Regrettable Outbreak of Imperfection

retiring this blog - find me on awritingrobin.com

2013-06-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's official. I've decided I'm never going to post regularly in this space again. There are a number of reasons, one major factor being that I have not regularly posted here in ages and ages.

But another big one is I have seen some changes in my life. I have published a book.

it's on amazon, available the world over

And while this is cool in many respects, it means I have to become an "author." To be an author today means you have to be present on the web. So I have a new blog that is going to hopefully be somewhat like this one was, just a bit more tailored and professional.

My new blog is here:
http://awritingrobin.com

I'm also trying to be active on twitter:
@awritingrobin

This is all such a process. I've been blogging for over ten years now. Sheesh. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me this long.

PS: my book has a trailer:

Oh Dell, Why U No Listen to Me?

2012-10-05T14:04:00.004-05:00

I wish Dell had a scorecard of some kind, so they could record the number of times something like this has happened:

My computer develops a problem.
I take all logical troubleshooting steps, determine it is not a software problem.
I contact Dell, tell them what I think the problem is.
They proceed to spend hours trying various fixes I already tried. None of them work.
They suggest I reinstall I my OS. I say I'd rather not because I think it is a hardware problem.
They send a tech out, sometimes replacing multiple parts that are not the one I said I thought was broken.
Multiple tech visits later, they do what I suggested in the first place and, what do you know, problem is solved.

I mean, really, not only would it save me a lot of annoyance, it would save them money (since this always happens when the computer is under warranty.)

On the upside, my computer now has a new wireless card, LCD, lid, screen and antenna; it didn't cost me a dime.

Solid State

2012-01-19T08:26:00.002-06:00

I find myself in a bit of an odd spot with technology lately. I earn my livelihood on a computer, the internet is my office, and my morning commute has been replaced by the combination of all the little chunks of time in the day during which I have to wait for my computer. While plenty of my waiting time is caused by the internet (uploading a file to a server, waiting for a browser-based application to load) a lot of my lag time lately has been caused by my computer.

It's not really my computer's fault. It is a good machine with excellent specs. When I got it, it was fast and tricked out. I was excited about the 1TB hard drive. What I didn't foresee was the problem of data. In the two or so years since I got that computer, my business has boomed and that drive has filled up, mostly with things I probably don't need but *might someday. And as the drive has filled, the machine has slowed. I've installed and uninstalled a lot of programs. My OS has gotten progressively more sluggish. But I haven't done a reformat because there is so much data to deal with. Just offloading everything to an external hard drive would take an entire day. Then after I reformatted the computer, I'd have to put it all back on.

So I've been putting it off, and the machine has started to go eccentric on me. The first time I use Photoshop's save-for-web feature (which I use dozens of times every single day) I have to wait about five minutes for some erroneous data loop to run its course. Then it's fine until the next time I shut the machine down. But I actually tend to restart it a lot, to help with some of the glitches. That takes a little while too. In fact, I turn it on first thing in the morning and then go about my normal routine of drinking coffee and hanging out with my netbook on the couch, just so I don't have to wait for the thing to boot. But the netbook is even laggier. It has 1GB of ram. Even opening a web browser is a bit of a task for it. I use it only for writing.

Recently work has been BUSY, and the stress of having more to do in any given day than a single person can reasonably hope to accomplish in two has led me to notice the lags more, and make me wonder -- how much time do I actually spend each day waiting for my computer? Is there a way to cut it down?

I've been drooling over solid state hard drives for years, but they are expensive and hard to find in factory made computers. I've thought about building my own computer, but there is that time issue again. Also, I don't like buying electronics anymore. Well, that's not true. I do LIKE buying electronics. But I don't like what electronics are doing to our world. I don't like having to figure out what to do with old electronics, and I don't like the fact that every new piece of technology I buy is the direct product of exploitation and suffering. My cell phone is five years old. My ipod is well out of date. I don't have any other gadgets. And I haven't bought a new computer in years.

Until last week, when I discovered that dell has started making a laptop with a fast processor, equal RAM to my desktop and, most importantly, a solid state hard drive. I agonized over the purchase for a couple of weeks but finally I made a decision. If I want to make my living in this virtual world, I have to have some tech. So I should choose wisely. I found a refurbished model with the specs I wanted. It came with three years of warranty, including accident coverage.

And I love it. There are two things that are shocking about the new computer. First, is is fast. So so so fast. It's the hard drive. No moving parts. Massively improved ability for my processor to move stuff around. Also, its data capacity is 1/4 the size of my desktop's. This is going to be an adjustment, but it's actually something I'm excited about. If I don't have the space for it, perhaps I won't let so much junk accumulate on my computer.

I'm also really excited to have the option of being free of my desk. I've learned in the last year or so that sitting in a chair all day actually hurts a little. So now I can work on the couch or even lounging in my bed. It's a bit disorienting to be using this sleek little laptop that is out-clocking my desktop with every task.

Now if I could just get the internet to run faster...

Winter Again

2011-12-08T07:54:00.001-06:00

There is a dusting of snow on the ground now, which makes the light behave in a way it only does in winter. At certain times of day it seems the light comes from nowhere, that it just is some integral component of the air.

It is cold, but cold feels different to me lately. I may have crossed some invisible biological boundary. I might be time for me to admit the possibility that I am no longer (physiologically speaking) a desert rat.

Come January, I will start my 5th year in Iowa. I can't say I ever would have chosen this place off a map and decided to live here, but I'm used to it now. There is even something about the deep freeze of winter that I like. I suppose it reminds me of the summers in Arizona. If you venture forth unprepared, you really could die out there.

Status Update

2011-10-19T12:29:00.001-05:00

It would seem lately all I'm doing on this blog is announcing the creation of other blogs, and also that I am currently more interested in writing fake blogs than real ones. So I'm sure you'll be not that surprised to hear vitzy.com has already undergone another transformation. Don't worry -- you can still find the gerbil over here.

But my latest project involves a more cohesive fake blogging effort. My plan is to write a novel-length story via the blogs of the characters. The working title is Another Year or Two and it is set in the fictional town of Turnpost, which was also the setting of a novel I finished earlier this year, called East of Turnpost. Some of the characters overlap, but it is by no means necessary to have read my earlier novel to follow the story the blog will tell (which is good, because East of Turnpost is neither published, nor ready to be published).

So, this is an experiment! It's my serial-novel-meets-modern-media-frankensteinian-creation. It's still in Beta as far as both the design and my fine-tuning of the CMS that I chose to build it on, so bear with me as I iron out the kinks. Eventually I hope to expose it to a wider audience, but now for we're in sneak preview mode.

Check it out and if you're so inclined, read. :)

Is THIS Blog Dead?

2011-09-23T19:14:00.001-05:00

Ahem. Well. That's another question entirely. I have at least redesigned it. That's something isn't it?

Is the Blog Dead?

2011-04-07T13:45:00.007-05:00

Not long ago I happened across an article that declared the blog is dead. The fad has passed. No one blogs anymore. Facebook has carried the day, and we should delete our blogger accounts and move on.

Undeniably, there is some evidence for this conclusion. Few of my friends still blog. Even this blog has been sitting pretty idle lately. Reading this headline, then, made me experience a strange moment of discomfort. It was akin to that day in the 90's when I realized no one else was wearing Guess jeans but I still loved mine.

I have no less than five blogs. This one, a business blog, a blog devoted entirely to my horse, a blog written in the voice of a fictional gerbil, and a blog about my as-yet-non-existent career as an author. Obviously I haven't gotten the "blogging is dead" memo.

But when I started thinking about it a bit more I realized that while the day of co-eds sitting at computers late at night pouring their hearts into their xanga accounts has indeed passed (a status update or a tweet is a far more effective way to express angst to a huge slew of possibly sympathetic listeners) this very fact has actually allowed the blog to prosper. Blogs have reverted to the domain of people who actually want to write, usually about a particular subject, with some degree of expertise.

Of my five blogs, the one that gets by far the most attention is my horse blog. This came as a surprise for me, because I really started it for personal reasons. I wanted to keep track of what happened with my horses and I wanted a couple key people who are interested to be able to follow my progress as well. Since starting it, however, I've realized there is a massive internet community of horse-owners who are doing the same thing. Reading horse-blogs has become one of my favorite ways to procrastinate. But I'll be the first to admit that even my own horse blog is massively boring to anyone who's not totally into horses.

Other areas where the blogosphere is booming are equally specialized. Foodie blogs, fitness blogs, and overall health/mental wellness blogs are hugely popular, some of these generating and maintaining massive readerships. There is also still ample demand for blogs attached to businesses. People love an inside look into the secret lives of professionals.

So if all this is true, how can we support the thesis that the blog is dead? I say we can't. It's an untenable argument, and I, for one, am glad of it. I must admit to personally despising Facebook. I only maintain a presence there because I feel obliged to do so. My blogs, however, are labors of love. The longer I keep posting, the more interesting it is to look back and see my own evolution as a professional, an equestrian, a writer, a gerbil, and a person.

The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

2010-12-19T20:20:00.001-06:00

I am happy to announce that after many years of being mostly lumped in with my professional identity, vitzy.com has broken free and is reborn once more.

>>learn more here

A Fall Stroll

2010-11-06T16:20:00.000-06:00

Today Brian and I went for a little stroll in Hickory Hill park to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

Summer's End

2010-09-20T09:21:00.001-05:00

It's been quite a season, and now the weather is starting to change. The fall always feels like the most significant seasonal change to me for some reason, and when the nights start getting chilly I tend to experience a strange mood that is both contented and nostalgic. I am more likely to feel homesick in the fall than any other time.

Life has been interesting lately. I have both too much and too little to blog about. My business is giving me as much work as I can handle, and I am lucky to spend a lot of quality time with both my husband and my horse (and his horse). We tend towards the a-social, but when we choose to hang out with other people, we have fun.

A couple of weekends ago my in-laws came into town and we repainted the porch-step railing and installed a new screen door. The effect on the overall appearance of the front of the house was surprisingly dramatic.

And that's all I've got for now. So exciting, I know. Maybe someday this blog will experience a come-back.

The Old Days

2010-07-14T08:08:00.003-05:00

Last night I found my old old old blog, which is still online in spite of the fact I'd more or less forgotten about it. It's funny to read what I was blogging about seven years ago. It's funny to get little glimpses into my daily life. It was all about the print shop for me at that time. The print shop and Flagstaff and going home to Tucson every few weeks. We had Leo then - my favorite of all the horses my parent's have owned. I was just starting my first few paid website jobs. At the beginning of the blog, I had not yet met Brian. By the end we were dating.

Our Trip to the UK

2010-06-11T09:40:00.014-05:00

Images from our trip to the UK. We started by walking the Highland Way - 95 miles of trail between Glasgow and Fort William in Scotland. We went from there to Whitley Bay (near Newcastle) for a week with my brother and his bride. Then up to Beadnell (Northumberland) for the wedding. Click any image for more info on any particular shot.

Big Update

2010-02-11T17:14:00.000-06:00

I find myself on the brink of change. I am excited and curious as I wait for the spring.

A few big things are happening in conjunction. One, we bought Brian a horse. Brian's goal is to spend the next year becoming an equestrian. He wants to get on horseback as much as he can, which means the two of us are going to be living and dreaming horses, all year.

The second thing is even bigger in some ways, and it comes rolled in with other big things. In June, my brother is going to marry. The ceremony will take place in England. Brian and I intend to go to Scotland for the month before the wedding and walk across the highlands. When we come home to the states there will be a big difference in my daily life. I have told my boss I won't be returning to work at the gallery. It's a big decision, because I like the work.

But BWS is growing and it has reached the point that I can't really make it grow more if I'm spending half my time on someone else's work. So, when I return from England, I will be my own boss. My only boss.

It's a risk. I must be about the only person in the United States quitting a good job right now. However, it seems now is the time to make a go of it. If I can succeed, I'll have flexibility and freedom - the ability to spend my early morning writing, my late morning riding my horse, and the rest of my day building websites. Every day.

I can't wait to see how it goes.

Sunday Stills

2009-12-13T09:07:00.002-06:00

Two pieces of technology that make my life a little better, every day:

First Ski

2009-12-12T20:55:00.003-06:00

This week we've had snow, and although I've done plenty of walking through it, today was the first day I went out and skied upon it. This afternoon, Brian and I headed up to the U of I cross-country course to ski around on the groomed paths.

It was a pretty good first ski for me. My lovely husband had thoroughly waxed my skis, so they were nice and slick. The snow cover was good. The course was well-traveled. I had a fun time and actually felt quite solid despite not having been on skis for so many months.

Although I am not nearly as fast as Brian, I am excited to get out there again in the near future.

A New Perspective

2009-12-09T09:46:00.007-06:00

Well, it's that time again. I changed the look of my blog. This time the change was inspired partly by the restless knowledge that it had been the same for a rather unprecedented amount of time for me, and partially because I'm trying to remotivate myself for posting here. One thing that might help with this second goal is the new toy Brian and I recently treated ourselves to.

It's a Canon Rebel - digital SLR. Something I've sort of wanted for a very long time. So, I'm excited to mess around and see what I can do. I'll be subjecting my readers to frequent snapshots, I fear.

Here in Iowa we are currently experiencing a blizzard. That's what the weather reports tell us, anyway. It snowed all night, and this morning I took our new camera out of doors and tromped around in the drifts, attempting to get some images that captured the early-morning-not-quite-light-winter-snowy-beauty.

Then I came back indoors and pulled some scones out of the oven.

A Nice Trip Home

2009-12-06T15:18:00.001-06:00

Another Year

2009-11-19T09:24:00.003-06:00

I passed irrevocably into another year of my life last weekend. To celebrate, I spent the day with my favorite Iowa City companions - Brian and Steen.

this photo was not actually taken on my birthday, and it's already on Steen's blog, but it cracks me up so I'm posting it here, too

We let Cal hang out with us as well, and we went for a nice ride, followed by tea and a quiet afternoon, with much talking on the phone to family and friends not in Iowa City. One exciting feature of the day was a video call with my brother and his fiance Susie, who are currently in England.

we had a nice chat, the two of them on one end of the camera, Brian and me on the other

they even lit a candle for me, though in the end Susie had to help me blow it out

In the evening, Brian and I headed downtown for a lovely dinner. It was a pleasant evening and we enjoyed the walk and the food.

So, really, my brithday was mostly just like any other typical weekend day in the life of Robin. I suppose it says good things about my life that I find it difficult to think of any other kind of day I could enjoy more.

Almost Frosty

2009-11-03T06:57:00.004-06:00

Late last week a huge late-fall storm rolled in and blew all the pretty leaves off the maple in our neighbor's yard. This has done a lot to change the feel of the study. It's looking increasingly wintry out the window.

I find myself actually looking forward to the next season this year. I am anticipating skiing again, and even the glacial simplicity of winter rides at the barn hold a certain appeal. I kind of enjoy the change to fluffy horse-hair and bareback rides, and working on little, refined things that won't cause Steen to break a sweat.

A few weeks ago I went to the Orthoptics Clinic due to the eye-problems I was having, and when the doctor stepped out for a few moments I chatted with the resident. She told me she had just moved to Iowa City and was already certain the winter would be horrible. I gave her my advice - get out in the cold, do something in it to get your blood pumping, and you will adjust. She looked at me with great skepticism and said, "I'm an indoor girl."

What can you do for these people?

Finally

2009-10-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

I generally like to think of myself as the sort of person who finishes what I start, but I must admit so far my track record for this summer's projects has not been so great. The blinds, for instance, hit a number of big snags after I got the first one up. Mainly, all of my attempts to cut the second piece of music wire I bought to weight the bottom of the blind failed miserably and ended, eventually, in the temporary maiming of both my hands. So I gave up and put it off and put if off and then nearly two months later we still had mismatched blinds in the study.

I nursed my wounds, healed and returned to the music wire with new gusto and failed and failed and had my very strong husband try where I had failed and he also failed. Finally I decided to just hang the blind without the weight and revisit the weight issue later. So, yesterday I otherwise finished constructing the second blind, which took rather longer than it should have for two reasons. One, I'd completely forgotten much of what I did when building the first one and two, I sewed all the ribs to the wrong side of the blind the first time around.

Ah, home improvement projects are so wonderful.

But, they are up, anyway! They look fine raised. Now I just have to find a way to conquer the music wire and we'll be finished.

And in case you are wondering about my lack of posts here, do keep in mind I have two (yes, two!) other blogs. Steen's blog and my newly created, 100% professional BWS blog.

to the point

2009-10-05T21:14:00.001-05:00

The Love of Place

2009-10-01T08:37:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I believe I fell in love with Iowa.

This was an interesting experience for me, because, until yesterday, I kind of thought of myself as a one-geographical-love kind of girl. I love the desert. Period. I always have, I always will. I told my sister years ago that if I die suddenly I want her to take her horse, Jak, out on my favorite trail, my ashes in some sort of recyclable container, and tell him to do his favorite thing - run. When he's running, take the lid off the container, and let me blow away in the wind.

I've lived in Iowa for years now, and though I have learned to like it quite a bit here, I've never exactly felt my heart would break if I had to leave, forever.

But yesterday I took Steen out for a light ride. We walked along, just the two of us, between a corn-field and a pasture dotted with horses. The leaves are just starting to change and the light was soft and warm on everything. Steen was relaxed, I was relaxed. The breeze was cool on my face but my core warm inside by dirty orange barn-vest. And then it hit me - the thought, "I love this."

It is hard to imagine two more disparate tableau's than Arizona and Iowa, but as I rode and took in the scene yesterday, I found my adoration for white sand, barbed thorns, and crinkly underbrush moving over to make room for rolling hills, the rustle of wind in corn, and the soft thud of horse-hooves on grass.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

2009-09-28T11:19:00.007-05:00

It seems one of the great injustices of life that during our childhood, when we are most likely to be greatly impressed by what we are exposed to, we have precious little control over the sorts of things we come into contact with. I, myself, will never say anything but that I had a positively magical childhood through which my two siblings and I waltzed largely unscathed by the sorts of concerns that touch most of the world. We grew up in sand and rock and cactus, limited in both our contact to the wider world and in our exposure to media.

Mainstream media, I can't help but feel retrospectively, makes pernicious use of the impressionability of young minds. When I was a child, I harbored a genuine belief that all human children needed to drink lots and lots of milk from cows simply to stay healthy. This belief came directly from the "Does a body good," milk campaign of the 80's. I can still hear the end notes of the jingle that accompanied a sequences of dancing children and cows ( suddenly bipedal, udders bared to the world), and the way that slogan was spoken in a quiet, cool voice as if as an afterthought. These images and sounds remain in my brain with perfect clarity, often unearthing themselves, unbidden, just because I happen to think about milk. It seems unfair, to say the least, that I should have to carry this inane, inaccurate view of the world with me, always, but that I cannot, in all truth, actually recall specifically the first time I rode a horse. Probably because my mother didn't think to provide me with a theme song and slogan to associate with the event, not knowing the heft that experience would lend to the rest of my life.

But a less pernicious association I can't get rid of also came from media exposure. When I was a kid we read a lot, watched a little TV, and listened to a fair number of stories on tape. In one of these mediums (yes, bizarrely I can't remember which) I encountered the story of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. I loved this story solely because of that word. Blustery. And the way the blustery wind took over everything else simply by virtue of its blusteriness. It was a new word to me, the first time I encountered the story. And a word that has stuck with me, since.

Now, on days like today, when it is chilly and I hear huge gusts of wind battering the outside of the house, that is what I think. Better stay inside, Pooh Bear, it's blustery out there.

When It Rains

2009-09-26T09:04:00.003-05:00

The month of September in Iowa came close to setting records, weather-wise. It went weeks without raining.

This, while a fairly common occurrence in, say, Arizona, is next to unheard-of in the Midwest.

I, desert rat that I am, prefer days that aren't rainy to ones that are, and the dry weather came at a particularly convenient time for me, being that my horse has been laid up with a gigantic leg-wound all month. To be able to get through the bandaging stage without sogginess and mud in the picture was a huge help.

But the weather is sort of the only thing that's been cooperating. I can't help but feel I've had my own personal little storm-cloud of metaphorical gloom hanging over my head for months now, and it makes me remember what I said to my sister after my wedding. We were talking about how great it was that I married Brian, and I said something along the lines of, "I can't help but feel a little precarious. Things have been going to so well. It's like I'm waltzing through my own private field of magical flowers. It just doesn't seem like this can last."

I was right. It didn't. While Brian and I are still happily immersed in marital bliss, lately we have been sharing our quarters with a nasty flu bug. The summer has been riddled with bad health news in our families as well.

It's funny, how one takes good health for granted. I have been sick the last few days in a way I haven't been sick in years, and I had completely forgotten what it is like. It makes basic tasks impossible. For instance, I went to the drug store to buy a thermometer, and in wandering the aisles trying to find the thermometer area, I found myself continually having to stop and think, "Now, what am I looking for again?" Like, five times. In just a few minutes. I eventually had to ask someone to show me where they were. It was alarming and humbling, to see how much what I consider my innate level of competence was so thoroughly impaired by simply running a fever.

So, here's to good health. I'll appreciate it more in the future, both in myself and in those I value.

Going Mini

2009-09-12T11:01:00.003-05:00

We all know I am something of a computer nerd. I try to keep this aspect of my personality to a minimum, but I find it necessary to own both a laptop and a desktop because, to me, the two types of machines serve very different functions in my daily life. My laptop is my me computer. I like to use it to type, lounging on the sofa or arm-chair in my pajamas. Also, as my business grows, it is necessary for me to be able to stay in touch with my clients and possibly make small changes to their websites when I am away from home.

On the other hand, when I'm actually working seriously on a website, I need to be at my desk. I often sketch out ideas before turning them into their digital manifestations, and I like my good speakers, my large monitor and the easy availability of my external hard-drive, scanner, printer, and my wireless mouse.

Still, part of me craves the simplicity of one computer. I try, on a fairly regularly basis, to find a way to give up one or the other. My most recent attempt was last week. My fairly antiquated HP laptop, which has been on the verge of possible catastrophic failure for months now, broke some important internal part of the jack that connects the power source to the computer, and I find I can no longer unplug the one from the other. This is a problem, for obvious reasons, not the least of which is that the battery is so shot, my computer can only run for a very short period of time whilst un-plugged. And so, the knowledge that the next time I unplug my laptop from its power source will likely mark fifteen minutes before the end of its useful existence drove me to try to answer the "what next" question.

I began to hunt for laptops. Ok, fine, I'll be honest. I've been secretly keeping my eye on what's out there for many weeks, but I didn't really know what I wanted. I cruised over to Lenovo, and nearly got seduced by a sleek, powerful model they've just released. But as I tried to justify spending many hundreds of dollars on a computer I would basically use to type and check email, I knew I'd never talk myself into it. I spent a long while researching docking stations, trying to determine if I could buy a nice laptop that could be the best of both desktop and laptop for me, but I found something unacceptable about every option, so I gave up.

Discouraged, I decided to think in the other direction. Instead of the fastest, most versatile laptop I could get, I wondered what the cheapest, simplest solution might be. Enter the Dell Mini, 10v. It weighs 2.5 pounds, and has a ten inch screen and a nearly full-sized keyboard. I had heard about netbooks, of course, and read some reviews and initially wasn't all that attracted to the idea of a tiny computer with one-eighth of the processing power of my desktop. But, the more I thought about and read about the Mini, the more it interested me. The main selling point, finally, came down to the fact that it has no fan. Since it is so small and so simplified, it can cool itself passively. I've owned probably four laptops in my life now, and in every single case, the fan has degenerated over time from annoying to, in one case, intolerable. No fan seemed like a great idea to me, and since the Mini I decided on is actually twice as powerful as my old, dying HP laptop, I realized it would still feel like an upgrade.

Won over, I settled on the best deal I could find and placed an order, paying less than half of what I payed for my HP when it was new. The Mini arrived yesterday. It's tiny, light, adorable, and so far I find the keyboard totally adequate. And the peaceful silence of its fanless design is going to extend its lifespan by a lot, I think.