Art / Design

I adopted a new kitty. He’s gradually making himself at home.

In the last few days, he’s made significant progress in breaking down the resistance of the other cats. They now can all eat in the same room, and Sammy (the grey cat) doesn’t hiss every time she sees the new cat.

He’s a hilarious little being. I haven’t had a kitten before — at least, not since I was a wee one myself — and I’m surprised every day by his unending energy and his ability to turn anything he encounters into a toy. He also makes the funniest sounds. He doesn’t “meow” or even “mew.” The noise he makes is more of a squeak or peep.

I still don’t have a name for him. I’ve looked for princely names to suit his apparent sense of entitlement and slight obliviousness to the concerns of others — Prince Hal is the closest so far — but I’m not sold on that. Suggestions?

Soon, we’ll be able to buy Stay Puft marshmallows. Perfect for making smores while telling ghost stories. Via murketing

How To Be Alone (via andyradorfman)

Nowadays, the Pittsburgh region is blessed with so many local meetups and tweetups and benefits and social media conferences that I’ve wondered whether there was still a need for Pittsburgh BlogFests.

But people continue to ask when the next BlogFest will be, just as people continue to list their new blogs on Pittsburgh Bloggers. And in truth, I’ve missed them.

So we’re going to have another one.

Pittsburgh BlogFest 20: The Return of the BlogFest

Come meet your fellow bloggers and social media types in a friendly, unstructured setting. BlogFest is an informal and friendly quarterly (or so, ahem) gathering of local bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, and anyone who enjoys life on the Internet. It’s more happy hour than meeting: No talks will be given, no credentials required.

WHAT: Pittsburgh Blogfest 20
WHEN: Friday, August 27, 2010, 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM and beyond
WHERE: Finnegan’s Wake (near PNC Park, 20 General Robinson St., North Shore, 412-325-2601), in the Pub Room
WHO: All local bloggers, podcasters, and social media folk of all stripes (and their friends… feel free to bring some even if they don’t blog!)

Food and beverages will be available for purchase from Finnegan’s Wake, as always. Arrive when you like, leave when you must.

SMOKING NOTE: As always, the room in which we’ll be blogfesting will be smoke-free. The rest of the bar allows smoking, so one can hop out for a smoke break. There’s a glass wall between, so the smokers and nonsmokers can stare at each other and see how the other half lives.

If you plan to attend, please send an e-mail to blogfest AT pghbloggers.org or RSVP on our Facebook event listing.

And speaking of the Pittsburgh Bloggers website: If you’ve wondered what’s happening with the site and why new blogs don’t seem to be listed with any regularity — or at all — please read this post about our plans to revamp the site.

The goal is to have the new site launched in time for BlogFest. Wish me luck!

My battle with my backyard continues. In recent weekends I’ve cut back more of the forsythia. See:

Progress!

I’ve chopped the bushes far to the right. At that point, there’s still another smaller bush or two, but most of the space is taken up by a rogue tree, which has multiple trunks of up to 3 inches in diameter.

The dread tree, hovering next to the deck

I need to upgrade to more significant chopping equipment. I may also need to watch out that I don’t take out utility wiring and maybe a neighbor’s window in the process of clearing that monster.

I was able to make such great strides thanks to the help of family. My brother-in-law again lent me a pickup to haul the stuff away, my parents allowed me to dump the cuttings on their land (under protest, in my dad’s case), and my brother Jude helped me load up the truck and trimmed small forsythia sprouts that were trying to gain traction.

The forsythia, as predicted, got right to work in regrowing.

These forsythia were chopped down to bare stalks less than a foot high. They’re now leafy and over two feet tall.

The crownvetch has regrouped and is spreading. It’s joined by another plant that also is virulent, but whose name I don’t know.

And yet, despite the regrowth, it’s clear that I’m making strides. I keep reminding myself, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

I’m trying out a new service that makes it easy to safely show your calendar to a colleague or client and let them choose a time to meet — and reserve the time on the spot. It’s YouCanBook.Me.

To use it, you need to also use Google Calendar to keep your schedule. Enter your Google account info in YouCanBook.Me, and it creates a shareable calendar of your future available time slots. Here’s mine:

You can adjust the length of time slots, start and end times for the day, which days are available, and more. This looks like a useful tool for any individual who has to make a lot of appointments — consultants, real estate agents, etc.

It would be less useful for those whose appointments overlap — a hair stylist, for example, who might be cutting one client’s hair while another client waits for a color process to complete. It also wouldn’t work for restaurant reservations, because you’d have to have a separate calendar for every table.

YouCanBook.Me has a counterpart service, WhenIsGood, which helps groups of people choose meeting times that work for all of them. I’ve used WhenIsGood for some time, and while it works terrifically well and is easy to set up and use, I’ve had mixed success in getting people to use it with me. That is, although everyone complains about how tedious it is to have to send emails back and forth to figure out a mutually-agreeable time, some people seem to be unwilling to try out a new solution — even one that’s dead simple to use.

But YouCanBook.Me seem even easier that WhenIsGood. I have high hopes. If you like, you can schedule a time to talk with me about it.

Frightened Rabbit are a band from Scotland, and I love both their sound and the poetry of their lyrics.

Of their songs, this is (so far) my favorite:

They’re on tour now in Europe, coming to the US in October. They’ll be in Pittsburgh on November 2.

I’m buying some tickets, so let me know if you’d like to come along or meet us there. Such fun it will be!

Big Big Design is co-sponsoring a fundraising event next Thursday: the MedExpress Ducky Derby.

On August 5, we’re racing hundreds of rubber ducks by floating them down Sullivan Run in Butler. The backer of the winning duck will win $1000.

Tickets to rent a duck for the race are $5. Interested in backing a duck or 5? Contact us and we’ll help you get your tickets.

Proceeds will benefit the Moraine Trails Scoutreach Program, which helps find creative leadership for boys who might otherwise not be able to access scouting programs.

In addition to the title sponsor, MedExpress, this event has been put together with the support of several organizations:
United Way of Butler County
Butler County Young Professionals’ officers
Butler Downtown
Butler County Chamber of Commerce
Big Big Design

Here’s a fun and funny fundraising event to benefit the Moraine Trails Scoutreach Program: the MedExpress Ducky Derby.

On August 5, we’re racing hundreds of rubber ducks by floating them down Sullivan Run in Butler. The backer of the winning duck will win $1000.

Tickets to rent a duck for the race are $5. You don’t get to keep the ducks you sponsor, but you do get the satisfaction of supporting a worthy cause and being part of a surreal, slow motion aqua race in the middle of a Pennsylvania small town. You know we’ll be taking lots of photos and video.

A little bit about the cause we’re supporting:

The Moraine Trails Scoutreach Program is a collaborative effort between Moraine Trails Council-Boy Scouts of America, Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center and The Salvation Army. It provides a “Scout Leader” and a “Role Model” for boys who would otherwise not be able to access the Scouting Program for lack of volunteer leadership and financial support. Scoutreach explores creative ways to involve parents who haven’t been involved in the past through a parent/son day at camp.

For tickets, contact me.

This event is sponsored by:
United Way of Butler County
Butler County Young Professionals’ officers
Butler Downtown
Butler County Chamber of Commerce
Big Big Design

The Moth is a live storytelling series. Sometimes the stories are true, and sometimes they are factual. Always they are interesting.

Here’s a sample.

The Moth will be in Pittsburgh in August, and I’m so looking forward to it.
American Shorts @WYEP presents The Moth in Pittsburgh

Nerves of Steel: Stories of Moxie and Might

Hosted by

Jessi Klein

Featuring stories by
George Dawes Green (founder of The Moth)
among others

Stories begin at 7pm
at New Hazlett Theater
Allegheny Square E.
Pittsburgh, PA

Tickets: $20, $25, reserved seating

http://www.pittsburghlectures.org/interior.php?pageID=238

If you can’t attend the event, they also have a podcast.

Recently, my niece Rachel found this white ceramic cat at my parents’ house. She carried it downstairs by herself.

The cat had been a Christmas gift for me years ago and was a prized possession. This was during a period when I was nicknamed “Pussycat Doggie Girl,” thanks to my habit of crawling around houses on hands and knees, either mewing or barking depending on whether I felt more like a cat or dog at the time.

I think that’s my father’s handwriting. He’d also have been more likely to include the date.

Sometime to shake things up I would be a horse instead, but somehow “Horsey Girl” didn’t stick as a nickname.

Thirty-some years later, my niece has taken up this animal-impersonation habit, completely on her own and much to the amusement of everyone. Here she is, a momma cat carrying her kitten.

She’s also been playing with the ceramic cat. She’ll put it and her stuffed kitty in a laundry basket and then crawl in with them, three cats in a nest together.

As adorable as that sounds, my parents decided I should take the ceramic cat to my own home — one tiny step toward clearing out clutter from their place. For now it’s in my living room. My live cats have taken little notice of it, until tonight when I took these photos to share on the blog.

I always thought of the ceramic cat as larger than life-size. It’s only now, seeing my real housecats next to it, that I see it’s been just about life-size all along.

Meow.