My Valentine Postbox

Oh okay, okay I'll do it. Feel absolutely free to ignore if you don't enjoy this kind of thing.

Valentine Postbox

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Vampuss goes to Russia

It's really a bit late in the evening to be posting, but as Alex's daughter - with us this weekend - is watching videos, and Alex himself is designing what I have come to call "flapsies" (the flaps for the messenger bags) there's an opportunity. I've been meaning to "properly" post this small piece of news for some time.So, Shadow of the Vampuss was picked up by a Russian publisher - we were paid (even if very little) for the license - and they ran 20,000 copies. It's now out and friends keep saying that they see it in bookshops all over. Wooooooowooooo eh?So, here we are in Russian:http://www.labirint-shop.ru/books/157055/ http://books.shop.by/20612.html http://www.qpknigu.ru/showtov.asp?Cat_id=459002I've got to admit it - this gives me a huge buzz. Who would have thought that this would happen?

Meanwhile, back in Prague, another Presidential race...

Or should that be slow crawl? All day they have been debating on the method to use for voting. We watched for one hour but it was interminable. http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=295794 All I hope is that Klaus doesn't get it again. Here is one of his more lovely quotes: "Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus#Opinions_on_Global_Warming The embarrassment and insanity of a President who does not believe in global warming is too much for me. Especially on this mild and warmish (I kid you not) February evening. Please can someone tell Klaus to put his head out of the window and then tell this country why, for the second year running, we are having a warm winter? I mean, in Czech we can wander about in February without a coat??? This is a great country with totally inane politicians. Please don't let this idiot get in again.

Mitt Romney on Europe

"Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality..." Well, er, thanks Mitt. And let's be glad that he is out of it. I am very happy to be living in the most secular country in Europe. And, interestingly, the capital city with one of the lowest crime rates.

My hermit-like time is finishing

Alex is back tomorrow afternoon. All in all it hasn't been so bad and maybe it's even what I needed to get me over some of the horrors of last year. I've seen friends, enjoyed messing around with yarn (one jumper almost finished!) chatted to the rather bewildered cats and even gone shopping - not usually a favourite pass-time of mine but I did buy a great candle. It's reminded me how much I love seeing my one or two good female friends here. That's something I'm going to continue with. I've also been able to sit quietly and think about the programming of the new shop. All in all I realised that - even though a wonderful support person at Dreamhost saved my life by finally working out why I could not log in to our mailing list - some things at the server-end are beyond my capabilities. So I am seeing an experienced software engineer on Thursday in the hope that he will work a few days a month for us regularly. It would take a lot of the angsty stuff off me. I can do software, but when it gets to the edge of my knowledge it makes me very anxious, I'd much rather be working on the user-interface which is, after all, my real area of expertise (for anyone who hasn't gathered, I was a user-interface designer for years). The new shop software is genuinely well engineered - this much I DO have the experience to know. It's great, but means that there is a huge amount of back-end set up. For example, it can deal with separate shipping costs for every single country, so inputting and checking all the figures was in itself a day's work. It also has much better order tracking and more flexible capacity for rewards points and so on. It does brilliant meta-tagging, which ought to help people find the shop. Drawbacks? The look and feel is a touch hard to change, though as I quite like it that's not a huge issue. What else happened this ten days? Hmm, well I arranged finally to get Czech lessons - after all these years I now accept that no, I'm not going to pick it up my osmosis. I also at last began actively looking for a photographer to take professional shots for us. I'll probably say lots more about that as it's such an intense way of focusing on who we are, what we're doing and how to show it. So - after tomorrow I have the camera - and Alex - back. And hopefully three less neurotic cats. Or are the cats hoping that it's me who'll be less neurotic. Whatever, it'll be good to get back to normal, but all in all I'm not sorry this solitary ten days happened.

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
Pass it on! Yes, I know it's a little slick, but I still quite like it. And if it gets the message across...

Boringly, life here is mostly about building the new shop now. It's coming on nicely, though I am a bit worried about the sheer number of products and whether the whole thing is navigable enough. Well, at least this shop has things like wishlists (and, by the way, reviews that WORK and DO NOT VANISH mysteriously into the cyber-ether) so that you can bookmark as you go along. I suppose whatever I do now, the sheer number of designs and style and variations means that navigation will be an issue. But I've tried to keep it simple and I think it works quite well. I want to do a poll of some description at some point as I really need to think about which products and designs are most wanted. But let's get the shop going and the new messenger and bucket bags on to it, and then you can all tell me that what you REALLY wanted was more Wirth images - or summat! So, for now, here is the World bucket bag. I like very much the way that the prints now go up into the handle, this makes me happy! I also love how we are now doing the back panels - this one is in old Bohemian brocade in brown/black, but we also have this bag in with sky blue brocade. Yum: