Welcome to FoxVox

Live Blogging From New Orleans. Via Wired… there’s an ISP on the tenth floor of a corporate building in New Orleans that’s still going (via generator and a fiber optic cable buried deep underground) and they are blogging around the clock in two teams – they have links to videos and photos and lots of ‘on the street’ kinds of happenings. (Reminds me of the Iraq blogs – way too similar in some ways.) Here’s the Blog (might be a mirror of a LiveJournal account).

Design For A Cause – “Hurricane Katrina ripped through coastal Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama causing devastation and death. Thousands are in need of basic supplies; food, water, a place to sleep… a hot shower. In response to this crisis, Design for a Cause has gathered designs and products you may purchase to show your support AND help support those in need.” Reputable Cafepress shopowners have created t-shirts with Katrina-related designs on them. Profits will go to charities like the Red Cross, and wearing the shirts will help spread the word even more.

Also, I’d like to add that there was a shopkeeper chat yesterday and I learned that Cafepress is getting some dry clothes to the victims down there as well. Way to go!

With all the new stuff going on at cafepress I’m up to my ears with adding new products (they have very nice FRAMED ceramic tiles now, which I’m very excited about – cherry frames – very classy), and their upcoming affiliate program and new search engine… And then my 2006 Celtic Calendar and California Wildflower Calendar will be available soon so I have to update THOSE pages. And then there’s regular website administration on top of all that. Well, at least here I can just spew dramatically about being SO busy – oh, the pain, oh the pain of it all! *grin*

Also, after a few fire ant attacks in the dog food dishes, we’ve had to be really careful about not leaving anything out. Have you ever been bitten by a fire ant? Mostly, a stray one will walk across the top of my foot and OW! They’re small, but they can STING.

Maybe for my next post I’ll have something a little more interesting to write about – LOL. Like maybe that old tupperware container in the fridge that neither John nor I want to open – now THAT would be EXCITING! 😉

Our Dichotomy Opens The Combat! Anything translated from one language and into another language and then back again is funny. But check out this double translated version of Revenge of the Sith – English to Chinese to English – on a bootleg DVD of course. *grin* (Props to BlipFish for the link.)

I recently finished reading “Two Years Before the Mast” by Richard Henry Dana. It says that the copyright is 1935 on the inside cover, but the book itself was written around 1840, and is a travel diary of sorts (an old library book that I found in my collection but never read before). A college man leaves his studies to get a break from book work, and signs on a merchant sailboat for a two year stint. They leave from Boston, him never having been on a boat before (and he gets seasick almost immediately), and head for the west coast, which is still pretty much wild, and spend most of their time collecting hides to bring back to Boston. It was a bit dry at times, especially the descriptions of furling this sail or that sail, since there was hardly any context to understand it by, but otherwise really interesting. If you ever wanted to know how it was to be a sailor on board a ship, read this book. Pirate movies are terrific, but really romanticize the whole ‘life at sea’ thing. There are magnificent storms and horrible living conditions and tedious tasks, learning to sew, eating mostly meat and tea everyday, and he spends a lot of time describing his time on the west coast. All of the ‘natives’ and the ports in San Diego, Santa Barabara, Monterey, and San Francisco (when there was no Golden Gate Bridge to speak of, and hardly and people, but a TON of deer), etc. As I’m currently living in California a bit east of Monterey, it was cool reading a perspective from so long ago.