I’ve been exercising again. Been exercising my WordPress blog-building muscles. Since work is scarce, and I needed to numb my mind from all that’s going on, or not going on around me … I decided to rebuild my WordPress blog. Make it more evil than ever! Moo ha ha ha ha ha!

As usual, I scoured the Interwebs for the perfect WordPress theme. I found them. Tried them. And shunned them. Most were not to my liking for some reason or another. I even tried to bend them to my needs. But alas … they broke. So I decided to find a “starter theme” and design and use it for the building blocks of  something I could call my very own. You can’t believe how many of those little “starters” litter the Internet landscape! But I found the purest. Simplest. Humblest. Most promising one and turned that sucker out! I believe this may be my third redesign. Could be more. But that’s not important.

In this version I bench pressed some cool new CSS goodness using the Google Web Fonts, (Cabin, Francois One, & Nunito) to help develop a more personally pleasing look, and crunched some new menu-system called UberMenus. In the days/weeks to come my menu navigation will be rather awe-inspiring. I started building new rotating banners that link to my posts too. I also coded a fully “widgetized” footer. Yeah … I’m struttin’! Uh huh! (Until someone tells me it looks like shit on their Win-doze box, with Internet Exploder!) Continue Reading > > >

Every once in a while I get an urge and I have to follow it. It’s wasn’t all that long ago I did a redesign on my blog. The WordPress theme that I am now using is called The Unstandard 0.1 by Derek Punsalan.

I like that it is more visual. In my old theme I was getting to distracted by the colors, and how “busy” it was all getting. Though my blog is getting mondo hits these days … I don’t mean that kind of busy.

So I dressed it up … to dress it down.

I also like the way articles are presented, in a more “magazine’ fashion. And baby you KNOW I’m all about fashion! NOT!

So look around the site, check out all the new posts about the A’s, Jr Smoots, Springsteen et. al. … and have fun.

Last but not least … I like the new comment buttons on the landing page of the blog. Very easy to see and thus … very easy to leave comments. Plus … the article shows comments at the bottom of the page, plus the comment field, which again, makes it easy to leave comments. Notice a theme here? So … if you drop by … say hi in the comments … let us all know what you think.

Peace & One Love ….  Joe

The window opens. Cold air rushes in. Smells of wood smoke and fall crisp air envelope me like memories invoked. Autumnal skies of blue, gilded golden yellow, reaching to the horizon where heaven meets earth . I’m six yeas old again, on a Sunday ride through mountainous New York state. Are we there yet? No. Not yet Joe. Uncle Frank’s is still two hours away. To a six year old, how long is two hours? And exactly where is Norwalk Connecticut anyway? Traveling up the New York State Thruway in that old dull white rusting Rambler … gazing out the window at the red, green, gold of oak and maples as their leaves tumble in fall. A narrow beam of sunlight glints on my wide open daydreaming eyes. With that spark I’m back headlong in the Cascades of Washington State. No. The destination isn’t Uncle Frank’s. It’s Leavenworth. Leavenworth, WA. Continue Reading > > >

Yes it is true. It’s been a while since I posted last. But isn’t that nature of blogging? Or is it the nature of my laziness? I’m going with … nature of blogging. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I guess I could say ‘Oh … I wasn’t doing anything because my hands hurt.’ Or … the steroids they put me on to decrease the inflammation in my hands, which it did, had me very depressed, which I was. Yeah two weeks of tapering steroids will do that to you. And to me too. Oh yeah. THANKS Harriet for correcting my perceived dosage plan. I’m glad you read my little pill calendar/chart. The steroids did help. Now that I’m off the steroids, the pain is back. Not as bad, but I’m still having ‘issues’ with picking up objects, or grasping. Yippy! Continue Reading > > >

I’ve been back with T-mobile for almost a month now. I’m a happy camper once again. Who wouldn’t be with an employee plan, compliments of my partner Chris and T-mobiles Domestic Partner benefits. My iPhone has been lying fallow for that long too. I did bring it back to NJ with me, for my Mom’s surprise 80th birthday party. But it was odd to pack the iPhone, which I loaded with pictures to show all my long lost relatives moments of their lives … and my Motorola Product(Red) SLVR. I knew there would be much “shock and awe” from the iPhone. Most of them never saw the mythical iPhone in person before. But most of them were amazed that I could have these old picture on such a newfangled device. I got a lot of … “how did you do that?” Continue Reading > > >

Sometimes, I’m told people can see right through me. I never know if they mean I’m transparent, or I’m hiding something, and what is hidden is transparent. A conundrum to say the least. Today I might wish that ‘transparency’ were indeed the case.

It started with a sharp stabbing pain in my right hand. This had occurred, to some degree, in the past. I was told then, it was most likely carpel tunnel syndrome. Okay. I’ll bite. So way back when I was given some smelly bright blue polypro wrist straps, some anti-inflammatories and that was that. Hadn’t had an issue since. Fast forward several years, to two weeks ago …. and the pain. It started in the right hand. A week later and the left hand joined in … either in sympathy, or solidarity. Continue Reading > > >