2012 - Another New Beginning

Every year starts for me with promise. New adventures, new clients, new places to visit, new food dishes to prepare and explore, and new designs to create. This year we go for a few WordPress designs, exploit CSS3 and HTML5 in the custom Dreamweaver designs, and the latest gadgets in the form of jquery javascript suites in both.

Last year was a good year, had a lot of new designs go live, like the Vinton County Chamber of Commerce, A Georgian Manner Bed and Breakfast, Zip the Wilds, Burlington's Willis Graves Bed and Breakfast, and Clay Bryn Castle (Hocking Hills Lodge) being amongst my favorites.

I also launched a few test sites to test marketing ideas such as Hocking Hills Discounts, Top Choice BnB, and 7SOS which hopefully will present fruitful marketing and SEO advantages into my clients sites. So far testing has been very promising.

I also redesigned my main Web site although I still have more to do this year. So what's new, besides the new design engines? Glad you asked! Blog feeds, more social media, GYRO's, New Orleans, Apalachicola, Franklin County Indiana, Grubb Landscaping, Inn at Woodhaven, just to name a few things.

OK did I say Gyro, well yes, I found a source of gyro meat right HERE. It is shipped from a warehouse slightly south of Milwaukee WI, so it takes 2 days, FedEx. It's shipped with dry ice and arrives frozen to your doorstep, in the winter. You then have to bake it for a few hours. Then partition it and then freeze it. It arrives in a 5 pound loaf. You can buy the larger cones, but I don't have a machine. So I just slice up the precooked meat, mix in some onions, garlic, rosemary, and some Greek Seasoning, Cavendish brand works well, add to fresh pita bread with a cucumber yogurt sauce and your in Greek Heaven.

So there is a lot to look forward to in 2012. Hopefully the Indians and Browns improve, maybe a little CSS3 will help them too!

Summertime and the Living is Easy?

That's a great song but... the realty is I'm too busy to enjoy summer, so I'm looking forward to fall. Most of my clients are busy in the fall, the grass doesn't need me either, OK there's some canning, tilling, bush hogging, wood cutting, hauling and stacking to do, but... the Hocking Hills Website design work falls off in the fall. The cabin owners are too busy. So that's when the living is easy.

Here are some sites I finished or are waiting for client review, in August www.georgianmanner.com, www.10ns.com/nancy/, www.10ns.com/vc/, www.aslippingglimpse.com/, www.7sos.com/, www.4ort.com/.

That's the great thing about a blog you can hawk your wares, if you're reading this and you're a business owner, you need a blog. Big time, you need a blog. Call me and I'll hook you up!

I have a new screened-in-porch needing a chair and a warm body, that's where I'll be. Well not now, it's still summer, I have 5 more sites to do before I get to enjoy sunsets, sinking into the hills.

My Grandma's Sauce

When I was a boy, many moons ago, we visited my grandmother on my father's side of the family frequently. They had a large three-story house in Ozone Park, New York. I lived in the Bronx, so this was like a trip to the country for me. Grass, trees, lightning bugs at night, stars, air and everything. All my relatives from that side of the family were there, holiday or not. It was one of my favorite things to do then and fabulous memories now. It was great.

My Grandma made the best spaghetti sauce. In my Mom's house we called it gravy. My Mom spent many years perfecting her skill to match that of my grandma's. Anyway back to Grandma Rose. The women, Grandma Rose, Aunt Bobbi, Aunt Gertie, and my Mom would spend all day preparing the meal, actually more like a feast.

We would then all gather around the table, kids at their own table, sans wine. And we'd eat for hours. I always volunteered to clean the table, I got to finish off the half empty wine glasses, that way. It was great, it really was.

My Mom carried out the tradition and made great gravy, with meatballs that were out of this world. I wasn't permitted in the kitchen. But I watched and observed from a distance.

Once I got out on my own I was determined to replicate the family recipe. It took years of constant practice and adjustments. And then I nailed it. It was like I was king of the world. I could do anything now, I had real power. Power I could taste.

Cooking is a lifelong experience though, once your proud yourself and maybe a little over confident, your goose is cooked, metaphorically speaking. So I wanted to push the envelope. To make it even better. What could I do?

About twenty years ago me and my family moved to Ohio. Moved to the boonies, the Appalachian part of Ohio, where we bought some land and learned to grow our own food. My spaghetti sauce (gravy), today is much better than any sauce I ever tasted anywhere. Today when I make sauce it's from produce yanked from the ground, in some cases minutes from meal preparation. We grow everything necessary for the sauce.

How good is it? It just keeps getting better every year. The garlic we grew this year was like no other, plenty of flavor, nice bite, the basil was terrific. It seems there is always something that can be done to make the sauce better.

OK now to the strong finish. Web design is like cooking, there is always something that can be done to make a site better. The recipe for success on the Internet is simple. Add an ample amount of high quality traffic, stir in eye popping graphic imagery that shows your business correctly, and simmer by making it easy for your client to buy. And the most important part, work your business. Work it to the bone by striving to be the best. Be solution oriented and get better every year.

That's how I run my business, if you need some Internet Web work, or a good gravy recipe give me a call. 740-596-4398.

Coyote Ugly, not really

My wife woke me up from a sleep the other night with a “What’s that”! At first I thought I was dreaming something I wasn’t supposed too, but then I heard it. A half screech, half howl. And there were a bunch of them. It was about 3:00am in the morning, I was half asleep, I had no clue.

At the grocery store in McArthur a few days later I overheard the cashier chatting about Coyotes. So I checked on the Internet, looked up coyote sound bytes and sure enough what I heard resembled coyotes. So now I’m wondering what do coyotes eat, rabbits I suppose, maybe mice, I’m wondering if my cat is in jeopardy? Maybe my dogs too? While I was clearing out my fence the other day I met my neighbor from the across the street and brought up coyotes in our conversation. I wanted to see what he could add to my knowledge base. He said coyotes all-right, we got them. And they’re big too. They spotted some in Hocking Hills region in Hocking County, the next county north of Vinton, that folks thought they were wolves. Turns out they were just big coyotes. He went on and said he’d seen black bears too! What next, I thought to myself, cougars. I no sooner thought it and he said it, cougars, I’ve seen cougars, bigger than large dogs.

I guess there must be a lot of rabbits to support a cougar population and coyotes that get as big as wolves? I guess that explains why I haven’t seen a lot of rabbits.

Ah yes, wild wonderful Vinton County, Ohio.

Mowing on Hills

My Kubota. There are a lot of hills in Vinton County. So much so that I found myself looking at acquiring a new tractor to accomplish the mowing. I haven’t looked at a new tractor in twenty years, there is a lot of choices out there. Searching with Google I found a Grillo, an Italian Tractor that resembled an ATV with a belly mower. Then a Ventrac and Steiner. The Ventrac was owned by the Steiner family which I found odd, both machines were very similar, there’s a story there somewhere. I found a hillmaster, a slopemaster, some machines that tilted to keep the rider upright while the machine was cutting on the slope. A Zero Turn that mowed hills in reverse, how cool is that? Well to shorten this story a bit I ended up with comparing the John Deere 2305 with the Kubota 2660. Both machines reasonably priced and sized right for my property and both looked low enough to the ground, with good low center of gravity and 4 wheel drive, to do the job.

The Deere was a little bit wider in stance and mower deck, which is good for side hills and the Kubota had a little more horsepower and cheaper, which is good for my wallet and going up the hills.

I purchased the Kubota, a BX2660, from Allpower Equipment in Athens, Ohio. The first time I drove the tractor I wasn’t impressed, but after I learned and mowed grass the first time, all I could say was wow! It was one impressive machine.

Now I’m looking for a tiller and a brush hog to mount to the the rear PTO. As far as mowing on the hills goes, it works great and the cut looks as if I own a golf course now instead of a field.

Wild Boars

Yesterday I found out, from my neighbor, that in Vinton County we have a wild boar problem. According to neighborhood lore they wonder from field to field eating and devouring everything in their path. With no natural enemies they are bold and extremely dangerous. My neighbor claims he doesn’t allow his dogs or kids out at night. They’re either in the kennel or house, depending on their status.

“I never venture into the woods without my gun” he claims. So there you have it, I have two dogs and no gun. I checked the Internet and according to the ODNR the upper part of Vinton County has had many many sightings of feral pigs! You can hunt these things without license. Kill on sight! OK I’m thinking ribs and beer now! But then there is field dressing them, lugging them back to the hacienda, butchering etc. Plus your dogs need to be outfitted with full neck collars as the pigs know where to attack your beloved 4 legged friends.

OK now I’m thinking I should have retired in Arizona. But who knows, they may have killer cactus there!