Y Ceffyl Du 2

Yup. I'm a geek.

2009-11-25T13:12:44Z

Been a while.

2009-11-25T05:10:58Z

Wow. So it's been a while since I last posted. I've managed to land (mostly) on my feet. I went from being unemployed to being over-employed, but in a good way.

My old freelance contacts paid off in the best possible way: I was given enough work to get me through until I located a (hopefully) contract to hire position at an excellent company. I'm currently working about 50 hours per week, but I really like the job and the freelancing.

I am incredibly thankful to have had people take a chance on hiring me as an editor and letting me work remotely. It has been an awesome experience.

A few weeks ago, Isis colicked again. Mild, this time. Mostly from dehydration caused by the change in weather. We caught her early and she pulled through fine. (Here, Ms Vet, why don't I just give your clinic a direct line to my bank account? Sheesh. This summer I put their kids through college with all of the vet bills I had.)

Chiropractor also came out and adjusted Isis -- and mentioned that I need to have her saddles fitted because one of them isn't fitting properly along her back.

So... adjusted horse is doing better. I have a new saddle (when I really wanted to get a new cell phone) and we're finally back to riding.

Poor Kasane has been rather neglected because I've had to focus so much on Isis this summer. However, she will be getting back to pre-saddle work this week. With all of my time off for Thanksgiving I plan on spending a lot of time at the barn.

The cats all seem to be doing well. Ambush looks great. The nasty gunk on his fur has gone and his coat is soft to touch once more. Only thing is that I'm going through about 20 pounds of kitty litter per week because he pees so much.

Stella is playing a lot. I haven't been as good as I should be about her fluids because of starting the new job.

Kiesha has her behavioral issues still. I can really tell when the Feliway runs out...

I've been reading more: poetry journals of all things. It's interesting how reading poetry impacts how I write. I'm more aware of word choice (work as an editor this summer made me extra aware of grammar, word usage, and phrasing).

That's the long and short of things for right now. I have more pictures to post of the saddle and how it fits. Pictures of Kasane with a saddle on for the first time. Pictures of the cats running around and playing.

Maybe, just maybe, I can relax enough so I am not so focused on the world possible collapsing because of economic uncertainties.

If this job goes permanent after six months, I'll be a very happy camper. I'm documenting IT with a bunch of hard core geeks. I got the job because I knew Mac OS X was based in Free BSD. :) These are MY People! :) (It doesn't hurt that after the interview I was asked if I preferred a Mac, PC, or both? Yes!)

Follow up...

2009-09-14T06:48:34Z

A while back I posted a locked message about my job. On August 10, I was laid off from my position. I've been lucky to pick up some part-time work with a client and some freelance work. It's going to be tight going forward, but at least I have some income. The part time job is great fun: I'm working as an editor and really focusing on writing craft. (A nice break from tech writing.) There is a chance it could go full time in a few months. We'll see what happens. I hope it does. I'm really enjoying it.

I'm still applying for full-time positions because well, benefits would be nice...

On a good note, the horses are both doing well. Isis has recovered from her bout with EPM and is back in conditioning. I'm hoping to begin real riding and schooling for a schooling show in mid to late October. Kasane, my three year old filly, is learning what a surcingle is and so far seems to be taking to it. She's not always happy about the girth but she is settling in well. Who knows? Maybe another month or two and we'll be riding. :)

So that's the latest. Off to bed.

Image of Epona

2009-09-14T05:46:18Z

My friend NibbleKat on Deviant Art created this image of Epona. The first time I saw it, I was blown away. NibbleKat captured Her essence in this image. It is breathtaking, like many of her other representations of deities.

Epona by *NibbleKat on deviant ART

Apologies to people who follow me on Twitter

2009-09-14T05:15:13Z

I played a game on Twitter today called Mobster World. When I signed on to the game, it asked for access to my Twitter account. Other Facebook applications also ask for access to FB pages, so I did not think anything of it. Happily played the game for a while and then went offline for a nap.

My phone buzzed with a new text message: a friend on Twitter had un-followed me because the game spam was taking over her Twitter feed. I checked my computer and was appalled and severely annoyed: the game posted every action to my Twitter account. I can tend to play games like that intensely for 10-15 minutes and then come back another day... I deleted 50+ messages from my Twitter feed that had been posted by that wretched game.

For people who follow me on Twitter: I'm really sorry about the spam. I did not know that *any* action (much less every one) would be posted in a giant spam feed. (Another friend pointed out that the spam messages can be turned off by going to the Settings page in Mobster World and turning notifications off.)

As soon as I realized what happened, I unsubbed from the game, removed it's access to my account, and began sending apologies.

If you play any game that accesses a social networking account, make sure you check the notifications *before* you start playing.

Melting... LOLCat

2009-07-02T16:25:34Z

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Which fantasy author meme

2009-06-10T16:25:28Z

our result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Tove Jansson (1914-2001)

29 High-Brow, -21 Violent, 25 Experimental and -5 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Experimental and Romantic! These concepts are defined below.

Tove Jansson was a Finnish painter, sculptor and writer. She was part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and so wrote her books, including her most famous works, the Moomin books, in Swedish. The Moomin books (1945-70), though perhaps not considered fantasy by some, are nevertheless fine examples of world-building for children, centred around the inhabitants of the Moomin Valley, where a family of white trolls known as moomin trolls live, and always return to, though they occasionally leave for adventures in the outside world. Though many of the Moomin books are pure childrens' books, Jansson conducted the experiment of letting the series turn more adult as she went along, the last three books (one collection of short stories and two novels) being psychologically complex stories that are just as fit, or sometimes perhaps more fit, for adults. Still, Jansson's somewhat romantic vision of the Valley as a peaceful haven of family life in the midst of a sometimes frightening and dark world is retained through-out the books. Though she considered herself a painter rather than a writer, Tove Jansson will always be remembered as one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest writer of children's books of all times.

You are also a lot like Philip Pullman.

If you want some action, try Gene Wolfe.

If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, David Eddings.

Your score

This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetical, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.

High-Brow vs. Low-Brow

You received 29 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.

Violent vs. Peaceful

You received -21 points, making you more Peaceful than Violent. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you aren't, and you don't, then you are peaceful as defined here. At their best, peaceful people are the ones who encourage dialogue and understanding as a means of solving conflicts. At their worst, they are standing passively by as they or third parties are hurt by less scrupulous individuals.

Experimental vs. Traditional

You received 25 points, making you more Experimental than Traditional. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, experimental people are the ones who show humanity the way forward. At their worst, they provoke for the sake of provocation only.

Cynical vs. Romantic

You received -5 points, making you more Romantic than Cynical. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, romantic people are optimistic, willing to work for a good cause and an inspiration to their peers. At their worst, they are easily fooled and too easily lead.

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

Real picture of Isis

2009-06-05T03:56:10Z

So the Mare in the Post-Apocalyptic Equine Wear(™ to saigh_allaidh ) is actually quite pretty out of her fly mask and grazing muzzle. I've had Isis since she was a baby. Her grandmother was my Mom's first Arabian mare. There is a lot of history in her bloodlines, history I was part of.

I have almost lost her several times. The worst time was when she had colic surgery due to a strangulating lipoma, a benign fatty tumor suspended by a stalk in her abdomen and had wrapped around 60% of her small intestines. No one had been optimistic after her colic surgery. Five or six days in intensive care, a secondary colic, no motility in her small intestines until five days after surgery, and a history of laminitis. The odds had not been in her favor.

That is one of the reasons she earned the nickname of the Miracle Mare.

A few weeks ago that was really brought home when another mare I know died from tortion colic caused by a lipoma. Within a few weeks, I had two vets tell me that Isis had been very lucky -- most horses don't survive a lipoma because of the sudden onset and little time to get to an equine hospital.

Ever hear an Arabian snort? When they are excited, Arabians flag their tail (carry it almost straight up) and make snorting noises. In this video, you can see Isis prancing around and snorting.

(The full size video is also available (64 MB AVI file).)

She now has arthritis. We're working on treatment for that. Hopefully we'll have it managed by July...

Favourite pictures

2009-06-04T07:35:55Z

I took a friend out to the barn. He had a new Pentax K10D DSLR and wanted to try taking pictures of the horses. He ended up with the picture below of Kasane. It's probably one of my favourites of her. She's making that face because I'm scratching That Spot on her belly.

Isis is also now wearing her grazing muzzle and her fly mask. (Isis wears the grazing muzzle to reduce the amuont of grass she can eat. She is not supposed to have a lot of grass, so wearing the muzzle on her halter lets still be out on grass instead of in a dry lot.) She is Not Amused. She walked over to the paddock fence and pestered me to remove something. Normally she asks for her grazing muzzle to be off. This time, as soon as I removed her fly mask she was happy and went back to grazing.

Nibble Kat's Deviant Art

2009-04-07T19:52:22Z

A friend of mine, Nibble Kat, is a really good artist. She does custom portraits (of real people and of characters) for a very reasonable rate.

She recently had a car accident (she is fine, but the deer isn't) plus her kitty has some vet bills. If you think you might be interested in commissioning a very reasonably priced artwork, please consider Kat.

Besides, she's great people too. :)

Penny Bubbles by *NibbleKat on deviant ART

Baron Samedi Boogie by *NibbleKat on deviant ART

Eve + Serpent 4Evah by *NibbleKat on deviant ART

BBC Book Meme

2009-02-23T15:40:23Z

I think this is based on the BBC Big Read top 100 list from 2003. Most of the books are the same.

I was curious how many books on this list my English studies covered.
-------------
Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Started)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy x
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger x
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens X
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X+
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hussein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden *
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel *
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie *
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome *
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X+
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

So that's 52 read and another few I'd like to read. A few of the titles above (Les Miserables, Le Petit Prince) were read in French (same book, just not translated into English). I'd probably add a few extras:

Pamela - Samuel Richardson
Shamela - Henry Fielding
Robinson Cruesoe - Henry Fielding
The Castle of Otronto - Horace Walpole
The Snow Queen - Joan Vinge
Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Shadow's End - Sheri S. Tepper
Plague of Angels - Sheri S. Tepper
Household Gods - Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr
Coldfire Trilogy - CS Friedman
The Epona Sequence - Judith Tarr
Hound and the Falcon Trilogy - Judith Tarr

And quite a few others... Mostly lesser-known SF novels.

Don't kow that I like the "Dork" title...

2009-02-09T05:53:31Z

Duty calls!

2009-01-16T19:45:06Z

From the comic XKCD entry, "Duty Calls":

Rant: Article on Epona

2009-01-15T18:43:36Z

I was reading through Digg during lunch and stumbled upon an article, "Pagan Deities: Epona."

I've read a lot of articles on Epona. Many of these articles use broad generalizations, confuse one deity with another, and repeat incorrect information found in poorly researched sources. This article just happened to catch me in a mood to point out some of the common problems I've found in articles(1).

How is it that material from one mythology, like Rhiannon's story in the Welsh Mabinogion(2), is confused and intermingled with Epona? Parallels between stories(6) do not mean deities are the same. This intermingling occurs with other deities with similar sets -- Macha is often confused with Rhiannon(3).

In this article, "Epona: Pagan goddess," the author makes generalizations without supporting evidence or citations. Here are some questions I would like to see answered:
* Where did the information that Epona was associated with a Celtic pantheon come from? Was there even a Celtic pantheon?
* If Epona is Gaulish (or Gallo-Roman or Germanic-Gallo-Roman) as her name implies, then how is she related to Irish culture?
* What evidence is there that Epona was a "protector in the eyes of her people"? A protector of horses(4), yes, but of her "people"? Which people? The Celts mentioned earlier, the Romans, anyone who honored her?
* How was Epona "embraced by the Romans as overseer of the Roman cavalry"? She was honored by several auxiiliary units and the Equites Singulares Augusti(4), but this doesn't mean that every cavalry unit honored her.
* Which ancient cultures associated the horse with fertility?

The article states: "Technically speaking, various groups of ancient people actually worshiped or recognized Epona, but in present use and cultural acceptance, she remains associated with a Celtic tradition and its culture." Which groups of ancient peoples? What is meant by Celtic tradition and its culture?

The article states that Epona was depicted with "fair skin and dark hair." Again, where does this information come from? As far as I'm aware, none of the 350+ artifacts related to Epona show any color. One stone statue of Epona from Alise-Sainte-Reine has traces of paint(5) but nothing definite -- and no information about where the traces of paint appear. If the description of dark hair and fair skin comes form personal gnosis, that is fine -- but it should be stated as such.

I'm not trying to rag on the author. I think it's great that people are writing about Epona. What disappoints me is when authors repeat information and do not cite sources. How can a reader learn more when no additional sources are given?

Why are authors not doing the research? Or if the research is being done, then why isn't it being presented? Reliable, scholarly material is available online at sites like Epona.net (even the Wikipedia article on Epona(6) is better than most of the Pagan sites).

I spent many years finding mostly misinformation about Epona (Edain McCoy's "Epona" entry in Celtic Myth and Magick comes to mind). Much of the information was available information was in pagan publications due to the interest in ancient deities amongst pagans. I do not remember one pagan author in the popular publishing houses like Llewellyn using a citation when discussing Epona. Authors including references would have made my life a lot easier because I could have had additional resources.

~Ceffyl

1. Ceffyl, "Language Barriers," Y Ceffyl Du, posted 7 June 2004 (http://ceffyl.net/wordpress/eponanet/language-barriers/)
2. "An Introduction to the Four Branches," Through the Ancestors' Eyes: Enlivening Y Mabinogi (http://www.mabinogistudy.co.uk/introduction.html; no author for this article listed nor copyright year listed)
3. Ceffyl Aedui, "Relationship between Rhiannon and Macha," 2004 (http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Journals/Journal/175517)
4. Nantonos and Ceffyl, "Who Worshipped Epona?" Epona.net, a Scholarly Source, 2004-2007. (http://epona.net/worship.html#who)
5. Magnen, René; Thévenot, Emile (1953) Épona : déesse Gauloise des chevaux, protectrice des cavaliers.. Delmas, Bordeaux. Catalog #169.
6. Wikipedia, "Epona" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epona

Ganked from dancinghorse's blog

2009-01-03T03:29:34Z

Me? Stubborn? Nah... Never.

Ceffyl Aedui's Dewey Decimal Section:

003 Systems

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Ganked from IvoryWitch's LJ

2008-12-18T21:23:48Z

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Sorceror Control is the name of your game. You are a studied tactician and scientist and you seek a kingdom where things make sense, damn the morals, even if you have to create it. You are cold, calm and calculating.
Cthulu Spawn
Vampire
Demon
Ghost
Incubus/Succubus
Werewolf
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Maybe one of the three is trying to tell me something...

2008-12-01T20:17:52Z

These are not the droids you're looking for...

2008-07-28T16:13:44Z

Setting up Technorati. Don't mind me...

Technorati Profile

Shooting at TVUUC

2008-07-28T13:11:27Z

If you haven't heard, there was a tragic shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville during the morning service.

Summary: A man, wielding a shotgun, entered the TVUUC building during the morning service and fired several times, injuring eight people. The gunman was brought down by congregation members. All of the victims were taken to the hospital; two later died. A suspect has been taken into custody and will appear before a judge on August 5.

Two friends of mine and their families were at the Church when the shooting took place. They are both safe, thankfully.

Please offer prayers, candles, and hope for the families and community as they deal with this tragedy.

Poem: Transfer of Owners

2008-06-07T17:16:07Z

Written a long time ago and pulled from the archives on my hard drive...

Transfer of Owners

I felt your breath
soft on my neck
myriad memories
tickling my mind like
whiskers
falling
from clippers

Luminous eyes
glazed with the day’s work
and the field is
dust
flicking through the stall
washed with bespeckled light
and the thrum of horse flies
and the stench of sweat
and the buzz of Osters
trimming, trimming...

The night is vacant now
scents of cedar and straw
drift through the barn into
my dreams--
twice-wet feet cross the stream
to another’s pasture

Your eyes--my eyes
stare through steel bars,
a stall door of my design
locked against my entry

Writing for other blogs

2008-05-14T04:58:44Z

I've been investigating other blogging opportunities (see the job board at ProBlogger.net for an example of the available jobs). I don't have a lot of spare time, but I'm a good writer with a decent portfolio. I've managed to keep my ceffyl.net blog for four years--something I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up. (Of course writing on a blog like this doesn't create the best quality of writing samples either, if you are writing about day-to-day things.)

Any who, one of the jobs on the blog was an ad for writers for a pet-centric web site, petlovr.com. The job description included an interest in writers willing to author stories about horses. The horse-specific site is HorseLvr.com. The most recent post I could find was from 2007. Definitely a need for writers on that blog.

I'm not a breeder or a trainer, but I've had horses all of my life. My current mare is insulin resistant (more commonly referred to as equine metabolic syndrome) so I have some familiarity with symptoms, treatment, and management for this condition. My real interests lie in the history of the horse (particularly in ancient Rome and Gaul), religious iconography related to the horse in that same time period, ancient and modern tack (and how similar it is!), and how modern day breeds compare to the ones used by Roman or Gallic cavalry. I can write about other topics, too, but those are the topics that come to mind.

I read through some of the posts and the writing wasn't bad, but most of the articles had very few citations to backup assertions. The researcher in me cringed. When I sit down to write an article, I'm very careful about my citations. In particular, the reliability and quality of the citations. In an ideal world, you can't rely on only one source for an entire article's content (i.e., Wikipedia).

Okay, so I might have interest and a slew of article ideas: basics for lunging, Roman cavalry equipment, snaffle bits ancient and modern, how the bit interacts with a horse's mouth (anatomy based), insulin resistance, and quite a few others. Plus profiles of breeders, equestrians and average people doing things with their horses. Overcoming fear when you lose confidence. All reasonable topics, and I've recently developed a good network in NC for interview candidates, too.

I want to research Petlovr's other sites and the writing quality is okay. The HorseLovr.com web site is mostly ads before you get to content. Any content produced for the site is their exclusive content for a year. It isn't that different from a publisher buying first North American serial rights. I couldn't post anything I wrote for them here. I could write the article on this site, send a blurb to the other blog, and then link the content to an article here (no renumeration). The payment for a 1000 word article is $15.

The tech writer in me thinks okay I might spend 5-6 or more hours researching and writing the article. Quite likely longer than that editing and checking facts. So my payment comes down to $2/hour. It's better than nothing, plus it gets me a byline on a site -- and builds my publication credits.

I'm not sure how writing for a blog site compares with writing for a regular horse magazine (and how it effects my credibility as an author). Definitely something to think about. The time commitment for some of the articles varies. The research-intensive ones will take considerably longer. The history of the Arabian horse in Roman times I've considered writing for a breed journal like the Arabian Horse Times.

The freelancer in me is chanting "selective marketing:" send the less intensive articles to the blog and the more involved articles to a publication.

The freelancer in me also thinks that I shouldn't post this if I'm considering applying for the position.

Long time no talk...

2008-05-12T13:09:02Z

I primary write on my web site, so this blog doesn't see much use. I have quite a few friends who use LJ, which is why you see me here.

Any who, just wanted to let people inow I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Just got strep and loving it (not).

Video of the Bay Wonder Mare™

2008-02-01T14:55:09Z

I worked Isis on December 23 and had a blast with her. It was wonderful. She played in the huge water puddle at the end of the ring. And showed off -- especially when I took out my camera and recorded her running around:

The full size video is also available (64 MB AVI file).

(Please let me know if you have trouble with this video. It's the first time I've uploaded one.)

Shalom, Sabbath

2007-12-09T09:07:24Z

On November 18, Mom called me in France and left a voicemail. Sabbath, the gorgeous bay mare that had bred to Sirdar (Isis' sire), died. I've included Mom's email below. Sabbath was by Ibn Amoura, a gorgeous stallion that I had wanted desperately to breed Isis too. I made the decision not to breed Isis because of her insulin resistance. Mom and I had worked out a deal: I took Rajiyyah, worked with her, and sent her back to Mom. In exchange, Mom bred Sabbath to Sirdar. Sabbath was six months in foal with a colt.

I'm very sorry to report that Sabbath was put down this morning.

She colicked mildly--it seemed--last night. The vet came out, stayed quite a while to monitor her after treating and palpating. She had many normal signs, normal manure, a desire to eat. I checked on her during the night. At 6:30 this morning, Sabbath's blanket was soaked through with sweat. We took her to the Marion duPont Scott Equine Center in Leesburg, but we couldn't get her off the trailer. The vet there said she was shocky and would probably not make it through anesthesia, let alone surgery. A few minutes later, Sabbath lost focus, her eye began to flicker. The vet said she was dying. The most humane thing to do was to put her down to stop the pain. They will do a necropsy this morning to find out why Sabbath died, but they suspect a rupture.

It's very, very sad to lose this wonderful mare. It's very sad to know she was carrying a 6-month old fetus by Sirdar--Kim's long-awaited foal. I'm glad we still have Sabbath's 2006 daughter Kasane.

We will miss Sabbath tremendously.

Love,
Mom

Very cute =)

2007-12-09T02:01:35Z