Is Your Internet Driving You Stark Raving Mad?

 I have a very good (expensive!) U-Verse internet connection. Yet for the last few days, my internet has been intermittently freezing, stopping and going out altogether. Weather is very cold and blustery and snowy. But temps are actually about 20 degrees higher and winds have died way down and it's acting up worse than every. Does weather affect it? Is Your Internet Driving Your Stark Ravers? Mine Is!

They Put a Black Rose on My Door When She Died

Empowered, inspired and touched by my friends who've shared about losing children, I'm sharing my motheraches. We lost our 5th and 6th children, both girls, to separate in utero trauma. Both little ladies were ironically the same gestational age when they passed away. But their causes of death were different. And we never found out what exactly happened with either. Here's more on that and a poem I wrote for Mary Therese.They Put a Black Rose on My Door

Bubblews Success Means Getting Past ATM Mentality

 Arvind, CEO of Bubblews (a cool online writing venue) made a great allusion in his "Invite Your Friends" Day post. He said successful bubblers used Bubblews as a social networking blog and not an ATM. I've been chewing on the automatic teller machine metaphor and why it's so apt. And why, to make Bubblews "pay" we have to work it as it was designed to operate--heavy on the "we" and light on the "me." See, some of us have been writing online for years. And we are not used to reading, sharing, commenting and liking on each other's work. We are used to writing in our own bubble. But the customer should be given what he wants. And interaction is what Bubblews wants. Bear that in mind if you write online. Learn what works and follow it. Bubblews Success Means Getting Past ATM