Well, I could blame the rolling blackouts here in California for not letting me get my web page updated….only I live next to a hospital so my 6-socket power strip’s exempt. I could blame the weather, since I had to drive through a wacky Oakland snowstorm to get to work today…but the snow really didn’t lie there on the ground for very long…it was gone by the time I headed home. Anyway, tonight I updated pieces of the list of custom bootmakers. I’m not quite done, but I’m close. Those with a keen eye will notice changes in lists for Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oklahoma (Blucher Boot Company’s changed hands again).

I’ve got my page update just about done. I hope to get it posted in the next day or two.

My parade was rained out today. I spoke to the woman at the Fund for Folk Culture, the go between agency for the California Arts Council’s Traditional Arts Program, getting an apprentice grant funded this year seems like an up-hill battle. Despite what the written materials imply, they really aren’t giving out any apprentice-type grants…not to mention the fact that during our conversation the grantmaker said, “Well bootmaking is really more of a ‘craft’ or occupation (than it is art)”… ouch.

Oh well, I’m a practical person. I’ve always got a plan “b”.

Sigh…if I keep to my New Year’s resolution (by only working on my web page 5 hours a week) …that means I’ve only got 3 hours left this week. I’ve been working on a field trip to the last Brownwood Round-Up. I could maybe finish it in 3 hours, but then it would sit finished and untouched until next week…maybe even the the after that…until I had time to post up a new front page. Argh, I think I’ve decided to reschedule the field trip until February…sigh (again)…meanwhile, (while I’ve been mulling this whole thing over) I’ve managed to think up a bunch of new things I should do…like don’tcha think I should make a shareware version of a screen saver and have every bootmaker who wants to chip in photos. That would be great……………… help! …somebody turn off my brain!

Well, I think I’ve got my diary archives fixed. I got a little nostalgic for my website’s old color scheme, so I made some changes. Bright orange is the BLOGGER team color…but it seemed a bit hard on the eyes for something this text-based. Anyway, the June archive is still stuck in orange…I think I’m going to have to wait until I get home to do all that ftp-ing and html-ing. All these blogger index files are a little baffling to me.