journey of life

Throughout my elementary years, I loved my English and Language Arts classes. Although I lacked the imagination and the composition skills, I enjoyed writing. That is, until I had Mrs. Carrico as my ninth grade English teacher, then AGAIN as my college English teacher my senior year. The woman was senile, judgmental and played favorites. No joke. My senior year, two students switched papers, only to receive the same grade they were always awarded.

I began my college career deflated by my experience in Mrs. Carrico’s class and was shocked to find I didn’t do so bad when it came to paper writing, as long as I wasn’t procrastinating. Consequently, several of my other high school classmates who had Mrs. Carrico as well went through similar revelations. Our writing skills weren’t lacking. We weren’t the best, but clearly we weren’t the worst. Mrs. Carrico was just an old bitty. Thinking back, I may have chosen a different curriculum in college, one more suited to my interests and talents, but because I truly believed my writing skills were atrocious, I meandered all over the major map before settling on History.

Once I began blogging, I really enjoyed writing…again. I never was much of a diary/journal writer, but for some reason blogging appealed to me. I began to write on topics I was interested in, without worrying about my usage of perfect past tense or obsessive comma usage. Now, with several years of blogging under my belt, I know full well that my greater audience is rather small, which is completely fine with me. I also am aware that I will not win awards or become rich off my writing skills. I’m okay with that, too. Those accolades go to the lucky ones who possess superior blogging skills. You know, the ones that would have gotten an A+ in Mrs. Carrico’s class.

However, for some reason, my post on cruising apparently became popular in Internet land. So much so, that other sites are actually copying my content to use as their own. Unfortunately, I can’t credit this to my writing skills. Instead, key words that I used probably caught their eye, such as “Royal Caribbean”, “Carnival” and “cruise”. These sites gain revenue by the amount of hits they get, and apparently those key words get lots of attention. Because the authors of such sites flunked out of English completely, they rely on others to provide content to their website, which they obtain without permission. Yes, this is illegal. Yes, I can hire a lawyer to draft a letter to the service providers and demand that my copyrighted content be removed. But, it is highly unlikely that the spammers will be punished. Personally, I don’t want to waste my time and energy on a losing battle. After some research and consulting with my counsel I have instead decided to plaster copyrighted symbols and statements throughout the site an on my rss feeds.

So, as my popularity grows, but before I become world-renowned, I must give credit where credit is due. I would like to thank Mrs. Carrico for convincing me that my writing sucked. Otherwise, I might have never enjoyed blogging so much.

Last week CNN posted the following: Dad: Virginia Tech treated suicidal son like ‘joke’While the story is newsworthy, I believe it was in poor taste for CNN to post the article LAST WEEK.  I responded with the following comment, but haven’t heard anything back (nor did my post make it on their comment section).

I am outraged this was published, on the day before the year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech, where thirty-three people lost their lives, including the shooter.  How crass of CNN to scrutinize Virginia Tech at a time their students, faculty, staff and alumni are focused on healing from such a horrible incident.  It was inappropriate timing on CNN’s part and I believe the editors should have been more respectful to the many people affected by the shootings of April 16, 2007. 

I love hanging out with smart people who really make me think about myself and the world around me. Yes, dumb people can do this as well, but I’d defer to having smart friends over dumb friends. Which is why I would love to attend TED. Granted, some concepts (maybe many concepts), ideas and discussions would be completely over my head and you would find me snoring in the back of the conference room. However, there are other speakers who inspire, delight, entertain and, of course, make you think. I have to say that Sir Ken Robinson is the favorite speaker I have watched from the collection of TED videos posted online. I don’t think I would miss an opportunity to see him speak in person if he came to town. As far as my possibilities of attending a conference…they are pretty slim. You must become a member first, which the standard level costs $6K, and at this point there’s a waiting list for the 2009 conference. For now, I’m content watching the videos online.

Late last year I discovered dooce.com (how I had not heard of her sooner still amazes me),  authored by Heather B. Armstrong, which has quickly become my favorite blog in the whole wide world, with the exception of those of you that I personally know and have met and read your blogs religiously, of course.  Heather is a veteran blogger, who is hilarious and real.  You can read all about her previous lives here, but in her current life she lives in Salt Lake City, UT and is a blogging goddess with several of us who worship the ground she walks on.  Who else walks away with four Bloggies in one year?  If you haven’t gone to dooce.com, you don’t know what you are missing.  But, for those sensitive souls out there, I will warn you.  She doesn’t pussyfoot around and she might offend you.  However, reading her blog beats prime-time television any day of the week.  It’s that funny.Update : There’s a new Wall Street Journal article about Dooce, along with their top ten motherhood blogs.  

RSS feeds, that is. Don’t ask me how it works, because I can’t understand it all myself. All I know is there’s this program I installed last night called Vienna (but there are others out there and even email clients can grab feeds) where I can subscribe to my favorite blogs and it grabs new posts for me automatically. I only check about ten sites on a regular basis, but this way, I am never checking a site that hasn’t been updated since I last checked. This may sound all complicated, but it really isn’t. I think I could have figured out how to do it all myself if I played around with it long enough.* And, if you are one of the five loyal viewers to my site, you can even subscribe to journeyoflife!

* WordPress themes are a completely different ball of wax, which is why I have this same boring one. Every time I try out a new theme, I waste countless hours fudging with the damn code (using my non-existent coding skills and html experience) at an attempt to conjure up something that works.

Over the weekend we went to the Virginia Tech football game (vs. William and Mary, thanks for the tickets Allison!), make a pit stop to see my family and pick up the race car (which we aborted, more on that later).  The weather was gorgeous (even if it was a bit warm for football), we tailgated with some friends (thanks to the Pankey/Davis clan for the drinks and grub), went to see the memorial (we were especially moved by the game tickets placed by the Hokie stone of several victims), bought Hokie Effect tshirts at the bookstore (I am going to figure out how that girl made her tshirt), and finished off the evening with dinner at The Cellar (which, by the way, no longer serves Greek Spaghetti on game days, FYI).

Throughout the day I did not carry a bookbag, a tote bag or a purse.  I was naked.  In my pockets I had sunscreen, my cell phone, a lone check to pay for the tickets, a pen, and feminine products.  I wore a hat and my sunglasses and Matt carried my cash and drivers license in his wallet.  It felt strange not having anything to hold on to, but very liberating.  And, although I would have liked to have pictures that captured the day, I was glad we didn’t bring it along.  It would have just been something to carry.

Which, leads me to the second half of the article title…I really enjoy taking pictures, but dislike lugging a camera along with me.  Does anybody else feel this way?  I want to capture certain moments in life, but sometimes if you have a camera it seems more trouble than it is worth?  And, with my limited skills as a photographer I find it overwhelming all of the buttons and settings and unfortunately have very little interest in understanding how it all works (therefore each time I touch the camera I am asking Matt to set it in “dummy mode” for me and ultimately don’t always get the best shots).  Then, on top of it all, Matt is clearly the photographer and has an exceptional eye for gorgeous shots.  Me?  I just see things I like and want to document it.  Remember this little place we drank beer in Bruges?  You know, where all the locals were and the lab was sitting at the bar with his owner?  Oh, look.  Here we are at Blowing Rock, North Carolina on our first trip together.  I am sure some of you can imagine us as old geezers, showing slideshows ala Jim and Bettie…  I think I should really just start getting in the habit of having a camera out with me at all times when sightseeing (not caring if I look like a complete dufus tourist) and just start snapping away.  Maybe I will (a) get used to having it with me, (b) become more acquainted with the settings, and (c) feel like taking it everywhere.

This year’s Clambake was easy-breezy. We were ahead of schedule the entire day, the only snafu the day of the bake was an emergency run for forks, so all in all, it was a huge success. If you missed it, here’s pictures and some brief highlights.

• Gorgeous, glistening Greg is a god when it comes to chopping wood. Just ask “the men” who admired him “theatre in the round” style.
• What the fork? We don’t have any forks? Emergency run to get more.
• Next year Laura earns her ten-year pin. Erin earns her twenty-year pin. They both would like recognition, please.
• Erin is the cleanest Apprentice Fire Master. Ever.
• Wooden tables and benches eventually rot and need to be replaced.
• Seasoned firewood is a must for next year. Unless the transition to propane is a reality. Cliff, be prepared.
• More family bonding activities for next year: horseshoes, volleyball and lawn darts are on the list. FYI : Everyone will be a winner.