Hey Mom, it's your birthday!
On this day, n years ago, Janice Lynn McManes was born in Brandon, Manitoba. Soon after, her mother brought her home to the tiny hamlet of Alexander, Manitoba, where the family farmed wheat and barley, raised cows and livestock, and where she lived until she went to high school in Brandon. One sister and four brothers followed her into the world, all of their names starting with a 'J'. In order of birth: Jan, Jim, Joanne, John, Jeff, Jaye.
When she was 8 Janice entered a 4H contest to raise the Best Farm Animal. She chose to raise a cow. Every morning before school she trudged out to the barn to tend to the cow who she had named Scottie. She brushed it and fed it, cut its hair and walked it around its pen. Scottie became a fixture in her young life, something she focused her whole attention on. The big day of judging at the Brandon Agricultural Exhibition arrived and Janice led Scottie into the ring with a braided rope. The judges deliberated for an appropriate length of time and awarded the top prize to Scottie. That was the last anyone saw of Scottie. The next day in the Brandon paper, Janice appeared with Scottie, winners of First Prize. On the opposite page, Safeway had taken out an ad: Ex Sale! 20% off all beef.
Janice insists to this day that it is simply a coincidence that she named her second-born son, Scott.
Happy birthday, Mom.
Blog: what a funny word. Phonetically, it brings to mind an adjective and a noun and a verb all at once describing a bowel movement. As in (adj.), "Had a good blog session and then took care of the paper work." Or (n.), "The morning after we visited that barbecue joint on Broadway, I blogged for half a hour reading the new issue of Geist." Or (v.), "Pull over! I have to blog like you wouldn't believe."
Okay, so I'm new at this.
Hey, this is it. I really did it. I heard so many nasty stories about setting up MovableType for blogging, but really, following the tutorial from my fine hosting company, DotEasy, the process was pretty painless. There was one night of help (read: care and feeding of Perl) from Dale Scott, an ace programmer who also makes up a mean pot of baked beans and loves card games. I made the chicken on the barbecue and Dale noodled away with scripts and permissions. Then today, I finished off the relocation of files, set up scripts, fired up a web browser and danced on the spot. Et voila. Welcome to my weblog!