New Home, New Energized Goals

Welcome! I'm glad to see you here. If you've been following my occasional -- Stress needed on that word occasional, <em> or <bold> or <strong> in coding -- posts at my old site www.joeposnanski.com/MargoBlog thanks for following me here. Even if you just stumbled here or accidentally found me based on some "searchable" word or string of words, welcome! Whatever made this page magically appear for you, I <em> or <bold> or <strong> encourage you to follow me.

An ugly, nasty and just MEAN virus struck our old site and Joe and I spent too much time this weekend trying to recoup. I've just finished a basic CSS and XHTML class and NOW know just enough about coding to realize there was a problem I had no clue HOW to fix. It was best to part ways with our WordPress world and settle for something a bit easier. At least we think this might be easier. I'm also hiring Jason Bourne to track down the nefarious organization that struck our Web site and may write letters to Congress to see if they can do something about this evil web virus stuff. 

So I'm taking an online class in Intermediate CSS and XHTML so I can only imagine I can ward off evil for next time. I'm also taking an intro class into Flash, though that technology might be more dinosaur than iNextBigThing.


Speaking of old technology, I'm such a packrat that I found an old reporter's notebook from the days of sending newspaper stories on the old RadioShack computers. Here was the code to get my college stringer story from my computer to my paper's main computer, via a phone cord from the back of the computer to the phone line. (Circa early '90s.)


CONTROL A
CONTROL, SHIFT, P, A, send, SPACE BAR, spt to have the screen read:


^A,send spt:sports:mk0001.spt,
[*go]sports (type of story)@ <
[*tx][*ksuby]MARGO KELLER@<
/MANHATTAN, KAN (space)—(space)
text/p
text/p
text/p
text/p
text/p   


end of text
[*30]
F8


So we've come a long way from Radio Shack becoming more Shack than Radio, fewer phone cord issues or home phones for that matter and personal wars against the machines. I helped my husband blog from the first week of the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, when government computers were suspected of very carefully monitoring access to Web sites. Joe would e-mail me his blog posts and I'd post them stateside until his computer in Chinese Cyber World gained more access to worldwide web sites. I felt like quite the rebel.

But this entire world at our fingertips leads me to my mission statement here. I love mission statements, though I rarely get to create them. With A COURSE FOR ADVENTURE I'm setting out with my children to look for interesting and fun resources about the world around them.

Originally I planned to pick a new country every one or two weeks and share books and recipes and other Web resources that highlight each country. Then I started thinking about Chicken-Fried Steaks. If you grew up in Kansas you can already picture this dish with a thick and peppery gravy. It seems to be the quin-essential Kansas dinner. So before venturing to all parts yet unseen by my family (like Turkey, I really want to travel to Turkey) I want to focus on food stuff and stories of all 50 states. That's where you can help! Leave me comments on recipes and stories that highlight your state!

The goal is for my daughters to learn more about America while encouraging reading with books featuring unique American places and also jazzing up family meal time with fast, family-friendly recipes from all parts of our United States. Think of this site as your passport to inspired family meals and learning resources.

Thanks for your time and know you're always welcome here. We hope to see you on our next adventure soon! FIRST STOP: My home state of Kansas.