Being held captive by sickness

You know that crappy, coughing til you're blue, congestion achy pain in the chest and butt illness that has been going around? Well, The Picaroon came down with the bug BAD and not even the thought of taking photos or blogging could lift energy levels high enough to do anything about the morass of nose tissues and tea cups said blog and blogger were mired in for days. Even today, first day back on the beat, can I say that anything feels even close to being perky. But I am here, I have a little bit to share, so let's see if I remember how to do this stuff, okay?

When the internet meets the real world - Renton Bloggers at large

Today was the day that the ethernet/internet materialized for one brief moment in time in Renton. The first Renton Bloggers Meetup took place at noon in the streets of the DTR . Although much publicised by Rich Zwicker, who called this meeting together, it was mostly just those of us who write on, about or around the topic of our little ole town that showed up, had coffee at Liberty Cafe and shot the shit.

A glaring exception would be RentonBen and Daves Not Here - notorious commentators on Randy Corman's blog Renton Community Update and occasionally weighing in at Rich Zwicker's Renton425 and Miss Lynar's AllaboutRenton blogs. The Picaroon avoids such verbal lacerations and shenanigans by monitoring the blog comments, left in the ever capable hands of Mrs. Heimlich Mortimer, staff Blog Monitor and spokesperson for The Picaroon at today's gathering. However, RentonBen must have sent a younger, more kind spoken stand-in today, for much to The Picaroon's (and everyone else's surprise) RentonBen was not as heinous as previously thought. He insists that a good 25% off his blog potty mouth is to incite a little blog blather, and seems to think that he comes off as a "liberal conservative" (huh?!!). Whatever the source of his diatribe, his persona today did in no way match his online caustic antics. This is rather a worrying conundrum - there is still more digging necessary to get to the bottom of RentonBen, but I don't have enough garden gloves to spare.

Brandie, Miss Lynar of AllaboutRenton, Mary Clymer of Happy Delusions Weblog and Mrs. Mortimer of The Picaroon.

The Picaroon was happy to meet a relatively new blogger to the Renton online scene, Rebecca Wright of the blog The Wright Up, whose link I will be syncing to my front page ASAP. Elizabeth Stewart of the Renton Historical Museum swung by to say "howdy" as did our Mayor Denis Law and Marcie Palmer with her photographer hubby Gary Palmer.

Mayor Denis Law, Randy Corman, Cathy Corman, Rich Zwicker, RentonBen and his son Alden, Freakazoid Freddy of the Displaced Hipster's Guide to Renton.

Blogging Celebrity status has it's perks - Mrs. Mortimer was dressed today by Deb of Girlfriend's Antiques,Gifts and Floral on S.Third St. Thanks Deb- our staff Blog Monitor looks great!

Renton Blog, I blog about Renton, blogging, blogger, shoot me a Renton glance will ya!!

Okay - so here's the story. I am at a meeting with other local Renton bloggers and users of Social Media at the Renton Historical Museum and a PR guy in the realm of corporate communications is also there, wild fingers flying on the Blackberry as we introduce ourselves to one another. Eric Berto aka GeekGiant, writer also of a techie blog, quickly types in Renton and Blog into the search engine he is using and my blog, The Picaroon, is no where to be found. Just a listing for some guy writing occasionally about real estate and Renton, and then something from the Seattlest(??) from 2006. WTF?

Luckily, Eric is highly approachable and I corner him, hit him with my ubiquitous Picaroon business card and ask him what I need to do to remedy this - like, NOW. I am still on a huge learning curve here in the blogosphere, so when he is telling me about the meta tags and the hypertext links, I am sorta there and racking my brain as to where I am still going wrong. But I am thinking - okay, go home, do your research, hit him up with that email he said you could send, see what you can do.

So, here it is - a shameless bit of self promotion in the world of BLOGS. I exist, I write, I write about Renton. I promise that in the weeks and months to come, I will make this process of finding me and this fine Renton Blog easier. I strive to try to bring home the Renton bacon to all of you. Or, at least, just my small slice of Renton life and a keen view from my home frying pan.

Ah, hey Eric - I hope you don't mind man - just trying to use the great tips you gave me and put them to good use.

My Computer World is all turned 'round!

This is me, taking a photo of the computer terminal at the library. My new blogging refuge since a nasty little malware bit into my registry and took my little lovely laptop baby offline! Thank goodness for my other technology - I am taking photos with my Blackberry phone, and then emailing them to my Blogger account while at the library. I then, within the mere half hour I am given - try to write quickly and semi-coherently to all of you.

SOOOOoooooo - if you aren't getting the tasty photos from me that you are accustomed to or the earlier blog posting that I try to get going for those of you following me online while at work - please bear with me. I hope to be up and going soon. I really miss my laptop - I have also come to realize just how often I DO use it. Some personal scheduling and boundaries around laptop accessing may have to come in play here, upon reflection. I just have to look in the direction of my laptop, and I am sucked into the virtual vortex!

Most of all - I miss the photo taking and the liberal creative license it gives me on a day to day basis. That is what I can hardly wait to return to - for this blog has allowed me to take all the photos my little heart desires and give them exposure, purpose and reason for being.

So please, hang in there with me - I will be back in full form soon.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

When newspapers and mail mattered

These photos were inspired by our latest talk of blogging, the possible loss of our downtown Post Office and the sad devolvement of the printed word via newspapers. This old home whose back door looks out onto Burnett Ave., still boasts a mail box that has a crook to rest a paper in and an old orange plastic box for a publication out of circulation. Will we ever return this way again, I wonder? It all feels just a tad sad - a time soon to be forgotten. Ink stained fingertips, papers that were iron pressed and hung on wooden racks at the local hotel or men's club, the rustle of the paper at the breakfast table and the fight over the funnies. Are we really ready to say this goodbye?

Now hear this - the Renton Reporter has spotted us

It seems that the gig is up - local Renton blogs have finally hit the Renton Reporter's radar. It was in print today, so it must be true. But I will tell you how the story truly goes. We have the lovely Liz Stewart, Renton Historical Museum Director, to thank for bringing us all into focus. Seems that while the latest museum exhibit was having it's key open house, there were two local bloggers on hand to report the event, and only that. So Liz "tweeted" as such to the local rag, got a kinda "Huh?" response, and cleared the confusion by listing off some of the local bloggers that she knew. So, now it seems that maybe that the Reporter will have a blog as well ? (Oh, or maybe just have us "log" on). I, personally, remain steadfastly independent. My comrade-in-arms are listed in my blogroll to the right. Let the fun begin.

Why this came to be...

Renton - we live here, some of us love it here - and most of us never find out what in the hell is going on here. Tired of being out of the know-of relying solely on the offchance of hearing a stray rumor? Talk to me - read my posts - help me to help you to hear about what is up in our little town.