Thoughts Of An Old Friend Brings Back Many Memories

Have you ever "run into" an old friend in dreams? I "ran into" one last night, and I'm so very pleased that I did. My friend Marilee was an old friend, probably from the late 1990's to early 2000's. We shared a love of beads, and were on a chat board of similarly-minded people from across the nation. I don't think we had any international people with us at that time - it was the early days of the internet. 

Do you remember the days of dial-up modems 
and the sounds that accompanied getting connected 
to your internet provider of choice? I can still 
hear that electronic sound today when I think of 
those days. 

When I first learned to bead in the very early 1960's, it was with the old "Indian" Bead Loom that I still sell in the store today, and a small booklet that my Mother bought for me that had some patterns in it. I'm quite sure my first attempt was horrid - poor bead choices and lots of tension problems, but that's to be expected, I was somewhere between 6-8 years old and not known for my patience. My mother knew beading, but only as an adjunct to her sewing - as an embellishment on fabric, not self-supporting ornamentation. 

This is more the style of beading that 
Mom would do - a lot of embellishment 
on clothing of various types. Of course 
I wanted to do what she did, so she taught 
me some basics and bought me my first 
bead loom. 

I beaded on and off for many years - it wasn't an obsession, but I enjoyed the process. I made my own looms from 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 boards, and I learned beading as applique, which is how my Mom used beads. Many years later, when we had opened Stormcloud as a store for Native American art and items, we kept being asked about beads, whether we carried them mostly, and my interest was piqued once again. 

I was happy with AOL, we had a strong beading community 
on there and we interacted daily, sharing patterns and just 
getting to know each other. I'm still in touch with some of 
those people today, more than 20 years afterward. 

Then the internet hit. It was the early days - there were three main carriers or chatting areas, and after trying a couple, I settled on AOL (which I still use to this day, quite happily). This was also the early days of chat boards, laptop computers, and the heated war between Apple and IBM. There were chatboards for beading, and I joined those. I clearly recall Emily's List - she would put a new pattern up once a week,  (in words, there weren't photos or were minimal diagrams at that time), and the rest of us would exchange questions/answers and try out the pattern if it interested us. I still have reams of papers from that era - patterns and discussions. I even ran a short-lived beading chat board of my own for a while. 

In the early days of Bead & Button Magazine, 
self-published by Alice, we kept developing 
a community. When she sold the magazine to 
Kalmbach publications, it exploded on the 
crafting world, and they started holding 
annual get-togethers of classes and vendors. 
Those early days were heady - so much fun! 

Then things exploded - the internet hit with full force. Suddenly there were web sites, competitions, exhibitions and challenges - our little group of AOL beaders expanded, then exploded into the greater internet. My greatest joy was meeting some of the people from these boards in person, exchanging information, showing projects off back and forth. These were the very beginning days of the Bead & Button Show, and the magazine of the same title was just getting started too. 

I knew Marilee had passed, but hadn't thought 
of her for years. We were quite close, and I 
was shocked when I heard she had died. I looked 
up her obituary and memorial today. She was 
a year younger than I am, but she had some 
serious health issues, so it wasn't unexpected. 
Still, I'm finding that I'm missing her today, and 
I have marked her death date into my calendar 
so that her memory won't be forgotten. 

So why go through all of this ancient history? Because I met an old internet friend in my dreams last night. Marilee Layman was a good friend who lived out East, but she came to the Twin Cities several times to attend a particular "Con" that was held annually. She would sing at the Con, and she had an amazing voice. We would try to get together for a meal when she was in town. She passed, many years ago, but I had a chance to see her in my dreams last night and give her a good hug. Sometimes dreams can be a very good thing. Have a great Monday - enjoy your day. 

Doom, Gloom and Destruction - Electronics Style

Yesterday was better for tech in my life, but what a horrible several days! I'm so happy they seem to be over. I ended up working through the sign-on to the Business portion of Social Security with them on the phone with me just in case something went screwy. No faith, me! But everything actually went really smoothly and my questions were answered. I was able to get the data entered correctly and ready to print out. 

HOWEVER 

My printer at the shop, that had been warning me that it needed new ink soon, decided now was the time. I changed the requested ink cartridge and suddenly what had been aligned and beautiful printing, was corrupt, horrible, and unreadable. Call me unhappy once again. After fussing with it for more than half an hour, cleaning, testing, re-cleaning, aligning, etc., I finally gave up and decided to print the forms from home last night - which worked out fine. 

I have an old Epson NX-420 at the shop. We don't do a lot of
printing there, so it's fine, and it's been used and abused for years.
I might have to declare it dead, although I'm still going to try
a few things today to see if I can get a few more months of
printing from it. 

That left me with a single program that wasn't opening on my home computer. Unfortunately, it's one I use every day and really can't be without. I can access it on the laptop, but the laptop is MUCH slower, and I am not patient with that. Additionally, the desktop is really where I need to be accessing it. 

This is NOT what I want to see when I'm trying to access
a program. It took a while (it's an old program and I had
to do some digging), but I finally was able to download a
new copy of the program and it seems to be operating
correctly now. Thank goodness! 

After research it came back as a corrupted file, so I had to do some digging and eventually found a link to download the version of it that I use once again. After downloading copy number 2, it seemed to operate correctly once again. I left it open overnight (didn't want to be caught short this morning when I needed to access it), but it now seems to be restored. I guess the trial by fire will be tonight after I've shut the main computer down for the day. If it is still accessible and still opens correctly, then I might finally have resolved all of the computer issues of the weekend - minus the printer mess which I will try to work on during the day today. 

I'm putting away my tiny violin of saga and doom and
trying to resume my crazy life once again. I still have
to finalized the taxes, but as long as my electronics
stays together, it'll be a breeze. 

So, I'm putting away my violin, the saga is over and I will allow life, such as it is, to return to normal once more. Electronics - the things I love to hate! They may drive me crazy, but I'm married to them. Come to think of it, I suppose my marriage could also fall under that basic description. Have a wonderful Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

Memories Of Old Friends and Activities

Yesterday was the final day of a five day on-and-off again snowstorm. It has finally passed, but DH was trying to clean the snow from the roof and it just wouldn't stop snowing. He finally finished in mid-afternoon, after six hours of work, and even though it was still snowing, he just couldn't deal any more. Totally understandable. I know I'll have to shovel the last inch or so from the driveway this morning before heading out to the gym, so I'm getting this blog post done quickly. 

I spent my Sunday sorting one of my large bins of loose beads into a more coherent colorway. I have now managed to get through the first three of six pull drawers of loose beads. It's a major chore, but it really needs to be done. Things are too disorganized and I need the drawers to really function the way I had intended. 

The beads themselves bring back lovely memories of a group of beaders I knew in the 1990's and early 2000's. The internet was newer, the options for posting and groups were smaller, and a lot of us bonded over the craft boards on AOL and some other gathering places that featured beading instruction or patterns, such as About-dot-com. 

We had a tight-knit group of beaders, many of whom are still in touch and still good friends. One of the many activities we shared was a monthly bead swap. For the swap, a host for the month would be chosen and that host would choose a theme. Beaders around the country would gather beads into baggies, one for each member of the swap, and send them to the host, along with a pre-addressed label and postage for the return mail. The host would repackage a box for each swapper - one that contained baggies from each person, then take them to the Post Office and sent them back out via Priority Mail (slightly over $4 at that time). 

I participated and hosted as a member of the monthly bead exchange for more than three years and got some really wonderful bead mixes as a result. It is those exchanges that are the foundation for my loose beads drawers, and I love using the beads and thinking about the many friends I had been in daily contact with for so many years. 

The internet has changed and the group has fallen apart, but we still run into each other now and again and several are still my friends. When I travel to an area of the country where one or more of them reside, I usually will try to contact them for a quick get-together and catch-up. In many ways I miss those days - we were all discovering the excitement of this craft. It's grown into something that is almost unrecognizable now. 

I wonder if our parents felt the same way as progress came and changed their lives. In many ways that progress was a life-saver, but in others,, the progress changed "community" to the point where that's almost unrecognizable now. Look around you. Do you know your neighbors? Do you shop your neighborhood stores? Or do you go to the big box stores a bit farther away instead. Have a wonderful warm and cozy Monday, I'll be back tomorrow. 

Internet Friends Who Are No More - Memory

Today I remember two friends who I never met in person but who enriched my life in many ways. It's the nature of our new tech-savvy world to interact with people in all lands and cultures without thinking twice about it. That's a luxury that didn't exist in my life until the mid-1990's, when I got a laptop computer and plugged into the internet for the first time. It was a VERY different world than what we take for granted today. 

Do you remember dial-up modems and chatting with other
people through a B/W screen on a BBS? Things were quite
a bit different then. 

In those days, we gathered together in small groups and chatted - exchanged tips, emails, and posted on Bulletin Boards. In those days we bonded over common traits and likes such as books, or art media, or ... beads. In the early days of beading there were congregation points - AOL's crafting boards had a very active beading group, many members of which I'm still in contact with today. There was a website named about-dot-com where "experts" answered questions and posted projects. The head of the beading board, Emily, would post a pattern, and if it was cute, I would get several customers over the next week wanting the purchase the supplies to make it. And there were writing boards - places for authors to post original works and fan-fiction works. I got into those a bit later, in the mid-2000's. 

Do you remember the early days of AOL? I recall this
specific splash screen circa 1998. 

Helen was a lovely person - even tempered, sweet-natured, with a desire to live life to the fullest. She had a heart filled with love, that ended up betraying her in the end since her Congestive Heart Failure cause her sudden death. Before that happened, however, her husband took her on a cruise. One of the shore events they signed up for was swimming with dolphins - she was so excited. After arriving at the oceanfront, Helen realized she had forgotten her swimsuit in her room on the ship. She went into the water in her shorts and t-shirt. She wasn't about to miss the experience of swimming with dolphins and her smile rivaled the gleam of the sun. She was dead within a year of the experience. 

Swimming with dolphins is actually harsh on these fabulous finned
wonders, but at that time it was still accepted behavior and to be
that close to an animal that she loved was the fulfillment of a dream
for Helen. 

Arthur, aka Fiondil, was a prolific author of fan-fiction in the Tolkien universe. I fell into his "War of the Valar" head-first, followed by "Elf Interrupted". He was a prolific author, very detail oriented, and extremely familiar with the source material. He and I messaged back and forth often enough that I considered him a friend and I was shocked when he passed suddenly. I still think of him often, and that means that in my mind, he is immortal because his name still echoes through the Halls of Darkness. 

By today, the Halls of Namo probably come closer to this
endless maze. 

So here's to you, my dear Helen and Fiondil. Today I celebrate the day of your deaths with a piece of chocolate cake in honor of Helen, and a raised glass tonight for Fiondil. Thank you for enriching my life, although we never actually met in person. 

It's Friday, so have a good one. It's negative 9 degrees out right now, and our high will be 3 degrees above. ACK! Time to seriously bundle up. I'll be back tomorrow unless I turn into a pillar of ice in the gym parking lot. Be safe, be relatively good, and be happy! 

Success and Memories

I was SUPER busy yesterday, starting by bringing the box containing the new printer into the computer room at 9:00 am yesterday morning. Soon the floor was strewn with packing materials and I was unplugging and disconnecting the old model, ready to install the new. It took THREE HOURS! Not that the install was that difficult, but getting the printer to talk properly to both of the computers wasn't easy. A shelf needed serious cleaning also, and it is the better for it. Around noon I finally test printed from both computers and they seem to be happy now. The printer is slightly smaller than my previous one, but I like it and think it will do well for us - at least for a few years.

Now that I finally have a functional all-in-one printer
again, I can start scanning in my holiday cards
and sharing them with all of you. Look for some
posts on those in the next week or two. 

Today is the anniversary of the deaths of two good friends, both of whom I never met in person, but both of whom I spoke with in cyber-space quite often. I'm remembering them today because they were important in my life and also in the lives of other cyber friends.

Helen was such an amazing person. When she had the chance
to swim with the dolphins, she realized she had forgotten
her swimming suit back on the ship, so she jumped into the
ocean in her shorts and t-shirt. Nothing was going to keep
her away from this experience. 

Helen was a member of the original AOL beading board, an amazing warm and wonderful person with a heart issue. She loved the ocean and chocolate cake, and one of the last things she did before she died suddenly, was swam with dolphins when on a cruise with her husband. The smile she had in that photo just gleamed.

We lived far away from each other and never met in
person, but I remember Arthur often as a friend and
a brother, a mentor and an inspiration. 

Arthur Boccaccio was probably better known as Fiondil on the Tolkien Fan Fiction boards. He wasn't one to join in our daily back-and-forth dalliances, instead, returning from his day job, going to his room, and writing amazing fiction. He was a friend, a brother, a mentor and adviser, and he gave me my name - Erulisse. When I had a question I knew I'd get an answer from him, usually in very fast time, and his fiction is still some of the best I've read in many years. Arthur left us in on this date in 2015 and I'll never forget him.

Please join me in a virtual slice of chocolate cake in
memory of two wonderful friends who passed into
Namo's hands on this day. 

I always celebrate Helen by eating a piece of chocolate cake, joined by many of my on-line beading friends who also remember her. I always celebrate Arthur "Fiondil" by remembering conversations we exchanged in text back and forth. For a while I played in his universe and it was a beautiful one.

Have an excellent Thursday and go eat a piece of chocolate cake to celebrate the life of a woman who swam with the dolphins. I'll be back tomorrow.

Thoughts Of An "Idyllic" Past

Yesterday's "unintentional experiment" actually seemed to work quite well - at least that's the feedback I received from a variety of readers. I'm pleased about that, because AOL is being skanky in the early hours. I suspect that's when they make an attempt to do some serious coding and bug fixing behind the scenes. It isn't working very well - pulls me to a screeching halt. But yesterday's emergency altered posting rotation worked, and I even forgot to mention that yesterday's post was post number 2700 in my blog! Yes, 2700 posts of good, bad and boring (on occasion). Yippee! 

Yesterday was the 2700th post in my blog. I've been
doing my daily blog for a long time and love that so
many of you tag along for the ride. 

So - email. We love it, we hate it, and we have to have it. I'm not actually that fond of AOL. There are a lot of portals and mail options out there, it's more a familiarity and the fact that I can operate it in my sleep (as I have proved many times with my early morning posts). But I have to at least look at other options. So ... besides Microsoft's "Outlook" and Google's "G-Mail", what other email options are out there? I doubt I'll ever actually change - I've got hundreds of personal and business contacts that nail me into my AOL addresses (I operate four different active email addresses and DH has one). Still, it never hurts to look. 

Does anyone actually write letters any more? I think
having that physical piece of paper with thought
behind it is sometimes a wonderful thing to send
and receive. One of the reasons I send my holiday
cards each year is to have that enjoyment of
sending and receiving something of substance. 

Any recommendations? What do you use for your email? I suppose I'd better limit the options to those in the USA only, but that's a few million options - at least it seems like it. And what about Email forwarding services? Has anyone had occasion to use one and how well did it work? 

Any of you remember the old dial-up modems? I had a friend
who worked for a very high-powered computer company and
who would borrow their modem on weekends so that we
could gather in his living room and play text games with
his computer. We've come a long way!!!

We've come such a long way from the old dial-up modems, 9600 baud speed rates, black and white monitors, clunky desktop systems, and no attached photos. I wouldn't turn my back on our progress, it's what's allowed me to have friends throughout the world, and open dialog with so many, so often. Still, sometimes those simpler days are so tempting. 

Am I becoming my grandparent? I sincerely hope not! I am older,
certainly, but I hope I'm not as set in my ways. I do think that
computers and the internet have helped all of us stay just a little younger. 

OMG - I'm turning into the old grey-haired coot sitting on his front porch rocking chair and talking about those "...crazy young-uns ..." playing in the neighborhood. I'm expecting to be meeting a fellow coot for a game of checkers and a glass of refreshing lemonade before pulling my aching bones back into an overheated house (no air conditioning in those days), a coronary-guaranteed meal of beef and potatoes with real butter, and a hard night's sleep tossing and turning in the sheets in the overheated night air. 

I wish I could write fancy addresses, but I can barely
write well enough to read my own scrawl, and if
I'm going to put time into a card, the address isn't
the part I'm concentrating on. I did, however, print
out the envelopes last night. Now I'm ready to
start decorating the backs of those. 

Pipe dreams - and so far from my reality as to be a small bit of fiction on the page. I'm not sure if that bucolic past-days history every truly existed, even in small town America. Hmmm ... But I'm going to slap photos into here and bring the results of yesterday's card marathon to the shop with me for the next stage. They are progressing very well, and with luck will begin to hit the mail by the end of next week. More or less on time. 

So,  enjoy your Thursday and the final day of November. Panic will probably strike tomorrow as you realize December has arrived, you have Christmas shopping to do, and you have less than 25 days in which to do it. Remember ... BREATHE!!! 

Today's Post - An Unintentional Experiment

Today's post may be a bit weird. I'm not sure how well it will translate to the various forums in which I post, and my standard routine of writing, posting, grabbing a copy from my personal pages at AOL, and re-posting it to LJ and DW may not work today since AOL is down for some service. If I have any say in the matter, they'll fix whatever has been really effin' up their service lately because it's been super bad since their last major update. 

Today will be an experiment and I hope my
blog will be readable for all of you who read
off my carryover posts on LJ and DW. 

Nonetheless, today's post may look really bad on LJ or DW or both, and if so, I apologize in advance. 

Today is my "day off" and I'm going full steam ahead on my holiday cards. By the end of today, my interiors should be ready for signatures and small notes, and the exterior fronts should be completely finished. I still will have the backs and the envelopes remaining, and need to punch holes in the small attachment that many of you are getting. It's supposed to be able to hang, thus the holes. 

I really pushed the capabilities of my Big Kick Sizzix machine this
year, cutting not only paper, but also copper with it. I'm surprised
it's still working and didn't just pop apart at the joints with the
last few passes of metal. 

I can say that this year's card pushed my equipment to the max! I don't think my Big Kick Sizzix was ever meant to do what I pushed it to do this year. It came through like a trooper, but I totally ruined several pairs of carrying sheets, and I'm sure my arm got a few extra muscles by cranking copper and steel through something that should only be used for lighter-weight metals, no steel, and usually only on paper. 

I wish I had the talent to paint something this pretty, but
styles differ. I love this fox in the snow, though. Although
there is a fox in my cards this year, it's not in
the snow - LOL. 

A lot of this year's cards are hand-painted and embossed, thus the time sink. It's been a tremendous amount of fun seeing things come together. I never really know what will happen when I start off with a wisp of an idea. I start collecting things that I want to use, and embark upon a journey which will leave parts and parcels behind as I move toward the finish line with a final group of stamps, inks, and pens. My Conestoga Wagon has left several dressers and at least one fine marble-topped entryway table behind me on the desert flats while working toward the finish line. The end is in sight. 

Conestoga wagons conquered the West of the USA. Don't kid yourself - it
wasn't the army who actually conquered the Westward expansion, it was
these intrepid families who packed up everything they had in their farm
wagons, attached a shade over all of it, and set out for places they had
never seen to start a new life in the West. 

I ordered stamps yesterday while on-line at the Post Office website for a mail order. They'll arrive at the shop within a week, and by then I hope to have most of my cards ready to put into the mail. My internationals will go first, in hopes of your getting them before Solstice. But I always promise to have things in the mail by Solstice, so I'm still on time - LOL. 

So, here's to experimenting and projects. I hope you have a glorious Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully back to my normal interface and order.