There’s a fund raiser for Cleve Eaton in Birmingham at the Open Door Cafe this upcoming Saturday. its from 2:00 PM until 8ish. There are bands playing, and things for the kids to do. its $20.00 at the door, and includes a BBQ chicken dinner. More info can be found at Cleve Eaton’s web site.

I got to the library and picked up American Gods and Land of Laughs. I’ve been reading American Gods as I can. But its been a very busy weekend for me, I’ve had 2 jobs that were fairly long this weekend, so I’m still recovering from those. I’ll be continuing to read American Gods around all my other commitments.

I’ve started the summer season for my biz, and it is going to be busy. It started off with a very full weekend. We were at the Magnolia Festival this past Saturday, then out at Barbers on Sunday. I think I need a weekend to recover now. I was hopping all day Saturday. That’s a good thing! What a way to celebrate a birthday weekend. Whee!

Oh, wow. DH has a Ural. He loves his bike, but the company has been having financial problems lately. The factory is in Irbit, Ukraine, and evidently they owe a great deal of back taxes. From what he had told me, there was a dispute about taxes, and the company lost, and owed a very large amount to the government.

DH was reading the various Ural forums, and found an interesting news story. IMZ-Ural has a new CEO, from the USA. Evidently the gentleman visited the factory earlier in the year on a investigation from a group of investors, and was impressed by the operations. The company itself is pretty small, but has a good distribution and dealer network out there. The factory is old, but in good shape. The money crunch had hit, so the cash flow has been the biggest problem they have had. So with the deal by the new CEO and local investors, it looks like the company will now be in much better shape. Hooray!

Its a nice bike, so I’m hoping that the new CEO and investors will be able to keep it running in good fashion for many years to come. Or as DH says “keep a steady supply of the spare parts he needs for years to come.”

After my grandmother’s funeral, I continued on to my originally scheduled business trip. It was training and competition for my side business. At the end of the competitions, the organizers announced the top three competitors in each category. I didn’t make the top three in my category. I really didn’t expect to do so. I’m very in-experienced with those particular competitions, so I was competing for me and my own experience. Besides, I knew that if I didn’t compete, I wouldn’t push myself to do the best that I could do. Its just the way I am, and I know it. So I made sure that even though it scared the mess out of me, I went ahead on and signed up to compete.

The organizers just sent out an email with the results of the competitions and the rankings of all the competitors in each category. I just about fell out of my chair when I opened up the document and found that I finished 4th in my category! OMGWTFPONIES! Yay! To say that I’m beside myself is a fairly accurate statement. Woohoo!

DH & I made a trip to Books a Zillion this evening. I’m going on a trip for my biz later this month, and I needed some additional reading material. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? We got the second Thursday Next book, Lost in a Good Book. We also picked up the 3rd book in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War’s universe, The Last Colony.

I grabbed 2 books for the RIP II challenge. Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles, The Rest Falls Away and Rises the Night. Carl who is organizing the challenge has recommended these books, so I grabbed them when I found them. I looked at World War Z, but they only had the hardback edition. If I’m traveling, I don’t want to carry a hardback book. So I gave it a miss, along with Dan Simmons’ The Terror. But I did get Robert Rankin’s Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. With a title like that, I had to get it. Now its time to get to the library to see about the books by Jonathan Carroll, Max Brooks and Dan Simmons.

Sorry that I’ve been a terrible blogger. I’m trying to prepare for 2 festivals this upcoming weekend, and I’m finding that what I want to do is more work than I thought. Isn’t that the way it always is? But anything worth doing is worth doing right. So I’m creating new displays for my new addition and some existing add ons that were never displayed to their advantage at the beginning.

DH finished The Eyre Affaire, and loved it. Now we have to seek out the sequels. Its all my fault, you know. I forced the book on him, and he is now hooked. Bwahahahaha!

I’m hoping, after sleeping in on Monday, to finish Harry Potter. But we’ll see what life actually serves up on Monday.

We went out of town for my business over Memorial Day. My annual continuing education for my side business takes place in Orlando, FL either the end of May or the end of June, depending on the dates the organizers can schedule with the hotels. Its a blast, and I always learn so much. The 10 hour drive back and forth is draining, but is worth having a car there.

The cats were so funny after we got home. The big fluffy ginger tabby has stuck under my or DH’s feet everywhere we go in the house. All three are very clingy. That’s what happens when you leave for basically a week. They’ll get more comfortable with us again  soon.

Edit- I now appear to be able to post, yay! -

I’ve been out doing continuing education for my side business.  I visited some other face and body artists in Louisiana, and we had classes, and jams. We visited New Orleans on St Patrick’s Day, visited Craig Tracy’s body painting gallery and saw the parade.  I brought back several pounds of beads…

W e got back Sunday evening and I’m still recovering from the hours and the camaraderie of the fete. The group was a wonderful bunch of folks, and very very helpful.  I can’t wait to play again!

I just spent a bit of time tracking down the problems my biz myspace page was having. I’m supposed to have a slideshow of pictures on my page. The calendar, friends and comments should show up too. Basic stuff, you know?

I found out a friend of mine has a myspace page for kitty pics. No big thing, just a silly page. I sent her a friend request and she accepted. She sent me a message today, to encourage me to put up some photos in a slideshow on my page. Now wait a minute, I should already have a slideshow up! What about the calendar? Is anything showing up?

I use Firefox 2.0 for my browser and the page shows up fine with all the different sections. But when I pulled the page up in Internet Explorer, only the main profile paragraph showed up. No pictures, calendar, friends, or comments. Its a great big raspberry for me and my biz. Thanks.

So I went to the layout website to see if they had any updates for the layout. I had generated the one I was using, so it ended up being easier to generate a new one to use. The new background is a bit brighter and hopefully it will be a bit nicer on the folks’ eyes. So if you’d like a laugh, you can check out my biz myspace page.