It’s become a kind of tradition as of late for me to venture downtown on early Saturday/Sunday afternoons to grab something to eat before starting work on those days. Usually, I walk up the bike path, making my way downtown. But yesterday, the weather sucked. It was cold, with a biting wind blowing out of the north. I decided to cut my walk short and just pick up some food from somewhere close to home. I turned ’round and trudged up the hill at the top of Orcutt Road. I was thinking about picking up a sandwich at Cool Cat Cafe, but it turned out that they were closed. I decided to check out nearby Le Ciel Crepe Cafe instead.
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I’m starting a new feature here at Shawnogram called “Photo Fridays.” It’s pretty simple. On Fridays, I’ll be posting some of the photos I’ve uploaded to Flickr during the previous week. Unfortunately, some pressing website maintenance issues took over my time yesterday, so I wasn’t able to get to it until today. That means the inaugural Photo Friday post is actually happening on Saturday, thus making it “Photo Fraturday.” Kinda has a ring to it, eh?

Jen goes exploring the rocks and tide pools of Montana de Oro State Park. See the rest of this set here.

Vanya the wi-fi bunny received an unexpected gift this week from another member of rabbit kind. The red bow came as part of the packaging from a milk-chocolate Easter bunny. That bunny is no longer with us (because Jen ate it!) but its memory lives on.
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I saw this in an e-mail I received yesterday from the website SLOjobs:

I find it amusing that the job description in the highlighted section reads “Retail Clerk/Retail Buyer/??.” I’m sure it’s just some bad web code that caused it to display like that. Still, it’s probably a good idea to avoid any job where “??” is a potential job-related duty.

(Not the actual soda fountain in the entry.)

I had lunch today at a favorite local Mexican place. I ordered the usual: Carne asada burrito, side of chips and a small fountain soda. I paid the cashier and took the Styrofoam cup I received in return. I walked over to the restaurant’s Coca-Cola fountain, pushed the cup against the ice lever, and filled the cup to the correct level (there is only ONE correct level) with ice and then moved the cup over to the fountain’s Coke dispenser. Immediately after pressing the cup against the cola-release switch, I knew there was a problem. What should’ve been a steady stream of Mr. Pemberton’s sweet syrupy concoction was punctured by the dreaded chugging sound that, all too often these days, plagues the soda fountains of America. I wasn’t surprised to see that, as the cup began to fill, there was very little carbonation in the soda. I knew I was in for disappointment. Sure enough, upon my first gulp of the (not-so) fizzy drink, the beverage’s shortcomings were revealed. It seemed as though the Tacos de Acapulco soda fountain had failed me. Now, it wasn’t the worst fountain Coke I had ever had. There was still enough Coke-y magic in there to keep it mildly flavorful. I drank that first cup of soda while eating, and once I finished the beverage, I returned to the soda fountain. I dumped the ice and remaining drops of soda out of the cup and into the fountain’s recycle grate (or whatever that is). I added some fresh ice (once again, only the correct amount) and decided to go for a different drink. This time, I chose the venerable Dr. Pepper. You see, Dr. Pepper is almost always a safe bet from the soda fountain. There’s something about the good Dr.’s bite that usually overpowers even the weakest fountain mixtures. Well today, it seems that the Dr. was NOT in. My auxiliary beverage choice turned out to be even less satisfying than my first. Like the Coke, the Pepper was flat. It had just enough of that famous Dr Pepper zing! though that I knew there was no turning back. Had I just abandoned the D.P. to the fountain’s recycle grate and then refilled my cup with Coke, the cola would’ve certainly taken on odd twinges of Pepper-y badness, and that would’ve just made everything lousy. I continued on with my eatings, and gulped down the soda only when absolutely necessary. I’d say better than half of that second cup’s worth of soda went unconsumed. I’ve decided that, while I will continue to enjoy the excellent victuals prepared with loving care by the Tacos de Acapulco staff, I’ll be getting my beverages elsewhere.

(Here’s some photos I took at the place, by the way:)

Just before I began typing this entry, I realized that this site is about to hit its first anniversary. Hooray for blogging. Hooray for me. It’s kinda funny, really. I’ve been considering shutting this site down. Been feelin’ like it’s time to move on. Find some new digs out on them thar Interwebz. Or something like that. I mean, as a personal blog, this site is OK. But I probably could’ve achieved what little I’ve achieved here anywhere. I could’ve set up shop at Blogger or MySpace or wherever. Hell. I could’ve just kept my old blog going. And saved some money on a domain name, too.

When I launched Shawnogram, I envisioned it as a rich “multimedia” site where audio, video, photos and text would all live happily together. Side by side. Sorta like the United Nations, but better. All that’s really happened is I’ve gone through cycles of doing just one thing for weeks at a time, usually followed by doing nothing for weeks at a time. That depresses me. Shawnogram isn’t really a “content-rich” environment. It’s kinda like the Santa Maria mall in that way. Sure, there’s a few good things. But really, it’s mostly empty, and what good is that?

I had an idea this morning for a new site. And in reality, the new site wouldn’t be all that different from Shawnogram. Except it would be different. You see, I’d really like to start creating things on a daily basis. Things like audio podcasts, videos and even fun text entries. Sure, I could just start doing that here. But this idea is also attached to a new URL, and I like the sound of that particular URL. It’s something that I think the boingboing crowd and the iKidz of these crazy Internet times would like and remember. It’s certainly better than Shawnogram. And oh yeah, the other thing. I also thought I’d try and get some other folks on board for this one. You know, guest submissions, regular contributors. Stuff like that. I know, I know. I’ve tried all of that in the past, and it’s never worked. But maybe this time’ll be different! Because… because… I don’t know. It just will!

Or maybe I’ll just leave everything as it is. In the meantime, if you’re reading this, and you’d like to be a part of the next Big Deal in Internet, contact me using one of the handy methods available in the sidebar. And hey, you! Thanks for reading!