Elvira, Mistress of the Dark Movie Macabre

I started typing in this post and then the Internet decided to die. Usually, the post would manage to be saved as a draft, this one didn’t make it. So, although it only matters to me, this post is being written a second time around. Kind of right when thinking of Cassandra Peterson, better known as her character, Elvira. She wasn’t finding huge success in movies and TV, until she became Elvira. A reinvention of herself from her career and personal life.

I had thought she was a Vegas showgirl who found a better career path, until I read more about her. She started liking the horror genre as a young person due to being burned and left scarred as a toddler. She was a showgirl, but also acted in movies, modelled, etc. At the time she started as Elvira she had been working in an office, typing, filing, all of that. Her story is inspiring for those who think they’re just going to become forgotten in some mediocre job.

Elvira comes back into media attention at Halloween, for the month of October issues of this and that. It’s too bad but, good for her marketing to have a schedule and maybe she can take some of the year off for planning and even sleeping. Cassandra Peterson is no slouch, good posture and clever merchandising. Whatever you think of the Elvira character and her cleavage, the woman has taken a small part as a horror movie host and turned it into her own empire. Instead of pay raises, she built up her ownership of Elvira and all things connected with it. Fan art may be ok, but she has 100% ownership of her image and all the goodies. There are a lot of goodies, take a look at her site and others to see Elvira on games, comic books, movies, dolls, mobile phones cases, clothing, food products, pretty much anything you can think of, Amanda Peterson’s Elvira has been there.

I found an Elvira Christmas ornament. It’s cute but odd to have no eyes, or blank eyes, however you look at it.

The Drama and Dilemmas of Posting Photographs Online

I did not know, or really think about, all the drama with the technology of adding images to a website. I started by adding several photographs I had taken from one location. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a watermark. Not so much about copyrights and theft but to at least give my name and website link so people could know I took the photo and find more of my photos. Somewhat keeping credit on the photo but also to build traffic and maybe in some other year consider selling photos or making a calendar or related idea/ plan.

But, watermarking was just the start of it all. I did figure that out. I bought software which I can figure out and I have gotten through one small batch of images as a test of my competence.

Then I realized my site is loading very slowly and sometimes not even loading at all. I thought, just bad luck today. Then I thought, well my connection just isn’t that great and maybe I really should change ISPs (Internet service providers) again. Then… it clicked in my brain. My photographs are big. Not just in physical size but density too. Well, I just don’t like thumbnails and I don’t want the software creating a dozen copies of various sizes of every image I post. That seems pretty useless.

So, now I am looking at image optimization.

Still on my list of things to do with my photographs is to create a place which I can have more of them posted. I don’t want to post more than a couple of images/ photos with each post here. The best few should be enough. Most people aren’t likely to care about all the same little things I care about when I look at the old places. Every doorknob, wildflower, and bit of odd looking peeling paint probably isn’t necessary. But, they could be available elsewhere. Again, the dilemma of giant file sizes and a huge trove of images over the years. But, that can wait until I get this site sorted out. One day… well, one week or so, at a time.

Old Barrie Buildings in Vintage Postcards

I like the vintage postcards even better than the photographs. I collected postcards for years and the older cards were always my favourites, when I could find one. Likely that postcard collecting has stayed with me.

Some of these buildings (if not all) are demolished. The waterfront image helps to show where they were.

Moved the Site to b2evolution

Just moved the site over from WordPress to b2evolution. People have asked me why, a few times. There are a few reasons. But, for now I am fixing glitches with moving to another CMS. I like b2 and I don’t think it will take me long to get to know how it works and where things are now. Meanwhile, images are mostly not working. Categories and tags did not make the import, not sure why. So I am manually going through my posts one by one to renovate a little. What usually happens when you move to a new place… you renovate to make it look more like the old place. 🙂 People are funny like that.

Making my life easier, I have added comments from the original post to this post. I have been moving my site content to Joomla. It’s a different set up from WordPress and b2evolution but I think it will be more active and user friendly. Still need to fix the images with posts (that was mangled by WordPress) and add my links which I will end up doing manually, one at a time. But, I hope this will end the project of moving from WordPress to some other CMS. It has been a longer adventure than I expected.

Here are the comments:

Comment from: Jane Gassner [Visitor]

I lost the entire archive of MidLifeBloggers.com and JaneGassner.com sometime during the holiday season. It was one of those, “you only have 24 hours to migrate” and for various reasons, I got in at the 25th hour. I couldn’t decide how upset I should/would be. MidLifeBloggers was a longterm venture that still got a lot of hits. JaneGassner.com, not so much. But MidLifeBloggers was old business, and I had said everything I wanted to about midlife and beyond. Jane Gassner had the potential to be new and, if not shiny, then gaining a slight glow about it after time. So I’m redoing JaneGassner.com but starting anew. It’s springtime, and perhaps that’s influencing me to not try to make it as it was. Considering that it wasn’t that successful, it’s probably a wise decision.

Comment from: laura [Member]

I really like history so that part of it would be hard for me. But, I have thought about just starting fresh too. Moving a site is never completely smooth and simple but I’ve been trying to move old content and have not made time to write new posts. That is kind of backwards. Starting fresh might have been better than trying to preserve old content (that mostly only matters to me).

Comment from: laura [Member]

I like your new site. Writing something for writers has it’s own challenge. It makes me doubt myself and compare myself with others too much. I thought about closing this site. But, I do like writing it. So… here it still is.

You have doubled images in posts with WordPress featured image. I kept having that problem too.

Why do I Like Abandoned Places?

abandonedplaces

via – Quora.

How would you answer the question, for yourself or for others? It’s not so easy to pinpoint why I like abandoned places. I think this is the best I have done at trying to come up with a concrete answer that makes sense and isn’t too much on the flowery side.

Something between proving we have a history, the endurance of what we have created and the mystery and sadness of what has been left behind.

(Reposted from the screen capture because sometimes software mangles image files).

Paddlewheel Ruins in Manitoba

I hope explorers in the area have gotten out there to photograph them before they are demolished, too far gone, vandalized or repurposed and sold as scrap.

The Paddlewheel Queen once adorned every tourist brochure promoting Winnipeg and half the postcards — the other half featured the Golden Boy.The sternwheeler with the spinning paddle blades in back — rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river — was the iconic image of Winnipeg.

Source: Paddlewheel Queens: Passenger ships once ruled the Red River – Winnipeg Free Press