Back From the Brink

Happy Computer Resuscitation Day. Oh what, no one else is celebrating? Oh, well then, Happy Mardi Gras instead. Here in the south Mardi Gras is a serious holiday.

I've mentioned before, (possibly not on this blog but definitely on my old blog, the one hosted on the site that crashed and burned with almost five years of my blog life)that the library is closed on Fat Tuesday. All the banks and federal offices were closed yesterday but today, in the south, the library is closed.

As it turns out, this was very good timing for me as it allowed me to focus on the implosion/meltdown/life altering failure of my laptop, which occurred late Sunday evening. The other good news is that the Finman, ultimate romantic, bought me an external drive for Christmas and almost all my files and photos are safely ensconced therein. The drive is about a gazillion gigs, so it's nice and roomy.

My laptop definitely seems like it will live to blog another day and now I'm working on getting things tidy-ed up and programs reinstalled. Hallelujah! It was touch and go there as whatever buggy bug shutting me down was also making it impossible to reinstall my operating system, truly ugly. UGLY.

Now of course, a new laptop is on my short list. This one is, after all, nearing it's fifth birthday. In my panic, I did do a little research. The laptop I picked for a replacement is Promise Pink.

Not of course, (ahem) that I would allow color to sway my purchasing decision.(Promise Pink) I am after all an adult.(Promise Pink) I looked at the RAM, Hard Drive size and read some reviews.(Promise Pink) I didn't have it picked out the minute I saw the color choices.(Promise Pink) I mean really, this is important and represents a lot of money.

Disclaimer: In real life, the Finman is actually much more romantic that me. I wanted an external hard drive just as much as he wanted to gift me one. He's the one that remembers all the important dates.

Photo: The photo was taken at the Old Spanish Fort Cemetery (La Pointe Krebs House) in Pascagoula, Ms.

Hiatus Interruptus

Pondering on hold, the ever interesting Intelliwench bestowed the great honor of a "Kreative Blogger Award" on this bundle of words and photos and now I have the great honor of penning my acceptance blog.

First, I must explain that Intelliwench was (rightly) disturbed by the creative spelling of "Kreative Award" and worked a little image magic to bring the award back along more conventional lines. As I am perhaps equally disturbed by the misuse of hard consonants and lack of silent e's I am using her adapted image.

In a completely unrelated aside I must step on my soap box to say I'm all in favor of playing with the English language. Definitely experiment, try out new words, play with diction, why even make words up as need arises. By all means, one should broaden the ever shrinking vocabulary brought on by TV soaked brains and text speak. But please, by all that's holy and inviolate, let us draw some lines in our quest to spice up this communication medium. Really, can't we call a halt to "kute" spelling?

Now then, with that behind us, onto the acceptance. In accepting this great honor, I must list seven favorite things. These things apparently need to be solo activities as they are not supposed to involve "other people". (At this point, I'm curious to know if the Kreative Award is due to blog content or perhaps because if you come up with seven things that are enjoyable but are not dependent on the involvement of others the blogger must indeed be creative. As the award precedes the list, I must assume that the award is based on content but it still creates a question in my mind.)

Seven things that are not only favorite pastime sbut also bring me joy:

1) Watching clouds move with wind.

2)The sound of wind soughing through the tops of the pine trees at the back of our property.

3)Feeling the pull of my muscles as I paddle my kayak in the Mississippi Sound.

4)Listening while at the beach or kayaking to the sounds of the birds, fish jumping, waves lapping, wind blowing off the Gulf of Mexico and motors of distant boats.

5)Puttering in my vegetable garden pulling weeds, tidying things, and picking vegetables to carry inside in my garden basket.

6)Reading a book that I can't put down.

7)Riding my bike with my wicker basket full from holding my camera and taking pictures around my neighborhood. This generally includes cows.

Now then, to complete the acceptance, there must be four nominations of my own. This is very difficult. In looking over my blog list, there are simply some absolutely wonderful and valuable bloggers out there. In fact, many of these blogging friendships have transcended the internet world and spilled over in to real life interactions. This makes it quite difficult to choose.

I'll start with Class Factotum. Quite honestly she's brilliant and her stories so often remind Fin and me of Fin and me that it's a bit spooky. Did I mention she's brilliant? And talented? And gifted with words? And gardens? Well, she is and does.

Next, my big brother over at Thai Takes. He doesn't blog terribly often but he has an interesting mix of Thai politics, personal updates, and photos of very beautiful and colorful Thailand.

And I must mention, Joan over at Charleston Daily Photo. Joan is another long time blog friend and I hope one of these days I'll make it to Charleston for a real-life meet up and we'll roam around town with our cameras. Joan has a great mix, of photos, funnies, and life. She's definitely worth a look.

Last and of course not least, my old friend Tea of A Kitten Ate My Couscous. Tea's output is a bit sporadic (but then so is mine) but she posts lovely photos, nice entries, and seriously, have you ever run across a better blog name? It is by far one of the best ever typed.

Now then, as I mentioned it was QUITE difficult to pick only four. I have many more favorites and all of have valuable or interesting things to say. I only hope I didn't hurt any feelings. After all, just consider, the Finman, love of my life didn't make the list.

Internet Celebrity

Okay, perhaps not celebrity but yesterday afternoon, Fin and I made a webcam debut over on the Big Rig Travels Live Truckcam. (To the left, Truck Kat and I may be observed waving at the camera. Photo by Fin.)

Big Rig Travels consists of a talented photographing trucker, one sweet furball of a truck kat, and a webcam pointed out the front window watching the US roll by. The Big Rig Travels team has been the focus of a couple different magazine articles, won Earthcams 25 Most Interesting Webcams of 2008, and most importantly the team has opened the beauty of the US to many people that may not ever get to run the roads the way this trucker does.

It was a pleasure meeting Big Rig Steve and his sidekick Truck Kat. (Though judging from the blog and Road Crew Lounge that are part of the Big Rig Steve Community, Truck Kat may actually be the star of this show.) When Big Rig heard that all the librarians back at the library and some children were watching our little meet up he graciously sent along some Big Rig Travels pens and cards, along with a few copies of the magazine Trucker News that featured Big Rig Travels. All in all, it was a great meeting and well worth postponing my lunch break from the library so that we could drive down to I-10 for the meeting.

A big thanks to my friend, LunchtimeLu, who sat at home and helped us know when Big Rig was leaving the interstate for our rendevous!

Welcome

Welcome all to the new home of BethanyC. I expect to write much more often. Below, is the entry I placed on my former blog site earlier this evening. Thank you for dropping in, I've been looking forward to company.

My early blogging life was spent in a charming little corner of the blog world by the name of Journalspace. There, I was simply BethanyC and for almost five years bethanyc.journalspace was a home almost as real as my actual physical home, a created community that led to offline friendships and a view into lives all over the globe.

It is a given to say that blogging changed my life as I met my significant other in the halls of journalspace. He quickly charmed me with his stories and humor and the rest as they say is history. All of us at JS suffered site slow downs, fairly frequent outages, and loss of data. In fact, about year four I lost the entire content of my journal of four years. Yet, most of us hung in there because after all this was home. Then, a few months after my journal was one of a very few wiped clean the entire site crashed and burned taking most of the words with it.

With a Do Not Resuscitate Order out on the Journalspace site, loyal JS'ers were left in a bit of daze, scrambling for purchase and looking for new online homes. This led to the great Journalspace Diaspora of 2008. I ended up here and I've disliked it ever since.

No, it's not that I dislike Blogger and it's not even that the sense of community is most definitively in short supply. The real problem with this blog, and the reason I've yet to really create a solid blog bond is simply the name.

In the aftermath of the JS crash, December 2008, I was sitting in a house with three other dispaced JS'ers. The Finman was here, brother Chaing Mai Guy was visiting from Thailand, and big sis ElisaC was also staying for the holidays. None of us knew quite where to go and I personally scrambled for a blog name. When my first choice was taken and then my second, I'll admit I got a bit crazed and ended up with a title and consequently a url that was absolutely unmanageable.

Seriously, it is ridiculous to try to direct people to your blog when your url is long enough to extend from your wrist to your elbow. I mean wherethewindblows-girlblogger. Blech! What was I thinking?

Now I'm taking things in hand. I'm moving alltogether and hopefully this will be my last blog move for a while. You may now find me at http://bethanyillustrated.blogspot.com where I plan to be much more prolific and drag my blogging muse from the attic whence she's been cowering for the past several months in apparent distaste of my poorly chosen words.

Post Script: A note for my JS friends. I do know that many of you are now at Keep Connected Live and it looks like a great site. I may create an account over there to help me keep up with all you folks. However, for now I'm staying with blogspot and hope you will all fit me into your busy blog reading schedules even though I haven't made the KCL jump.