1. I love springtime in New York… NOT!
2. Chocolate chip cookies w/coffee, lox & onion omelette with cream cheese, or Challah bread French toast are foods I love to eat for breakfast.
3. It seems I’m always searching for more time in the day.
4. SLEEPING is a great way to end the day.
5. I think I need more help with NYC Shiba Rescue!
6. A certain ex-boyfriend is what I’ve been craving lately.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include working on NYCSR stuff and Sunday, I want to do some spring cleaning and play with Snickers!

Hello everyone… I’ve recently transferred my site to a different server and made huge version jump in WordPress, so I’m pretty sure my feeds have changed. If you read me through a feed reader and you receive this, please let me know. Thanks!

Therefore, I must promote her newest online presence. She’s moving beyond MySpace and Facebook and she’s BLOGGING. Of course, if you’re over, oh, I dunno, 16, you may not find it very interesting, but I’m promoting it anyway!

For those of you who don’t know, She’s actually a pro at this online stuff already. When she was four or five, a friend of mine helped us start a website (on her own domain name, with custom graphics, etc.) which included ratings and reviews of child-friendly attractions around the city. She had me shut that down in 2001 cz she’d outgrown it. Then around 2004 or so, she blogged for awhile on a subsite of my site.

And, now, we give you… Jaqi’s World.

1. Snowdrops are annoying.
2. I’m going to build a new kind of canine rescue organization.
3. __(ummm…. I just don’t have an answer for this one)__ is a song whose lyrics have meaning to me.
4. Just one sip and I can’t stop until my McDonald’s chocolate shake is all gone.
5. In the arms of a man I was stupid enough to let go is was where I’m happiest.
6. I believe that spending time with friends and family (and DOGS) is a necessary part of life.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include cleaning the apartment and drafting two new websites for clients and Sunday, I want to have Shayna’s meeting with a potential adopter go smoothly!

1. My favorite unexpected event of 2007 was the creation of NYC Shiba Rescue, Inc.
2. I’m most tempted by freshly baked chocolate brownies!
3. Today I want the rain to stop.
4. The last thing I took a picture of was Snickers and Shayna.
5. You and I have memories only of blogging.
6. The most recent movie I’ve seen that I really enjoyed was A Knight’s Tale (seriously, Miss ~T~ and I rented it a few weeks ago).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to taking it easy, tomorrow my plans include a looooonnnnng walk with the doggies if it is nice outside and Sunday, I want to get some work done for NYCSR!

1. This year, I’d like to spend more time reading the books piling up in my apartment, figure out a budget I can both afford and live within, and take an actual vacation.
2. Having time to daydream is what I daydream about most.
3. My daughter is a wonderful person.
4. I would like to have more serenity in my life.
5. I love to have lots of Shiba Inus around the house.
6. Snick the Dog makes me smile.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include cleaning my apartment and working on that budget I mentioned in #1 and Sunday, I want to be lazy… watch a movie and read books!

Follow the link for The Misanthropic Shiba, back when it was still funny as hell.

A few days ago, I logged into Meebo and found this message waiting for me:

[12:45] Bibby: Hi, I have been enjoying Snickers Blog for a while. I have a Black and Tan Shiba called Lily, she is 5 months old and we just started puppy classes. Shibas are a new breed to me, I had big dogs in the past. i am amazed everyday how intelligent and brave my little dog is and often forget how young she is. I have also enjoyed the links on to other sites, especially about Shibas escaping, we laughed as Lily could not be held in a puppy pen and baby gates only slowed her for a few days.

[12:45] Bibby: look forward to your new piece

I just want to say "thanks Bibby! you made my day." I know I have a lot of lurkers, because I can see all sort of stats on the hits on my blog each day. It’s nice and fun to get a note now and then though.

Check out the box in the sidebar… to the right and down a bit. The gray box that says “chat with me.” YES, that one!

Well, what are you waiting for? If it says I’m online, then SAY HELLO!!!

Well, I was planning on coming up with a whole new template, but it just seemed easier to sort of graft the old stylesheet onto Wordpress and be done with it. I’m about half done. Give me another day or so and things might be looking good.

Well, as you can see, my blog LOOKS horrible. <sigh> However, looks can be deceiving. I actually was able to get into the old Movable Type installation on the server that blew up and export the old blog. I spent the better part of today configuring a new installation of WordPress (over and over and over) until it would publish my old entries and categories to the same "permalinks" that the old blog used. Once I’m done getting the functionality right, I’ll make it pretty again. I promise!

This past weekend, everything came crashing down. Email stopped working, websites disappeared. Hours later I finally found out that the company where one of my hosting company’s server was stored went out of business and the plug was pulled on the servers. I spent the last three days helping move domains - websites, email, applications, databases - and restoring data from a two week old backup. I haven’t had time to look at my own applications yet. I grabbed the flat files for my blog, added the latest entries below from the Google Desktop cache (I HEART GOOGLE), and kept working on client stuff. So, for now, no blog. The old files are here, but they aren’t connected to anything - no application, no way to comment, add real entries, change formatting, etc. The worst part is that I was planning to port the whole thing to WordPress, but now I have no way to export the old blog into a format the new software can understand. <sigh> It might be salvagable, but I haven’t had time to look at it yet. In the meantime, I keep wanting to blog, but I can’t. Therefore, for now, I’m going to just edit this page by hand. Most of you know my email address, so you can still comment privately if you want to.

Oh, and get this! I got my first hate mail today. It wasn’t in response to the blog directly; it was from a mailing list that I’m on, but it said, among other things: "…proclaiming yourself an expert on everything because why? you have a dog." and "…in your Shiba meetup group and your navel gazing blog…" I guess you can’t please everyone all the time. Good thing pleasing strangers isn’t my mission in life!!!  ;)  I am kind of flattered that she clicked over and read the blog though.

PS… isn’t "naval gazing blog" redundant?

This blog is two years old today. I posted two entries on August 11, 2004. One was a picture of Snickers (of course). It was titled What A Handsome Puppy and I was so happy to get a comment on my first post! The second was A Few Other Photos From Saturday and two people commented on it also. (I started off thinking this would be a photoblog, but ended up with just the “blog” without the “photo.”)

First, I have to say, I hate the name nycgadgetgirl’s mental ramblings, but I think I’m stuck with it now. I really didn’t expect to be doing this for so long and I didn’t put any thought into the name when I started (obviously). Second, I want to say that I have met (virtually and in person) some very cool people through blogging. So, thanks to everyone that visits, comments, emails, and even lurks. This is fun!

Now, I have a favor to ask - for my blog, of course, not for myself - can we have a birthday party in the comments? Come on… everyone say something witty or silly and make my blog’s day special!

I want to be able to write while I walk. Seriously. Almost every morning on the walk to work, I think of something I want to write about. It’s a 10 to 15 minute walk. I could get a lot of writing done if I could actually walk and write.

I’ve joked for years about how I’ll be the first volunteer in line when they start testing human-embedded processors. I need a way to THINK into my computer. When I don’t have my laptop with me, I have my Palm AND my USB stick. If I could get my thoughts onto one of them, that would be a great first step. Next step would be to access the Internet mentally, so I could research things and upload what I write, ALL WHILE I’M WALKING.

Another thing that makes me crazy, besides that walk to work, is the bedtime walk with Snickers. We walk at least a mile every night, usually closer to 1 1/2 miles. I don’t blog mentally at night, like I do on the way to work in the AM. But I think a lot. Usually about conversations I need/want to have with people. For the people I can text, that works fine. I’ve perfected the art of texting while I walk Snick. LOL… actually, my best friend told me a few weeks ago that his girlfriend commented on the fact that I have text conversations with him late at night. I was like "what difference does it make what time it is?" (He’s a night owl like me anyway.) He said she thought I was thinking about him when I get into bed at night! I thought that was too funny. I said "You know I usually text you when I walk the dog, right?" He looked kind of disappointed… I think maybe it was him, not his girlfriend, that had the idea about when I’m thinking of him.

Anyway, back on topic, if anyone can figure out how I can walk and write, that would be great. I’d be able to blog more! The digital recorder thing won’t work - I tried it briefly and there is too much background noise for the software to pick up and translate what I say.

After commenting over at Janet’s a few days ago that I’d fallen way behind on my blog reading lately, she wrote me back and just said “it’s called life :-)”

Well, she’s right.

Perusing my own blog tonight, I realized that I haven’t had much to say lately and when I have, it hasn’t been as interesting (to me at least) as posts of the past. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was doing some thinking. The result of that time spent thinking is that I have a couple projects going on in my life that are about (1) ME and (2) ME!

Seriously, this introspection was mostly prompted by a conversation with someone incredibly important to me. I found myself apologizing to him for not making time for him and it really hit home when I thought about what I was saying. Here was someone I truly love and when I had the opportunity to show him how important he was to me, I mostly took him for granted and pushed him away. So, I’ve realized that I spend WAY too much time working and doing things for other people and not enough time for myself and the people closest to me. I am changing that by undertaking a couple of self-improvement-type things for myself, resigning from a volunteer position, limiting the number of freelance projects that I work on consecutively, and making time and space in my life for my loved ones.

You would think blogging falls into the “for me” category and it MOSTLY does, because I started the blog for my own enjoyment and I mostly write for my own enjoyment. BUT sometimes I write because I feel like now that I have this great group of readers, I have to write or I’ll lose them. So, knowing that, and realizing that I need to spend less time at the computer if I’m going to actually obey my new rule to cut down on my work time, I’ve decided to become more of a weekend blogger. Maybe I should say “officially become” as I’ve sort of been weekends only for the past few weeks anyway. I think _saying_ that’s what I’m doing, and why, is important though.

So, that’s the scoop. I know those of you that have me in your feed readers will wander by when I post. I hope the rest of you will check by periodically and comment. I’ll still be reading and commenting on my favorite reads, but probably only once or twice a week. When I’m not in the blogosphere, I’ll be working on me, making room for the new, and spending time with the people I love. Because, you know, it’s called life.

If my blog had background sounds, that’s what you would hear every time you’ve checked here for the past week… busy signals.

I had a very emotional Saturday/Sunday/Monday last weekend and a few days of introspection after that. Yesterday and today? TOTALLY BUSY. Tomorrow I have a little down time though. I wrote a LOT during the introspective days, but nothing that can go on the blog (although some of it did go to someone by email). Lucky guy.

I’ve been afraid to post anything new today because I don’t want to take away from the fabulous discussion that’s been going on in my last post. Therefore, here’s a quickie…

1) Gravatars are cool. Everyone should go get one.

2) Now go read my last post and add your two cents if you haven’t already!

• some of my favorite bloggers write so much that I can’t keep up in the little bit of time I have to read. I end up staying up-to-date on the short blogs and never having time for the meaty ones!
• I have a BAJILLION drafts where I thought of a great post while I was walking to or from work, wrote a couple notes, and then never got back to it
• I work too much. I’d rather spend more time training the dog, writing in the blog, and reading books with ~T~
• speaking of ~T~, I think she’s giving up on the blogging thing. one more short-lived hobby down the drain. I wonder when she’ll find her “thing” but she’s young yet, so it’s all good
• I have a huge to do list in Life Balance right now that is keeping me from writing much, but I’m still around, reading, and commenting when I can
• if I could get some SLEEP it would help. the building across the street installed these massive floodlights last week and now it is so bright in my room that I can’t sleep (and that’s with the winter curtains drawn)!
• the trackback spam is killing me. I need to upgrade MT, but I have to move to a different server first and I’m dreading my blog getting all screwed up
• oh. hmmmm…. ~T~ left for spring break today. maybe I will catch up on some things. but I miss her. so does Snick. he’s asleep in her room right now. she left her iTunes playing and it’s starting to bug me.

As ~T~ would say… THAT WAS RANDOM!

I’m just busy, busy, busy these days! I hope I’ll still have some readers when I get back to blogging more than random comments and links.

Speaking of links, wanna see a CUTE Shiba Inu? Check out Kishi’s Run for the Money, his siblings and his other pack members.

I think I’m about to take another self-imposed hiatus from the blogworld… at least for a few days. I haven’t been able to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, which drives me crazy.

So… I’m going to spend the next few days trying to catch up on my client work (again) and my apartment cleaning (again) and then maybe I’ll be readin’ and writin’ again.

I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me.

OK, no, I really don’t know. But I’m guessing. Some of you that have been reading me for awhile probably think I jumped the shark sometime in the past couple months. I hope you’re wrong. (Or I hope I’m wrong that you’re thinking that and you’re right not to be thinking it.    Or something.)

Anyhoo… Maybe I have been posting mostly misc junk lately. And Snickers posts. But he’s not fluff (or fluffy either for that matter). dammit! Don’t say that! I mean, um…

where was I?

Oh, yeah. After reading many mentions on other blogs of site stats and search words and popular posts, etc. I was finally curious enough last night to set up Site Meter. Wow. A LOT more people read my blog than I would have thought. WHO KNEW?!? (Obviously not me.) (And, um, why haven’t you lurker types been commenting and frapprizing me? Don’t you want to make me happy by saying hello?)

I also learned a couple things in this first 24 hours of having stats about how the transitory visitors find me. First and foremost, are the Shiba searches, so I’m going to keep on babbling about Snick and how wonderful he is. (hee hee! I have an excuse. I have an excuse!) Secondly, were the “how to” searches that turned up some of my tech and gadget posts. I know more about that stuff than I have been posting, so I’m going to try to write more there.

So, that’s that. I haven’t jumped and I’m going to try for more bloggin more better. I hope. Keep reading. I love you guys! Really!!!

I created a Gravatar for myself TEN DAYS ago and added the code to my site to show gravatars for commenters, but I am STILL waiting for my image to be rated/approved. I am annoyed, annoyed, and more annoyed.

Edited 12/31/2005: My gravatar was finally approved today, so I’m not AS annoyed as I was yesterday.

According to this article that I stumbled across after following a link from Jeru Guru’s blog, it is a “blog mistake” to “not stick to your theme for the majority of the entries in your blog.”

I’d guess that, other than that, I pretty much “follow the rules,” but do there really need to be rules? I started blogging for my own enjoyment and I keep doing it because I enjoy the interaction with other bloggers that I’ve come in contact with (even though I don’t have the kind of time I’d like to spend reading and writing).

So… are my blog posts too random? Does it matter? Do you have a blog theme that you stick to?

Mad props to my friend Beth Benzaquin who created two nifty neato new logos for me… the one you see above this post and also the new one on my business site.

Beth and I have worked - and are currently working - on several web development projects together. She also happens to be the “mom” of Bean, one of Snick’s best buddies!

<start promo>PS If you’d like to hire her, or me, or both of us, drop me a line.</end promo>

I need to write an "about me" page. I put up the page, but I don’t have anything on it yet! Any questions? Suggestions? Help!

PS Any comments about the shifting format and navigation would be welcome also.

Just happened to notice that my blog is one year old today.

Really, it hasn’t. More to come.