catching up and apologies tendered

Ha! And there you thought I might be apologizing for past snarkiness. Maybe I could issue a blanket apology quarterly. Any apologies tendered are for neglecting Mountainair Arts. Temporary only. This, my "flagship blog," runs no risk of turning into the stepchild blog. I've not been totally idle. I've been posting daily - sometimes twice daily - Trigo Fire updates to Mountainair Announcements, which also includes event announcements, such as reminders about this week in Mountainair. The whole premise/purpose behind Announcements blog is to spread posts out and have a place just for public service messages and announcements. I won't be posting so many of those here but will remind you from time to time. Please note too, the Mountainair Announcements widget in the right hand column.

Trigo Fire pictures from KOBTV

Then there was the Blue Screen of Death. I hooked up the backup tower and kept on, unfortunately bereft of files. I meant to do Earth Day big time and pinched a witty excuse but since noticed references to "Earth Week," which gives me another couple of days. After all, shouldn't every day be Earth Day? More later - maximizing immediate and local relevance, I've collected articles on global warming and wildfires.

But... the big news is my column (Neighbors series, Community section) in the MountainView Telegraph, first one to appear in today's print edition - can't find it in the online edition though. I will be canvassing you (gentle readers as Dickens might address you) for ideas - suggestions, input. The column is to be a "light hearted look" at East Mountain life. It is also a media voice not mine alone but of Mountainair and life here, neither paid advertisement nor hype-laden press release. I don't expect everyone always to like everything I have to say; I will, however, be attentive to all comments and input, respecting any requests for anonymity (as long as I know who you are). Don't expect special treatment but trust me to be fair.

Before I forget, let me also give a neighborly welcome to a new blog in the Mountainair blogosphere - Jude Mowris' Notes from Straw Mountain. Take a look. Besides being an illustrated chronicle of her work and studio, Jude's Notes comments on the fire, include pictures - views of the burning mountain from their back porch, humongous smoke clouds and the firefighter "tent city" at the Mountainair Activity Center.

I've also been somewhat more active on the Poets & Writers Picnic blog because of April being National Poetry Month. Admittedly, fire aggravated breathing problems have slowed me down more than I care to admit. Still schizo on how to parse out words and time over multiple blogs.

Web pages are further down on the list than they probably should be. All my notes are on aforementioned fallen tower. Chamber web page overhaul - haven't gotten all that much feedback from chamber member on new colors/layout, so I'll probably be running them and a few basic questions by you for input. Light or dark page background? Colors? Let me know.

I am also picking away at re-organizing folders/pages on Mountainair Online (web site not the blog) in bits and pieces. I am still having file migration and domain redirect problems but do have files copied from vcrary to mountainair-online. I gave up on host removing one body part from another body and just ftp'd them over myself. It will be while before all is in order but at least a number of original pages, some renamed, are available - complete with bad links that I will get to as I can. Sunflower Festival (particularly high on restoration list what with event approaching & no blog), Poets and Writers Picnic, chez Vanessa.

It will be a while before google catches up with me & rankings return to pre-move. Not sweating it though - not high on the Great Chain of Being. Non-commercial sites should not live or networship b(u)y the gospel according to Google