Carolyn's Brain
Where Exploring Life and the Internet Meet
The Day Fire
There is a huge fire burning in the Los Padres National Forest called, "The Day Fire". It's been burning since September 4th, but on Saturday the winds picked up and shifted. Now, it's burning very close to Ojai, where we live. The valley sky covered in thick black smoke and everything has a weird orange glow to it.

A part of Ojai, called "Upper Ojai" is being evacuated. The fire is 2 miles past Rose valley and moving 1 mile per hour towards Ojai.

I find it a huge relief that there are websites giving hourly updates (http://www.vcsd.org) and people within the community are sending out email to keep everyone informed. I also found it ironic that the one website I found on Google Saturday afternoon, when an alarming plume of smoke rose over the highest mountain in the valley, was clearly a 9-5, monday-friday proposition. There's nothing wrong with that, if you're a brick and mortar business selling something like oven mitts. But if you're in the business of providing critical information for something like fire updates, timing is everything.




Ash on the side of the road
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Posted by Carolyn at 9/18/2006 7:16 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
The Elf Report

Shortly after we moved to Ojai I wrote a friend and told her about an interesting local trend.

 

"A lot of men in Ojai dress like elves in the winter time. They wear tight pants with long shirts that aren't tucked in and fuzzy boots that go over the pants. Not a look that I find attractive in anyone over the age of 6. I don't know what this says about the area but I find it slightly alarming.

 

At this time of year in Ojai the elves are at an awkward stage. They want to express themselves, but the weather is so hot, they resort to wearing their elf boots and shorts. This is a lot more unattractive than elf boots and tight pants.

 

I saw two of them today - one of them at Stir Crazy and one of them at the grocery store.

 

Elf Ratio: 2% "

What was a quirky fashion oddity 10 years ago, still holds true today. It's nice to know there is some consistency in the world

Just like there can be fads in clothing, there can also be fads in website design. Is your website keeping up with the newest trends? Is that important? Part of the concept of keeping up, has to do with customer trust. They want to know there is someone there and paying attention. And part has to do with usability of the website itself. Some design trends are the direct result of usability studies focusing on the way people interact with websites.
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Posted by Carolyn at 9/11/2006 11:30 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Email with a Fork

Have you ever thought you might be doing too much? The other day I got home from a meeting with clients at about 9pm and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Then I walked out to the studio and when I got there I didn't have the glass of water. I retraced my steps - no water. Oh well.

I worked in the studio for a couple of hours (where I proceeded to do really cool things with a propane torch). Then I came in to have dinner. On the way to the kitchen I found my glass of water sitting on the fire place mantel. I put some chicken and pasta left overs in the microwave, got out a fork and poured a glass of wine.
 
I put the fork and the wine on the table and went upstairs to my bedroom to get my glasses because I wanted to read my email before dinner. Then I went into my office but decided I was still thirsty, so headed back into the living room to get the water, bringing my glasses with me. I found myself at my desk with a fork. I guess I left my glasses on the table and the water was still on the mantel...

Don't you hate it when websites are like that? ('kay, it's a stretch, but this is supposed to be a blog about Internet Marketing, afterall). You just want to find one simple thing, but get lost doing it. Hate that! I can not emphasize enough the importance of page layout and navigation to my clients. It is one of the building blocks for a stable foundation in a successful website - which, of course, leads to a successful internet marketing plan.
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Posted by Carolyn at 9/3/2006 6:17 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
News from the Western Front

I convinced Ben to ditch piano lessons today and go in search of a Buddhist temple Sharon told me about during our "Girls lunch out" at Bodees on Friday. The fact that he was willing to skip piano for the first time in 6 years, told me how interested he was in finally getting to see one. The plan was to head out after our normal Saturday morning of chess and pastries at Stir Crazy and when we got to Montecito, stop and ask a local. No one knew, so we looked in a phone book under "Buddhist" (Ben's suggestion).

We found it in a really bad part of town behind a locked gate and a large, empty parking lot. It didn't match the description of "a beautiful temple with large gardens to walk through and a great bookstore" so we regrouped. Again, Ben came up with a great idea - follow the sign he had just seen to the "tourist bureau". Okay, at first I didn't think it was a great idea but didn't really know what else to do.

After standing in line for 15 minutes (I won't even tell you about parking) and amidst questions of places to stay, good restaurants and where is the zoo, we stepped up and told the woman we were looking for a Buddhist temple we had heard about in Montecito. All eyes turned to us and you could hear breathing in a very crowded room. I guess it's an unusual question in So. Cal, but I didn't think it would stop traffic. The woman's eyes widened, and for a brief second my mind flickered to that bad spot in my brain when I think my son might be in danger from a RUSA (run-in with a stupid adult) and then I have to become unpleasant" (whole different vein to mine there). Then she whipped around and, from some little secret drawer on the counter, pulled out a hand drawn map from the tourist office to the temple complete with address and phone number. Wow.

We finally got there and spent an hour walking around the grounds and browsing in the truly great bookstore. We didn't enter the temple because Ben suddenly became shy. Not knowing anything about Eastern Religion, I didn't think this was the time to "march straight in" like I usually do. It would be really sad to teach my son wrong in his religious exploration! While we were buying our books I asked the woman about entering the temple and she told us to (and I kid you not) - "just walk straight in". She warned us to use the left side (of the beautiful teak wood doors) because the right side was always locked and a lot of people leave thinking the temple isn't open. Nice, functional advice.

She walked out with us to the parking lot and said goodbye at the entrance to a path that said "visiting hours, Sunday 12-1pm". Hmmmm...

On the way home we decided that at the next possible Sunday we would head out and go to the Santa Barbara Art in the Park, arrive at the Vedanta Temple in time to visit (?), check out the temple, go watch the hang gliders taking off from Skyline Rd, and then finish the day by getting tri-tip sandwiches at Cold Springs Tavern - a very cool motorcycle hang out from another life of mine.

Oh - the books we bought: "Plan B - Further Thoughts on Faith" by Anne Lamott (my absolute favorite author) and An Open heart - Compassion in Everyday Life by The Dalai Lama.

So, why didn't we just Google it up before we left? Because it would have changed the flavor of the day and we wouldn't have spiraled in on it in such a fun way. We wouldn't have spent time on the curvy back roads of Montecito looking for it and talking about how those roads used to be one of my favorite motorcycle rides which wouldn't have lead to the discussion of having lunch at Cold Springs Tavern. I wouldn't have had such a nice glimpse into Ben's brain when he suggested looking up Buddhist in the white pages and he wouldn't have seen the huge grin on my face when it worked. And we wouldn't have met the three very nice guys at the gas station, hovering around a grimy map on the wall trying to find the address that alluded us. The first guy was completely disinterested when I first asked. Then we told him we were looking for a Buddhist temple, suddenly all three of them were trying to help and commenting that they had always wanted to go there.

I did Google it up when we got home. I was prepared to spend some time refining my search using negative keywords and exact phrases to find it. But no, I got it on my first try with two words - Montecito temple 
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Posted by Carolyn at 8/20/2006 11:58 AM | View Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
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