Momentum
There are times in life when you are lazily riding the escalator watching the rest of the world move without you, times when you take the stares either because you’ve been recently motivated or realize you’re grateful to just have functioning legs, and times when you are propelled out of a canon most certainly against your will.
I’m often amazed by how much pain a human spirit can endure before it shatters. So many of us are damaged, yet we refuse to break.
Life is beautiful, out of control and effervescent.
Lysodren (Mitotane) Just Say no to your vet
Buggs was young for a Boston. Only 10. I raised her from a puppy and she moved from Texas to D.C. with me and was always a loving friend. My best friend with no strings attached. She loved everyone, and I mean everyone she came into contact with. Fastest kisser in the west! The one thing she did have a hard time with was allergies. She would get clogged up and be so miserable that she would struggle to catch her breath at times. The vets in Texas solution was always prednisone. First benedryl, then when that didn't work, prednisone, which always did. I know hinesite is 20/20, but I will never give another friend prednisone again.
She was diagnosed with Cushings back in November of '07, so not that long ago. This scared me to death, and I read everything I could on the disease and didn't want to put her on any drugs. I had talked to the vet about it and he said of course it was my choice, but that Cushings was easy to manage and he had treated a couple of hundred dogs with great success. So I consented. Now looking back, I think she may have had some other cancer type things going on as well with her, because the Lysodren didn't really work for her, and her liver [ALK] on her CBC was out of whack back last Fall as well. Also I have had two external tumors removed from her the last few years, although they always came back benign. I'm no vet, but in my mind those didn't just show up for no reason.
We gave it our best shot though. Our vet was a great and compassionate vet and did all the ACHT tests regularly and we followed her daily actions closely. The lysodren did get rid of the crazy drinking and eating and panting. But in the end, it just didn't work for her. I beleive it didn't help extend her life and may have actually shortened it. The arthritis that the drug(and winter brought forth) was just too much for her to take. She stopped eating and drinking completely on Monday, and she'd only been eating steak and chicken that we cooked for her and fed her by hand the last couple of weeks. I just felt so awful for her, as the only choice we had left was to give her fluids with a needle the last couple of weeks.
She wasn't herself, and this past week fell down in her back end when she tried to walk. It was just so sad. Sad to see my friend who had once run around the park with such energy so full of life. Sad not to hear her little toenails on our hardwood floor last night.I have always believed in quality of life vs. quantity and February for Buggs was definately not quality.
Yesterday, she passed away in our arms, knowing she was loved and hugged till the very end. My advice to anyone here is to follow your gut. Just like people some drugs don't work for everyone. But some do. And more than anything give them all the love and treats you can while you have them, because life is so short. Peace be with you Buggs until I can hold you in my arms again sweet girl. I hope someone up there is giving you all the cheese you can handle!
Blogging at Slashfood
I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't given up blogging. Infact I will still continue to update this one.
But, i have been busy doing some guest blogging over at SLASHFOOD. So please go check that out.
Also have a
Facebook page.
Blogging for Ranches
Well I was in Texas visiting my parents last week, and part of my duties along with mucking stalls, mowing acres upon acres of lawn, and haying horses is to help them with anything web. I'm their free online consulting firm, available 24/7. Even though my free time is limited, it's just easier for me to help them versus see them get taken to the cleaners by someone from their small town, who probably sat next to me at community college. Not that there is anything wrong with that :-) It's just that any
high school graduate with an
Internet connection thinks they are a web designer/developer. Eyes rolling...I digress.
After a quick remedial lesson of control + C and control + V, I walked mom through setting up her first blog for the ranch. [
2x4 Quarter Horses ]They already have a
website that gets pretty good stats, but I thought anything to help get the word out to sell more horses was a good thing.
The first thing I showed her was the blog search site
technorati. We had to check out the competition for the phrase "quarter horses". Lucky for us, those blogs are few and far between. So we were already ahead of the game, but probably not for long. After explaining the initial concept (update often) and perusing some other blogs, mom was ready to go.
So other than the fact that I am her daughter, what valid reasons would encourage a small business owner, like my mom, to start blogging.
1. Differentiate Yourself From The Competition: Especially in my mom's case, there aren't a lot of ranch, or quarter horse blogs out there. If you have a niche audience, and especially if your competition really hasn't figured out how to successfully market themselves on the web; now is your big chance to get one step ahead.
2. Update with little or no assistance from a web developer: About once a quarter, mom sends me a list of updates. Usually this consists of new horses for sale, and photographs. By giving her access to her own blog, this allows her to easily make announcements, share news & photos, or just give her opinion on the crazy Texas weather this month, or the rising cost of hay. And "hey" she doesn't have to enlist the help of a costly developer. Although I'm easily paid off with trips to Sonic!
3. Anything that will boost Search Engine Rank is a plus: Relevant links from a trusted website (such as your own blog) linking back to your site can only help to boost your natural search rankings.
4. Unleash your passion: Small business owners have a natural
entrepreneurial spirit. They have a passion for their business, and for pleasing their customers. A blog will give you a medium for sharing that passion, and getting feedback from your customers.
5. Show me the comments: Blogs naturally allow for commentary on every post, unless you change the security settings. Some people are afraid of negative feedback being posted for the world to see. Well you can deal with that two ways. One is to moderate your comments and post only the good. In my opinion though, this makes your blog seem less valid. Two is to allow users to share their feelings both positive or negative, and learn from the
experience. You'll be
surprised how quickly a defender of your product (
DOP) will hop in to defend you.
So that's just a couple of ideas why you might want to give blogging a whirl. It's free, just go to blogger.com to get started today.
Web 2.0: Are You Sick of It Yet?
A little background: I have been working on websites for over ten years now. It started innocently enough with a basic 1 day HTML class that I paid $200 when I was the ripe old age of 19. There were no HTML classes at my college at the time, just some lame Visual Basic courses, and I had no interest in becoming one of THOSE computer science majoring, pocket protector wearing, programming nerds. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just wanted to create visually and contextually appealing websites. It was an interest that turned into a passion with the more classes I shelled out cash for. I became a huge advocate of all things
Macromedia (
pre-evil Adobe buyout). I have watched the rise and fall and rise again of the web, and I know it’s always going to be a part of every successful marketers media plan from here on out.
What I am forced to play along with however is all the jargon that people love to throw around in often non-casual communication regarding web sites. The term
Web 2.0 has been around since 2003, started mostly by those O’Reilly guys with their peculiar animal books. By the way: That cover with the donkey on it just fills me with inspiration to read more about Ajax (I’m so kidding).
Marketing, Sales,
CEOs are wearing this term out, and most of them, if you ask them point blank to define it, you’ll notice they’ll throw in the word blog and quickly change the subject. What it really is, if you take all the
ajax, ruby on rails,
xml, and the
backend nerd programming (which I must admit I find interesting) out of it is this:
It’s a world wide web (WWW) of online & mobile PARTICIPATION. It’s thinking of the web as more than just a linear plane of
searchable content, but as a multidimensional cube where communication opportunities are endless. It feeds one of the most basic human instincts; INTERACTION.
Speaking of interaction, here is a website for every advertiser’s target market, the baby boomer.
Eons started last fall, I remember in fact its launch in October. It was started by Jeff Taylor, you know the guy who started that little site Monster.com? It’s a social-networking [buzz word] J site for the 50-100yr. old active adult. I think it’s well thought out, and I would love to know how large the audience is since the sites inception.
And Jeff, if you’re out there somewhere that little font sizing tool you had on the homepage back last fall was really cool. My mom (your target demographic) has no idea how to go in her browser and change those settings, and to having the one click ability to do that directly on the website was a nice feature.
It Ain’t All About the Cookin’ by Paula Dean
Known for her love of butter (yeehaw!), cream cheese, and sour cream; Paula Dean captured my love and my Tivo about four years ago [
Foodnetwork 10:30 AM every weekend and 1pm every weekday]. My husband and I are Paula Dean groupies, but have yet to meet the wonderful lady.
When we first started dating I took David on a weekend trip to Savannah specifically to go to her restaurant. We stood in line for an hour, which is probably a short wait when you hear others speak about their experience, but it was well worth it, and the food was good ‘ol country cookin’.
I never knew much about the lady other than what I had grown to love about her cooking shows (and what David and I like to call: her FOODNETWORK FACE, when she bites in to something delicious – it’s worse than porn ya’ll), but having read the book I feel as though she could be a close Texas relative of mine!
Her book has to be the most honest one I have read. She really put it all out there, including a social anxiety disorder and an affair with a married man that she had for years. I think it took a lot of guts not to just talk about the good things in her life, but to show that she has made many mistakes, learned many lessons, and that she is human and puts her pant’s on one leg at a time just like everyone else. She feels blessed by God and family has always been number one, even if that just meant surviving to the next meal/catering job. The entire book is filled with heart warming stories and belly filling recipes. If you love to cook or you love southerners, or even if you just love a good story about starting from nothing and building a dream this book is for you.
Fashion for Paws
I’m always looking for ways to support humane treatment of animals, so when I heard about
Fashion for Paws, I just had to go.
I was able to engage two of my girlfriends with the promise of an open bar and some trend setting summer fashion ideas (ok, that last part I wasn’t sure of).
So Saturday, we cabbed to the French Embassy and enjoyed some excellent people watching. It wasn’t like other events I have been to in this town, people really broke out of conservative attire and sported some pretty wild dresses and shoes. I was impressed!
Here is some great video of the event.
http://www.dccompass.com/Next up The
Bark Ball in June!
http://www.washhumane.org/barkball.asp
