Hi everyone!
Welcome to my first blog entry. People have been blogging for years about all manner of subjects, but I have never had a blog and so, when I decided to recreate my website (of which more later), I thought it was high time I had one. So, here it is.
If you continue to read this blog when there are new entries posted to it, what kinds of things will you be reading about?
Frankly, it could be anything. It may be related to some technology news, what I have been doing day to day, about good food my partner Lulu (or L) and I have eaten, iPhone apps we like to use, books we are reading, absolutely anything at all. We'll just see what comes along and I won't do too much in the way of editing my thoughts.
If you want to comment on any of my posts, it is really easy. All you need do is register yourself as a user from my blog page, and, once the registration has been accepted, you can post comments. It's very simple and accessible, the way blogs should be.
I won't post a blog entry every day. I don't think it would be very interesting. But every few days there will hopefully be something good to write about.
I'll start then with a summary of some of the high points of this week beginning 26 March.
This week, I have been staying with L which has been lovely. I am extremely lucky to have her. When I am working, she takes very good care of me, making sure I have enough to eat and drink and making the home lovely and quiet for me to work in when I need to do that.
One of the things I have done during the evenings this week is to redesign my website. It seriously needed doing and I thought now was a good time to do so as there are some features over the months I would very much like to add to it. So, I made a good start and this item is the first blog entry.
So, on the site we have an area for the various JAWS screen-reader script files I have created, a page where my recent posts to Twitter and Facebook can be seen, this blog, and that was about all to start with. But then I thought it would be a great idea if L had an area on the site as well. So I broadened it out to include things that we both enjoy together with some pictures of us.
So now, we have an area I created to promote L's new internet radio show, "The Bear's Lair", and also a section devoted to Bert, a leprechaun I conceived originally to help create radio promos with but who has now developed into a full character where his adventures are posted to sites such as this one and AudioBoo. He also has a family he writes about in his private journal (which apparently you are going to get to see) and also a blog.
So, I ported Bert's blog and audio adventures over from the team-FM site to the hartgen.org domain. I rewrote the hartgen.org site using Drupal which gives me a lot of nice features to play with. I also researched how to add pictures and a podcast feed to the site, so there's quite a lot going for it right now.
OK, now let me bring you up-to-date with activities from the past couple of days or so.
So to Wednesday.
When I had finished work around 5, we set about pre-recording some material for L's audition for the internet radio station, The Global Voice. When our station Team-FM closed, L was extremely devastated. I think it hit her harder than it did me in some ways. But we closed it down, both got completely smashed out of our brains, and moved on. That is what you do.
Anyway, after a while, L felt that she did miss producing internet radio shows. She enjoys a lot of the preparation for, and the promotion of, each programme, (and I must admit so do I), but she felt she wanted to give internet radio another try. Brave lady.
She was listening to the Global Voice earlier in the week and she enjoyed listening to some of their output. So she decided to audition.
L was, I have to say, very nervous about this and I've absolutely no idea why. She could do the audition in her sleep but she was quite anxious about it. Nevertheless, we settled down and did some audio work, using the character Bert to produce a sketch which I tightly edited together. I also grabbed some podcasts from their website and edited out some of the promos and jingles so she had some items to work with.
So, she did the audition and it went really well. She didn't make a single mistake which is exactly what I expected. She learned fairly early on that she would be broadcasting there.
Quite what happens in that regard now, I don't know, as in, when she will be broadcasting, what day, what time, etc. Obviously I'll support her all I can, if she wants me to. You never know, occasionally she may want a little help from me.
Fairly soon after L had been accepted onto the station, I put a page together on my website so that at least she has a platform where she can promote it with plenty of detail. I also added her most recent Ttwitter posts to the appropriate page and that makes the site almost complete, for the time being.
I think because of the stress of the day for L, she had a very bad Asthma attack about 11.30, to the extent that the paramedics had to be called out to put her on a nebuliser. I have to say the guy came out to the flat very quickly and soon things were under control.
I think we got to bed about 1 in the morning when L had settled down. But it has taken its toll, and today L has not been too well at all. The aftereffects of the medication had resulted in a severe migraine. She seems now to be on the mend which is all to the good.
Before I leave this entry, there are two things I want to try and frequently publish in these writings, books we are reading and things I am looking forward to.
We are both very very avid audio book readers. With L, I am reading "Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince" by J K Rowling. We've both read it so many times but we are re-reading it as we have done with a number of the HP series recently. We both love this particular book.
When I am on my own, I am reading "Whiphand" by Dick Francis, another author L and I are reading quite a lot of at the moment.
Things I am looking forward to.
Updating the website on Saturday.
The arrival of the new wireless headset/microphone L has kindly bought for me.
The long Easter break with L which will start when I get back here this coming Wednesday evening.
Meeting L's sister which I will do during the easter break when I visit her family.
I think this blog entry has gone on for long enough. We've just decided that we are going to post quite a lot to the site on Saturday including this first blog entry. So I will stop writing now and write another entry in a few days. I hope you have enjoyed reading!
