A Little Button Buck

Sean and the little buck

Sean McClellan has been coming over some afternoons to hunt. We have way too many deer in the back yard. Sean was on the phone and saw this deer out the window. He ran to his car, grabbed the rifle, and within just a few minutes had this little guy. It's small, but the meat should be really tender!

Income and Other Un-Quality Topics

The problem with separating "My Quality Day" from this blog is that it will only tend to make me bi-polar, Jekyl and Hyde, skitzo.

Nevertheless this is the place for the stuff that I don't think the whole world needs to see. A lot of you have asked how my quest for income is coming. In October, I really got a gift from God... a temporary full-time job. I worked about 3 1/2 weeks at $10 an hour, so that has given me a small cushion back from the edge of sheer panic. Of course, the car insurance is due, and they finally got my car to stop coughing, so that has to be paid for... so I'm scrambling again to make the coming month's bills.

Shared Reviews is temporarily in an income holding pattern. They are experiencing the realities of being an internet startup. But instead of going belly up they are working to get people paid off, and then they will let us earn more new dollars again. So... nothing there right now, but I need to stay active and ready to pounce when the money starts to flow again.

Associated Content continues to be an option; income depends on views. I need to get a LOT more articles on there if I want to make much. Currently getting about $4 a month from them.

The column in the Ludington Daily News continues to give me $20 a month.

I have another source of small writing assignments that are worth about $10 each. They come sporadically.

I have found a site called Textbroker that does just what the name implies. They match clients who want stuff written with people who can write. I just started there 10 days ago and have made $70. It's really just a job... they give you a topic, a number of words, keywords (it's writing for the web), and you write. But that's good... there is no reason for me to feel creatively possessive about any of it.

I'm trying really hard to make Get Off The Couch News, and Get Off The Couch pay for themselves better. The first one needs lots more readers, since income there depends on clicks. The second needs for me to sell ads... several didn't renew... bad economy and all.

And I got one new website job that should pay in Dec. That will help!

The house is a total wreck... what else is new. Thanks for stopping by, but I don't blame you if you like My Quality Day better! I do too.

Acobox.com review

Acobox.com is an image hosting site which boasts that it is extremely easy for bloggers to use. Instead of downloading, resizing and uploading an image, you simply choose the one you want from acobox and with one click it can be added to your blog, with appropriate sizing.

However, if you want to use your own pictures, acobox is frustrating. All pictures submitted must be approved. Pictures submitted may take 2 or more days for approval. They only want high quality pictures, so it's not useful to host family shots. Photos must be submitted with the longest side 500 pixels and no more than 100KB, so a picture with any detail must be cropped to a non-standard aspect ratio.

Most seriously of all, any pictures submitted are no longer your own property. You can select one of four levels from public domain– where the photographer no longer has any control of the picture, to display only– where a user may only display the picture with no changes. But in all cases, you grant to Acobox the irrevocable, but non-exclusive, perpetual rights to your photos. These are transferable and sub-licensable without paying you, for any use, public, commercial or not. You will not receive any monetary compensation, and photos may be altered or re-formatted.

What they advertise most is that you can insert images on your blog with one click. This is close to true. You just select the picture and size, left or right alignment, and with just using Control+C and Control+V you can copy the code and paste it into your own blog. Of course many blogs support HTML templates so that you only have to copy the image location almost as easily.

In addition, the number of pictures available at acobox is extremely limited at the present time.

The Following is a Paid Announcement

As part of a writing job that I get paid for, the next entry in this blog will be a review of a photo hosting site. We have to put a review of the site in a blog. So if you are actually following this blog, don't wonder too much why I suddenly seem to pause for a commercial message! I've been doing quite a lot of on-line writing. It doesn't work out to very much money per hour, but every little bit helps.

I'm ba...a...a...ck

seed pod of the Liriodendron tulipifera

Took a short hike today on the Orchard Beach State Park Nature Trail. Passed a tulip tree covered with seed pods. I've never seen one before that was completely bare with all the little upraised bells of the pods. Quite extraordinary.

I haven't been here much lately, because I've been putting entries that are less personal on another blog called My Quality Day. This blog will still have entries that may be more personal for close friends.

Too sleepy right now to add much more. I'll try to do some catch-up here soon.

This isn't going to be a very meaningful post, but it will let you know that I'm alive if anyone is looking. I've had a temp job painting an apartment in Manistee this month. Keeps me working hard, but I sure like the paycheck. Maybe I'll write more soon.

So Not Ready

The morning view out my office window

OK, I was supposed to be on my way to New York now. OK, you know me, the backup plan is to be out the door 24 hours from now. OK, I'm on the drop dead plan which means I need to leave in 30 hours.

But... my head is full of sand, and I finally got a picture of the mist rising between the little hills in back of our house.

Our 40th Anniversary Party last week was a lot of fun. We enjoyed sharing with those people who were able to come!

The food for the hike is all packed. Now if only I could say the same for everything else. Wish me luck! But the day had a beautiful beginning, anyway!

Training Regiment Report

On Wednesday I hiked around my trails here for 45 minutes with 42 pounds. That is about the max weight we will each be carrying when we have full food rations and all water bottles full.

Yesterday I just did a quickie loop for Maggie with 37 pounds because then Om and I went on a bike ride- only about 8 miles, but it feels good.

Today I left home with Maggie on a leash and 45 pounds in my pack. I returned 1 hour 15 minutes later with 47.5 pounds. We walked the Scottville bypass, and I picked up 2.5 pounds of aluminum cans! So that's about 3 miles. I didn't break any speed records, but I did bend down to get all those cans. It was also pretty hot- about 80 degrees. That's good, because I always need to work myself into hiking when it's hot. It was long enough, but not so bad that I felt in pain or broken down when I got home. If I can keep up this sort of thing, I should be ready for August.

On a more artistic note, there have been some nice treats just around the house. I've found scarlet cup fungus, and yellow patches fungus for spots of color. Yesterday I found a live cicada that is somehow out of rhythm with the rest of his population. He (she?) was big and lovely with bright aqua patches where the wings met the body. I've never seen one with any color at all. I picked it up in hopes of corralling it while I got the camera, but it decided to fly away, buzzing in that odd cicada way. The wren is still hanging out trying to find a new lady love, and a cardinal is around too, nesting in the apple I think. A flicker is working hard to enlarge to hollow space that the bluebirds nested in this spring, so it won't be the right size for the bluebirds next spring. The deer and turkeys wander through the yard, and the moles and ground squirrels wander under the yard.

Got a call today from a reporter at the Grand Rapids Press. They want to do an article on my NCT hikes. The interview will be July 24th. Don't know when the article will run.

Yesterday I helped spot a hiker on the NCT at Red Bridge. So I took advantage of that opportunity to put some trail miles into my conditioning. Shamu at 37 pounds rode on my back, and Maggie at 50 pounds trotted along. We went up the big hill from Upper River Road TH to the main NCT. I believe that this is the biggest trail hill anywhere in the Manistee NF. Puff, puff. Then we hiked north for a total of 30 minutes, turned around and came back. We made it just past Pole Rd (a little over a mile of trail). So, total walking was probably under 3 miles. OK for beginnings. It didn't feel too bad, and I'm not at all sore today, but I can sure tell that to do 5 or 6 of those walks in a day I need to seriously work on this conditioning!

Hi- I don't think hardly anyone is reading this any more since I haven't posted much, but just in case, and to give me some accountability, I'm going to post a bit about preparations for the August hike.

I've managed to save enough money so that I can afford to do this. Yeah!

I'm working on the planning. This trip needs real planning because we will do the western section in the Adirondacks. This will connect our High Peaks trip (1996) hopefully all the way to Fort Stanwix at Rome, NY. I'm working on the itinerary to see if we really can do all of this. It's 150 miles.

It's been 3 years since we really did a backpacking trip so I'm getting in shape. So far I'm carrying 37 pounds for 30 minutes each day. Need to bump that up pretty rapidly, but I have a month to work on it, so I should be ok.

We (Marie and I) will get to hike a portion of the new proposed route through the Adirondacks. This includes one serious bushwack, so I'm trying to find out as much info as I can about it ahead of time. The NCTA HQ has some GPS units that they were given for volunteers to use to report trail coordinates, so I'm going to be taking one of those with the info they have pre-loaded. That should be some help... I'm a map and compass girl, but having the GPS will give me a lot of practice, and will be a nice safety net.

Confessions of an Acetylcholine Junkie

I knew I’d been craving those drug-induced highs for years. I just didn’t realize until recently what my drug of choice is. Now don’t get alarmed and call the newspaper and the police; my chemical is street legal (well, actually I don’t know that), but it’s produced naturally in the body. In fact, without it, our nerves will stop firing and stop speaking to each other. In short, we would become vegetables.

Acetylcholine (ACh) is a neurotransmitter. That means that it’s a chemical that carries nerve impulses across the gaps (synapses) between our nerve cells. Research shows that the more often we do something the less ACh is required to carry the message. As things become more familiar or habitual the pathways don’t need as much chemical stimulus.

But there’s more to it than that. It turns out that ACh also has an effect on the pleasure centers of the brain. This affects some people more than others. I’ve known for a long time that to experience something new is one of the best ways to perk me up when I’m feeling a bit blue. I’m craving an ACh fix!

Here are some of my best ACh highs of the past month.

As I stepped out the kitchen door in the slanted morning light, not only were the pink apple blossoms glowing in the low sun but their lovely, clean scent was carried to me on the soft breeze. Just then, a pair of bluebirds sailed across the yard, banking and flashing their brilliant blue backs, wings spread, against the pink of the blossoms.

We have a little house wren that is building a nest under the edge of the deck. The male builds a home he would be proud to share and then sings for all he’s worth to try to coax a lady-love to join him. For a little brown bird- just an egg-sized ball of fluff with a stubby brown tail- it’s unbelievable how much noise can emanate from that breast. He’s taken to sitting on the deck rail just outside my office window. I can see him open his thin bill, almost translucent in the bright sun, puff out his chest, and then the vibrating trill begins. He’s so loud that he’s actually awakened me a couple of mornings. I’ve tried to take his picture out the window, but he knows I’m there. One bob of his tail, a nod of his head, and he’s gone every time I turn on the camera.

I’ve been in the Upper Peninsula this week and I’ve decided that they should film the next great fantasy adventure up here. The flat tamarack marshes can look as spooky as anything New Zealand has to offer. The afternoon light was gray but bright; it had been raining all day. Beds of sphagnum moss were scattered like irregular tiles across the landscape. Newly needled tamarack practically glowed- an eerie, alien green. An occasional spindly fir shot up from the mossy plain, usually a naked bole with broken, skeleton branches and a dark, tangled topknot. Through this vast and bleak plain meandered a flat and shining river. All that was missing was a craft with high, curved prows and foreign carvings. It should be propelled by small creatures- odd, but yet enchanting and mystic. I’m sure I saw it slip around the distant bend.

Experiences like these get my ACh flowing and my pleasure centers lighting up like a laser target. Recommended prescription for you? Go outside and find your own acetylcholine high!

Haven't heard from me lately? Join the crowd. Let's see. I used to work just over one hour a day doing web site work and get about $600 a month. Lots of time for other pursuits. Now I am getting $800 a month, and working 14+ hours a day to try to be prepared enough to not look like a complete idiot when I stand in front of the next class. Just a little sleep and a couple hours of decompression time a day and that's about it folks. See you in May. I know I owe many of you more than little chatty notes.

Crunch Time

My first class as a college instructor is Thursday. I've got books spread all over two rooms, Power Point presentations in various stages of readiness, and hopefully enough time to pull it all together.

Tomorrow is pretty much non-stop orientation and meetings, but I'll have Wednesday to get things finalized, and Syllabuses turned in. Whew!

I'll let ya' know how it goes!

Making Music with a New Friend

Jason and Joan make music (The only picture anyone took was really blurry, so transforming it into "art" seemed the way to go.)

Last Thursday I had one of the most fun experiences of my life. The McClellans came over for the evening. The youngest kids wanted to play with the train set some more. Jason and Omer messed around with cameras for a while and then he and I made music together for... I have no idea how long... hours. I don’t think I remember the last time I was so completely absorbed in something. Shawn was even playing his chanter at the same time, right next to me, not the same songs, and I never even heard him. I was oblivious to the 12 extra people in the house. Blocking out other noises is not something I’m good at, at all, so this was very out of character for me. We wanted to include Shawn in our playing, but he can’t read music, so we had to give that up since I didn’t seem to have music to anything he knows. I guess the girls went downstairs and watched a movie. I was not any kind of a hostess, let alone a perfect one.

We played and played till Jason had a sore shoulder and I had a very stiff neck. Then we gave it up, not because we were tired of the activity, but our bodies needed a rest. We chose three songs that we both like and thought sounded good together and made sure we both have the music to those to practice. Patrick thinks we should do a gig at the local Italian restaurant with an open case for people to throw money. I know we’re not anywhere near that good, but it certainly went better than either of us anticipated. I’ve never played with anyone on any instrument in a duet like that... well maybe Clara and I played one or two accordion duets when we were kids. But never with a different instrument. He said he hadn’t either. We like a lot of the same kinds of music.

It helps that the accordion is not currently the subject of the derision of every person in the universe. It’s down to something like 90%. * smile * What’s the definition of perfect pitch? When you throw an accordion in the dumpster and it doesn’t touch the sides before it lands.

Seriously, if you listen to TV commercials you'll now hear accordion in quite a few of them. I’ve had several young people say "Cool!" when the find out that I play. Now there’s a reaction I’ve never encountered prior to the last few years. Kinda nice!

Josh, Omer, Steve, Joan

We had Steve home for just 32 hours for Christmas this year. It wasn't nearly long enough, but we worked hard to pack lots of fun into the time. We played all the games that the four of us very diverse beings can play together. We ate lots of yummy food, blew the diets, and then had to repent and be really good for the next few days. I forgot to take the annual photo in front of the Christmas tree, so some lady who wasn't afraid I was a terrorist used my camera to snap us at the airport at 5:30 am on December 26. At least we are all smiling in this one!

The time seems to be speeding past, and I'm not ready for my teaching duties at the college. I'm working on it, but not nearly fast enough. That has to be fixed!

Too many changes in life in too short of a time span. I guess we'll just grab 2008 by the tail and hold on!

P.S. I had a really REALLY fun experience Thursday night, but I'm holding out for a photo to put with the post, so I'll keep it a secret a little longer.