It has been politely pointed out to me (please take careful note of the the sarcasm there), that it has been a very long time since I've blogged. I have some very good excuses for that, really I do. But to keep my critics at bay, I've decided I'd better actually post something.
In my last post I talked about selling our cows and getting out of the ranching business, something which is now completed. It is odd how something like that can seem to progress so slowly and also be over with before you know it. I believe and hope that the people we've sold the cows and leased most of the land to will take good care of everything. There are virtually no ranches with as many cows as we had that baby their herd like we did, so our girls might have to toughen up a bit. But on the other hand I feel confident that they will still be taken good care of and be well treated.
The adjustment away from going outside into the bitter cold Montana winter to work has been surprisingly easy. Being an inherently lazy person, I haven't had much trouble spending most of my time at my computer working on Ruth's new jewelry website (http://stewartjewelrydesigns.com). The site looks a little like the old one, but is almost completely rebuilt from the ground up. Hopefully it'll be easier for her customers, and it will certainly be better for us; it represents the first half of our exodus from the sinking ship which is Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. Next on my webmaster to-do list is the move her dollhouse store over to Drupal/Ubercart as well. I suppose that web design is now more or less my job, and I have to admit it is awful nice to be able to get up each morning, get some coffee and then sit down and work. I don't even need to wear protective clothing anymore!
Making this new "job" of mine a whole lot easier; 3 Rivers (our local TelCo) has finally come through with their promise to bring fiber-optic telephone and internet to our house. It is six months later than promised, and I've received copious mis-information along the way, but at least its done. For people as wired as Ruth and I, using the internet over Wildblue satellite was like swimming in a bathtub, just enough water to get wet, but not enough to go anywhere. The first day it was hooked up we ran updates on all of the computers at once--something that would have blown through Wildblue's "Fair Access Policy" limits (never was quite sure what was fair about getting cut off for using the product just a little too much). There's a whole new world of internet video open to us now and we've been loving Netflix Watch Instantly and Hulu.
I've been working on some ideas about how to put more of my photos to better use, and I think in a little while I'll be opening a new photography site. I've tentatively picked a name for it, but I'm afraid the second I post it here I'll come up with something better and change my mind.
I will try to post more frequently from now on. Of course, I'll fail, but its the trying that counts right?