I have been trying to put together a strategy statement and thinking about the future. This is difficult, if you are serious about it, if you know that your decisions mean real money to real people. So, I am serious about it, and it is difficult. A little crisis of creativity ensued. You might call it writer's block. But I know it's a crisis of creativity.
So, what is the hip industrialist capitalist Richard to do in this situation? Why, listen to the poets of course. And the poets say,

"Use that Right Brain, baby. Use that Right Brain, that's the juice, you let that Right Brain shout out and you turn that fucker Lefty OFF!"

Here is my right brain exercise, I don't expect you to read this at all and it would probably be better if you skipped it. This is just a short excerpt of a Right Brain exercise that will help with that block. Turn up the creativity by deliberately turning off the censor that lives on the left.

right brain
the us we and tree road, car and the blinds light, filtering shadow gradient lamps pea green and this visual stimuli overwhelming sleepy twinge topping say this finger, say this fingers, fast type slow pause, wait for buffer overflow to fill flow up want more words faster duplex multiplex googleplex wash this away with aspirin or maybe pictures of people we used to know. I want You want, they want, wanting wanting wanting bottomless pit this is where I live on the edge of the pit shoveling shit, wanting wanting wanting no end dark maw open and gasping for more, a moist warm wind exhalation drifts up sweet and foul and bitter and nauseating, like the exhalation of a steam vent.
Lost the train, the train left the station, the house in the station, station wandering down the street, weaving drunkenly across lanes of traffic, tilting precariously, people screaming too late realizing it's heading for them, cars swerve into other cars, blaring horns, the crumpled hood, steam pouring out, station makes an impossible turn at end of street, right two wheels completely off the ground, the structure leaning so far that everyone who sees it tries leaning the other way, to compensate.

If your email was sent back as undeliverable

Spam! Okay, my mail box got really crazy for a while there, so I had to do something drastic. I have installed an intrusion detection system on the Oakbox.com server and tigthened up permissions. What this means is that if the server gets something that looks like spam, it blocks the IP of the sender for a while.
So, if someone else using your SMTP server is hosting a robot that happened to try sending spam to me, well, you both get blocked for a short time. I'm sorry about this, but there was just no other solution. I am currently receiving 3 messages (99.99% spam) per SECOND.
If you have tried and failed to email me on my richard@oakbox.com account, it's not your fault, the blame is on your neighbor hosting that zombie email program. You can always email me on my web contact form, and I will get that message directly: http://www.oakbox.com/contact.shtml

Reminded

I am reminded that I am loved
that my soul is beautiful and strong
that I am not alone
I am reminded of the beauty in others
and that I can still recognize beauty
that I am still alive
I am reminded of my voice
that my heart can be open and speak
that I need not fear
I am reminded of my youth
that it has not passed away
that it is always with me
I am reminded of the wonder
the lightening of spirit that others bring
that I can still be enlightened

Thank you

Artist's Friend

I have heard from a few past members of the Artist's Friend web site saying that the web site held the only versions of some of their works. This was pretty depressing, because after a year off line, I deleted the contents of the site from the server.

BUT! During a recent move, I found an old CD that just happened to contain a complete backup of the Artist's Friend images. So, if you were a member of TAF and are still interested in getting images back, just send me a message!

Whee!

Marvin K. Mooney will you please go NOW.

My wife and I take turns putting our son, Derek, to bed. On her nights, she reads him a Dutch children's book, on my night, it's English. We both like Doctor Suess books. The whacked out artistry usually gives him something to focus on and my voice knocks him out in no time.
I thought that was pretty much it, pictures and the sound of my voice. We live in the Netherlands, there isn't a lot of English in his environment, just me and my family when we visit the states once a year. Today, my wife calls me at work and says, "Listen to this!".
She holds the phone out for Derek and he begins reading, "Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now." And reading it WELL. He's 5 years old, has a 30% hearing reduction (until the drains go in on the 11th this month, anyway), speaks Dutch all the time, and here he is rolling out a whole book over the phone.
I cried like a baby sitting there in my office. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Antonio

I don't mean to sound gay or anything, but Antonio Banderas looks pretty hot dressed up as Zorro.
...
As that thought was echoing around in my head, trying to come up with some kind of angle on it that could be stretched to a couple of paragraphs, my mind went tangental, and I started to think about George Hamilton in 'Zorro, the Gay Blade'. ZtGB was, quite frankly, the best Zorro movie ever.
I think about getting that movie on DVD so that I can share it with people around me. But I fear a repeat of the Blazing Saddles debacle:
"Look at this great movie that I've seen so many times I'm word perfect on it. And then, having seen the movie, my random pronunciations will be slightly more comprehensible!"
(time passes during which time, they have maybe watched the movie)
"What did you think?"
'I only watched about 20 minutes of it, it wasn't very good.'

Evolution Email program

I have the 'catchall' addresses for 4 separate domain names funneling into my email account. That means I receive between 180 and 280 spam messagers PER DAY. This is a pain. I did, at one time, have a self-rolled bayesian filter on my email box. It would sign on for me during the day and whack any messages it thought were spam before I ever even checked my POP account. This worked, but it was a bit cumbersome.
About a 6 months ago I switched to Ubuntu as my primary Linux distro. Evolution in Ubuntu comes with Spamassassin built in. I ditched my own spam filter and started using this functionality. For about a month, it was a disaster. I spent a lot of time laboriously picking through the mountains of email to identify to the filter which messages where spam and which were actually useful to me.
The second through fifth months showed a gradual increase in efficacy. But over the last month I must have hit some kind of threshold. I now get a total of maybe THREE spam messages in my inbox per day now. For about two weeks I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and figured that the filter was marking false positives.
But that was just my paranoia. Spamassasin has had no false positives during this time frame. Just fantastic stuff! I think I would recommend my Windows using friends to switch to Linux just for the chance to use Evolution.