Email of the Week: Too funny not to share

WRONG E-MAIL ADDRESS

This one is priceless...A lesson to be learned from typing the wrong email address!!!!

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon.

Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, sent the email.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston , a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack.

The widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted.

The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife

Subject: I've Arrived

Date: October 16, 2009

I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in.

I've seen that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then!!!! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P. S. Sure is really hot down here!

The path walked

The path  walked

wholly unique and

Mine

full of choices

for fate and me

The path walked

decisions made

right, sometimes wrong

Mine

with circumstance and

purposeful steps

The path  walked

leading through this,

life’s journey

Mine

Forever’s eternal eyes

Offering it all to the ethers, this

The path  walked

Mine.

~

It's Friday.

I remembered that a certain young man

hosted a certain gathering

regarding a certain number of words

- 55!

Aha, with words writ

and formed into a villanelle

(of all things)

 [- my first attempt at the form so go easy on me]

I head back to work 

at the rest of my day.

Enjoy!

A Handful of Haikus

Grief

tears do not shatter

the reality awake

only smooth the edge

   ^^     

Soul Jam

we offer sound

for ourselves and other souls

unaware of gifts

><

Deliverance

my hands have delivered

a small gift of sound

with tears

<>

It is Wednesday. 

Best day of the week to sit back and read poetry.

Check out the folks at One Shot

for their weekly Wednesday treat

and if it so tickles you

throw in some verse yourself

~

SEO- Getting to Know my Stuff

A whirlwind is whipping around in my head. I spent the morning discussing social media with a friend who is looking to expand his presence in the world wide web. We talked blog talk and I fear I stuffed his brain to overflowing. He looked at me with shock, perhaps awe, and definitely incredulity at what I was saying. I talked about widgets, tags, posts, comments, SEO,  and touched on how it all affects your presence on the web. For every post you put out and the frequency you put it out there, the higher you rank in search engine finds. It makes sense, but there are so many ways to spin anything you do. When you start it seems huge. When you have been doing it for a while, it still seems huge. I know that the more I know, the more I realize that I have so much more to learn.

What I found interesting in talking to a friend about social media was how much I really DO know. I am also taking a writing course and last week we interviewed classmates. The gentleman that interviewed me is formulating his interview about me and my writing, and my presence on the internet. Questions like, "How long have you been maintaining your blog?", "How does the social community you have linked up with affect your writing?", and "Who is your audience for your blog?" were posed. All good questions that made me think.

And what did I think about, you ask? Well, I started this blog almost two years ago, but only started to hit a bit of a stride just over a year ago. The more I interact with others in the blogosphere and social media networking sites, the more I learn and grow. Participating in various memes, like Magpie Tales, Monkey Man's Sunday 160, G-Man's Flash Fiction Friday, or my favourite poetry day at One Shot Wednesday, really challenges me as a writer to write, write, write. Sometimes the challenge is to write in a certain number of words or characters. This has helped me to let go of flowery words that really don't always help my writing. Visiting picture prompt sites gives me inspiration to write in my own voice, but taken from a specific angle. One Shot is an excellent home to search other poets and learn new styles  and just read lots of great poetry, plus the bonus of potentially having people come and view my own poetry. More comments means that perhaps people have really liked what I have written. Sometimes people will comment on specific lines that have jumped out at them that they have really liked. That tells me that I am doing something right. Other times, I have had the joy of having new followers, and that helps to build up the old confidence meter a notch or two. That means I have done something right either more than once, or at the very least, I have done one thing REALLY good and my readers feel that there is a high potential for me to do that again. Both good things in my books.

You out there in the blog-o-sphere know all of this yourself. I have read many a post of people looking for visitors, hoping for comments and growing from the regular comments and support that is received in this world that we blog in. That support keeps on bringing us back again and again. Every time we write, we get better at our craft. This truly is a craft as well. We are writers, poets, and creative beings coming together. For every site I visit, I push your SEO numbers higher and in turn my own. Looking back over my many hours spent blogging, I am happy with where I have come. My writing is better, my confidence is better, and my presence just keeps growing. I will still have my down days, those days when the cursor blinks and nary a word is to be found, but the look of awe helps me to see that maybe I do have a smidgen of expertise in this field. That is something to give myself kudos for. And you as well my bloggy friends. We are in this together, and together we rise.

Write on my friends. Write on...

The Magic of the Lake

Brett and I left Blantyre and headed to Cape Maclear. It had been described in glowing terms, and I hoped it would live up to the hype. It would be our first encounter with Lake Malawi. Being a land-locked country, Lake Malawi was an integral feature of this small sub-tropical nation. Also known as Lake Nyasa, the lake runs three quarters of the length of Malawi, at 587km (365 miles) long and 84km (52 miles) wide. And truly, it is beautiful to behold.

The magic of Malawi settled over me in gentle waves. The lure of Lake Malawi was palpable. Its soft waves were forever within hearing distance, if not in sight. The people were friendly with a simple air about them that lent them a most desirable quality. This was probably the poorest nation I had been to, perhaps barring parts of Mozambique, but the people were amongst the richest in attitude. Was it the sunshine? The proximity to soothing waters? Or was it the lack of Aid organizations that brought with them handouts, that in turn turned the people into beggars. Here people were happy with their lot in life and it showed in their eyes that sparkled despite lack of material wealth. Their peace was infectious.

Our first taste of the magic of the waters was from a seat in a mokoro (a hand-carved dug-out canoe of sorts). They were narrower than the mokoros that I had lazed in on the Okavengo Delta, but still a marvel. Brett and I got a couple of locals to row us out to Pemba Island, where we spent the day snorkeling in the blue waters. We spied a myriad of fish, as we slowly paddled about on our leisurely adventure. Lunch was a feast of rice, potatoes, tomatoes and fish that had been caught as Brett and I swam. Simple, but excellent. Dessert of a special banana cake sent us over the moon and topped off a perfect day to soak up the beauty of Malawi.

We spent three nights in Cape Maclear. On our last night, I accompanied a young man to Ba’blue, a small local bar. He introduced me to the game of Bao. It is a local mancala game where beans are moved around a board from a series of dugout holes. You play against an opponent, trying to steal their beans (or whatever the markers are) until you have all of them. Everywhere you looked, a game was being played. Always keen to learn a new game, I insisted on trying to pick up the rules. I loved it and before we left, I had my very own bao game stuffed into my backpack, as we headed off to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.