November Wrap Up
November Wrap Up
A busy month hereabouts. Lots of coming and going, meetings, work, phone calls, and not too much time left over for blogging. A good amount of snarky comment posting elsewhere, though, kept me busy. When ghosts in the machine kept me from posting a comment on Brian Moffett's blog, I sent it to him via e-mail. And then Brian posted it as a blog entry in and of itself. That sorta kinda made me a guest blogger, across national borders, no less. Brian also gave me a call, we spoke at length. We were already blog buddies, now we are baseball buddies as well (and radio, advertising, media, the whole shebang). And we've managed to cross post, too.
Despite Brian posting that nice entry, I still managed to subject him to my annual US-Canada Thanksgiving joke. Every year I find a north o'the border victim, er, listener, for that one. There's also the annual Columbus Day joke, but Brian was spared that one. I try to save that for Americans who are celebrating the big day.
Thanksgiving
Every year we go to the winter domicile of our friend Bob The Computer Guy (aka BTCG). Bob is really no longer The Computer Guy, as he left that business some time ago and now is deeply involved in the worlds of boat building and boating education. And also in doing good things as they relate to the Hudson River, fisheries, and so forth.
Once again we showed at Bob's, with much prep work in plastic containers, a ton or so of food to cook (two turkeys this year, don't ask), vegetables, and what feels like almost a quarter of an apple orchard. Susan, who claims she does not cook, cooked the cranberry relish and also something she refers to as "Concept of Apple Pie." Both were excellent, especially the concept. which was cooked using Splenda, so there were no Diabetics harmed in the eating of that item.
Over at the DeanLand flickr page one can view the cooking process, the leftovers, even some of the pre-prepped plastic containers, as well. And a shot of BTCG always makes its way into the annual Thanksgiving set of pictures.
A good time was had by all. Leftovers abound. We visited some friends the next day and sampled each others' leftovers. By the end of the weekend we were Thanksgiving'd out.
The Elections
Interesting times in early November, what with the elections. I hadn't cast so many votes for winners in . . . -- . . . actually, I can't count the years. It seems I cast a total winning line of votes this year. More shortly in a subsequent post, particularly about how the big wins were not necessarily the key story or the real focus point. There were variations on losing and winning, upsets and some odd events. More on that later -- in fact, the post is already more than half written. Coming soon. Stay tuned.
Other Bloggers
Read Yule Heibel's blog, Post Studio. Her style seems lyrical to me, the content always well worth the time. Her latest is excellent. As are all the precedents. Yule also has an interesting wiki, Victoria City Style Council, about her community. Wikis are communities of sorts, so is this a community of and about a community? Is "community wiki" redundant? Never mind, don't ponder that, just go read Yule's blog and wiki. You won't regret it.
There's quite the Canadian flavor to this blog entry, eh? Maybe that means I should go public and thank Toronto blogger Accordon Guy, husband of The Redhead (both of whom I met in Cambridge at Bloggercons), for sending me a very cute Sqishy Cow. Love that cow!!!!!
And speaking of Canada and Cambridge . . .
Read Seth Finkelstein's Infothought Blog. I met Seth at one of the Cambridge Bloggercons, and was impressed by the breadth of knowledge he possessed with regard to net politics, censorware, DMCA, and related topics. Seth's blog pulls no punches, you'll always know where he stands. He is often an expert witness or researcher on cases relating to freedom of expression and the net. Seth sometimes worries alound in his blog that he is not an A-Lister, but in my book (the as yet unpublished Book of Dean, someday to be a DeanLand exclusive) he's on the A List. And he's on that blogroll to the right, so he's made the A List of a self-proclaimed B-minus lister.
Back from a blogging hiatus is Shelley Powers. Read her new blog, Just Shelley. I've been a Shelley reader for a long time, and not just her blogs. Shelley also writes books. I pre-ordered her JavaScript book from Amazon, and was thrilled when it arrived. One of these days, either when Shelley finds herself in NY or I find myself in Missouri, maybe she'll sign my copy. Shelley can talk tech to non-geeks, and knows her way around any number of topics. She's got a tech blog, Mad Techie Woman, also worth visiting.
Heath Row, who is a human, not an airport, and can also be confused with a certain superhero if you know his e-mail address, has a blog of note, as well. For years I've known Heath as "the guy who attends meetings and blogs them in real time and at a pace that defies mortal powers." Maybe he really is Kal-El. I saw Heath at a meeting in early November, and that prompted me to take a revisit to his blog, Heath Row's Media Diet. Media Diet, that's a phrase in my lexicon. Heath's blog certainly is a proper and perfect setting for those words to set the pace and to grace the page. Often a subject of discussion among me and my cohorts is "The Changing Media Diet." I've been writing a paper on this topic, for publication either here or on my business website, but it keeps getting back-burnered. Perhaps I'll change the name so no-one confuses it with Heath's blog.
I could go on and on, suggesting blogs for you to read. Or you could just start at the top, the bottom, or the middle of the blogroll to the right, and read to your heart's delight. Do read Frank Paynter's Listics, if for no other reason than to see the occasional snarky comment from yours truly.
My Blog in Chinese!
Yes, my Significant Other (for over a decade!) is Chinese. Yes, I like to cook Chinese food, and I speak a tad (that's a very small tad, a tadlet, maybe ) more Chinese than the average American. And my laptop, on which I type this very blog post, is a Lenovo -- the Chinese company that purchased IBM's PC manufacturing division. But imagine my surprise when November became the month that the DeanLand referrer logs showed constant hits coming from those who read this very blog in Chinese!!! Yes, a Chinese version of DeanLand! Perhaps this should be called "Mainland DeanLand."
Want to see your blog in Chinese? If you are on my blogroll, just go to Chinese DeanLand and click on your link. The very top link is to Doc Searls' weblog -- wanna see Doc's blog in Chinese? Okay, click here. Wanna see David Weinberger's Joho in Chinese? Click here. This translation business is intercontinental by nature. Wanna see South African friend Mike Golby's blog in Chinese? Of course you do, that would be one from Column A, one from Column B -- so click here to read Mike's prose in Chinese.
You can also follow links on any of the translated pages to get a Systran/Babelfish translation of your blog or website. Yes, the net, yet again bringing us together, this time bridging language gaps. It is surely a Sino the times (yuk, yuk, har, har). No MSG was used in the composition of this blog entry.
