't afford something that didn't really have a useful purpose. Then World War II came along and while it broke us out of the Depression it also changed the way society thought about everyday life, collections and curating collected items.

 These are just some of the fancy spoons the women that make up JR's history collected.

They are souvenirs from cities, countries, and events.

 

 They are printed with months of the year. 

Which I presume were significant to the collector.

 

 I think this was from their Norway trip in 1914.

They went back to visit relatives.

Then there are the just plain fancy ones.

The ones you brought out only for company.

Special company that you wanted to impress.

I only have special fancy spoons left. 

Not sure what I'm going to do with a fancy set of 12 demitasse spoons but, oh well.

Let's put on our anthropologist hats for a minute.

When you think about the use that spoons got and still get, you can get an idea of what these particular spoons must of meant to survive. Spoons were tools. Spoons were the stuff of daily life. Anthropologist like to dig around midden kitchens (or the garbage heap behind the kitchens in layman's terms) for just such stuff.  Spoons got used. A lot! They were so common that when their usefulness expired you threw them out. Common tools are the hardest to find but the most coveted by collectors and anthropologists.

Because only the fancy meaningful ones survive. 

Makes me think I need to go hide one of my everyday spoons right now, so that some poor anthropologist or collector in the future can make the find of his or her century.

Love,

M

Conversations with my mother

The Beatles Good Day Sunshine blasts from the phone sitting on the dining room table. Tripper runs out of the master bedroom where he has been sleeping rather soundly under my clothes hanging in the closet. (Thank you Tripper for that daily ritual of de-furring that I have to do every morning. Like I haven't enough work just to look presentable but you make it just that much more fun. Not to mention keeping 3M in business. Those sticky roller things don't come cheap, little buddy.) He is barking madly. I really don't think that his barking at the Beatles tune is an indication of his extreme dislike of Beatles tunes, in general,  it's more my speaking on the phone at all that creeps him out. He's a strange dog.


I can see by the display on the phone that it is my mother. I assess whether I have the energy to talk to my mother then end up doing so just to shut the crazy barking dog up. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother and always want to talk to her it's just that at this time of year our conversations pretty much go the same way and that way can be exhausting.

Me: Hi Ma

Mom: Hi honey. Uh, what time were you and JR flying in on Christmas day? Because I told your brother really late and why doesn't he come over at 10am on the 26th instead to open gifts and such. Then it occurred to me that you were coming in earlier but by that time it was too late to have him and Kelly drive the hour or so down. What are Ben and Val planning? What day do you plan to see your friends? Is JR's brother coming down? What does everyone want for Christmas? Are you planning to pack gifts in your suitcase? You know you'll need to wrap them here. Those security people won't let you through with wrapped gifts. I'll leave out some wrapping paper in your room just in case. Did you need us to come get you?

Me: HUH? Ma, why don't you slow down a good bit and we'll break that paragraph up a little, shall we?


Mom: .......


Me: We are flying in at noon your time. We are renting a car so don't worry about picking us up. We should get to your place by 1. Wayne and Kelly I'm sure have lots of plans with Kelly's family  so tell them not to worry. We will see them when we see them.


I have no idea what Ben and Val are doing but I'm sure we'll all spend enough time together to be thoroughly sick of each other.


Mom: Oh Michele (sigh)

Me: I had plans to mail our packages to your house pre-wrapped so don't worry about leaving paper in our room.  JR is making arrangements with Paul and his kids to get together for a day. I'm not sure what day that will be. It's his deal. We have plans to visit with all of our friends throughout the week. With all the people we have to see please don't expect us at your house much. 


Mom: I understand that you are going to want to visit with your friends so Bill and I won't take up much of your time. Just an evening here and there will be fine. (oh the guilt. I have learned this skill from the master). We'll have to go see Fran while you are here. She just loves you and talks about you at church all the time. You know, she just celebrated her 90th birthday and I'm just not sure how much time she has left so you'll want to visit with her when you come up.

Me: Not to mention visiting with our children. 

Mom: Oh right, what did you say they wanted for Christmas?


Me: I didn't. 


Mom: So you don't know?


Me: I know only what they put on their google wish list document.


Mom: Can you scan that list and send it to me?


Me: I can share it with you.


Mom: That's what I said.


Me: No, it is a computer document that I can share so when you get on the.....oh never mind. Sure, I can scan it in and send it to you. Anything else?


Mom: Guess who died?


*sigh* 



Love,
M

Vegetarian restaurant menu; Kellogg wasn't the only crazy in the 1860s

Kellogg started a revolution in the late 1800s. 

Some thought he was a kook.

Some still do.

Digestion is favored by:

A simple diet

Dry foods and thorough mastication

A cheerful, hopeful condition of mind

Regular, useful daily exercise

I've got at least one out of these four covered.

I've never been a big fan of nut loaf 

so 30 cent still sounds like too much to pay for it.

Love,

M

RTT: Merry Christmas, here's a cauliflower plant

Keely uses words like Yuleicious. 

Because she's awesome like that.

And you will be too if you link up

for Random tuesday thoughts.

I've done a little bit of decorating for Christmas.

I got our tree up.

And it's even decorated

Okay, so I haven't worked real hard at the Christmas decorations thing. 

I've been busy, yeah, that's right, busy.

Uh, let's move along. Nothing really to see here.

I have this 60 year old + hand-hooked wool rug. 

Made by one of my mother-in-law's friends, it is fraying. Badly

I, somehow someday, want to repair it. 

It really is pretty.

In a tattered way.

Sometimes, I know exactly how it must feel, 

tattered.

As seen at the Farmers market:

Cauliflower plants

Nothing says thank you for inviting me to your very clean house, which you and the cleaning crew have spent countless of hours making ready, and where you have spent hundreds of dollar on food and decorations, not to mention the copious amount of time cooking and decorating,
than a cauliflower plant.

This proves I am in the wrong business.


I'm spent. Go visit some or all of the other RTT folks. It is time well spent.

Love,
M

HiHo HiHo it's off to paint I go

Definition: A commission is an original piece of artwork completed by an artist as requested by a client.*

By this definition I am a commissioned artist. I KNOW! That sounds all big time and such. 

So, here is how the story goes (in a sort of exaggerated or I can't remember all the details form. Jen: if I'm wrong just work with me okay?):

Jen from Sprite's Keeper left a comment on the blog asking if I did portraits. Or people? I'm not really sure what. I could go look it up but yeah, not going to happen. Way too lazy. 

I said that the only recognizable person I had done was a watercolour of Bill Evan's from one of his album covers for The Boy. 

 

Or something to that effect. I still love this painting though it is sitting on the floor of my studio getting flecks of paint on it. I think I'll take it to the office. Or maybe I'll hang it in my bedroom though I'm pretty sure it will freak me out. Anyway,

Jen didn't say anything at that point but her husband John inadvertently spurred on my thoughts about the matter by posting this picture on Facebook.

I emailed Jen that if she didn't let me paint that picture than I was just going to do it anyway and keep it for myself. Okay, I didn't say I'd keep it but I probably would have or at least taunted her with the possibility of me keeping it. Which totally did not happen because;

She said that was the exact one that she wanted me to paint and asked how much would it cost. 

I told her I had no clue. The only thing I've ever done was barter with Keely for my Super Librarian logo. Which I love by the way. Best trade ever! I think we settled on a couple of tickets to DisneyWorld (I'm totally hoping for park hopper passes, btw). Which would make it another awesome trade. JR and I love DisneyWorld and Epcot Center.

Then I told her I would keep her updated with the progress and would try to have it done by Christmas. Which won't happen because of the stupid conference thing last week and the fact that white paint takes a ton of time to dry. Curse you zinc white! Anyway;

She was all "THAT would be great". Whenever you get it done. I'm pretty sure that all her emails start with "I'm so excited". Sometimes all in caps. Those of us with fragile egos need to see all caps.

Knowing the way I work I needed a deadline so as close to Christmas as humanly possible is the goal. I decided to keep it on the QT because I didn't want her husband to get a look at it by chance but yesterday she gave me the okay to show all of you.

So without further ado but a disclaimer; it's only about half done:

Jen: I took out John's photoshopping. I hope you don't mind? Oh and I thought that I would make the castle a little out of focus so that Sprite was the most distinct object. Let's call it creative license.

I'm actually a little, okay a lot, in love with this painting. A picture on the computer just doesn't do it justice. You can't really see the brush strokes. Or the little dots on her dress or her beautiful long eyelashes. 

So Jen: Are you okay with it? If not, I'm putting it up at my house. Or I'll call your parents. Think they'll spring for Disney tickets for it? BTW, I'm thinking March for a visit. Does that work for you? JR and I thought we could spend our 28th anniversary there. One more thing, is black okay for a frame? 

Love,

M

PS: It's Meatless Monday today. Let's all try to pick one day this week to go meatless. Roasted Red Pepper soup recipe coming soon. Painting first, cooking after.

Love this quote:

Jeffrey Bernard: I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.


* Creative Glossary 

I'm hosting a conference

I'm hosting a conference this week. That's why I haven't been my usual blog visiting self or if I do visit I leave short comments if none at all. No time, sorry. Even posting is going to be short.

So Thanksgiving morning I received an email from a gentleman from the University of the West Indies explaining that he couldn't register for the conference online so could he bring a check to pay for it when he got to Houston on Wednesday. I said sure and that we would be happy to register him when he got here. Now, I've gotten a couple of emails from people out of the country saying that they wanted to come then I didn't hear anything from them again and I thought that was the case this time. 

I was so wrong.

Wednesday at 10am I get a call from security, who says;"there is a man here that says he is going to some sort of conference and that you would be able to help him". Uh, yeah, that one took me back a minute. Then I thought; it couldn't be. 

Yep, it was my gentleman from the West Indies. And, he is not at all like I hoped thought he would be. I had visions of a guy with dreads saying, "Yo mon" and smelling faintly of dope. Nope, he's a quiet gentleman that is here in the U.S. for the first time in his life and a little out of his league in the big city of Houston,Texas. This place must be total culture shock for him. Not to mention that he hasn't taken his thick heavy coat off since he rolled into town (as far as I could tell). Obviously, to make him real comfortable we'll have to turn the air conditioning down or up or whatever to make it warmer. Granted, it has been cold the last couple of days but today it will be in the low 70s. Hopefully, he'll warm up. He's just adorable and has the sweetest accent ever.

We are trying to make him feel at home without using stereotypes, so I haven't pulled out my Bob Marley cds or found a wig with dreads. Though I may be willing to smell faintly of dope. (I kid. sort of).

What I have been pushing for is the idea that he/his library should host next year's conference. I told him that I would come a couple of weeks early to check out the venue, set up all the tables (around the bar) and make his hosting of this annual conference easy for them. 

Aren't I just the most self-sacrificing person? 

My Dean was all for the idea and volunteered herself to make the opening remarks. She felt that with enough lead time on the island, she could welcome people to Jamaica with the best of them. I told her that I really appreciated her support in this effort. 

My Jamaican gentleman just smiles at me and acts like he doesn't understand. Why is that?

I see librarians trying to keep sand out of their laptops here.

What do you see?

Love,

M

PS; Pseudo does this travel meme on Thursday. I think I'll link up over there. Come check out the other travel post. 

Photo courtesy of Jamaica photos. not like they gave it to me. I sort of ripped it off their site though I do feel responsible enough to give them credit. That's only fair. It's that fair play mentality that I suffer with as a middle child, sometimes it rears it's ugly head. Everything has to be fair. Probably, due to the fact that little was. Okay, I have to go say my "life is not fair" mantra now.

A conference that digital history geeks like me can really go for.

I'm on about a bizillion list-servs at work. Most of the time I skim through the posts looking for things that are relevant to my job, cool things that we could be doing with our website, and generally what is happening in my profession.These list-servs are all about digital archiving, preserving, and accessibility. I usually check all the boxes and change the status from un-read to read in the blink of an eye. 

Not so on this one. 

Call for Participation: Personal Digital Archiving 2011 

Relevant themes include but are not limited to family photographs and
home movies; personal health and financial data; interface design for
archives; scrap booking; social network data; institutional practices;
genealogy; email, blogs and other correspondence; and funding models. 

Personal Digital Archiving 2011
February 24 & 25, 2011
The Internet Archive, San Francisco
http://personalarchiving.com  

I'm very tempted to put in a proposal for this one. Besides the recipes that I concoct like a mad scientist my blog is pretty much a social networking tool to archive my personal family stuff (sorry, about the librarian techno jargon but stuff is really what we sometimes call things that fall within our collection development policy.)



Here are some other reasons why I should go to this conference.

1.  I've been able to connect up with some family by posting personal family history stuff on this blog. See? That's proof of concept, right there. Not to mention the awesome pound of coffee I got out of the deal.


2. This is really what I do for a living. Digitally archive history. And, isn't all history; personal history?


3. I love San Francisco.


4. I have family that lives in the bay area. One more connection to that whole genealogy/family history thing.


5. I've meet Brewster Kahle (the founder of the Internet Archive) and he's a really nice guy and a great speaker. He's got this deal going, the Internet Archive: Digital Library. I remember when it was just the Wayback Machine (and if you haven't seen that then you have to go look. Now! I'll wait). He is also digitizing books onsite, has video and audio archives. You name it. He's got the coolest thing going. I want to be Brewster Kahle, without the whole being a guy thing, of course.


6. The food in San Francisco is great! 


7. I only have one trip planned in February and that is to San Antonio so it doesn't really count as a trip.  It's more of a jaunt. Under my definition of a jaunt. Which is; less than going to Austin but more than staying in Houston. Trust me to define or justify just about anything.


8. This is one of the cheapest conference registration fees I've seen in a long time. The registration is cheap, not so much the airfare and hotel.


9. Ghirardelli chocolate

10. This would sure be a lot more fun than talking about bit-rot, emulsion separation from acetate film, long-term storage and migration of digital media, copyright, and format standards (yes, those are the topics of the conferences that I go to). This is about losing all that cool stuff that you and I and everyone else with a blog, flickr, twitter and facebook accounts,  are producing but not really keeping. Producing something digitally is not and never will be the same as when your grandfather or great grandfather took that picture, wrote that letter, or saved that last piece of china from his grandmother's set. Those things are tangible. Digital media is much more fragile. It's lifespan can not be determined by a test or even the test of time. We just don't know. What we do know is that more care is involved when it comes to digital materials. Lots and lots of copies. Whoops! Soap box. Sorry. 


11. This conference is not about how to sell your blog, market yourself, write better stuff, up your readership or any of those other things that go with conferences that involve social media (not that there is anything wrong with those things. They are just not very interesting to me). This is about saving parts of personal history that will be lost because they are not in tangible form or that people don't think are all that important because it involves social media. We are about to have a huge gap in our social history if we do nothing to save it. Whoops! Soap box again. Sorry. I promise to try harder to step down off that thing.

There are a couple of flaws in my plan. 
How do get my boss to pay for it? 

And, the weather. February in San Fran is cold. Cold and wet. I really don't do cold and wet. This fact alone might keep me away from this conference.

Beyond all that who wants to party with me in San Francisco in February? We could hang out with this bunch of digital luminaries:
Ben Gross, Highlands Group
Brewster Kahle, The Internet Archive
Cal Lee, University of North Carolina
Cathy Marshall, Microsoft Research
Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information
Elizabeth Churchill, Yahoo! Research
Jeff Ubois, The Bassetti Foundation
Jeremy Leighton John, The British Library
Judith Zissman, Consultant

And eat good food. We may even be able to squeeze in a trip to Napa valley. It's a lot warmer up there and the wine is not bad either.


Love,
M