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Livingston 365: Daily photos throughout 2009
April 22, 2009 | 1 Comment
Livingston 365 is my project to take a snapshot of something, someone, or somewhere in Livingston every day during 2009.
See the series and check for daily updates at e-livingston.com.
Park County Cares formed to provide food for all
February 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Livingston based civic organizations, churches, businesses and non profits are joining together to help combat hunger in Park County. The Livingston Food Pantry will be the beneficiary of money collected during the “Food for All” drive January 19th – February 19th, 2009.
Created to serve as a community service project in honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, this month long initiative will enable the Livingston Food Pantry to reach more families in need.
A group of supporters assembled Monday in front of the Food Pantry to kick off the project, which originated with a meeting at Dr. Laurel Desnick and Jim Baerg’s home to discuss a focus for community outreach and support. Since that meeting, a new floor has been installed and a dishwasher provided by the Crazy Mountain Ranch at Livingston’s Loaves and Fishes.
“We’re all in this together, those with very few resources and those with many. This a community that cares about ALL its members,” said Laurie Francis of Community Health Partners. CHP is joining together with the Chamber of Commerce, Vision Livingston, Wheat Montana, Montana Women For, Livingston Schools, and several local churches, groceries, growers and businesses to help support “Food for All.”
“What started as a service day has grown into an important project with far reaching potential,” said Margie Kidder, of Montana Women For. “The ‘Park County Cares’ idea is something we will keep going with all year. Literally every person we’ve contacted has said, ‘How can I help?’ ‘Food for All’ can use money, time and energy from everyone in the community. There are so many ways to get involved and we want to urge everyone to do just that.”
“The need is great,” reports Michael McCormick of the Livingston Food Pantry. “At this moment, I’m looking at my shelves and see an empty hole where powdered milk should be. Your donations can help us help this whole community. I want to thank all of these business owners and neighbors for coming up with this great project.”
In addition to providing food for families with economic hardship, there will also be information and classes to help all of Park County manage during tough economic times. “This affects all of us. We all need to stretch our food dollars these days,” said Joni Kresich.
All public representatives from Park County – Bob Ebinger, John Esp and Joel Boniek support this initiative and have agreed to lend their names to the project. The Livingston City Council is discussing the project at tomorrow evening’s meeting. Others at Monday’s event included Lou Ann Nelson from the Livingston Chamber of Commerce, Livingston School superintendent Hannibal Anderson, Vision Livingston’s Karyle Frazier, Michael Sanders of the Environmental Adventure Tour Company, Hebbard Blesius, Jon Ellen Snyder and Amanda Knuchel of ERA/Landmark Real Estate, Joni Kresich, Joanne Gardner and Margie Kidder of Montana Women For, Edie Linneweber who (along with Katherine Dunlap) is coordinating the churches in Livingston to participate, Laurie Francis of CHP, Jim Baerg and his daughters Nastia and Larisa and Michael McCormick of the Livingston Food Pantry.
Dorothy Bradley of Clyde Park attended Monday’s meeting to offer game to the Livingston Food Pantry and to discuss how Clyde Park can get involved with it’s own program. Leaders of this program plan to reach out to Gardiner, Clyde Park and Wilsall in the next few days.
The public can get involved by making monetary donations to the Food Pantry. Volunteers are also desperately needed to help at Loaves and Fishes and the Livingston Food Pantry.
Watch for donation jars in local businesses and in churches, and join Park County Cares for a neighborhood walk during the month. Families will be going door to door to raise money for this project. A $39.95 donation can feed a family of four for one month through the Livingston Food Pantry.
Other focus projects already underway include interacting with all elementary schools to ensure children are getting enough nutritional food daily, a “crockpot” program, outreach to seniors and special needs citizens and the Livingston Shoveling Brigade. For more information contact Michael McCormick at the Livingston Food Pantry - 222 –5335, Margie Kidder at 222-7040, Bonnie Hyatt Murphy at 222 – 2302 or the Livingston Chamber of Commerce.
Finding FRAMES for Sparkling Dawg Design’s Posters
November 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Thanks to Terry G., a recent poster customer, for inquiring about where to find 12 by 18 frames. That reminded me to post some links for Web sites that carry that frame size. I have not actually ordered the frames myself, so I hope to hear from those who have either used the resources below or have found other sources for 12 by 18 frames.
UPDATE: 12/3/08 – Terry reports success with frames from Amazon. “The frames arrived yesterday in perfect condition and the posters look great in them. I went through Amazon and am really pleased. ” Terry’s reward for this helpful information is a free poster from the Dawg!
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Here are some online stores that sell 12″ by 18″ frames:
Amazon.com has 12 by 18″ frames size at $16.95 per frame, or three for $38.85. They offer three color/materials choices.
FrameDestination.com offers 12 by 18 frames at $18.49 per frame in a nice, simple, black metal, with quantity discounts (e.g. $16.64 each when you buy 4).
At the higher end ($53.95), but still less than custom framing, the Canadian company Vistek.ca sells an 18 by 24 frame with a pre-cut mat that is 12 by 18.
I recognize that 12 by 18 is a somewhat awkward size. When I first printed the posters, the printer advised me to use this size so I could “gang” the posters; i.e., put 4 posters on one printing press sheet. Printing this way really helped me keep the cost of the posters down. But it might have been better for the customer if I had gone with the more readily available frame size of 11 by 17, even though the poster price would have been more. When I am ready to reprint, or when I create new posters, I will change the dimensions.
Custom framing – I have had posters framed in very simple and very nice custom wood frames by my local frame shop, but I usually get posters framed in bulk for better pricing. If you go this route, you can get archival quality backings or mats and glass with ultraviolet protection, but be prepared to spend $65 or more for each. I’m a staunch “buy local” advocate, so if you can afford custom framing and you have a good frame shop in your area, please use them! The $65 figure is just a rough idea of cost. Here in Livingston, all of my framing is done by The Frame Garden, the best I have ever used anywhere. (110 E. Callender Street, Livingston, MT 59047, Phone: 406.222.5122.)
Off-the-shelf frames include glass that does not always have ultraviolet protection, but the posters are printed in ink that should stay color-fast for decades. All the same, with off-the-shelf frames, be careful about placing the posters in a spot that gets direct sunlight for much of the time. Alternatively, get an off-the-shelf frame and have your local frame shop or glazier cut you a piece of glass with ultraviolet protection.
Lynn
Kill those Flash ads in your browser. It’s easy and free.
October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Firefox has an add-on that will give you the option of playing or not playing those annoying Flash ads that appear in Web site banners. Even Technorati, which should know better considering its audience, has one of those “you’ve won some sort of crap, click here” ads in its banner. Once you’ve installed the Flashblock add-on, a page that has Flash in it shows just the Flash logo and a play button where the offending ad would be. You have the option to play the ad or not. This is very handy–by default, you don’t have to view the garbage, and when you get to page that has Flash that is legitimate, you just hit the play button.
Best of all, you can allow certain sites to display Flash by default. This is handy for me when I check client Web sites where I have used Flash. Just go to Tools > Add-ons, select Flashblock, click the Preferences button, and list the sites that you want to allow. Be sure to enter just the domain name (e.g. sparklingdawg.com) without the slashes or http protocol info.
I downloaded FlashBlock from Mozilla: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433. As with all Firefox add-ons, just click the “Add to Firefox” button on the downloads page, and the installation is done automatically, after which you’ll be asked to restart Firefox. Firefox restores the previous session on restart, so there’s no reason to wait until later to restart.
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My versions: Firefox 3.0.2, Flashblock 1.5.6. NOTE: Flashblock 1.5.6 is designed to work only with Firefox 1.5 and newer, Netscape Navigator 9 and with Flock. For other browsers such as Firefox 1.0.7, Mozilla Suite, Seamonkey, and Netscape 7 and 8, check out Flashblock 1.3.9:
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/installation2.html
Flashblock currently blocks the following content types:
* Macromedia Flash
* Macromedia Shockwave
* Macromedia Authorware