I'm home

Didn't really have time to post anything before leaving for the Ohio Episcopal Celebration at Kenyon, but I was sure I'd be able to get online at some point and check in. I was wrong. Once I arrived on campus, my GPS stopped working, as did my phone service/mobile web. Someone mentioned that I might be able to get a temporary account that would allow me to access the college's wireless web, but that too was wrong. I was then told of three local businesses that had wireless hotspots. I was able to get one of them to work, sort of-kind of. Meaning I could sometimes get access on my Blackberry, but never with my laptop.

I enjoyed the conference, but found it disconcerting to be unable to send a simple text message to my husband. And then there's the fact that I couldn't use the evenings, as I had planned, to prepare for the new quarter of teaching (which starts on Monday). But that plan really hinged on my ability to access the internet.

The upshot of all this is that I came home this evening instead of tomorrow morning, and I have to make up for lost hours of course prep, so I don't have time at the moment to share any details about the conference. But I did want to take this opportunity to say where I went, and how it is that I ended up being largely cut off from outside communication. I'd also like to thank Cat and puddle for making sure people could find the new comment threads when they didn't publish automatically.

Oh, and one more thing...

There's no place like home! ;)

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THIS is the link to today's thread.

THIS is the link to today's thread. . . .

From the White House Photostream

...at flickr. Posting it because I thought it was cool.



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Supporting shopkeepers and designers

About a week ago, I posted an excerpt from a blog post outlining the recent changes at CafePress. Manz left a comment saying "I'll be a very happy lady on the day I hear people say "I love the design by X and bought one through their online shop" over "I love cafepress - just bought one of their t-shirts."

I feel the same way. And, while I don't have a big enough megaphone to do that much to raise awareness, I'm going to do what I can.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that my husband Demetrius created a number of the designs that are available at CafePress. It used to be that, if we were telling someone how to find his designs, we could say, "Go to CafePress.com and search for (insert topic here)." These days, if we were to give those instructions, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. Toward the end of 2008, CafePress changed its volume bonus program so that only "shop" sales (as opposed to sales through the "marketplace") counted toward a volume bonus. I think it's called a "shopkeeper incentive program" now--you don't get the bonus unless you're actually the ones bringing in sales CP wouldn't be getting otherwise.

Okay, fair enough. I won't say that I like it, but I can see a certain merit to the argument that if it's CP that is doing the marketing and sales work, we shouldn't get a bonus on top of being able to benefit from more sales there.

But the changes as of June 1 are a lot worse than that. Now, if someone finds one of our designs (while Demetrius created most of them, the one I'll use as an example below is one of mine) through the CP marketplace, we get a flat 10% of the cost of the purchase. We can still set our own markup for shop sales, but we've had all of one shop sale since this new pricing structure took effect. By the way, it is often the case that when you buy the same item as a "shop sale", you actually pay less than you would if you bought through the marketplace. Not always, but at least a fair amount of the time.

Back to Manz's comment, incognita expressed a similar sentiment when she wrote, As many have pointed out – without the designers, CafePress (and every other POD company) would just be selling blank t-shirts.

If you agree, and are willing to go to a bit of extra effort to see that your purchases are benefitting the individuals who created the design you like (and not just the company that has done the best job marketing their blank t-shirts and printing process), I have a couple of suggestions.

First, let's say you do find a design you like via the CafePress marketplace. It used to be that when you found a design via their internal search engine, you would see a link to the shop where you could find more from that designer. Now, there are no longer links to shops in CP search results. The system is set up so that, if you find a design by searching the marketplace, you will be purchasing through the marketplace. This spells a real loss of income for shopkeepers/designers. But (at least, at the time of this writing) there is still a way of finding out who the shopkeeper is.

When I go to CP and type asperger's syndrome into the search, I can see some of Demetrius' designs in the results. Clicking on one, I am taken to a page where I see the following:

Instead of a link to our store, the link is a marketplace search for more designs at our store

http://shop.cafepress.com/?from=aspergersheart

Of course, this could change, but the way things work right now, the part after the = sign tells you what you need to find the shop, because shop urls are always www.cafepress.com/shopname. So, from the example above, you've learned that the shop url is http://www.cafepress.com/aspergersheart

After finding out which shop you want to buy from, I'm guessing you probably want to bookmark that and then clear cookies before going back to make the purchase.

Many shopkeepers and designers sell their designs through more than one Print on Demand company, but of course it wouldn't be cool to say so in your shop. But if you want to find out if a design you like is available elsewhere, you can try a Google products search. I tried one earlier on one of our designs. Since it features her cat, Stevie, my daughter gets 20% of whatever we make on it. It's an agreement we made with her several years ago, and was a steady little flow of pocket money for her for a while for a while.

Anyway, here are the first few results that showed up when I plugged quantum cat t-shirt into Google product search. You can see by the image that these are all the same design, but you can also see that it's available from different companies.

Anyway, if you see a design you like and wonder if it's available through other P.O.D. companies, that's one way you might find out.

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FRIENDSHIP

Yellow roses signify friendship.  I want to take this moment to thank the bloggers here at HEP for your true friendship and loyalty ~ to Howard Dean, to one another, to blogging.  This is where bloggers have remained faithful to the original intent of the Dean Community.  I am grateful. ♥

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Camp Coast Care

We had a visiting priest presiding at church today. I'd forgotten that our rector, along with a group of volunteers from my church, would be in Mississippi this week working with Camp Coast Care. I don't know how many trips there have been before this one, but I know there were a few. Usually it's been our deacon who goes with a group of Ohio State students. Anyway, I think it's cool what they're doing, and wanted to share.




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Weekend Open Thread

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

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Changes at CafePress

I've been meaning to say more about this, but with everything that's been going on around here, I haven't been able to forumulate a post yet. But this excerpt from the blog Eating the Lotus pretty much brings you up to speed regarding the current situation....

Sure, there had been indicators that all was not rosy in the CafePress camp in regards to designers – first they cut our volume bonus (a system that rewarded designers for selling a certain volume of products each month) late last year. Then one of the CafePress founders left the company – never a good sign. And then, in April this year, the news came through that CafePress had finally crossed the line of goodwill with the POD design community and would, as of June 1st, control how much each product would be sold for and how much money designers could make from their work (a questionable 10%) when selling via the CafePress Marketplace.

Essentially, we went from being akin to partners with CafePress, with the freedom to set our own prices and manage our own business in conjunction with the CafePress business model, to being employees who are expected to accept a flat fee for our unique and original work. I know that is not what I signed up for – especially when all the other POD companies continue to allow designers to name our commission for our creative efforts without interference.

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Tetris turns 25

Ah...I wasted many an hour in grad school playing that falling block game.

(Found the picture of the Tetris shelves here.)

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Open Thread

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

You know the meme has been successful when you search for "cheezburger" and Google doesn't even bother to ask, "Did you mean cheeseburger?"

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Godzilla Tree

Just saw a picture of the "Godzilla tree" for the first time today. Got a kick out of it, so thought I'd share.

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Open Thread

Wish I'd had time to do more sightseeing before coming home, but what are you gonna do?

Anyway, here's a picture I took as the plane was about to land in Washington D.C.

Didn't actually spend any time in that city--just long enough to catch a connecting flight. But I got a decent picture, so I thought I'd share.

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Post Towel Day Thoughts

Donna commented,

Guess it's Towel Day. Guess I know what I'll be wearing to work.

Think Howard will wear his towel first?
donna in evanston | 05.26.09 - 9:21 am

I started to respond in the comments, but it got long enough--and link-filled enough, that I decided I should just bump it to the front page.
..............
Towel Day was yesterday, actually
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day

But I'm sure it's the thought that counts. ;) As it happens, I went to the gym yesterday, so I was celebrating even though I wasn't aware of it.

This is from an article I just found:

May 25th is a High Holy Day for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans: it's Towel Day, the annual celebration of the life and work of the hoopiest frood of all, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy creator Douglas Adams.

There's some delicious irony there, what with the "High Holy Day" reference. Douglas Adams was, by all accounts, rather "devout" in his atheism. I recall reading a story about a man in hospice care who was comforted, as he approached death, that he knew where his towel was. Adams, when he heard about this, was apparently somewhat uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if that was because he was easily embarrassed, or if it was because of his concerns about the negative effects of religion.

But whether or not one believes in a "higher being" of some sort, I think we routinely see plenty of evidence that, as much as we might wish we could, we're not driving this thing. Speaking to an atheist, I would never say "Let go and let God"--in fact, even as a lifelong Christian I've never expecially liked that saying. But I think that there comes a time for most of us that we need to learn to "let go" of our sense of being in complete control of the events in our life.

I've already done half a dozen impossible things before breakfast today, so I will have to come back to these thoughts a little later...

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Feeding the ducklings in Virginia Beach

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The BABY CARDINALS fledged today!! (Day 10, right on schedule!)

O Frabjous Day!  Callooh Callay!  The baby Northern Cardinals have fledged away!

Northern cardinals breed between March and September. They usually raise two broods a year, one beginning around March and the second in late May to July. The second nest is often parasitized by brown-headed cowbirds. Nests are built by the female in dense tangles of vines or twigs in shrubs and small trees. The female lays 1 to 5 (usually 3) white to greenish eggs that average about one inch in length and one-half inch in diameter. Incubation begins when the last egg is laid, and is performed solely by the female. The male brings food to the incubating female. The eggs hatch after 11 to 13 days of incubation. The female broods the chicks for the first 2 days. Both parents feed the chicks a diet of insects. Both parents also remove fecal sacs from the nest. The chicks begin leaving the nest 7 to 13 (usually 9 to 10) days after hatching. The parents continue to feed the chicks for 25 to 56 days after they fledge from the nest. After leaving or being driven out of their parents' territory, young birds often join flocks of other juveniles. They may begin breeding the next spring. (Halkin and Linville, 1999)

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These must be the Witchducks...

Vimeo, the video uploader/converter used at Tumblr is being a PITA. Suddenly I have to wait forever to have my video converted--or, I could use their *paid* version and avoid such problems. Fortunately, Demetrius was able to send me a converted version of the video I took with my phone. Hopefully this works.


Just a quick reminder to anyone not knowing the history here. When I first arrived here in Virginia Beach, I was amused to see a street sign for a Witchduck Road. Weeks later, I decide I need to look for a new church, and find one which has a Wednesday evening bible study on Jonah. That sounds interesting to me, so I look up the church address so I can Mapquest it, and, guess what, it turns out it's on North Witchduck Road. I was going to go for the bible study anyway, but I was of course tickled at the coincidence.

Since I spent last weekend at home in Columbus, today was the first time I was actually able to attend a Sunday service at the church. After church, wanting to kill some time because I invariably come back to my hotel room either before or during the time when housekeeping is making the rounds, I decide to do a bit of exploring. I looked at the blinking blue dot on Google Maps (on my phone) that indicated my position, and saw that further north on the road there was a Witchduck Bay.

Well, goodness, I've got to get a picture of Witchduck Bay. Even if it is raining.

I drive a few blocks and see a "No Outlet" sign, so I turn around. And just then I see a "duck crossing" sign. So, I pull over to take a picture of that. (Hey, I gotta have souvenirs when this is all over with!)

And then, the very moment I have pulled over to the side of the road, I see Mama Duck hurrying across the street with her little ones. Now *that's* timing!

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SUPPORT THE KITTIES! (But don't tell them about this nest.)

It's hatching day for the baby Cardinals next door! Our neighbour called over and invited me to slip by and take a quick photo. Apparently, my lens was set for close-up, which is too bad. I was in a hurry to click the photo and leave the area, as the parent bird was in the bush and startled when I arrived. She left the nest (to distract me), so I was able to get a photo. I definitely saw two babies, and there could be a third. Or one may not have hatched yet and be under one of the others. They sure are NEW! They look exhausted from all the effort of busting out of the egg. I hope to try to get another photo on Monday after I'm back from Maine. That may prove more challenging with the parents guarding their brood.


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First they came for Charlie, now they’re coming for the kitties.

On Tuesday Evening the Alachua County Commission will hold a hearing concerning a “special exception permit” for Haven Acres Cat Sanctuary, Inc.

Haven Acres was established in 2003 by three people, including an experienced animal control officer, in an effort to “help the many stray, feral, and unwanted cats in Alachua County”. They purchased over eight acres of agriculturally zoned land in Alachua County. Given the zoning, they are permitted to have an unlimited number of farm animals, such as pigs or goats, but they can only have up to 20 cats without getting a special exception permit.

A group of people from High Springs, which is part of Alachua County have been fighting to prevent the cat sanctuary from getting this special exception permit. I’ve written about it in a post on my own blog, The Cat Farms of Florida. If you are interested in more of the background, please read my post there.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten all riled up about actions of ‘elected’ officials in Alachua County. I’m sure many of you remember the adventures of Citizen Grapski.

So, please, spread the word about Haven Acres Cat Sanctuary.

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M A Y ~ Let the planting begin!

This is the daffodil my 20 month old granddaughter brought me for Mother's Day. ♥

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