Première question isolente qui sort de mon esprit parfois englué par le discours lénifiant des autorités : je me demande bien qui a décidé de métamorphoser Lausanne ? Qui a décidé, comme ça, du jour au lendemain, que la ville devait se transformer. Qui a décidé qu’elle devait changer d’apparence ? Qui a décidé que, à l’instar du Dr Banner qui se métamorphose en l’incroyable Hulk, Lausanne devait devenir une nouvelle ville ou une ville nouvelle, une ville incroyable ? Qui a décidé cela et pourquoi ?

La réponse officielle est la suivante : «Une réflexion globale et approfondie sur la manière de réaliser de grands équipements utiles à Lausanne et à la région a été élaborée par la Municipalité.»

«Métamorphose» n’est que la traduction en un seul mot de la volonté municipale. Une traduction pour le commun des mortels, pour la galerie, pour la com’ et pour la presse.

Quel drôle de mot que ce «métamorphose» qui veut affirmer que la ville «bouge». Une ville qui bouge comme si elle s’éveillait de décennies d’immobilisme et de torpeur. Un concept porteur, qui s’inscrit dans la droite ligne des préceptes de la modernité qui postulent que tout doit bouger et vite si possible. Une modernité qui associe la lenteur et l’immobilité à la mort. Une modernité qui fait la mobilité reine, même à la veille d’un grand coup de frein pétrolier.

Métamorphose, mobilité, modernité … Quels beaux concepts, quelle contemporanéité !

Mais je m’égare.

Sur la page d’accueil de Critères, il est dit «Nous vous apportons un appui pour améliorer votre communication». Dans la pratique le groupe Ola ! est chargé de mettre sur pied et d’animer «des ateliers destinés à la réflexion sur l’écoquartier offriront des espaces d’expression, de discussion et de collecte de données.»

Ola ! est donc là pour sentir le pouls de la population et pour recueillir ses aspirations, ses propositions, ses envies. Il est donc là pour écouter et prendre note puis pour transmettre. C’est en tout cas ainsi que je le comprends.

À part les ateliers, les balades en ville et une roulotte, Ola ! s’est fendu d’un site Internet et, évidemment, d’un groupe sur Facebook. Et c’est avec le site Internet que cela se gâte. Oh, pour pas grand-chose. Pour un de ces petits riens qui font que l’on en arrive vite à se demander si on ne se fiche pas un peu de nous. Pour une de ces petites formules malheureuses que l’on peut tolérer d’un profane mais pas d’une entreprise de com’.

Une petite formule qui en dit long :

http://ola.lausanne.ch le site qui sait tout !

Le site qui SAIT tout !

Le site de ceux qui ont été mandatés pour mener une démarche participative, donc pour écouter, recueillir, transmettre ce que les habitants de la ville en métamorphose désirent SAIT tout !

Quelle magnifique erreur de com’ ! Quelle bévue ! Si leur site sait tout, qu'est-ce que les Lausannois peuvent lui dire ? Qu'est-ce qu'ils peuvent bien lui apprendre ? Et que dire d’eux ? Que dire des autorités qui les ont engagés ?

Si seulement ce site s’était baptisé :

http://ola.lausanne.ch le site qui DIT tout !

On y aurait cru un instant.

NOT!!!

Yesterday I sold several items at www.onlineauction.com  I am grateful for every purchase that I make, but I felt the need to re-stock my items.   Since Tama wanted to play on the pc, I thought I'd take the opportuntiy to spend some time in the garage getting things ready to list.  You would not believe how much stuff is out there!!  I could just grab a box without looking and have plenty to sell!

So I found a variety of things to list [toys, books, collectibles, a picture frame, and more], and set about taking pictures in between washing clothes.  Meanwhile, Tama is plugging away at her game.  About two hours later, I let T know that I was ready to list.

I'm not exagerating when I tell you ~ It took me a good 4-5 hours to list those 30 or so items!! 

My kids are normally self sufficient and often referred to as "good kids."  Let me tell you, yesterday I had never before seen my children so needy!  Not to mention that every toy I listed Tama wanted [though she already has the same thing, which she can't find]!  And they also know that this is what makes money for their Christmas presents and any extras they want along the way [heck, it NEEDS to be paying the bills right now!!!]

The plan was to list more today, but I think yesterday still has me a bit discouraged.  So instead I'm going to do a lot of "advertising" for ola today.  At least then I won't feel as rushed and walking away won't be an issue.

I'm not going to be posting lots of pictures, but please come by to check out my new wares.  I have listed Spongebob, batman, Bratz, books, a Pokemon Book, a vintage cookbook, a couple of vintage craft books, and so much more!

www.onlineauction.com/store/tamancam

Is a great day for LOLz! an for Yarnz (or is it Yarnses?) Nik insisted we look at his new LOLz over breakfast...not sure LOLz before coffee is such a great thing...srsly!

Oh, and I found good smileys - Which I will continue to inflict on all you wonderful readers (YES! all 3 of you!!)!I've been having way too much fun with these for an almost-50 yo dragon. Every one needs toys; the smileys are my new toys!!

Anyway, back to LOLz (Trying to blog before Adderall is also a problem ....must. ..focus... on... coherent.... thoughts.... )

So distractable, OH NOoooos! Have Olympics Brain! That's why I know YOU stayed up; everyone is staying up to watch those terrific swimmers. Gymnastics. Beach Volleyball? Why in the world is Beach Volleyball and Olympic sport??? Wait, I forgot, the Olympic Committee is a bunch of guys. Like greased girls in swimsuits. Some must like greased boys in swimsuits...

We were up watching swimming - again - Hubby was a college swimmer; he's taking a walk down memory lane (doesn't that make us sound all old and cute??) Bleah. OK. Swimming is cool. That Chris guy is winning so many medals and breaking so many world records...could he be an alien fish mutant???? Nik had enough sense to stumble upstairs by 10:30. As adults, hubby and I reserve the right to make incredibly stupid choices all by ourselves. Who needs more than 6 hours of sleep anyway..... ?

Anyway, back to Lolz. I gave Nik permission to use the computer while I was at work yesterday. He was itching to get back to making LOLz. He was miffed (isn't that a cute word? Bleah.) that I had been spending all the time on the computer. on OLA. listing Stuff. on editing Photos. to list Stuff. on OLA. of my de-stash effort . of Yarns!!

It hurts me to even take pictures of all that yarn. (It burns usss...). I was just holding my Lana Grossa Brillo that I'd bought to crochet a sleeveless tank. It's so soft and soft and soft...SOB

So, here are photos of the best of my yarns - my lovely vintage yarns, my Australian vintage yarns...I love Australian Wool Yarn! The crepe multiply yarns are my weakness and the bright blues and the purples and the..... You can tell I'm serious about de-stashing. Not only am I getting rid of my stash of vintage Patons Highland Wool in Bright Blue with confetti flecks, BUT I'm also getting rid of (I'm cringing here now...) PURPLE yarn!!!I know you're just eaten up with curiosity to find out what treasures I'm...getting....rid...of.....

My Lana Grossa Brillo,

my Lovely pile of bright blue Vintage Red Heart Wool Yarn (with the red heart tags that say "pull here to start"), my biiigggg pile (8 sk) of Villawool 12 Ply Machinewash,and my (SOB) 5 sk. Very Vintage Patons Highland Wool Yarn with a Vintage Patons knitting pattern book from the 60s!!!

Oh, yeah - LOLz...

I did get a little off track there, Huh?

OK - LOLz.... Nik wanted me to to look at his new LOLz, so the first thing we did (after I checked my email and omail, of course) was go look at his new LOLz - He wanted me to upload his newest photos too...

Stick to LOLz woman!OK. So, Here're some beauties from Nik's collection:

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

I'm afraid my latest LOLz are rather more topical....

moar funny pictures

Gotta go, but more later!

Do you remember when that was the norm?

You came from a parish, not a neighborhood.

Holy Name, IHM, St. Savior, Holy Family, OLA, OLPH, Regina Pacis, St. Finbar, Visitation, St. James St. Agnes...just to name a few.

I mostly recall going against other parishes while competing for Holy Name basketball, baseball, Track and Field and Cross-Country.

One evening riding home on the 'RR' train from Bay Ridge with a few teammates,  a guy sitting across from us reading a newspaper asked us, 'what parish you guys from'?

The word "parish" was used to refer to the people who attended a particular church in the area.  All catholic boys and girls; attending mass on Sunday, being taught in school by priests and nuns.

Many of our readers have moved out of the 'parish' and now live in 'towns'.

What's odd is that growing up on 9th avenue I don't ever recall identifying my place of residence/neighborhood as Windsor Terrace?

Tomorrow, I'll send them to school with their new shoes and backpacks filled to the brim. And before you know it, the pools will be closing for the season and we'll be getting ready for the holidays. But at least we're having fun!

Be sure to check out my auctions at www.onlineauction.com for a few interesing items that might come in handy during this back to school season. And don't forget to browse other members' auctions, where you're sure to find all the mechanical pencils, erasers, notebooks, and backpacks that you'll need to be sure this is a smooth transition, for whatever grade your "little one" is entering this year!

Check out these few items to get you started!

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=580279

Photo Albums available in many styles, Winnie the Pooh, Marvel, Mickey Mouse, and Spider-Man

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=580600

Perfect to Protect those iPods!

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=441447

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=547963

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=522188

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction:view_item&auction_id=567045

O outro em inglês continuará ativado, mas aqui será mais voltado para amigos, familiares e conhecidos... Se vc é só um curioso, não tem problema! É bem vindo tb... =]

Agradeço imensamente à minha irmãzinha querida, Júlia, que me ajudou a escolher um nome para o blog. Brigadinha manoca! Kisses pra vc. Gastamos praticamente um dia inteiro mas, na minha opinião, valeu a pena... hehehe

Então... os posts aqui serão bem randômicos... Fatos cotidianos, pensamentos, experiências novas nessa terra de pinguim---que na verdade agora está bem parecido com o Brasil, já que o verão está comendo quente! Literalmente!

Bom, é isso...

Até logo.

Laura

Just wanted to share some of the newest happenings at www.onlineauction.com The site is growing by leaps and bounds with new upgrades, their own sponsored radio program, and now introducing Google Groups!

Esteemed member MetzyMom, at the suggestion of kaysatticspace, has implemented out own Google Group.  This is a place outside of www.onlineauction.com , created by and for the members, where we can join together to discuss items we are selling, items we are looking for, recent changes at OLA, changes we would like to see, and really anything of interest that pertains to our Online Auction World.

This is NOT an OLA members-only group, anyone interested is welcome to come in and stop by.  The main rule is that you "behave" and play nice [aren't we adults, after all]!  This is a moderated group, with membership needing approval.  And this is NOT and OLA Afiliated Group.  It was created by the members, not the staff [though staff would no doubt be welcome!]

Stop in and join us, give us your insight as a seller, a buyer, or a browser.  All input will be welcome and appreciated

OLA OnlineAuction Discussion

Visit this group

Well last night was the first of (I hope) many Thursday nights with OLA-Radio and a whole lot of really nice folks. Our first show was a winner even with Dave and myselfworking the buttons and as it would happen we had a power serge, outage, hicup, etc and was knocked off the air for a moment but with Dave McButtons quick action everything was back up within minutes, so if you missed any of the OLA-Radio Show with owner Chris Fain please go to our archived page on the web site and listen. We will put all of our show on the archived page so that you may listen at your convenience as always.

Now for those that did listen the opening music was not what I planed and we sounded like the 6PM news Sorry... but if you would like to have a piece of original music 60 sec long considered for the opening please contact me at Sparky@basicstobusiness.com and Dave and Iwill look at it. And if we have a lot of entries we will but up a poll or something to judge the winner.

Well I do hope that you enjoyed the show as much as we did doing it and will tune in next Thursday at 9pmET for more of the fun.

Remember "Its better to live on the air than dead in the ground"

Thanks Again

Sparky

Got more tired by scrounging around over and under bolts of fabric and boxes of yarn.  Destashing is a must - but I really shouldn't have done it tonight.  I am going to majorly regret this in the morning....You know I'm serious about de-stashing when I get out purple and turquoise yarn to sell - and my vintage yarns....only some of them though. Nobody's getting my Lopi or cabled/crepe Australian yarn!

On the other hand, I realized I've got some great vintage yarn that I will never use - so I will put it up to auction so the yarnies (like yarn whore and other dedicated yarn hunters) can fight over it!!  I've got super Patons highland with flecks (along with a super vintage patons knitting leaflet from the 60s, and lovely Red Heart wool (back when they made real yarn...).  Both are lovely turquoise.  Those are the ones I have in significant amounts!

I've got bags, boxes and baskets, all waiting to be sorted. Now, all of it isn't vintage. But there's a lot of it!! Some plain old New Zealand wool, some brand name fancies, almost all 100% wool or cotton.  I will admit to one large skein of Red Heart Acrylic but I have no idea how that got in my stash!

Nik started some of the sorting, but got "fatigued" after filling about 4 gallon zip-locks.  He decided to raid the fridge for more food, and found some left-overs that he said he was "slavering over". Couldn't sort with hands and mouth full of chicken. Sigh.  I guess that leaves it to me for now.

But I'll get to play with all that lovely yarn!! Maybe I'll take some pics tomorrow and give you a peek.  Make you drool!!!

I'll be putting it up for auction in my OLA House, Dragonmum's Hoard, on OnlineAuction next week. Might even have some at fixed price.  Never know, could be a snooze-loose situation!!

Right now, I do have some yarn up - 4 beautiful skeins of Plymouth Yarns Fantasy Naturale, 3 of Sirdar Denim Sport Aran, and a colorful pile of lovely yarn balls!

Dave and Sparky were in their own true forms as is the norm. Gotta love those guys!!! They love to play and have fun, but still manage to take care of the business at hand and get the information they are seeking from their guests. Scott Pooler joined in in the chat room and had his own questions for Chris, which were also promptly answered. Scott always knows what to ask and how to ask it. YAY Scott!!! According to Dave and Sparky, there were over 220 live listeners, which is certainly not a bad number for a debut internet show. There were maybe 15 or so users (including moi) on the live chats to ask questions, make comments and chit chat. It was both informative and a lot of fun. Hope to see even more next week and the week after that and.....

If you would care to check out the "new" OLA, please come on over to www.onlineauction.com and take a look-see. If you would like to join next week's ola-radio show (Thursday evening 9E, 8C, 7M and 6P times), just come on over here: http://www.ola-radio.com/ at the appropriate time in your time zone. We'd love to see you there.

Here goes..........

I am along with Dave starting a new venture  OLA-Radio  every Thursday nite at 9pmET to 10pmET thats 6pmPT to 7pmPT and if your somewhere in between you can figure it out.. Just think OLA's very own show just so we can talk about OLA and it's new and up coming growth.

 WOW.....I'm getting wound up....

How about you?

Are you ready for this?

Chris Fain will be our first guest, which is a great way to get the new show up and running. We'll be putting it on the archived page as well.

So don't miss a single show  of OLA-radio.com with both Dave and myself Sparky as we start this new adventure....

Oh by the way...... We're still on every Saturday at www.basicstobusiness.com at 10amET-Noon so please join us live........

From Then and Now and Back Again Jewelry Mystery Auction!!!

From then and now and back again jewelry mystery auction. It will begin with a then AND now jewelry set in black with two tone metal. Very elegant. That is all I can say. For every $3.00 increase in bids, a piece from THEN or a piece from NOW will be added. There is no minimum; there is no maximum. There is no telling what you might find. There will be vintage, not so vintage, new, chic, elegant and who knows what else in this mystery auction. All I can say for sure is you won’t be sorry or disappointed in what you receive.

As is the norm, you are bidding on the necklace and earring set described. Any other surprises you find in the package are my gifts to you.

So, you ask, why is the Dragonmum concerned about meta tags? Dragonmum's Hoard isn't doing so well.

An esteemed colleague from OLA (Funky J Monky) pointed out the importance of these in getting the search engines to find our OLA Stores - especially since we still don't have direct feeds - but even then, we need to be tagged correctly to be ranked decently. Since Dragonmum is partially clueless (not totally - hush you, I am not!!)

Funky J Monky can be found at Funk & Junk Collectibles.

I'm visiting several of the free meta-tag analyzer sites - As a small on-line seller, I don't have $ to pay site developers. I just want something that will point out my mistakes (and, with no money, free is the right price) - I can find other tools to tell me how to fix them!!

I'll keep you posted on how they are working.

Here is a good basic tutorial on Key Word Optimization.  I cannot vouch for any of the links on the page, though.

Best Meta Tag Analyzers I'm finding:

I like MetaTagMD, They actually take some time to go over your site - of course, they'd like you to subscribe to their service!

SEOTools has a keyword density analyzer, and WOOOHH! So many great tools! For Free! including a FireFox add-on for improved competitve reseach SEO fo Firefox

A different SEO (Searchengineoptimizing) gives a very comprehensive report. They do ask that you link to them. There's a lot of it I don't know what to do with - like reducing number of links - but I'll figure it out!  I can understand the words "poor" and "terrible", which, unfortunately, were used several times in my site analysis.... SEO Analysis of Dragonmum's Hoard

Widexl - sends you to SEOCentro Meta Tag Analyzer : so far so OK. Slightly different approach than the others. It says my title relevancy to page content is excellent - that makes me a bit skeptical but the rest seems logical. Also wants your first born for the rest of their services!

1 2 3 Submit Pro has a key word density analyzer, but their meta tag analyzer sucks (like scrub..)

To Avoid (Worth less than free!!):

TrafficZap - useless

xtvworld - leads to TrafficZap!

Submitshop - "

brothersoft - shill site - one of those that just have buy dot com listings, etc

nternet-marketing-resources.co.uk - shill site for casinos!

Thisisouryear - couldn't process my URL - kept dropping off the user id code.

So-So:

Scrub the Web - well, it's free, what do you expect? Very Limited feedback - probably not worth your time

**There are several DIY Meta Tag Generators.  They are a whole different post!

Update on OnlineAuction:

Our Open House Sale wasn't the success we expected, especially for Dragonmum's Hoard. I still have lots of lovely cheap clothes, collectibles, bags, shoes, fabric, craft patterns, clothes patterns and counted cross stitch charts. Plus, I just listed some gorgeous designer upholstery fabric

and yarn. (see pics above!!)

Today, Vintage Quilting magazines go up; I have magazine back issues from the early 1970s!!

I don't think there was enough advertising exposure - we are novices at this, and even when the direct Google feeds go live, we're still going to...hey, that's where I started this post!!

http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=auction_house:main&user_id=22278

My next ventures will be vintage magazines: knitting, crochet, crafts and sewing patterns plus vintage yarn!!

Will keep you up dated!!  Look at my store to see the latest loot...

Bo jak sie wyjdzie z pracy to tez trzeba cos z soba poczac.

Następny wpis po wypłacie zapewne, i po wywołaniu lubitelowych, bo jak widać poszedł w ruch. A jak narazie niepełny update w galerii. http://bwysocki.info/galeria

espero que todos leitores gostem deste blog

Having recently attended for the first time both the American Library Association (ALA) Convention in Anaheim, and the Special Library Association (SLA) Convention in Seattle last month, some of my friends and peers wanted to know: What's the difference? How do they compare?

First of all, I want to clear up the misconception that to SLA is a branch of ALA. Even though the acting president of SLA, Steven Abrams, attended and even spoke at ALA, the Special Library Assocation is, in fact, its own organization with its own budget and its own separate membership. SLA is also a lot smaller than ALA. The final head count for the SLA Convention in Seattle was 5,000. The ALA final count was 21,063 attendees.

Secondly, I want to be open and state that I am biased towards SLA because I've become an active member of my local chapter and was awarded a large scholarship at the conference in Seattle.  In contrast, I've found it very difficult to connect to the Oregon chapter of SLA.  To be honest, I'm not even sure that our state chapter does anything

aside from having an annual OLA Conference, putting out a quarterly publication and hosting a listserv.  While I greatly benefit from the listserv and have had the privilege of publishing in the OLA Quarterly, these benefits do not translate into a sense of community or involvement for me.  For my local chapter of SLA, there are frequent member meetings and events to attend -- which is a great help to a distance education student like myself because it makes up in part for my lack of access to campus life activities and helps keep me in regular contact with practicing professionals.

Both the SLA and the ALA conferences were held on the West Coast this year.  Since I live in Portland, Oregon, this was especially convenient for me.  Seattle culture is much more similar to Portland culture than SoCal culture though and so I didn't really feel like I was on vacation in Seattle so much as visiting a close friend.  In Anaheim though, it was sunny and there were palm trees and I went to Disneyland.  I know that we're all supposed to hate Disney for being an evil corporate machine that commercializes childhood, but honestly?  Disneyland is so much fun.  I can't deny it.  I would go all the time to Disneyland if I lived in Southern California even though I don't watch their children's movies anymore.

About the conferences though -- there is a very large style gap between the two organizations.  Here is my general impression:

At SLA it seemed very clear to me why most members were attending: to network, improve their job skills and help others do a better job.  Vendors were there to sell us products and we were there to buy them.  A typical interaction with another SLA member would be for me to walk up and introduce myself, exchange business cards, and have the person I approached begin to give me advice or guideance about who was who and what at the conference is worth doing.  There were very few giveaways of physical objects, but lots of free food, drink and alcohol. 

People appeared to go to ALA for all sorts of reasons though: to job hunt, to attend required in-person meetings, to hang out with other libraians and have fun, to lobby Washington, to get free books, to have a vacation, to meet famous authors, to bring back specific information for a local library, etc.  The list goes on.  However, this means that a typical interaction with another ALA attendee for me was more like approaching someone and then having that person be either swept away by friends or a short exchange that didn't go beyone swapping names because the other person has things to do, people to see, or is also confused and doesn't know what's going on either.  Which is unforunate.  There are so many different things to do at ALA that when I recently received a mailing summarizing all the various goings on, I realized that I only attended one of the events referenced in the entire booklet.

In the future, I may or may not attend ALA, but I will probably continue to attend SLA.

Another change is when you start to list a new auction, instead of the old way of having to do it in two pages (the second one being where you upload your pictures) it is all done on one easy page. 

The categories are being worked on as we speak.  So far we are on a two tier system, but the 3rd and 4th levels are being added. 

We now have 135 sellers listed as participating in this sale.  

And yesterday two more joined us:

Veri_keri      http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=search:searchUser&user_id=31111
galera           http://www.onlineauction.com/index.php?page=search:searchUser&user_id=33397

Here are a couple more pics of items that will be in the sale:

cshort0319

\

Dragonmum2

Oldturtleheart

Gretasue2

GourmetGrinds

ABargain4You

and of course here is another one from me, Jewelzodonnell

Hope to see you all there Sunday July 27th bright and early!