01.15.2008

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Don says:

Lisa and I contracted telephonitis during the holidays and called all our far-away friends, including Michael Harding in Australia, and refused to even wonder what it was all going to cost.   There are times when it's appropriate to just bite-the-bullet and go for it.   That was our gift to one another and a fine gift it was.

We've been building a PCLinuxOS computer for Lisa's mom (in Florida) making it, as nearly as possible, a mate to Lisa's PCLinuxOS system so that Lisa can coach her on its use.   We decided that Skype would offer a great way for Lisa to connect with her mom as often as she likes without putting any undue stress on our phone bill so I ordered some nice earphones with an attached mic which came in today and, after no more than an hour of fumbling and stumbling, we got Skype installed and tested on both computers (Lisa's and her mom's).   We're going to spend a few more days testing, tweaking and pondering the enormous range of software choices (which are all free and legal) before boxing it up and dragging it to the post office.

The music bidnez is picking up for me; I've been in the Wednesday night Open Mic Night house band at Pat's in Kingsland for several weeks now and I'm slowly beginning to get more calls for gigs.   Some of them are for "real work" like installing carpet or hanging sheetrock but that's ok with me as long as some of the calls are from folks who want me to play my guitar because all work and no play makes for an extremely tired old geek.

I "made" this image on this website which I assume probably has some commercial function but I'm darned if I know what it is.   Anyway, it started me thinking about self-marketing and wondering what I've got that's worth putting in the box.   I'm a pretty good guitarist but everyone's heard better; I'm a fair computer geek but there's a lot I don't know; I'm not a bad carpet mechanic but it's strenuous, demanding work and I'm not a young man so, while I can do the work, I don't do it very quickly; I'm a middlin' electrician but no great shakes as a carpenter or plumber.   The only compliment I recall hearing very often is that I'm good a figuring stuff out and making things work and I'm willing to settle for that. So, after a little image editing (with a Linux program called KolourPaint) I made myself a new 3-D box.

Werksferme!