random bullets of pure blogging gold

  • Go check out Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s “Introducing MediaCommons,” which is “a wide-ranging network with a relatively static point of entry that brings…[participants] into the MediaCommons community and makes apparent the wealth of different resources” available.
  • I spent last week in Cape San Blas, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico with my sister’s family. It was lovely. The water was very warm, in part because the sun was so intense, which made sunbathing problematic. In fact, I got sunburned on Tuesday, and so I spent the rest of the week doing my best imitation of a lobster in the shade.
  • While in Florida, I made what I think was my best batch of shrimp gumbo ever. If you want good gumbo, you need to simmer the empty shrimp shells in about 3 cups of water, then strain them out and add the stock to your gumbo. Hmm, perhaps I should post the entire recipe.
  • I don’t have kids, but after spending a week around my nieces and nephew, I suspect that I would have a lot more insight into my own upbringing if I did.
  • I finally got some decent hair care products, which smell great and make my hair and scalp feel good. I haven’t had a haircut in about two months, and I’m currently trying to figure out whether to continue to let it grow or to get it cut short again.
  • Post-divorce, I have no television, which is fine by me. Nor do I have Internet access, which is a decision I made for the summer in order to encourage me to get out and meet people. I’m spending a lot more time reading than usual, too. However, now it looks like it might be impossible for me to get any high-speed Internet access. Comcast says they don’t provide service to my building, and now BellSouth is saying they can’t get DSL into my building, either. This doesn’t make sense to me, but I guess I can live with it if it means I’ll be reading more and mindlessly surfing less. Plus that frees up about $50 a month for me to spend on other things.
  • I recently attended the opening of an exhibition featuring the work of four artists-in-residence at Hub-Bub, a Sparkle City arts center. I was particularly taken with the work of painter Brian Hitselberger (blog) and poet Emily Louise Smith (blog), so I made a point of chatting with each of them a bit. During the year, Hub Bub says they will have events going on up to four nights out of the week: films, music, lectures. If so, I plan to spend a lot of time there. I like being around interesting, creative people.
  • Last semester, I was pretty good about getting to the gym regularly, mostly because I had a very good workout partner. Since then, however, the best I have done is pay a membership fee at the gym that is, quite literally, a two-minute walk from my apartment. I have not, alas, actually made it inside to use any of their weight machines or cardio equipment. Any suggestions for helping me break this inertia? And does anyone have any advice about buying a bike for riding some of the trails around Sparkle City?
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3 thoughts on “random bullets of pure blogging gold

  1. If you’re not sure what type of bicycle to get, you could start by reading this:

    http://www.jimlangley.net/crank/howtobuyabike1.html

    And I think I used Bicycling magazine’s Find a Bike when I was first looking for a bike a few years ago.

    http://tinyurl.com/my58y

    Depends what the trails are, I suppose. Like the Trolley Trail in KC, or mountain bike trails? Maybe you could check around area bike shops to see if there are regular group bicycle rides that are friendly to all types of cyclists.

    Hopefully your weather is better than ours right now to be thinking about this…

  2. Thanks for the links, Heidi. I will check them out post-haste.

    I believe there’s a mix of trails here, ranging from those like KC’s Trolley Trail to those that are more challenging. We’re only about an hour from the mountains, so there will be opportunities aplenty for breaking bones and getting devoured by wild animals.

    I think what I need is something that will work as a road bike and also as a decent (but not expert) trail bike. One of my local friends says they make such hybrid bikes for folks like me.

  3. I can confirm your suspicion that kids would give you insight into your own upbringing. My therapist says there are two possibilities for parents: your children push your buttons and force you to face a wide range of your own issues or you are a terrible parent. I don’t think I’m one of those people who thinks everyone should have kids or anything–god knows there are plenty of reasons not to have them–but I also know that having kids has really helped me to grow up in some profound ways.

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