Yesterday was a good day to be a Canadian, but beyond that, it was a good day to be a Canadian artist.
Posts Tagged ‘maintenance’
Up by my bootstraps
Posted By Alida on May 7th, 2010
Do you ever feel like you have to pull yourself out of a sense of inertia? In this case, it’s the intertia of not posting for nearly three months (!). I don’t think I’ve gone three months at one time without blogging since I started in 2001! There’s no particular reason, aside from the usual — busy life, wedding plans, new house, contract work, yadda yadda. I’m going to touch on all of that in the next few entries, but first…
Just a few housekeeping details before I get going with some new content.
First, I’m testing out a new comment system. It’s quite powerful, and you can leave comments with one of a number of profiles. Click on the “Add another site” button, and you can choose the profile to link to — or, you can post from multiple profiles at once. Also, you can share your comments and the link to each post with your social networks, by clicking on the “Share” button. You can also follow the replies to an individual entry, as well as add pictures to your comments. (And, as always, if you click on the “share” button at the bottom of the entry (as opposed to the one in the comments), you can send your favorite articles along via any of 200+ services.)
Second, I’m (at least temporarily) disabling the Facebook integration via Networked Blogs, since there’s no way to integrate Facebook comments with the Wordpress comments. More people than not were leaving comments on Facebook, which means that the great conversations sparked by various blog entries never made it to the blog itself. It’s all stuck on Facebook, and I’d rather see it all take place over here, where it can be archived with the entries. So, I’m changing my Facebook notifications to direct people to this site, instead of showing up within a Facebook app.
Please, even though you’re not commenting via Facebook anymore, keep on talking! There have been some interesting discussions, and I want to see those continue! The conversation is always open; I’m just here to facilitate it. (And with this new comment system, you can still choose to be notified of replies to your comments, just like the Facebook notifications allowed for, so you can follow the conversation on any entry that you find interesting.)
Posted in Uncategorized
6 weeks!
Posted By Alida on October 29th, 2009
First, go take a look at my recently-updated portfolio page. I’ve finally got a good chunk of the documentation from this summer up there — and I must be really on the ball, because Waiting for Lefty, which only closed two days ago, is already up! (more…)
Posted in School
Creative Discontent: The Explanation
Posted By Alida on August 11th, 2009
A few weeks ago, I changed the title of my blog from “Thoughts on Art and Faith” to “Creative Discontent”. “Thoughts on Art and Faith” was never intended to be the permanent title—I mean, come on, it’s a little too obviously descriptive, and while that may be what the blog is intended to be about, I’ve never wanted to make it that unimaginative. If this thing ever starts getting serious traffic (and if, somewhere down the line, I make the jump to being a professional blogger), I don’t want that to be the title I’m saddled with.
My favorite titles are short, sweet, and come from quotes or have some sort of non-obvious significance. They reflect something of the writer by being something other than “This is a Blog About My Life.”
The title I’ve used for my personal blog for several years has been “commas and ampersands,” and my blogroll/friends page title has been “they are like emeralds”. Both of those come from the song “I Hear the Bells” by Mike Doughty, and they both grabbed my imagination in very specific ways. I like the idea of describing the events of my life and the thoughts I’m mulling over as the “commas and ampersands” of my day-to-day life. It’s a way of punctuating life—finding the moments that both separate things and join them, and realizing some of the big before-and-after effects in retrospect. As for “they are like emeralds,” the phrase brings to mind the snowflake/individuality image (at least, to my mind), as well as the priceless/diamond image.
In any case, that’s the kind of thought process that goes into my blog titles, and “Thoughts on Art and Faith” was absolutely not right for me. It’s the kind of blog title that I’d skim over. I needed something else.
So I went digging for quotes. Partly, I was looking for some more to add to the quote rotator on the right-hand sidebar, but partly, I was looking for a phrase that stuck out to me. Something descriptive and enigmatic, all at the same time.
Things you should see
Posted By Alida on June 8th, 2009
Two quick things to direct your attention to, while I whip up a brand-new post full of chewy goodness for you to think on:
1) I’ve finally added a blogroll. Check out the “Great Blogs” link at the top of the page for some great reading. It’s not nearly finished, and as I continue to discover bloggers and sites that are worth sharing, I’ll add them, so check that page regularly! In the meantime, it’s off to a great start, so go give my blogging friends some love!
2) I’m now a member of YYC Blogs, a community of bloggers in Calgary, talking about the city and everything else under the sun. I’m just starting to discover what else is in there, and you should wander over, too, and take a look.
Posted in Uncategorized
Site news
Posted By Alida on May 22nd, 2009
I’ve been a little slow in getting this blog into a regular posting schedule, despite my best intentions. I’m still wading through almost 8 years of my personal blog, finding the entries that I want to rewrite and post over here, and I’ve also got a whole bunch of new content that I’m starting to work on. Hopefully by next week, I’ll be into a regular schedule and routine with the posting; the past couple of weeks, I’ve been in the middle of finishing up the semester, driving back to Calgary from California, unpacking, running errands, and enjoying a few days off.
I’ll have some new content to post later today, and next week, we’ll be back on track!
Posted in Uncategorized
