The Ant Farm

End of the Semester Woes

2010-04-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

AHHHH!!!!

How am I supposed to do all this? I have, at least, finished my E-Pub project for the final, so that's a major plus. I still have to revise my short stories, write two reflections for pedagogy, develop a syllabus, AND write my thesis. The thesis is probably about 5% written. Maybe 10%, if I scale upward. And I will have to write another 5-10 page case study for the MBA within the next few weeks on top of it. All in all, probably about 80 pages of writing over the next 3.5 weeks. Sigh...

At least I have one good thing going for me (on top of the many other that needn't be mentioned): I found a first edition copy of "Good as Gold" by Joseph Heller, signed. Booyah.

Observations...

2010-04-26T16:22:00.001-07:00

Tonight I am sitting in a class with a few of my E-Pub fellows. I do not usually sit in this classroom, but have undertaken the final "reflection" assignment for my Pedagogy class. This means observing Peter Toran's Screenwriting course on Monday 4/26. Gavin thinks I'm observing him, not Peter. He may be right, based on the reflection I have so far written.

This is interesting. Some of the ways in which the writers are talking about screenwriting are similar to the ways that we talk about fiction, or poetry, or plays. And yet some of them are drastically different. Images are obviously more important. Repetition seems to be a major component.

All in all, I'm kind of learning something beyond just the pedagogical methods that Peter is utilizing in his classroom. (yeah, he's a pretty good instructor by my standards, if you're wondering.)

New Job

2010-04-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. So I'm writing to you from my desk here at Oxford Club. I do a lot of different things both internally and externally for the company. Really enjoying myself, my colleagues, and the amazing historic mansions that we work in! I had a legal training meeting today in the little monument park outside the office. That was a hoot.

All in all A to A+ for Agora publishing so far.

Job Update!

2010-04-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

After three months of waiting...I finally have an answer.

I GOT THE JOB!

I start on Tuesday, April 20th and am getting a nice little salary, my own desk and office area, health/dental/vision, matching 401(k), city parking, and a gym membership! Woot.

Just so you know.

Today, I begin...

2010-04-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

...to turn this thing into an e-book! Woo. So all of you folks may soon be able to find some of my work on your Kindle, or on your Reader, or on your Nook, or on your iPad...

Freaky, huh? Don't worry, it won't cost much...

User-Testing?

2010-04-08T13:41:00.001-07:00

So......

I'm an arrogant sonuvabitch and think that my website is ridiculously simple. Therefore I am very unsure of how to test the user-friendly components of my site.

So let's go with....this.

Here are five tasks that I'd like to see users accomplish:

Visit http://tamagafukai.wordpress.com

1. Subscribe to have emails sent to you every time I post.

2. Locate the story "Mel Leopold the Brave"

3. Comment on a story

4. Access a Grandpa Uno blog story through Tama Ga Fukai

5. View and/or subscribe to Tama Ga Fukai's RSS Feed.

Ant Farm (Part Three)

2010-04-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

Mel writes stories for the Gazette that have to do with the town of Armitage, a relatively small town when compared to Carver City in the north, where he resides. Mel knows that because Armitage is such a small town, the obituaries he is writing will only take a few phone calls. A quick paragraph or two can be punched into his computer and he can move on to the firefighters’ strike. He makes the calls, putting as much detail into his questions as possible.

“I am sorry for your loss; were there children?” he asks somewhat lazily. The middle-aged female voice responds that there are, not were, children and lists their names and ages. Mel simply makes a note. “And pets?”

The firefighters’ arbitration began almost two years ago, when the town of Armitage refused the salary increases requested by the Local 599. Negotiations have been at a standstill, and there has been a large wooden sandwich-board sign in front of each firehouse counting the days since the contract expired: seven hundred and twenty-seven days to this point. This is not to suggest that the firefighters were no longer fighting fire; just to recognize that there are only so many battles which can be fought at once. The Fire Marshall and leader of the Local 599, which consists of six members, is an old man who has not set foot in a burning building since his son was in college. He is stubborn and belligerent, and rarely finds the time to negotiate with town officials to send the firefighters back to the front lines.

The town of Armitage is hardly in a rush, having only three significant and a dozen or so minor incidents in the past five years. With laws protecting the town against potential strikes, and a sense of civic responsibility on the part of the firefighters, it pointless to spend any more money than the town needs to. And as far as the mayor is concerned, fire-fighting should be voluntary. “Anything new?” Mel asks a representative of the mayor over the phone. He makes a note of the response, which is short, and returns the phone to its cradle.

Upon picking up the last of the sheets of yellow paper from the ticket spike, Mel recognizes the name of the middle school custodian instantly. It is not a revolutionary, mind-altering experience for him, just a sense of “Oh, well, that.” Mel said this audibly, uncomfortably, and rifled through his desk until he found what he was looking for: the letter from earlier that morning. In the top left corner of the hand-written envelope is scrawled N. Feinstein.

Job Update

2010-04-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, as we all know from reading my blog: I have been pushing for a job with the Oxford Club for almost two months. Last Thursday I went for my third - presumably final - interview with the company and left on a very very positive note, being told "we will decide by Monday and let you know Wednesday." Yesterday (Wednesday), I received the call.

'"Hey Andrew, we want to keep the ball rolling and have you come in to meet with Doug..."

GAHHH!!!

Fourth interview? I don't know what this is, but I have the feeling I've either got the job and they want me to clear this one final hurdle of seeing how well I will work with my colleague (the two of us would be a tandem).... or they are fans of torture. Next they'll say "Hey Andrew, we'd love to have you come in and go through some minor waterboarding before we hire you."

So Monday is the final day, right?

Final Project: Status Update

2010-04-08T13:21:00.001-07:00

So i chatted with Hope, the professor who teaches a design class before our e-pub class meets. She showed me how to find decent tutorials on how to work in Adobe Acrobat Pro so that I can make funky interactive e-books out of my stories. So far, I have put together a Word document of my stories which will be converted into PDF format. Next week, I plan on sitting down and editing it in Acrobat so that there will be chapter settings and hyperlinks and bookmarks and stuff. Way simpler than it sounds (so I'm told). We'll see how it goes.

Has anyone done this before that has input for me?

2010-04-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

So basic rule of thumb. If you're too busy to talk, talk fast. Take a lesson from my favorite new find: Aesop Rock. Great video. Also recommend "Big Bang". Guy's got great beats, interesting lyrics. Overall awesome sound. And he fits a lot into a small window of time.

April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T13:45:00.001-07:00

Here's an idea (which I tested yesterday):

Prank people on March 31st and convince them that it's actually April Fool's Day. This requires a lot of work. March is one of those whack-o months with an extra day on the end (like December...stupid December.) so it's not hard to make them think after March 30th that April 1st comes to follow.

Once you get them thinking it's April 1st, you can really snag them with a prank of some wondrous proportions, like filling their shower pipes with cranberry sauce (as I once did to Steve Rochette in 2004).

Then on the real April 1st, you can snag them again with another monstrous prank with preferably less of a saucy red mess.

Short Story: "Ant Farm" (Part Two)

2010-04-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Norman Feinstein works under-the-table at Armitage Middle School, offering his janitorial services at far less than minimum wage. He cannot collect paychecks or the VA will cut him off. His rent is cheap and his stipend covers his expenses and most of his vices, of which there is only one: Norm just can’t sit still without a book in his hand. And how many hours a day can one read without falling off his rocker?

Norm fell off his rocker while at an end cap display at Borders Books six days ago. He doesn’t always buy the books he wishes to read, and often brings them to the small in-store café. This month, the end cap is featuring scientific, religious, and philosophical writings dating as far back as the Mayans. Norm found these books six days ago and something snapped; it was almost audible when it happened. He read, and he read, and he read, sitting in the small wooden chair of the otherwise lifeless lower level of the Borders Café.

He read about planetary alignments, how the earth would soon fall into the center of the galaxy. He read about somewhere in Europe, where someone was developing a machine that creates black holes. He read about increasing rates in hurricanes and tornadoes, in floods and droughts, in tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. And when he finished reading – exhaustedly deciding enough was enough – he left the books on the table, ran from the store, and shouted into the crowded streets: “It’s all coming to an end, you idiots! Can’t you see?”

“Can’t you see?” he accosted a police officer at the scene of a car accident.

“Can’t you see?" he fluttered down a hill, nearly knocking a couple over. As they leaped out of his way, one tripped, and Norm audibly gasped, “Aha! It has begun! Can’t you see?” And he turned and ran around the corner and along the river.

Norm is a slinking sort of man, tall and old, looking almost fragile. His white hair traveled down to around his mouth and chin, long slender arms and legs not too unlike Mel Leopold’s. He most often wore the same thing: worn blue denim jacket with a stained white shirt underneath, brown slacks frayed around the ankles, thin brown socks and faded brown shoes. Norm was worn out when he found that endcap – the one that knocked him off his rocker – it was as if he found new life. Norm, at that moment, believed he was the only man in Armitage who could see, and it was his responsibility to open the eyes of these god-forsaken people.

Something to chew on

2010-04-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. So you are all probably wondering (just humor me on this, will you?) where I've been for the past few weeks. I'm gonna try to demonstrate for you why I have not been blogging in only a few short paragraphs.

Entire Month of March: "Partition" at Spotlighters Theatre. Every weekend was filled with three or four performances of this wonderful Ira Hauptmann play about math. I played one of the leads and ultimately turned my weekends into dark and deep abyss of solitude and struggling with lines.

March 4th: Signed the lease for my new apartment and moved in over the next 10 days.

March 13th: The plotting of my proposal to Stacie finally came to fruition, introducing her to our new home and engaging to be married. That's right folks, I'm off the market. Fiancee-status. (Christine Lincoln just asked me "what made you decide to do that?" My response: "There's a small part of my right brain that hasn't been functioning for about nine months...and that's what made me decide to do that."

March 27th: Finally put together the first major Theatrical Society event! Nancy Krebs came to UB and taught a 3-hour intensive vocal and body language workshop. Good job everyone! We will bring her back in the fall!!

Three new short stories, a proposal to Constellation Energy Group, a proposal to the City of Gloucester, MA, a proposal to the City of Norwich, CT. A lot of writing these past few weeks. (Hey, don't get too upset, I haven't even written Grandpa Uno in all this time...yowza)

I have also had to do financial industry comparison for Barnes & Noble. Ick, finance. Additionally, I have been researching my MBA thesis intensively.

Lastly: since the blizzard of 2010...Snowmageddon if you will, I have been vying for a new job. On April 6th, I will receive news as to whether or not I received it.

That is all.

~~Love me.~~

Love,

Me.

Nothing Changes Nothing Stays Short Film

2010-03-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

Directed by Andrew Keating

Impromptu Writing by Andrew Keating

Starring Heather Boyd and Andrew Keating

(Any other ways to say I ran the show? Cuz I did.)

Tama Ga Fukai: For Everything Andrew Keating

2010-03-04T09:59:00.001-08:00

Some of the wonderful things that are going on in the world of the Ant Farm are being featured in Andrew Keating's new Wordpress page: Tama Ga Fukai. Click the title link to access the site. There you will find new short stories, Grandpa Uno legends, Andrew's Thought of the Day, and you can even RSS Feed his posts into your daily lives! Shazaam!

Short Story: "Ant Farm" (Part One)

2010-02-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

He picks up yesterday’s mail from the kitchen counter. It is eight in the morning and Mel Leopold is barely awake, barely dressed, and barely worth mentioning. There are only two envelopes and a small book of coupons from local restaurants. He opens the first envelope and examines its contents as he walks down the driveway to where the newspaper was thrown. It reads:

In four days’ time, the world is coming to an end!

And just before the signature, the letter adds:

You idiot!

His warm feet skip along the cold wet asphalt and he bends to pick up the paper, stands, and deposits the second letter and coupon book into a garbage can on the sidewalk before walking hastily back to his apartment to take something of a shower. His head is covered in long, unkempt hair, shades of brown – dark at the roots and curling into lighter hues as the locks trickle down his forehead, over his ears, to the base of his neck. Mel’s eyes are the color of faded grass met by crow’s feet and dark, weather-worn rings. He has bone-white skin and a slight paunch, though his arms and legs are scrawny, a few years after giving up weekend touch football games with his brother. He keeps meaning to fulfill that gym membership he pays monthly for. There just isn’t much that has been keeping Mel going. Daniel, his brother, moved to Toledo after their father passed. It was a tumor.

Mel thinks he is a tumor, of sorts. The way people talk to him – refer to him – the thought is basically accurate. Reporters get that. He has been writing for the Gazette for three years, a job granted only after submitting four hundred and fifty-two consecutive daily letters to the editor, mostly covering the useless day-to-days that none of the other reporters find the time for. He will interview just about anybody; an editorial once claimed that he probably questions the wall every time he hits it when writing his articles. Mel is the least-paid employee of the small town newspaper.

The mornings are basic: Mel sets his alarm for seven o'clock, convincing himself nightly that he will jog in the morning. He wakes every morning at eight, just enough time to shower, maybe shave and read the newspaper with his stale black Folgers coffee. Mel reads his own articles and those on the same page as his articles in a cheap, armless lawn chair parked outside the sliding glass door of his first floor apartment. Water trickles down around him from the air conditioners of the apartments above as he audibly scolds other journalists for lacking information.

When his bus comes at five past nine, he jumps at the sound and runs to the corner to catch it; he arrives at his disheveled desk twelve minutes later, to the resounding scoff of his coworkers echoing through the cavernous workspace – the bullpen. He walks quickly and with his eyes facing downward, thinking about buying new shoes; the leather of the brown loafers was changing shades and cracks are forming in the soles. On his chair is a ticket spike with four notes driven through it. His editor places it there every morning so he doesn’t forget to do his job.

Today it is something about a middle school custodian, a pair of obits that didn’t make it through the night before, and updates on the firefighter strike. Mel pushes the notes back onto the spike and sits heavily into his chair. Obits will take him about an hour and a half, including info gathering, the strike will take about twenty minutes since nothing has likely changed, and the custodian deal – he doesn’t know. He will save that one for the afternoon. Obits, strike, custodian. That order.

He sets to work.

2/18 - 2/24 >> Celebrity To-Do List: Maria Mukhortova/Maxim Trankov

2010-02-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Well, we are a week into the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games! The United States has pulled out all the stops, claiming the top of the medal count, as well as the most golds (ten and five, respectively). Of course, we are surprised by Lindsay Vonn's will to win, and Mancuso's silver medal right behind her yesterday. We mourn the loss of the Georgian luge competitor who died in a practice run the night before Opening Ceremonies.

However, the greatest upset to have taken place thus far is the failure of the Russian pairs figure skaters. For the first time in half a century, Russia is not walking away with a gold medal in the free skate event. The gold and silver medals were awarded to Chinese pairs, leaving favored Mukhortova and Trankov asking "What happened?" The quick-throwing Trankov chucked Mukhortova down to the ice, missed a combination landing of his own, and watched in awe as his partner bent a little too low on a basic toss three minutes into their six-minute routine.

The staff of The Ant Farm, with dedication to lightening the mental burden of our readers, have researched the upcoming itineraries for Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov; and we are happy to present it to you today:

1. Salvage the poor performance with a short program medal, gold preferably.

2. Get in touch with Roman Polanski to find about countries without extradition policies.

3a. Return, likely medal-less, to Russia to meet with government officials

3b. Receive (unofficial) public flogging in Red Square (administered by a non-affiliate of the Russian Olympic Committee)

4. Release public apology for bringing shame equal to that of 1980 Hockey failure

5. Find new figure skating partners (Mukhortova may be running out of them at this point)

6. Melt down medals won from World Championships, European Championships, and National Championships to pay for skates and glittery costumes, now that government sponsorships will leave them.

7. Work on landings

8. Trankov to visit psychologist for OCD tendencies after the urge to rub a smudge out of the ice mid-combination 90 seconds into the performance.

9. Contact Brett Farve and figure out if it's the right time to retire or if they should give it "One more shot".

10. Try out for Disney on Ice: St. Petersburg.

Famous Overburdened Ants of History: Code Name 'Antromeda'

2010-02-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

1972 was a tumultuous year in the Cold War. The United States had publicly reached the moon first only three years before (despite the recent news that the Russians may have made it first. See here.), Sputnik was in orbit, and both countries were working to develop long-range nuclear missiles in order to gain stratistic (statistically strategic) military advantages. The difficulty was not in building a missile that could go the distance. Rather, the greatest issue that was being faced by both sides was the delivery of the payload to a specific targeted location, with the ability divert or initiate failsafe as close to the target as possible.

Of course we all know about the great trials that befell US scientists in keeping up with the rapidly advancing and far more dedicated Soviets. However, the creativity which was employed by science’s finest – including some of the children of those of the Manhattan Project (not that they were nearly as scientifically competent as their parents) – was unparalleled.

This cleverness is most clearly demonstrated in the ability of US spies to infiltrate some of the deepest recesses of Soviet information and technology. Now, we have all seen the children’s movies where a robotic insect toting some sort of camera device creeps into a top-secret meeting and plays “fly on the wall” to whatever information is being discussed. But did you know of the truth behind this tactic?

In 1972, the team comprised of children of the Manhattan Project was brought together to intercept top-secret Soviet technology information. They referred to this team as the Yonkers Project. They took the button-sized cameras that had been used by human spies for the past decade or so and attached them to a team of ants, which were then carried by undercover military personnel into Severnaya. When the undercover soldiers were reasonably close to the target in Severnaya, they released the ants.

One ant survived the mission: Code Name Antromeda. Antromeda was unable to get footage of the inside of any of the bunkers, but somehow found his way into one of the labs, where he successfully obtained and extracted a guidance chip prototype that the Soviets were working on.

The Soviets were well beyond expected means by this time, and should the guidance systems that they were designing have been employed, the United States may have fallen victim to the greatest nuclear threat in history. It is with great admiration that we salute Code Name Antromeda for his success in bringing back the technology that would keep the United States on pace with the Soviet Union during a crucial time.

Code Name Antromeda now joins the greats as one of Ant Farm’s “Famous Overburdened Ants of History”.

Famous Overburdened Ants of History: Marcus Antonius

2010-02-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

What great empire hasn't been built upon the societal threads of the Ancients - Greece and Rome? To this day, we, as young students, spent entire terms of history classes learning about the foundations of democracy in Greece; the foundations of empiric rule in Rome. What we never learned was that even these earliest forms of society had to stem from somewhere. Plato's Republic garnered inspiration somewhere beyond governmental criticism, didn't it?

Well, we at The Ant Farm did some digging.

Early political theorists were quite the entomologists. Who would have thought. Well, long story short (though we'll keep it moderately long anyway, because we can), the early Romans studied the structural organization of ants in devices not unlike what children of today call "ant farms". As early Roman ants developed new systems in new environments, human Roman politicians watched them adapt.

One ant, oddly male (we say oddly, because we now mostly see females of the greater power in ant colonies), had taken command of the workers in all capacities. He formed a small colony of ants that seemed to congregate in one area of the tunnels and would then disperse, and the other worker ants and females would then take heed to whatever message was being carried by what the humans called the "senantors". The lead ant was named, by human scientists "Marcus Antonius", which a later Roman would pay tribute to when granted the position of Emperor of Rome. The Roman Senate attempted to model those of the senantors as well; however their efforts were frivolous, and they were corrupted by political issues and the inequality of disbursement of money, power, and responsibility.

For the sake of modern cinema, historians who recovered the data related to the early Romans' sources of empiric rule created a fictitious movie script, labeling a character loosely based on Antonius as a villain, rather than a hero. The film was Antz, with the voice of Gene Hackman in the role based on Antonius.

To this day, no human system has matched that of Marcus Antonius (the ant), and his senantors.

And this concludes another edition of Famous Overburdened Ants of History.

Video of the Week

2010-02-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

Favorite actor mashed up with least favorite musician. First: lyrics suck. Second: you can't understand what she's saying half the time, even if you wanted to. Third: she won a fucking Grammy!

So enjoy this wonderful video, where Christopher Walken salvages an otherwise horrible song!

To Do List 2/8/10 - 2/14/10

2010-02-09T09:15:00.001-08:00

So you would think that with the Snowmageddon (spelling on this faux word?), I would be able to get a ton of work done. Nope! I got started on the new short story - yahoo! - read a few chapters of pedagogy texts, worked on Grandpa Uno publicity campaigns, and did the financial requests for Theatrical Society. But that still leaves me WAY behind schedule on getting work done. With rehearsals and flying to New England this weekend, I'm in for a hellish week.

Just remember, life is what you make it - so fake it.

Lindemann Chapters 7-8

Lindeman Chapter 12

St. Martin's Chapter 6

St. Martin's Chapter 8

St. Martin's p. 452-465

Reflection essay for Pedagogy

Write three questions for Pedagogy

Dickens: Bleak House Chapters 1-4

The Dante Club

~~Write new short story for workshop~~ (email if you're interested in reading)

Karen Shepard Story

~~New Yorker, Feb. 8~~

~~Single Carrot Ticket Raffle~~

Single Carrot Invoice Submittal

Nancy Krebs Invoice Submittal

Set up Theatrical Society meetings

~~Funding Requests for Theatrical Society~~

~~12-page Paper on Afr-Am. Women/Communists in Great Depression~~

~~Interview with Oxford~~

Writing portfolio for Oxford

Sony Corporate Ratio Analyses

Find five articles for MBA Thesis

~~Write two Grandpa Uno blog stories~~

~~Blog for E-Publishing~~

~~Constellation Energy Group Grant~~

Bearman Foundation Grant

Memorize "Because you didn't say..." scene

~~Memorize "I heard you" scene~~

~~Memorize "Another?" scene~~

Memorize "Good God!" scene

Memorize "I know who you are" scene

~~Rehearsal 2/11/10~~

Fly to Boston 2/12/10

Grandpa Uno is full-steam ahead and gaining speed! New stories every week. Check the blog, become a fan on Facebook. No joke. You should really be following Grandpa. The man is a dead living legend.

Famous Overburdened Ants of History: Ferdinant Magellan

2010-02-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

In 1519, Ferdinant Magellan took to the seas, leaving from Spain with over two-hundred other ants. It was a small vessel - the Trinidant - as ants are small creatures, and amidst disease and extraordinary circumstances, the crew lost all but 18 members in returning to Spain in 1522; successfully circumnavigating the globe.

The Ant Farm celebrates Ferdinant Magellan's accomplishments as the first of our Famous Overburdened Ants of History.

To Do List 2/1/10 - 2/7/10

2010-02-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

In light of blog theme: "For the Overburdened", I have decided to share my weekly To-Do Lists exactly as they appear in my weekly planning notebook; as well as their hopeful/eventual completion! Share your day plans, gripe about regular frustrations, or simply rag on your boss/significant other/or parental units for putting too much pressure on you!

~~Lindemann Chapters 1-4~~

Lindemann Chapters 7-8

Lindeman Chapter 12

St. Martin's Chapter 6

St. Martin's Chapter 8

St. Martin's p. 452-465

Reflection essay for Pedagogy

Write three questions for Pedagogy

Dickens: Bleak House Chapters 1-4

Write new short story for 622

~~Ben Marcus Story~~

Karen Shepard Story

New Yorker, Feb. 1

Single Carrot Ticket Raffle

Single Carrot Invoice Submittal

~~A Study In Scarlet~~

~~Sign of Four~~

Nancy Krebs Invoice Submittal

~~Email Theatrical Society~~

~~Set up Theatrical Society Meetings~~

Funding Requests for Theatrical Society

12-page Paper on Afr-Am. Women/Communists in Great Depression

Sony Corporate Ratio Analyses

Find five articles for MBA Thesis

~~Write two Grandpa Uno Stories~~

Blog for E-Publishing

Detailed list of Corporate Grantmakers

Memorize "Because you didn't say..." scene

~~Memorize "I heard you" scene~~

~~Memorize "Another?" scene~~

Memorize "Good God!" scene

Memorize "I know who you are" scene

Rehearsal 2/4/10 (Cancelled! - Moved to 2/11/10)

Also, feel free to read and enjoy Grandpa Uno !!

Chart to describe how I am spending my week. And yes, Spiderman and Princess are integral parts to my daily routine:

Some interesting blogs I've come across

2010-01-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

Chuckle chuckle, I say. This one is (or was) maintained by Stephanie King and her husband, two teacher/writers that also have a blog related to their upcoming adoption processes. While I cannot say I'm crazy of the blog, I can say with absolute certainty that I do enjoy that they used Mr. T's "Treat Your Mother Right", which I have decided to also add to my blog.

http://thisisjustmy.blogspot.com/

Well, this next one here is not actually a blog. It's an artist's website for a recent graduate of MICA by the name of Courtney Ay. She and I began speaking about bookmaking and so forth, which she minored in. Not only am I urging you to spend some time looking at the actual work that she has done (because for us CWPA students, this stuff is pretty darn fantastic!), I want to emphasize the quality of the layout, the ease with which the pages are maneuvered. Very attractive site. Good ideas to keep in mind.

Who says simple can't be perfectly great? This gentleman - we'll call him "Bob" - has put together a pretty straight-forward blog of his poetry which is both plain and interesting. I guess one thing to keep in mind is that we don't need the bells and whistles distracting us from our writing. If we really want to showcase what we're doing, sometimes it's better to keep the focus on the words. In Bob's case, he keeps the plain white background, a simple header, and standard black text. It reads smoothly and uninterrupted. Bob also interjects some quirky little observations that I enjoy, such as "Coke Zero is like the greatest drink in the world for a Coca-Cola junkie on a diet." It makes me wonder how many definitions there are for the word "zero" and if there is a Coke Zero for cocaine junkies on a diet...

I realized, though, that when reading a blog, it is often difficult for a newcomer to follow a reflection or reaction to something previous, since more recent posts are listed at the top of the page. For instance, we may mention something like "this week was a lot easier than last (as I'm sure you'll all remember!)". But the newcomer won't remember, nor will they have the previous knowledge from having just read it in a top-to-bottom manner.

Here at The Ant Farm

2010-01-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

We at The Ant Farm celebrate the overburdened. Ants are able to carry up to ten times their own weight; and which of us hasn't felt that we do the same from time to time. Too many classes, too many papers, too many meetings, too thick a travel itinerary. You name it, someone out there feels your pain.