I Choose to Begin

At the Window. Autumn. by Leonid Pasternak

I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past--then I choose to begin at this very second.

     Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives.

Early Journals

Daily Thoughts 12/31/2010 (Budget, ebooks)

Morning perusal, Antonio Parreiras, 1916

Daily Thoughts 12/31/2010 

The Mount Vernon city council adopted the new budget with a $500,000 cut for the library. There is a prediction that the building will be closed midyear.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20101231/NEWS02/12310324/Mount-Vernon-adopts-revised-2011-budget%20


On a personal level, this means I have to look for other options.  I am watching a slow descent for the library over the years.  There has been a pattern of continuous cuts in small amounts, as well as continuous underfunding.

http://bit.ly/hQLVh1
I am looking at the Certificate in Digital Publishing right now.  It seems like a very interesting course.

Web Bits

I spent some time looking at Google Books. http://books.google.com/books It did not impress me.  They probably could have a deeper taxonomy as well as better display technology.  I find it a little too simple looking.

Libre Digital is developing another social ecommerce platform for books.  Things are just starting in this arena.
https://www.skyshelf.com/skyshelf/control/skyshelf_AboutUs

I see a lot of large social commerce platforms for ebooks, but no specialty social platforms for ebooks.   I can see openings for smaller more focused specialty ecommerce social platforms for ebooks in specific genres.

I also found another aggregator of electronic information, http://www.bookriff.com which allows people to create their own book mashups.

Last night of 2010...

Tonight is the last night of 2010 and the plan is to celebrate BIG TIME. Lately I might have celebrated a bit too much already (just counted that I was out three times last week! :o), but New Years is New Years so can’t exactly say no. Hehe.

The plans for the moment are that me and some other friends meet up at Karro’s place for a fancy dinner á la New Year’s style and that we close to 12 head downtown to watch the fireworks. After that, there is no other plan - which means more room for adventures I guess. ;)

Cosmopolitan

This morning I thought it was about time to start reading January’s issue of Cosmopolitan since…well, January starts tomorrow and I want to know how my year will look like…^^

Oké, laugh at me for reading my astro of 2011 like it’s actually going to matter in THAT way, but I really don’t care what you think. I love to read horoscopes and that is not because I fully believe in everything they say, but because it’s funny - especially when certain things actually do happen…;p

my happiness in the closing year

"mungkin ga banyak yang aku bisa kasih buat mereka, orang-orang yang aku sayang. tapi aku tau mereka tau dan mereka merasakan betapa besar rasa sayang yang aku punya untuk mereka. i love you mom, dad and my little brother."

28 december 2010

happy birthday to my little brother *i know he's not my little brother anymore :)*
happy bornday. welcome to 16th world. be wise, be stronger, and be mature. be the best for our family.
panjang umur dan selalu sehat sayangggg !!! love you !!!!

happy bday andre !!

31 december 2010

happy anniversary mom and dad. hopefully lasting and happy until the end. teach me how to build harmonious family. always be the best for us mom & dad. i know you're the best we ever had.

aku yang wakilin mama papa tiup :)

love you mom & dad

A happy Sandra…

…on her way home from town. Because in her bags she has a pair of new heels from Tamaris! :D

Daily Thoughts 12/30/2010 (Kickstarter, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web)

Eigen scan uit Het doel der Vereeniging; afbeelding uit 1892 auteursrechtvrij.  I am not quite sure what it says, but I do like the image.


Daily Thoughts 12/30/2010

I tried to watch the original Planet of the Apes but just could not do it today.  The costumes somehow seemed a little bit dated.  The story is based on the novel, Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle.

I also could not get myself to read The Autiobiography of Mark Twain.  It was a little bit too much.

I also decided to not write any reviews today.  Sometimes, you need to not do things to keep it all in perspective.

Finally, I decided not to go to the final public session about the budget.  I think I will hear about it tomorrow.  I need a break from this stuff.  Hopefully, I'll have one until the new year starts.

I have been fooling a little bit looking on the web.  I rather like http://www.kickstarter.com/ , a lot of the small creative projects which are on it are publishing oriented.

I started reading Information Architecture for the World Wide Web , 3rd Edition by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld tonight.  It is about designing the information framework for large scale websites.  I think I need to learn a little bit more about website design both for content and structure.

The Best of 2010

Here are a few of my favorite things of 2010...

Best Restaurant Discovery...

Holy cow, Y'all...if you are ever in Atlanta you must eat here! It's not authentic Mexican, it's not Tex Mex, it's like Southwestern/Southern/Mexican. I just call it damn good food! You can visit their website by clicking here. There is one dish not listed on the menu, it's a combo of beans, rice & turnip greens called "The George". If you visit, make sure you ask for it. SO.DAMN.GOOD!

Best Movie...

"Black Swan"? Nope! "The Kids Are All Right"? Nope! "Social Network"? Nope! Nothing against those movies but the # 1 movie of 2010 to me has to be "Toy Story 3". This movie is far from than just an animated kids movie. It touches so deeply. I would even go so far as to say it deserves the Oscar for best movie of the year. It was also the #1 grossing movie of the year with over $ 415,000,000 domestically. WOW!

Best Song...

Michael Buble' "Haven't Met You Yet". I LOVE.LOVE.LOVE this song. It really describes what I'm singing daily to my future husband that I haven't met yet.

Best Video...

There was no better video. PERIOD! I mean Lady Gaga & Beyonce together in a super fun & campy video, what could be better? TOO GOOD FOR WORDS!

Best TV Show...

I love a lot of shows like "Glee , "How I Met Your Mother" and "Modern Family" but "The Middle" edges them all out as my favorite. This show is just so damn funny and reminds me of my life growing up. Patricia Heaton is pitch perfect as the typical suburban mom.

Best NEW TV Show...

If you are not watching "Raising Hope"...why the hell not? Stop whatever you are doing and set your Tivo/DVR. It comes on right after Glee and I know you guys are watching Glee. Stay tuned and check this show out. It is hysterical! And Cloris Leachman as Maw Maw is beyond fantastic and will crack your ass up.

Enjoy your day!
Bob Out

Pat Robertson: Snow Is God's Way of Punishing Americans Who Were Planning to Drive to Do Something Gay

Rev. Pat Robertson sparked controversy in today's broadcast of his 700 Club program when he claimed that God created the blizzard currently battering the Northeast "to punish Americans who were planning to drive to do something gay."

Explaining his theory, Rev. Robertson said, "Because of the bad road conditions the Almighty has made, any gay activities that people were planning on doing will have to be postponed by a day or two."

Additionally, he argued, God shut down major airports in the New York area "so that people who were hoping to fly to do something of a gay nature would have to take a train or a bus, so it might be days before the gay thing they were going to do could occur."

As for the millions of straight people in New York City who were also grounded by the bad weather, the televangelist said, "I think God probably wonders, if these people are really straight, then what are they doing in New York?"

Andy Borowitz

The Huffington Post

This is just absurd I can't even comment on it except to say...UGH!!
Bob Out

New Year... need less, not more.

What would happen if we all tried to make do with little less every day, week... ?  I don't know for sure, but I have trouble thinking that it would be anything bad.

Real success is derived with asking less from more, not more from less..  management, leadership, fundraising, business.. the list goes on.

Want to make a difference? start here.. stop expecting others... and carry your weight as a model of service and humility, not a badge of honor.

Lunch with my chicas

When holiday kicks in it can be difficult to find time to meet my chicas on regular basis, but today I finally got some time with a few of them. And lunch ladies as we are, we went to eat some Chinese cuisine at Fugu (just because I wanted their fried banana with ice-cream, hehe).

Shilan & Lewar

Me & Bianca

Daily Thoughts 12/29/2010 (Letting Go Of Words, Get Glue, The Big Sleep, Advocacy)

Raymond Chandler http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raymond_chandler.jpg  


Daily Thoughts 12/29/2010

I read some more of Letting Go Of Words Writing Web Content That Works today.  It reminds us that websites are not a way to push out information.  They are designed primary to pull people in and provide the information they need.  There is another term that goes with pull.  This is the term stickiness.  In addition to pulling people in, a website should stick with the person and draw them in.  It should give them reasons to come back and use the site repeatedly.  You want your people to check in regularly to see what is new on the site.  An excellent example of this is http://www.getglue.com   The entire site is designed to stick and pull people in.  The site asks people to check-in, review, and explore.

I watched The Big Sleep today starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  I enjoyed it even more than Casablanca.  The Big Sleep is based on the novel by Raymond Chandler.  It was a very enjoyable noir film.   One of the screenplays writers is Leigh Brackett who also helped write The Empire Strikes Back.  I like Leigh Bracketts science fiction; The  Sword of Rhiannon and The Hounds of Skaith.

Tonight, I am going back to go to the meeting for the vote on the budget for the city of Mount Vernon.  Hopefully, they will change things, but I am not that certain.  It is in city hall at 7 p.m..

I went to city hall tonight to see the public vote session on the budget.  A city council member told us that the public vote session was cancelled, we should go home.  It was originally announced  for today on Wednesday, December 29 for tonight at 7:00 p.m.  They are still having the discussion session tomorrow on December 30.

Several of my colleagues were there including the library director and a few people from the community.  The gentleman who ran the Mount Vernon Inquirer was there as well.

I also finished reading Letting Go of the Words on the train home.  I found some of the ideas to be quite interesting.  She talks about how splash pages and flash are generally detrimental.  I can agree on this completely.

12/28/2010 Mount Vernon Public LIbrary Advocacy

Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898, At Breakfast



Daily Thoughts 12/28/2010



There is an article today from the Mount Vernon Inquirer http://www.mvinquirer.com/  that covers the budget hearing last night.  It says people talked about the library going belly up.

There are numerous reasons for supporting public libraries.  These are the reasons for supporting the library from the New York Public Library website. http://www.nypl.org/support/why-support-new-york-public-library

• Keep our shelves filled with books and materials that are in high demand.

• Provide free computer access and Wi-Fi service at all of our 89 locations

• Make possible daily classes that teach New Yorkers basic computer skills, job search techniques, and reading skills

• Purchase items to add to our world-renowned research collections to advance scholarship

• Preserve fragile manuscripts and rare books that have been placed in our care

These same ideas provide an excellent core set of reasons to keep a library open.  There are some thoughts I would like to add to this.

People come in to check out our new material.  They also come for our special collections.  There is a job information center and a large business section.  This helps people find jobs and start businesses in Mount Vernon and Westchester county.  It also keeps the community informed.  There is also no bookstore in Mount Vernon where people can sit and read and purchase books. We are the defacto center for media in Mount Vernon.

We provide  free computer access and wifi to people who do not have access to this.  For poor people, it is important to have access to computers.  Many people cannot get government information except for through a computer or apply for jobs.  I have talked to several patrons who have come in specifically to search for jobs on the internet computers.  There are several people who use the wifi for their business tasks.  Having access to a laptop is enough for many computer people to work from anywhere where there is a wireless connection.  There is no cybercafe in Mount Vernon that I know of.

Mount Vernon Public Library has a literacy center run by Nancy Fitch who helps people to learn to read.  We also have a program called College to Careers which allows young people to work towards their GED and get college preparation.  We also support the schools for their reading assignments and maintain an extensive of classic material for school assignments ranging from Shakespeare to Huckleberry Finn to Pride and Prejudice.  This helps improve the literacy of the students in the schools in Mount Vernon.

On the weekend we have a computers for seniors class which helps seniors learn to use the computers in the computer lab.  We also have a job information center which provides material on how to apply for jobs, houses the listings for Westchester civil service openings, and has a career counselor who helps people get jobs.

Our collection includes a very extensive reference collection.  This includes a legal reference collection, a business reference collection, a government documents collection, a multicultural reference collection, a young adult and childrens reference collection, and numerous databases for the support of research.  Some of these databases also help find jobs like Learning Express.  In addition to the reference collections we maintain special collections for the job information center, foreign language material, periodicals room, parenting material, and an extensive new materials display.

Our library houses the local history collection for Mount Vernon, there is also a separate collection for Westchester history in the mezzanine. We also have the Daily Argus on microfilm which is the local paper going to back to the 19th century.  This is used extensively for genealogy.   In addition, we have a very large collection of oversize books, many of these are out of print or rare art books.  We have been the last copy collection for the last 100 years for the Westchester Library System.  This means we have an extensive amount of 19th century books in our mezzanine storage area which are not available anywhere else.

These are all reasons to support the Mount Vernon Public Library.

Hump Day Hunk Of The Year

Each week I post a hump day hunk. I've decided I would choose a Hunk of the Year to post on the last Wednesday of the year. This hunk will be chosen from one of my weekly hunk posts. This year it could only be one guy...

RICKY MARTIN

On March 29, 2010 he made this statement via his website...
 "I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am."
I've heard some people say that his coming out was no big surprise. However, for those of us who have struggled with our sexuality, it was a big deal and very courageous.

Here's a clip from his Oprah show appearance this year...

Happy HUMP Day,Y'all

Bob Out

Night-bun

I have finally decided to make some albums on Facebook, but first I have to dig in 2010’s photo archive - a process that probably will take forever…So to keep my energy on top, I am going to have a saffron night-bun. :)

Did I hear SALE?

Yes, I did.

The days after Christmas you can always find me in some store here in Uppsala, looking for the best after-Christmas bargains and this year isn’t any different. So far I haven’t been shopping that much though, but here is a sneak-peak:

A T-shirt from ONLY and a pair of lace panties to match my nightdress from H&M

Nail repair from Isadora and a golden eye-shadow from Clarins

Daily Thoughts 12/28/2010 (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, budget)

Bookplate for the Canadiana collection at the Toronto Public Library, 1914


Daily Thoughts 12/28/2010


I  am reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Right now, I am heading out to the budget hearing for the City of Mount Vernon.   I finished it on the way to the city budget hearing.

I went to the budget hearing for the City of Mount Vernon tonight.  Not one of the public spoke in favor of the proposed budget.  It would be a disaster for the library.  We would be cut $500,000.  Last years budget was $4 million dollars. The vice president of the board of directors for the library spoke and said that we would be in dire shape and would most likely run out of funds by midyear.  There might be staggered layoffs.

We had a number of people speak in favor of the library.  Some suggested that we might need a change in how decisions are made.

I usually don't speak.  This time, I did.  I said that the cuts in funding are leading to cuts in services to the library.  Less people are available to help people and we are now closed one day a week.  There is now one person serving at the reference desk most of the time.  There is also often one person covering the circulation desk.

Without more funding, we could also lose our status as the central library for Westchester county.  This loss of central status would lead to further cuts, we would no longer receive extra money for material and databases as the central library.

 A lot of our material was purchased with central library funds.  If another library takes on central library status, they can claim the material that was purchased with central library monies.  This could affect our law collection, our job information center, our foreign language collection, our reference collection, and some other parts of the nonfiction collection.

It was imperative to reconsider how the library was being funded.  Grants would not cover a $500,000 cut in budget for a single building.

Note:  We are part of a library cooperative.  Each member library is funded separately by the city they are part of.  We pay money to share resources through the Westchester Library System for interlibrary loan, reserves, cataloging, an integrated library system, computer purchases, internet access, and other technology resources.  In our case, the central status gives us specific responsibility and extra funds to serve the county through CLDA (Central Library Development Aide) which is administrated by the New York State Library http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/clda/index.html.

It is also important to understand that there is another $350,000 being charged against the library for retroactive pay that was put into effect in 2010.  This is a statement from the board of trustees.  http://www.mountvernonpubliclibrary.org/node/210

What's Happening

I hope you guys all had a very Merry Christmas. Here in the ATL we received our first white Christmas in 128 years!

My friend took this pic on her deck. Isn't it beautiful! I told her I may have to steal it and use it as my Christmas card next year. I love the green bird feeder with the red birds coming in to feed. So pretty!

Christmas day is also my birthday, so it was super nice to have it snow. It just made the day feel even more special. I turned 42 this year, that's dead in single gay man years. Ugh! At least I'm still cute. Haha j/k

Look what Santa brought me...

It's a 7 quart Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven. I'm in love. I've had several like this but never a real

Le Creuset.  I also got a ceramic Le Creuset baking dish in the same color. Yay!

While I was on vacation I saw, Black Swan...

Every great review I read about this movie failed to do it justice. All I can say is... A-MA-ZING! Natalie Portman will win the Oscar for her perfomance. I also think Mila Kunis will win for Best Supporting Actress.

I better get back to work. I just wanted to say HEY and HOW U DOIN? Hope you all have a great day!

Bob Out

Pure Nightclub

Yesterday’s night at Pure didn’t bring me home until 8 a.m. and I didn’t wake up until…4.30 p.m. My first reaction was “wooot!? - I wasn’t even drunk!” followed by “my goodness, I must have been overly exhausted already before going out…” (because normally I only sleep a few hours after being out clubbing).

Anyways, the night was both full of action and at the same time not. Also, I don’t think the small dance floor, the dry people, and the extremely small toilets at Pure are my cup of tea so this was my first and last time at that place I may say.

However, Sabina and I still enjoyed getting the free stuff…including the drinks. ^^

Haha, you never know when Sandra is taking a picture ;p

All photos are taken with my new camera :)

Daily Thoughts 12/27/2010 (Budget, Girl With Dragon Tattoo)

Soviet 1-ruble coin (reverse side), released in the USSR on September 17, 1987 to commemorate 130th anniversary of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's birth. The foreground shows Tsiolkovsky's sculpture, which is a fragment of the To the Conquerors of Space monument in Moscow (1964), and the background shows a flying rocket, stars and satellites' orbits.  He is best known for his 1903 work The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices



Daily Thoughts 12/27/2010 


I started reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson last night in addition to Letting Go of Words.  I am planning on catching up on my popular reading.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is quite enjoyable.  It draws you in slowly and becomes more and more gripping as you read the story.

The Alternative Budget is up on the city website.  It leaves the $500,000 cut in place for the library which would very likely shut the Mount Vernon Public Library down. http://cmvny.com/lg-fd/public-notice/2011AlternativeBudget.pdf

I plan on going to the budget meeting tomorrow.  It feels like a kind of last stand.  But, at least I know I've done everything I can on my part.


Web Bits


I like the idea that the movie publicity people bought books in bulk then shipped them to different people to make True Grit a bestseller.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/true-gumption-the-making-of-a-best-seller/?src=twrhp

A Great Festive Season to Everyone!

I hope everyone out there had the most wonderful Christmas ever!  Whatever you did, I hope you did it well.

Here in Sunny SA we lunched next to the water wearing our cut-off jeans and t-shirts and didn't envy anyone in the Northern Hemisphere AT ALL!  What dreadful weather you guys up there are having - all those airplanes being grounded and just before Christmas as well!  All we see are pictures of snow and more snow!  So here's a picture of the Father Christmas who visited us - (it's actually our friend Dawne, but who cares, we had a good laugh!)

And despite the fact that I haven't been blogging or computing very much, I have done a couple of paintings.  I get up really early (5am), take the dogs for their walk, feed the birds (and the dogs) and then get into the studio for a couple of hours before it gets too hot.   This I did over a few days that way.  It's of a gorgeous young lady who lives in Sweden.  Her name is Sophie and if she sees it, I hope she likes it.

By then it's too hot and after pottering in the garden, it's time to watch cricket!  Yes, Summertime is Cricket Time!  Love it.  And for all my Indian friends out there, my small tribute to one of the greatest cricketers in the World!

Sachin Tendulkar

Teena Marie Has Died

I just learned that Teena Marie died early this morning. I post this video in her memory. I love, love, love this song. RIP, Teena! No word yet on the cause of death. She was just 54.

Bob Out

Echo An Alex Benedict Novel by Jack McDevitt

Echo An Alex Benedict Novel by Jack McDevitt




Echo is part of a series of novels featuring Alex Benedict, a recoverer of antiquities in the far future. In this novel, Alex Benedict is following the trail of an inscription written in stone which is part of no known human language. The inscription makes for an excellent gimmick.



The characterization is better than his earlier novels. I especially liked Sunset Tuttle, an explorer seeking alien civilizations for philosophical reasons. He creates an excellent back story for the book.



Alex Benedict's adversaries are more tragic than evil. The novel is more about how mistakes can lead to horrific consequences. The one exception is the sociopathic assassin bent on killing Chase Kolpath and Alex Benedict. However, the assassin is more subtle and devious than a brutish adversary.



This novel successfully combines mystery, exploration, archaeology, and suspense into a superb science fiction novel. It is the fifth in the Alex Benedict series. The third novel in the series, Seeker, won the Nebula Award.

Daily Thoughts 12/26/2010 (Letting Go of Words)

Writing My Master’s Words (detail), Alighieri Dante: "La Vita Nuova (The New Life)" (1910)

 Daily Thoughts 12/26/2010

I am reading Letting Go of the Words Writing Web Content That Works by Janice (Ginny) Redish.  There is an introduction by Steve Krug who wrote Don't Make Me Think.  It is about user centered design and writing for web pages.

It is snowing outside very heavily.  I had just enough time to go grocery shopping today, but then came home and found a blizzard outside.  I took some time to read CEO Reads and enter their holiday grab bag contest.  I also am looking through the blog roll on Powell's blog.  It should be interesting.

Fried Rice pics! :D

Yeay! Pictures from Fried Rice's X-mas Party are up and here are the ones I found on me and sis. :)

Haha! Looks like that dude (Christian I think his name was) is totally checking Vicki's ass out!

Two words: awesome guy

The scary thing with pictures like these, though, are that you never know how you look on them until they are up on some website. Lucky for me, I didn't look either too drunk or too bitchy so I'm happy! Haha.

Canon IXUS 105

This is my new toy. ^^

Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010 (net profits, SEO, jack mcdevitt, echo, social media, library budget)

Houghton Mifflin and Company’s Holiday Books for MDCCCXCV, 1895, Chromoltihograph.  This is one of the few images that I have chosen to use more than once.

Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010

During the last week we've watched The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg several times.   It is an excellent christmas movie.  It is a break from watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I really enjoyed the Polar Express.  It is also a childrens book which is very beautifully illustrated.  I am also fond of The Garden of Abdul Gasazi which is very beauftiful.  Chris Van Allsburg has a nicely illustrated website
http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/polarexpress.html


I have been reading more of Net Profits by David Soskin.  He is writing about how he opened his company in the United Kingdom and then expanded into Canada, the United States, and Europe. There is a lot to think about here.

I also read Jack McDevitt, Echo  which is a mix of archaeological science fiction, mystery, and disaster story.  It is a very complex story with lots of twists, turns, and skulduggery.

The week has been very relaxing.  I also watched something pretty mindless but entertaining, the series, Wolverine and the Xmen on dvd.  It is not Marvel's best stuff, but I enjoyed it.  The original Xmen series is much better.

The budget issue with the library has not ended.  There is going to be a revised budget announced on Monday, December 27, 2010, and a hearing on Tuesday December 28, 2010 about the budget.  If you are interested in the library please attend.  http://www.lohud.com/article/20101225/NEWS02/12250324/Mount-Vernon-sets-hearing-on-86-8M-spending-plan 

Web Bits

I have also been thinking of free SEO tools. It is a way to review free methods of search engine marketing.

There is Addme, which is a free tool which submits to 20 engines.

http://www.addme.com 

There is also Google Pagerank Checker

http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Google Adwords has a free keyword analysis tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal free keyword analysis

Statcounter is a fairly reliable hit counter that is free.

http://statcounter.com/why_is_it_free.html

There is also Google Webmaster Tools which allows you to have free analyics.

www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html  

This is an automatic link checker which allows you to determine if you have broken links on your site.

The other thing which I am thinking of is social media campaigns.

There are the big three; Linked In, Twitter, and Facebook.  Depending on what I am thinking about in the near future with something more oriented towards books, there would also be Book Blogs on Ning, and a blog associated with various book sites.

Been shopping...

Just got back from some shopping at Elgiganten. Will show you what’s in the bag later. :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/12/magazine/14actors.html?src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB#10

Fried Rice pics will be delayed

Just because I the photographer at Fried Rice ran around like crazy last night, I thought that I didn’t need to take any photos myself and instead just post the ones they will put up. But of course, they haven’t put anything up yet. So typical. -.-

So…the only picture I have from last night is this one that was snapped right before we met a super-duper nice guy who brought our dropping party mood back where it usually is. It’s amazing how many awesome people you can meet so randomly. ^^

Me & sis

Daily Thoughts 12/24/2010 (Ebooks, Net Profits)

WPA Poster.

Daily Thoughts 12/24/2010

Coverage of an ebook unconference. I found this going through the Digital Book World Conference site   Digital Book World is on January 24-26, 2010. http://dbw2011.digitalbookworld.com/

Description of an ebook unconference.
http://wegrowmedia.com/lessons-from-an-unconference-book-camp-nyc/

Today, I am on vacation.  It has been a very relaxed day.  I read some more of Net Profits and relaxed a lot. Net Profits had some interesting material on selecting keywords, creating metatags, and search engine optimization.  It talked about how it was necessary to take full advantage of both adwords and other pay per click systems for business.

There is more than one conference which I would like to attend, The Tools of Change Conference and the Digital Book World are both in New York.  I can't go to everything which I would like because of expenses and time.

Right now, I am looking over my options.  I will know next week what has happened in terms of layoffs.  I have some indications that more people will be laid off. Quite frankly, it does not look very pleasant.