Fragments From Floyd

Norman Rockwell of Appalachia

Wil Gayheart's pencil art is truly amazing, and worth more than the purchase price by now, some of his earlier pieces. Wonder what ever happened to the one we were given by friends upon our leaving Virginia to return to Alabama for PT school in 1987. Somewhere in the move, it got tossed out with the trash, I suppose, because we never saw it again after the night it was given to us. And the sad thing is, the person who gave it to us was IN the scene Gayheart had drawn--a music event somewhere, and our friend Dale was playing the bass. Ah well...

Not Acceptable to Think

Keith Olberman, MSNBC, on YouTube (8 minutes) is not happy with the way Bush is dissing Colin Powell's wondering if we might have lost the moral high ground in Iraq.

Radio Reading

Yesterday was my fourth trip to record Slow Road for the Radio Reader program at WVTF, and the staff was kind enough to give me the first two sessions onto CD so I could play with the audio files and begin thinking of what, if anything, I will do with this stuff. But I can't access it. It's in "cda" file format on the CD. I was able to rip that to the hard drive in "wma" format, and the file appears to be playing (in WinAmp or Windows Media Player) but there is no sound. It won't copy to Audacity to tweak. Any ideas how to make this work? I'd expected the disk to be in "wav" format, and maybe that's do-able next visit.

Friday Dinner

Nice invitation received last night, and good timing as I'll be a Pharmacy Bachelor for Friday evening; Ann works late, and I was planning to head to town and see what I could get into. As it turns out, a neighbor-friend invited me to dinner with some visiting family from "off" who have deep connections with the old homeplace here, have kept up with goings-on in Floyd by way of my rambles (in the paper, I suppose) and are treating me to dinner at Pine Tavern after work today.

The Elbow Bump

Man, this would hit hard in Floyd County, the Land of Hugs. In a future world, handshakes could be bad for your health. Rubbing noses is definitely OUT. So is the high-five. But elbow bumps the greeting of choice?

NoteCards: The Expense!

It seemed like a good idea until I finally did the math. I've been thinking (and even talking here from time to time) about creating Fragments or Floyd or Slow Road Home notecards that I could market along with the book. I went so far as to call a friend down the road who owns a printing business and get a tentative quote for full color 5 x 7 cards, envelopes and shrink-wrap in sets of 4 or 6 cards. Any volume less than 500 is not feasible, and then MY cost would be about $1 a card. Considering any place I sold them (other than direct sales online) I'd pay 25% consignment and discount sales the usual 40%, I wouldn't make enough, really, even at a market retail of $2 per card. That's getting right pricey, and I sure don't want to get stuck with 400 cards. I don't know what I'll decide. I may go ahead and send along a half dozen images and get a mockup package, maybe show it around and see if folks think it would be worth the price.