From Wit’s End

We were sitting around our kitchen/den watches the pictures float by on the computer screen after dinner. A picture of Kat-Dog came up on the screen, and Jack did his staccato grunt and slapped his thigh indicating that he is seeing (or hearing) a dog (or any other animal really). Then a picture of Jack and Rachel in the boat from the past weekend came up (Similar to this one, but more windy.) When the picture came up, Jack said “Ba-ba”. Rachel and I both said, “Yeah, Mama!” Jack responded by correcting himself, and said, “Ma Ma! Ma Ma Ma!” Hooray, Jack! Now all he has to do is figure out who I am….

Courtesy of iWeb ’08, we have a new photo album section here at Wit’s End. I’ll still post photos one at a time here on the front page, but to see more pictures, you can click on the link below the picture, if there happens to be one.

We had lots of fun this evening at the Davis’s house on the lake, along with a fair contingent from our Sunday School class. For the rest of the pictures, click here.

A little while after dinner, Jack wanted a graham cracker. I gave him one, and he happily walked off, munching on it. A few minutes later, he came by again. He started pointing up at the cabinet and saying, “MMMMM”. I asked if he wanted more and used the sign for more. He looked down at his hands and very carefully touched his two pointer fingers together. “Yay! that’s right! More!” I said, and I gave him another graham cracker. He actually came back for “more” graham crackers three or four more times this evening, so I think he’s got the right idea on this sign, finally.

When it comes to computer programming and web programming issues, here is my approach:

1. Determine objective.
2. “Throw something against the wall to see if it sticks.”
3. If that fails, google a solution to the objective, and attempt to implement solution.
4. If that doesn’t work, look for typos and stupid, illogical mistakes, of which there are usually a few.
5. If things still aren’t working, fiddle around in the guts of it and get really frustrated. At this stage, if I don’t luck out and get things right…
6. Walk away in disgust. Wait between three and twelve months. Move on to other things.
7. After the prescribed time period, be working on something else entirely [usually at stage two or three above] and think off-handedly: “Gee, it’s been a while since I worked on that. I wonder if I can get it to work now?”
8. Walk right into the old situation, click a few buttons, correct a few lines of code, and fix that old problem in just a few minutes.
9. Return to stage three or four on new problem…

I was in the middle of Stage #6 on the problem of importing my old blogger entries to this WordPress environment. I had set up the personal blog here last May, and had manually transferred a few posts in the next month or so. This was extremely tedious. I tried doing it automatically, and it just didn’t work. Today, I decided to see if I could try it again. Since last time there had been a couple WordPress upgrades and Google had bought out nd upgraded Blogger. Just a little bit of typing and a few mouse clicks later, and Badda-Bing! Now I just have to categorize the old posts and clear out the 53 old unpublished draft posts that have been added to the wordpress database.

The fact that puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day is further proof and confirmation (as if we needed any more) that I am a geek.

UPDATE 08/17/07: I’m done sorting through the published posts in the archives. And I just remembered why there are so many drafts from the old blogger posts: I decided at some point to remove impersonal, culturally-oriented posts from the public side of what was my personal blog at the time. So I’ll have to sort through those next and publish the ones that are in a passably good form on the “impersonal” side, whenever I happen to get around to it.

Around 9:30 this morning, my world got turned around. And around. And around. And around and around and around. The dizziness just wouldn’t stop. Thinking the worst, like maybe I was bleeding out on the inside or something, I was taken to the emergency room. After a certain amount of time of sitting as still as possible and trying not to think about the perception that the world was anything but as still as possible, the doctor came in, took a look at me and told me that I had vertigo. They gave me some medicine and sent me home. The medicine makes me really sleepy, so that’s a lot of fun. It’s probably all due to this wicked sinus infection that I’ve been carrying around for months before I realized what it was and finally started getting it treated. So this too shall pass, hopefully.

Pretty cool, don’t you think? This is a column written to showcase the brand new open air Farmers Market building in my parent’s town.

Business Blooming

By CAROLYN R. WILSON/Correspondent

Business is blooming for Beka McCune.

At the end of each week, McCune harvests dozens of her homegrown field flowers to sell to the early morning customers at the Abingdon Farmers Market on Saturdays. The avid gardener is not only turning a lifelong interest into a source of income, she also enjoys sharing her love for the outdoors with people in the community.

The Abingdon Farmers Market will open Saturday, Aug. 11, at its new location on the corner of Cummings Street and Remsburg Drive behind the Fields-Penn House. The market is open Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon and Tuesdays from 3-7 p.m.

“Flowers make people happy,” said McCune, who said it’s scientifically proven that the presence of flowers improves emotional health. Flowers, which have been described as messengers of love, help people to share their feelings. McCune said people often do not think about displaying fresh flowers in their homes. “Flowers are known as something to give when a person is sick, but why should we only have them when sick?”

She said that in England and other parts of Europe, flowers are a normal part of a person’s shopping. “You don’t go to the market without bringing home flowers with your produce.”

The Meadowview resident has spent the past few months planning a flower business, coping with the recent drought and spending a multitude of labor intensive hours nurturing a variety of plants. Overall, McCune is pleased with her first business venture. She named her business Blaithin Blair (pronounced blah-heen blare) which is Gaelic for “flower field.” Her goal is to offer fresh cut flowers that have not been stressed from shipping. “I don’t plan to go statewide or nationwide, just offer local flowers for local people.”

McCune takes a variety of old-fashioned favorites with her to the market, such as zinnias, cosmos, gladiolus, bachelor’s buttons, baby’s breath, dahlias, corn cockle, daisies, purple coneflower and one of her favorites, sunflowers. She prefers to grow varieties with strong stems, striking colors and good vase life.

“I make different sizes of bouquets for different households. Some people want a small bouquet to brighten up a corner, while others ask for a larger one for tabletops.”

McCune takes orders for large flower arrangement upon request. She also sells flowers by the stem for the customers who like to create their own bouquets. Surprisingly, her best customers at the farmers market are men, even boys as young as 7, who want to buy the bouquets.

McCune has enjoyed farming since she was a child. Her first love was raising cattle, but because producing crops is more feasible, she directed her attention to a flower business.

“I have always liked to arrange flowers, branches and other pieces of nature to bring the outdoors inside. I love the outdoors. My house seems gloomy and sad without something from the outside.”

She is neither a stranger to the outdoors, nor to hard work. A 2005 graduate of Virginia Tech, McCune graduated with a forestry degree with a concentration in environmental resource management. Planting seeds and watching them grow is one of her greatest rewards living on a farm.

I was looking out of my kitchen window as I was washing my hands his afternoon and a little bird caught my eye. He had flown up to the garden fence and perched on the top wire. I hadn’t seen his flight soon enough to know, but he was tiny, so I thought he was a hummingbird. Yep, he was, and he was enjoying my red zinnias, the last thing left in my vegetable garden that hasn’t been decimated by the heat and bugs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hummingbird in my yard. Welcome little guy!