Solonor's Inkwell

Strengthen the Good Goal Met

Posted on August 31, 2004 by Solonor

Got an e-mail from the Strengthen the Good Network today that I thought I’d share.

This from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice website:

“In an effort to direct additional funds to nonprofit organizations in the areas devastated by the hurricane, the Board established the Hurricane Charley Disaster Relief Fund with an initial gift of $25,000 and voted to match contributions to the Fund up to $200,000. The community met the match this weekend.”

First to note is that they increased the level of the match to $200,000 from $100,000, and indication of the volume of support.

I’m sure STG-related contributions helped in meeting the goal (and I’m working to find out how much, if we can). Great work all, and thanks for working to strengthen the good!

(Hopefully, we won’t need it again for Frances!)

Posted in Strengthen the Good | 2 Comments

Whiny the REALLY Elder

Posted on August 27, 2004 by Solonor

I would erase the previous entry, except it’s a useful reminder not to blog when I’m having a bad day.

What I meant to say was that I am going to try to step away from the PC for a bit and concentrate on finishing at least one music CD. It’s not that I can’t blog and record; it’s that I don’t. I find a thousand excuses (aka, hyperlinks) every time I sit at the computer. Plus, I’m wicked bad at resisting the urge to make snarky comments on other blogs. So, I just need to turn it off and focus.

What happened was I got that message mixed in with some general blahs, a bit of overtiredness, and melancholy from looking at old photos of my kids. Then, I just went over the top with that “my whole blog world is falling apart…waaaah” crap.

Oh well, I’ve done it before, and I’ll probably do it again. You’re the idiot that keeps reading my spewage (and thanks for the encouraging words, by the way).

So, for real this time, I’m getting off this sucker until I can produce something worthy for you to listen to.

But before that happens, I found the following little passage at Orange Haired Boy. It sums up my feelings for a certain blogger quite nicely:

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Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything | 9 Comments

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Posted on August 26, 2004 by Solonor

Lots of comings and goings in the ole blog world. Michele and Zuly quit their blogs. Tracy locked hers up last night because of spammers. I just looked at a post from January 2003 where I linked to 47 bloggers that I thought were pretty cool. Out of those, 31 of them have either quit, moved or don’t dig me anymore. That’s just 16 bloggers in the spot where I left them only a little over a year ago. (I have this bad habit of pretending there are real people behind these blogs, and I actually worry about them. Silly me.)

I’m feeling kinda manic depressive about the whole blogging thing. It was just last week that I was blogging up a storm (uh-haaa), and now I feel like shutting the whole mess down and letting it overgrow with spam.

But I’ve been in that dark place before. This is not a goodbye post. It’s just the blog circle of life, babies: One minute, you’re king of the geeks with a thousand visitors a day and people hanging on your every word. The next, you’re just typing random crap that no one will ever read into a personal website to entertain yourself and your wife and kids. I don’t have a problem with either one. I’ve just decided to get off my ass and finish that CD I’ve been promising people since March.

If you’re really bored, dig through my archives or hit the Random link while I’m gone. There’s some pretty funny stuff in there, even if I do say so.

See you on the dark side of the moon.

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | 24 Comments

Get your kicks

Posted on August 24, 2004 by Solonor

When I was a kid, we spent a lot of time on the road. My parents were the type who loved to spend weekends just driving around. We’d pack a lunch on Saturday morning and take off exploring the rest of the day. I don’t know how many times I heard: “Hey, we’ve never been down this dirt road before!” (One time, we spent an entire day driving through Connecticut and western Mass using the apparent position of a rainbow as our guide.)

Since then, my job has involved a lot of travel. I’ve been to every state but Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the last 10 years. One of the things I noticed rather quickly was that if you don’t take the time to veer off the prescribed path, then Honolulu can wind up looking pretty much like Minneapolis or Dallas or Nashville…

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Posted in Wouldya Lookit That! | 6 Comments

Solonor Sez

Posted on August 23, 2004 by Solonor

Here’s a new feature of the Ink Well in which the author (who has been the answer to life, the universe and everything for almost two months now) will share his unending knowledge with his vast throng of readers.

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Posted in Rants 'n' Whines | 23 Comments

You weren’t gonna win the lotto anyway, silly.

Posted on August 23, 2004 by Solonor

The Strengthen the Good network has come up with its first charity: The Gulf Coast Community Foundation Of Venice Hurricane Charley Disaster Relief Fund

Last Tuesday The GCCF of Venice Board of Directors voted to match contributions to its Hurricane Charley Disaster Relief Fund up to $100,000, noting they are “pleased to be able to offer a means for giving where 100% of the donations will be directed to the agencies providing the services required to sustain and improve life for the victims.”

Think about chipping in a buck or two to help your neighbors recover from this disaster – especially when you get twice as much bang for your buck! Just this week, take that dollar you were going to lose on the lottery and make it do double duty in Florida.

Meanwhile, outside the STG Net, I’m gonna get all “Charlie Church” on ya (bite me, Natalie) and remind you that your neighbors live beyond the imaginary grease pencil marks on a map. Kids are dying every day in Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, and other places outside the U.S. and (incredibly) inside it, too. There are scores of organizations dedicated to the fight against hunger. Pick one. Give them your spare change. Each quarter you dump out of your pocket before you go to bed can provide a meal to a starving kid.

(If you’re like me, you want to be sure your spare change gets to where it’s intended. That’s why Kids Against Hunger is a good choice. ‘cuz I know one of the executive directors and can lay the smackdown on her ass if it don’t, yo.)

Posted in Strengthen the Good | 1 Comment

Keep behind me. There’s no sense in getting killed by a plant.

Posted on August 21, 2004 by Solonor

Here at Nerd Central there are a few things that we do very well. Then there are those that we avoid like the plague. (We don’t really avoid the plague. It’s just that it never has nice things to say when it visits, so we don’t call it over for dinner like we used to.)

Anyway, one of those things is yard work. Yes, it’s true. I suck at yard work. I suck so bad that the kids in the neighborhood are calling me Sucky McYardsuck. I just don’t appreciate the finer points of ripping plant life out of its nice warm bed just so another one can take its spot. The lawn mower is too loud and gives me a headache. The pool stays green no matter how many thousands of dollars of toxic chemicals I put into it. And did I mention that there are vicious animals like ants and mosquitoes and frogs out there? *shudder*

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Posted in Carnival of the Vanities, Life, the Universe and Everything | 6 Comments

The Formula for Helping

Posted on August 19, 2004 by Solonor

Robyn reports that Tampa station WFTS says there is a strong need for small containers of liquid baby formula in the area most affected by Hurricane Charley. They still don’t have electricity or an abundance of water. So, they can’t refrigerate the larger containers, and they can’t mix up the powdered stuff.

If you would like to help, then send an e-mail to the baby formula manufacturers (Enfamil, Similac, Nestle, Bright Beginnings) or retailers (Albertsons, Eckerd, Publix, Target, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Winn Dixie, etc.) and ask them to donate a case or two. You can even use the same e-mail Robyn wrote. If everyone that reads the blogs of the STG Network contributes an e-mail or three, then at least one of those corporations should respond.