What’s in a tagline?

I had not put much thought into the creation of this site, well, I take that back, I knew exactly what I wanted when I purchased the domain name, even if I have had more than a bit of a stumbling experience in getting things sorted out. Life has a tendency to trip people, upsetting those ‘best laid plans of mice and men’.

What I had not put a lot of contemplation on was my chosen tagline. “The Internet Magazine for Alaskan Living” … seemed to fit. I wanted to create not merely a Blog, and not merely a website, instead I wanted a mix of the two… the best I could think of was a magazine style format with the blog serving as the editorial for the articles I would write for my website.

One thing tripped over another, however, and I ended up just having the basic blog site, instead of the vision I had for the site when I created it. And I never thought much more about it. I let life bat me this way and that and I went on about my life, getting back to this site as life slowed enough that I could think more about it.

I came back to the site today and found a logged comment that someone had left a week or so ago. A request for me to let them know if Alaska Home and Garden accepted proposals and if the magazine pays for articles.

I was forced to stop for a long moment and reread that as I blinked in surprise. What? Me? Pay for articles? Huh? I had not thought about this as an actual magazine, it was merely my website where I did my best to offer up the Internet equivelent of those little newsletter things that people self published in the 80′s and 90′s.

Now, because of this one person’s comment, I am forced to stop and rethink things. Could this be more of a magazine than a haphazard effort to convey stuff? I’ll need to look into the box of tricks and see if I can scheme up something that could work, however, I am afraid I would likely still be blinking blankly at the thought of ‘paying’ for articles.  I could, of course, offer an author info section at the end of the articles with a link back to the person’s website, but I am not so sure about actual cash payments.

That I would have to place more consideration into. I’ll keep you all informed though, kay?

Pleaching Your Garden

Even the most laid back of gardeners has time to do a little pleaching each year. Pleaching is the art of interweaving the branches of trees and plants to create intricate garden decorations. You can create a living wall around your garden through the art of pleaching by interweaving the branches of trees to train them to grow into one another and create a live latticework fence.

An easy method of creating a boarder from trees is to bend half of each tree in a row of trees over to connect with one of the other trees in the row, and the other half of the tree in the other direction, until you have a line of trees arching down into the trees to either side of them.

Palin Quits

Shoved before the national spotlight in 2008 by presidential candidate John McCain, Governor Sarah Palin quickly skyrocketed to what the nation thinks Alaskan’s are like (talk about your misconceptions!).  Now, she has proven beyond a doubt to me that she is not the kind of stuff Alaskan’s are made of.

Alaska is a tough place to live.  Winters dropping to -60 and more below zero, short summers that make it difficult to get things that need to be done finished before the cold returns.  To live in Alaska demands that you have a strong spirit and (to quote Galaxy Quest) a ‘never give up, never surrender’ attitude.

Palin just gave up.  She stepped down as Governor of Alaska with 18 months remaining in the promise she gave us to be our governor for 4 years.  What looks like the ‘follow this’ notes from Palin’s speech can be found on the Governor’s website.  I was a bit tripped up by one point in her speech, where she said (pulling ‘quote’ from the notes I linked to there):

It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.

Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

Ummmm… one second… she is bailing out and leaving her Lt. Governor Sean Parnell to take over the role of Governor of the State of Alaska – to “hunker down and go with the flow”… what exactly is she implying is her opinion of Lt Govorner Parnell???

The words of Lt. Governor Parnell are found in a transcript of his speech on the Lt. Governor’s website.

I don’t know what to say other than I hope that she drops out of politics comepletely.  I for one do not want her as my President in 2012 if I have to wonder if she is going to whine that she is being picked on so is going to quit and let the Vice President take over.

As for the timing… I find it strange that she would say it has been in the works for some time, then wait for July 3rd to make the ammouncement.  A point where many Alaskans are out in the wilderness enjoying the beauty of this great State and not worrying about listening to the news for a few days.  Timed to the day before North Korea is suspected to possibly be going to make a strike toward Hawaii.  Seems to me that the timing is timed to assure it is burried under everything else in the news and she can just quietly announce her resignation and not get as much flack as she might otherwise get for such a move.

I knew that she is not to be trusted back when she renegged her campaign promise to the WWII era senoir citizens of Alaska who had been recieving the Aaska Longevity bonus from the State.  She promised that if elected she would reinstate the program for those who had been getting the check.  Allow them to recieve it, as promised, for the remainder of their lives in Alaska.  Then she broke that promise.  If she is going to lie to the men and women that helped save the world, then why should anyone belive anything she says – especially when she lied to the entire state of Alaska when she promised it she would lead it for 4 years?????

Sunny day today

Today is a nice day from the bit I have seen of it so far.  I’ve been spending most of today inside, however, working on the computer, but the bits I have seen when peeking out the windows has looked very nice.

I want to get outside and trim the grass out in the garden area and around the pond system.  Seems like every time I get to the point I think I’ll get to spend the afternoon working in the yard I instead end up spending the entire day working on the computer trying to make ends meet for this coming month.

I just want to toss out all the work and spend a few days working out in the yard, but can’t do that quite yet.  Maybe tomorrow… or next week.  ::sigh::  Alaskan days are just too short in the summer time!

Get Free Glidden Paint

Glidden has a deal going right now that you can get a free quart of your choice of Glidden paint color in an Eggshell finish.  You need to live in the continental United States to get the free quart of paint, but if so then I suggest you check out the <a href=”https://www.glidden.com/promotions/free-paint-giveaway.do”>Free Paint Giveaway</a> at the Glidden website for full details and to select your color of choice for your home projects.

My only complaint – Alaska is excluded from the offer.