Finding my muse in Montaigne

Loading

Muse: a source of inspiration; especially a guiding genius; the imaginary force thought to provide inspiration to poets, writers, artists, etc. A muse, for modern writers, is that indefinable force that drives us to write. It’s part imagination, part inspiration. I suspect there’s a heady brew of psychology and biology at work, too. Why write instead of, say, paint? Or sculpt? Or compose? I don’t know. It just is, for me, the thing my muse – however you define that – compels me to pursue. … click below for more ↓

Six years ago…

Loading

I received a notification last week from WordPress noting that I registered with them six years ago. Six years with their blogging platform… happy anniversary to me… what, no flowers? Party favours? Is this my modern life: email reminders from software companies? That got me thinking about dates and anniversaries. And in trying to recall them all, keep the dates straight. Pull the weave apart and follow the threads backwards. Why are we humans fixated with numbers that are easily divisible by five and ten? Is there … click below for more ↓

100,000 thank yous

Loading

Last week (late Feb, 2014), I passed 100,000 unique views on this blog – in slightly over two years since it was started. Not large by any means, given that some sites easily get that in a month. But a personal milestone for me.* Thank you, gentle readers, for coming here, for spending time with my humble scribblings**, for taking time out of your busy day to read my words. I hope I have managed in some small way to entertain, amuse, delight and inform … click below for more ↓

Archiving past posts

Loading

I spent a busy weekend copying posts from my previous blog (hundreds of posts, currently archived on another server awaiting my resolution) onto my hard drive. I plan to resurrect some of these posts – maybe with a bit of updating or editing – in a WordPress archive site here so I can keep them alive in that digital manner the Net provides. But first I have to sort through a lot of old material. A lot. And the corruption of the old database in … click below for more ↓

Looking back on 2013

Loading

It’s been quite a year, both personally and politically. The best of times, the worst of times, to paraphrase Dickens. Looking back on 2103, it was a busy, eventful, successful, and yet often challenging year. I accomplished many things on different levels – personal and professional – and, I believe, overcame some of the challenges I faced. A lot happened locally, too, much of which development I take pride in having been a party to. Collingwood Council has been very productive, pro-active and progressive this term; … click below for more ↓

We have heading up for your net

Loading

I have to admit that I frequently read the spam comments WordPress traps for my moderation, and I often do so with a smile. The clumsy, crazy constructs, the awkward English, butchered punctuation and the twisted word use just make me laugh. Yes, like everyone else, I detest spam, and I quickly delete the comments into whatever digital wastebin they descend to. But I often chuckle to read them first. They make me wonder: are they deliberately written poorly, are they the sincere efforts of … click below for more ↓

I’m Baaaaack….

Loading

After a few days waiting while the site transferred, I’m back, live and active. Boy do I have a lot to say that I’ve been holding in while the admin stuff was churning away… but I won’t say it all now… 😉 If you encounter an “internal server error” while reading my posts, refresh the page please – the port seems to have been imperfect and needs some tech tweaking to figure out why that’s happening. Sorry about that… I got an interesting call this … click below for more ↓

WP theme experiments ongoing

Loading

With the latest update to WordPress (3.6) comes a new theme, Twenty Thirteen. I’ve activated it with the upgrade, and I like it so far, but I’m not 100% satisfied. I preferred the dimensions of the header image on the Twenty Eleven and Twenty Twelve themes. Proportionately they were more humanistic. The new header is 1600 x 230, which is rather thin and proportionately difficult. Using it means redoing a lot of photos and trying to find a slice that works as well as with … click below for more ↓

Back to Top