CyberMinions.net

Which has me completely distracted (LOL). Being a smart Rainer, I asked two smarter Rainers to rep the hubby. :-)

I believe in hiring professionals and getting the hell out of their way once I retain 'em and ask for help. When we are done it is going to be a mad fun blog post. The whole team is from Club Chaos, so, need I say more? (LOL)

Our mortgage broker is a Rainer too, but he barely blogs so I'm mentoring him. He's already working on multiple AR referrals from me and I can't imagine using someone else for my family's project because Dude can close in less than two weeks if you give him what the underwriter needs. I have a need for speed 'cause I wanna impress the hubby. I'm trying to get him to get his license so the RE bet is on (LMAO).

Will Wordy C win it? How can I not with Rainers like you guys at my disposal (ROTFL). :-)

Wanna see what happens if you put a bunch of fun Rainers on a project from multiple states? Hmm... I bet you do. Stay tuned... I will be invading a couple of states to collect some interesting closing escrow eye candy (LOL). Mikey's first social media closing is going to be a real hoot.

I wonder what mine will be like when I get around to it... Yup. Investing the Donald Trump way (LOL). Hope my offer doesn't get the shotgun treatment (LMAO).

In the meantime I have to finish Karen's music spam before my e-mail blows up. Yeah, I know, it's been a couple of days. How dare I work and interfere with my blogging schedule (LOL). Promises, promises... gotta keep the promises. Especially when the projects are mad fun and silly (LOL).

Time to go to work. Will be lurking... ;-)

You can stop the text assault now and don't even think of touching my e-mail (LOL). Will write a serious post. Promise. I have too much nice eye candy not to. Working on the photo montage and will share some serious information about the committees I found interesting. Did I mention I brought a lot of material back with me? Hmm... oversight on my part if I didn't because I did. Seriously...  I did. Got the skinny on a lot of interesting stuff and I will do a series of  Localism posts in a few... Gotta deliver a fax to Queens Village  before I settle in to serial blogging. I need a brick and mortar signature. Running out the door into the rain again (LOL). ;-)

Live From The New York State Capitol, Albany NY

This is the park directly across the street from the Capitol, Education and Legislative Buildings. There are some really neat monuments in there (and a grave) which I shall show you guys later (LOL).

While wandering about the facade of the educational building I noticed you get a really cool view of the Capitol (on your left) and the Legislative buildings (on the right). I enjoyed getting up close and personal regarding how people start with an idea, bring it to a lawmaker, then suffer through the journey the inner circle describes as the legislative process only to discover a good and bad idea have equal opportunity to be made into laws (LMAO).

Did I get an interesting education today? Yup. Shall be blogging about it very shortly. It really is a very cool and useful process. The problem lies in the fact that not enough of us are getting involved. We appear to be reactive rather than proactive. Lawmakers love proactive constituents... Hmm... I may have to make a new set of friends up here (LOL). BTW, AR makes an excellent think tank. Lots of great minds with good ideas to share. How could I not? (LOL)

I took 187 photographs during my visit so sorting through them all my take a while. Wanna see the inside of the Assembly/State Building? They have cool hearing rooms, art, lots of marble everywhere (except the ladies room - bummer - no cool bathroom shot - LOL).

Was driving 171.6 miles worth it? Abso-friggin-lutely. I am sooooo doing this again (LOL). On the hunt for food. Will get back to blogging live from Albany in a couple of hours. Still making friends, trading business cards and bragging about my bay-bays (LOL). ;-)

Looking forward to poking around upstate. Leaving in 15 minutes. This should be very interesting. Too bad it's raining. Then again, diffused lighting can make for some very interesting pictures. Hopefully it will clear up by 10 and traffic isn't too bad. We shall see... 

In the meantime, got your e-mails and shall answer them once I get settled in. Wordy C answering e-mail is always fun for me (even when I'm cranky - LOL).

Why am I cranky? Was stuck in the elevator with my neighbor, no one answered the alarm going off and my cell phone kept dropping the signal (too much metal). Finally got through to the hubby and a neighbor. Hubby thought I was kidding and took his time while the neighbor hunted down maintenance. Hmm...

Maintenance kept bouncing the elevator up and down until it finally landed on a floor where the door would open. :-)

All's well that ends well. Too bad it messed up my schedule and sunny disposition (LOL). Yes, there is irony in that statement (LMAO). See you guys later... ;-)

2PM UPDATE: I have a lot of eye candy and am playing in a thunderstorm. Blogging live from Albany is going to be fun  (LOL).

REBarCamp Wild Card Talking Points

Your e-mails have been tallied. The top two requests are:

(1) How To Monetize Your Blog

(2) How To Write Transparently

Am I having fun creating a color handout for those topics? You betcha (LOL). Over 300 people have registered for camp and registration is closed. I gave Heather O the list of Activepeeps who told me they were meeting me in NC so don't worry, you guys are on my guest list (LOL). Oooo... I bet some of you guys didn't think I would check up on you to see if you were really coming, eh? Psssst... I am anal retentive that way (LMAO). That's part of my virtual job. Mama always checks up on her bay-bays to make sure they don't miss out if they wanna go do something with me in real life. We are hanging out Thurs and Fri. Will be crossing into SC on Saturday to mess with a few peeps before heading back. Gotta be upstate NY on Monday (LOL). :-)

We are currently working on the tee shirt. I'll be hooking up with the people running this camp regarding advertising and the question I have for Club Chaos is do you guys want me to add us as a sponsor?

Give me some feedback because I have to call Heather O and I want my invoice to be updated if we are going to advertise at this event. I like the idea. I may be going down with some Outside Blog Minion Report and Life With Wee People swag... Yeah... working on designing it right now. I am having mad fun with this (LOL). ;-)

Aside from my plant based carpet and air duct cleaning business, I have an interior design practice with an in-house faux finishing studio.  My father was an artist and a painter and I grew up around painted finishes, and never thought they would hold any significance for me.  When I was younger, I didn't really care to learn any of these techniques, and sadly, did not.  But, I did always ask my ever patient father to take me to the homes of the rich and famous who were his clients. That was an education in itself and from a very early age, I knew that being a designer would be the most gratifying profession for me. Nine years ago I finally decided to stop hiring others to do decorative painting for my clients and had to reach back into my childhood and re-frame and retrace the steps my father would always beg me to learn. Bittersweet and determined, I did so.

Except now, the way I like to create Frescoes, Lime Washes, Pigment Washes, Venetian Plaster, and almost all decorative finishes presently, is without toxic chemicals and pursuant off-gassing.  Here are a few of the finishes we have done recently without the use of traditional chemically laden formulas. Healthier for the inhabitants as well as for the artists. All of the following were done with hand troweled non-slaked plaster, ground earth pigments and  soy based waxes tinted by us. They can be used almost everywhere - walls and ceilings, doors, furniture, fireplaces, fountains, sinks, and as you can see bathtubs that used to be white.

All it takes is a split second to send an electronic missive. Sometimes, we send them because we care about the person we are writing to or about. Other times we send them because we have a list of justifications we wield like a mantra, or something to market, or something to have blog post therapy about... The variables are too numerous to list here. Everyone has their reasons for writing or not writing... We all will attack or defend at will. It's part of the give and take of a relationship and sometimes things happen where we have to tell another person we are sorry but we get so entrenched in our position that we miss our moment to make amends when we hurt another person.

Don't miss your moment...

It doesn't just affect the person you are fighting with. It affects everyone who cares...

Robert went to a stellar event and was kind enough to make it available as a re-blog. Please stop by his original post by clicking the link and showing some support for Burma. :-)

I have had a long, hard day. Just got in. Fed the shorties. Got a buyer to narrow it down to two possible homes and am about to do some forensic work. I was sitting here being all serious while scoping the e-mail when I discovered my blogging buddy  Karen sent me this link.

Being a Curious George kinda gal, of course I clicked it. Promptly cracked the hell up too (LMAO).

Oh, the things I could say over there but wont (ROTFLMAO). You have to go see this picture. It made my day (LOL). Maybe it will make yours. Don't bother to go if you don't have a sense of humor. Do bother to go if creating captions regarding quirky pictures amuses you.  ;-)

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1302223/speechless-sunday-from-colorado-boot-hill

Stephen, The Blur Minion enjoying his Tostitos Scoops while watching the mist rise on the mountain...

Cosmic Cow Pie Talking Point: Serendipity

Serendipity may be defined as "the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated." Pssst... You can read the full Wikipedia article here. ;-)

The "sagacity" of transparent writers to be able to link together apparently innocuous incidents, events, facts and obsrvations to come to what one may consider to be a "valuable conclusion" is part of interpersonal communication skills. You either have the gift of gab or you don't. You can't force it, you have to let it flow with your true voice and embrace your imperfections because all people have flaws and they can relate to matters of the heart (or dissenting opinions) if the voice they hear is an honest one.

Notice I did not say right or wrong. I said express yourself honestly. You, as a writer, have to learn to share a piece of yourself in such a way that you feel comfortable with the conversation while you share what ever it is you deem is interesting or important at the moment. Only you can decide to go forward with your writing project and only you can recognize the exact moment someone or something inspires you. Is it a rant or a rave that gets you started?  Love your friends? Love your toys?  Love food, pets, cars, travel? Obsessed about market reports? Do you attack, defend and/or support other writers? (I seem to do a little bit of it all- LOL) BTW, wanna help Candice monetize her blog by getting the virtual vote out?  Bloggy-Anna does need your daily vote so why not blog-jack the re-blog button while you're voting for a stellar Rainer?

Who ever or what ever you decide to support says a lot about you. Sometimes your silence can say even more... If you are a pretender to the virtual throne people will eventually discover that as well so why not just speak with a honest voice? Why worry about keeping up with the politically correct proverbial Jones?

The thing you have to remember is you have no control of other people's reactions.You have no idea what paths the conversation will take or where the comment threads may lead. Kudos and congrats? Roast? Toast? Argument? Blog Wars? New group? Someone un-subscribing? New subscriptions? Litigation? It can go anywhere... You can go anywhere... My question to you today is are you brave enough to take that journey?

I hope so. It can be mad fun... Even when your Tomtom fails and you have to borrow a Garmin from your girlfriend, Margaret Rome (in MD) so you can get home safely to New York City because of road work and other unexpected detours (LMAO). Do you know my friggin' GPS is still waiting to find a valid satellite signal? I'm home, DumbDumb. It still doesn't know where I am... Seriously... I wiped the drive and started the download over and everything... (sigh). I love my TomTom. I want my quirky British voice telling me where to go. May have to buy a new one because I have another adventure to go on, but I digress (LOL). 

You can get as silly or as serious as you want. It's your blog. You can support who ever and what ever you choose. You can advocate what ever you want. You can piss on someone's virtual grave then hug and kiss and make up later after resurrecting your cyber-relations. You can also decide to be a founder and create an ActiveRain Group so the people fascinated by your philosophy in cyber-space can gather and socialize into their own little virtual tribes to be nurtured and grown into a blogging machine hell bent on Google domination (e.g. look at Whacked and Club Chaos). If you do this well, then you will discover that other people will respond in the most surprising of ways... they will follow and have conversations with you (LOL). ;-)

The dynamics of groups interacting is what makes a network unique. Each group has it's own virtual DNA and the members associating within their structures is what makes the groups interesting. They take on a life of their own and birth other entities. For instance: What do you get when you combine BananaTude, Blogs Happen, Club Chaos, Whacked, Jacked, Cosmic Cow Pie and Happy at ActiveRain? You get The ActiveRain Gutter of course (LMAO). Think I am kidding? Apparently you haven't read the membership roll over there (LOL). Gutter Activepeeps are from those other fun, very active and sometimes controversial AR groups. Why do these groups even exist? Serendipity... They were each created because someone somewhere made that ONE comment that birthed an idea and inspired a call to action.

Who have you inspired today? How have you inspired them? Words are a sharp, two edged sword and ideas are bullets. Original content is not only king, it's your creative shield and if you are in these groups then you understand that it takes a peculiar individual to go way out on a limb  into cyber-space and walk with a big blogging stick.  We don't do half a$$. Even when we play... We walk our talk. Do you?

Do I blog by accident and sagacity, or am I shrewd writer pretending to be a boob? Inquiring minds want to know, which is why I get so much e-mail (LMAO). Psssst... can you keep a secret? Sometimes I do neither, sometimes I do both and on occasion I am a boob. There. I said it (LOL).

The trick of a good writer is to keep you guessing which it is. You have no idea what I am about to do next and it's distracting you... (LOL) If you can not make a person crave to know something more then you need to change your blog habits right now... May I suggest taking a road trip?

(Psssst... make sure you update your TomTom and Garmin before you leave. My maps expired on me. I didn't know they could do that. Geez... a warning would have been nice. I only drove over 1,500 miles blind - LOL)