Blessings, Fronds!
Sorry about the lack of posts - I may have to accept that over the summer I'll just be posting particularly sporatically. But let me tell you why ...
IN THE GARDEN
The spawn sort of hoed and weeded the older beds. I got the sweet peppers in (late) and started the first planting of beans (on time). The beans have not sprouted. At all. The exceptionally cute baby bunnies, who have worked hard at eating my parsley and salvia to the ground insist that they are NOT to blame for this (they say that they prefer them with the first tender real leaves before they eat them). So I should be planting more beans today. This planting was planned as the second bed. Oh well. The onions there are thriving, as are 4 of the 5 sweet peppers. I think my son mowed the 5th pepper, but I've not pressed him on that point.
The flowers by the front door are still not totally planted. Mostly because it has been too wet to plant them. We have had incredible rain this month! Oh - I have a new rain barrel, but haven't set it up with the downspouts yet.
Out in the back yard's new veggie bed I finally staked the tomatoes. They are coming along very nicely, especially the Roma's. The parsley is SLOWLY coming back - I have staked the 'body' of a milk jug around each of them to deter baby bunnies. I worry that I'm not harvesting the basil fast enough to stop it from bolting. Onions are lagging there.
I've harvested lambsquarters two times to serve as dinner veggies. The husband finds it a bit bitter, but LOVED it when I steamed it and added a cream sauce. Even if the 'cream sauce' was just a can of cream of mushroom soup!
FAMILY BUSINESS
Huband still working on getting new web site up. Main customer still down, no replacement. Should e-mail distributor today to see how month's product sales are going. Will eventually put a link to the NEW web site up here, but our current web site is so miserable I don't want to link it. I'm sure all of you want to buy USB HID and TCP programming products, but you'll just have to wait. Okay, if you insist on buying them, let me know. Or if you need Windows programming, or USB HID peripheral programming.
I'M STARTING A BUSINESS!!!!
I've been training to become a Mastermind group leader (Dr. Ben Mack's Carnegie Mastermind group construct). The first group starts tomorrow night, one hour weekly, by phone or computer. I'm looking to start groups on a whole variety of topics, including but probably not limited to: survival gardening, food storage, food storage cooking, divination/scrying, Wizard Tag, Intimacy with the Divine, Thaumaturgical magic, creating sacred space, and Business Skills for Pagans. All of this will be explained in more detail here and on .....
MY NEW WEB SITE
Far be it from me to let my husband have all the new web site fun. Yes, I'm finally building a full web site. I just installed Joomla on Sunday, and have been working on adding one article a day. I need to figure out buttons today, as well as adding a new article and getting a clue on how to do squeeze/registration pages.
THE REST OF LIFE
On top of all that, clothes still need to be washed, meals cooked and cleaned up after, the house needs cleaning, and the Solstice was this last weekend. Not that I made it to the ritual - the car died AGAIN, after $1K work of work on it. I spent the afternoon in a parking lot about 5 miles from the park we were meeting at, waiting for my husband's help.
So, that's what's up here. I'm not commenting on Iran, or the train crash here in DC yesterday, or any deep philosophical stuff at this point. But maybe someday I'll explain that in terms of Celtic Reconstructionism - in an odd way it makes sense.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label Joomla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joomla. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Growing Consultants
Yesterday's Washington Post had several articles on Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new focus in defense spending. The article above the fold http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040601784.html explained that Gates is moving away from high-tech spending to a focus on lower tech weaponry. The article below the fold points out the impact it will have on jobs in our area: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040604049.html. We are in the DC area, in case anyone didn't know that - the Washington Post IS my local paper.
We own/operate a small engineering consulting company. We don't do govt contracting ourselves, but we get a sense of what's going on because we are active in the local IEEE (that's the Institute for Electrical and Electronic and all other Engineers) Consultants Network. When contractors "contract" (uh, shrink) that means engineers move from being employees to becoming unemployed or becoming consultants. Or both, because let's face it, saying that someone is "really good at marketing, for an engineer" is damning them with really faint praise.
Even before this military spending shift, the IEEE National Capital Area Consultants Network had been getting a boost in attendence because of the economic downturn. The Consultants Network started running a series on how to get started, called the Art of Consulting. In fact, the first session saw a record setting 60 people register for it.
Many, maybe most of those new folks, don't have websites. What websites they do have - hell, even the website for the consultants network itself! - tend to be just awful. The second page of the CN's website still contains that sample Latin "lipsum orem" text, for goodness sake.
All of these new Engineering/Programming/etc consultants need help. They have been thinking like engineers all their lives, and engineers are not known for their social skills, their communication skills, or their marketing skills. They have been employees all of their working lives, so they think like employees and not like owners/business folks. They 'get' Linkedin, sort of, but they don't get Facebook, professional blogs, or Twitter. They understand bullet points, but they don't have a clue about CSS, SEO, or Joomla!, or pleasing/professional looking graphics on a web page.
These newly and soon-to-be minted consultants need the help of the Consulting Network, its experienced consulting members, the greater IEEE (which has SOME articles on consulting on its web site ... with URLs over 200 characters long - I swear I heard Twitter laugh at them), and local resources such as Joomla! or Drupal web professionals, marketing professionals, basic business professionals. It would be great if they could join more expensive marketing education and support services such as Stompernet (we are getting incredible help from Stompernet ourselves).
So, if you are in ANY of the aboved named groups - how about attending the next Art of Consulting meeting? Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in Northern VA. Detailed information is at http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/capitalarea/eSCANNER/calendar.html#CONSULT.
I might even see you there - I've threatened to film the speaker!
We own/operate a small engineering consulting company. We don't do govt contracting ourselves, but we get a sense of what's going on because we are active in the local IEEE (that's the Institute for Electrical and Electronic and all other Engineers) Consultants Network. When contractors "contract" (uh, shrink) that means engineers move from being employees to becoming unemployed or becoming consultants. Or both, because let's face it, saying that someone is "really good at marketing, for an engineer" is damning them with really faint praise.
Even before this military spending shift, the IEEE National Capital Area Consultants Network had been getting a boost in attendence because of the economic downturn. The Consultants Network started running a series on how to get started, called the Art of Consulting. In fact, the first session saw a record setting 60 people register for it.
Many, maybe most of those new folks, don't have websites. What websites they do have - hell, even the website for the consultants network itself! - tend to be just awful. The second page of the CN's website still contains that sample Latin "lipsum orem" text, for goodness sake.
All of these new Engineering/Programming/etc consultants need help. They have been thinking like engineers all their lives, and engineers are not known for their social skills, their communication skills, or their marketing skills. They have been employees all of their working lives, so they think like employees and not like owners/business folks. They 'get' Linkedin, sort of, but they don't get Facebook, professional blogs, or Twitter. They understand bullet points, but they don't have a clue about CSS, SEO, or Joomla!, or pleasing/professional looking graphics on a web page.
These newly and soon-to-be minted consultants need the help of the Consulting Network, its experienced consulting members, the greater IEEE (which has SOME articles on consulting on its web site ... with URLs over 200 characters long - I swear I heard Twitter laugh at them), and local resources such as Joomla! or Drupal web professionals, marketing professionals, basic business professionals. It would be great if they could join more expensive marketing education and support services such as Stompernet (we are getting incredible help from Stompernet ourselves).
So, if you are in ANY of the aboved named groups - how about attending the next Art of Consulting meeting? Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in Northern VA. Detailed information is at http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/capitalarea/eSCANNER/calendar.html#CONSULT.
I might even see you there - I've threatened to film the speaker!
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