It only takes being preoccupied for a week, and the world around you can be changed.  I've been wrapped up with observing the G20 Summit meeting: spending all day on the CBCnews blog, reading responses and following leads to help me understand what's going on.  When I finally get to my email I discover big changes are going on with LiveJournal, and when I go to freewebs, it's just Webs and everything has changed over there.  The open forums are gone, and there is a fresh new look, but I now have to go hunting for my old forum friends who are not on my friends list; hoping some will be in the new circles format.

What bothers me is that some personal problems from the real world are going to monopolize my time for the rest of the week, and I'm really biting at the bit to get back to the revision of my book.  Oh God, why is it when the creative juices start flowing again that everything seems to conspire against you.  It's like being in an animated cartoon, or a dream where you're running, but getting nowhere.

                                                   
I've been off line for a month, and spent the last two hours catching up with my messages and comments, I hope I haven't missed anyone.  I have to do the same on my freewebs site too.  It's really surprising how much communication can accumulate in a month,  The gruesomes from Toronto's old city hall reflect a little of how the task makes me feel; I love it, and really missed the online fellowship.

I noticed this morning, as I turned my kitchen calender to September that it is only two weeks till it is offically autumn.  No wonder my balcony garden is starting to look past its prime.

Here in southern Ontario, the evenings have been getting cool for a couple of weeks, and I've even needed  a light, long sleeve sweater; even during the day a couple of times, when going to the store.  It was very windy the other day, as the unsettled weather gave us the tail end of hurricane Hanna as she moved up the east coast.  It takes me back to the four years, when I lived on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  The evidence of big storms that pass by are all around, when you get out to the wooded areas, and along the shore.

Huge evergreen trees are uprooted: laying on the ground with their plate-like shaped roots protruding into the air.  Along the shore, not far from the cannal that joins the Bras d Or Lake to the Atlantic Ocean, is a line of huge concrete blocks; set up as a storm barrier.  They lie scattered; one can only imagine the power of a storm that could toss these six foot cubes apart.

Not much exciting happens on Cape Breton, so when we first arrived we heard the stories of the big one that went through; God knows how many years before we arrived to homestead.  My son was twelve at the time.  That first fall, the village of Grand River was abuzz  with the prospect of a hurricane coming through.  This was an adventure for my son.  He took my big Afghani shawl, and tied it to his wrists, and ankles; standing in the wind--waiting to get carried up into the air.  lol.  However it didn't happen.

Ah, such are the nostalgic things that come to mind as we anticipate a change of season.  It's raining and cool enough today, to think about needing sox; instead of the flip flops I wear all summer.  I will not close my windows any sooner than is necessary, so it's time to think about pulling out some transitional clothes.  I'm not that sorry to see the extreme heat of summer get behind us, though it's been more like an English summer this year; more moderate.  The thing I'm looking forward to is the spectacular colors that surround us, as the cold nights signal the trees to prepare for dormancy.

I've been up late a few times recently, browsing the open forums on Freewebs, and it occurred to me that I haven't yet heard any Canada geese setting off for their winter territory.  We have some resident geese, who live on the island, situated near the harbor downtown.  When the geese start their migration south, our residents get restless.  Whether it's the 'snowbird' or the locals I hear during autumn nights is impossible to tell, but they always remind me of the most awesome thing I ever saw.

During my last winter on Cape Breton, a friend was driving me home from her place one October evening.  When we got out of the truck, our attention was drawn to what sounded like a gigantic bird.  As we looked up, a flock in v formation passed overhead; not much higher from the ground than the top of the barn.  It was simply an hypnotic experience; it was their flapping in unison that made them sound like one huge creature.  So whenever I hear the honkers I think of that amazing site.

I believe I did.  When my son was a baby, we lived in a house where this sweet old lady was friends with my mom, who lived next door.  I got to live there as she had died, and the new owners were renting the flat upstairs.  A few days before the old lady died she bought my new son a crib comforter, but she didn't get to see him.

One night when we first moved in we were talking about her, and that night I woke because he started to cry.  As I looked up I saw what looked like an old lady leaning over the crib. Without thinking about it, I got out of bed, and she was gone.  It never happened again, so I figured the sweet old woman just wanted to see this child she bought the cover for.

Sorry I took so long to answer your comments and messages; I've been preoccupied.  I decided to spend a few hours here to rectify my neglect.  I hope I didn't leave anyone out.  If you're curious about what I've been up to, go to: http://www.freewebs.com/christiancrossword

Must go, have a good day.

It means caring about others, at least as much as you care about yourself.  Never gave it much thought till you asked the question.

It's surprising how your life can get wrapped up in blogging; I hardly ever watch t.v. anymore.  Lately I'm a virtual hermit, sometimes living and sleeping in the same clothes for two days.  The first thing I want to do in the morning is find out if I have email or comments to take care of, and get back to the battle on freewebs forums.  Then before you know it the rest of your life brings you down to earth, and complaints of your neglect make you take a break.  Sometime I spend all day on freewebs, it's like a full time job; without pay.

When I went out looking for Christian friends I didn't expect to find myself  embroiled in social issues, with a heratic hunter.  Whenever a topic is connected to morals, and ethics, it never fails to attract Christians and this one particular heratic hunter.  His mission in life is  exposing false Christians.  Interestingly, though he claims to be 'true Christian' his doctrine is anything but, I just haven't decided what yet.

It's also intriguing how much attention is given to the stir he is causing:  he's been bragging about being given free reign to do as he pleases on the forums; all the activity is creating lots of traffic, which makes him a cash cow.  That would explain why the multitude of abuse complaints have not stopped him.  Everyone is fed up with him popping in to a topic, and turning it into a three ring circus. Even something as bland as 'chat' attracts him, because of who stared the forum; if it's anyone on his hit list he can't resist butting in.

Traffic:  there's an interesting piece of complaining I found while browsing profiles of people who show up at the forums, which I do to get a feel for how to communicate with them; it seems the new operational directive is stepping on the toes of paying accounts, in favor of a mostly teen market who comes to browse the forums [it's all about advertising revenue].  So freewebs is to be taken through a metamorphis, and until a couple of days ago it looked like alla-1331 was the star attraction, as he battles the bible thumpers; however, it looks like he's losing it.  He has become so vile that it looks like he ran away with enough rope to hang himself.  I heard from a freewebs friend that he has even started attacking freewebs.

It's hard to focus on blog entries when you're drawn into the battle.  Writing that last paragraph inspired me to start a new forum topic: alla-1331 vs thebiblethumpers; objective put it on rants&raves and invite anyone who he offends to come and vent on that space.  Hopefully it will help the other topics get back on track.

 I've been over to freewebs a lot in the passed month: only about 25% of the time spent on building the site 'Bible Trivia Crossword Puzzles'--the rest of the time I've been hung up in the discussion groups.  If you like a good debate, the freeweb forums are worth checking out:  www.freewebs.com  My user name over there is christiancrossword.

I almost gave up, when I ran into trouble getting the puzzles in the text/widget boxes, once I had them uploaded.  I was used to my Tripod site, freewebs felt very user un-friendly, but by then I was bonding with the forums.  Very lively exchange between Christians, skeptics, and 'new' age' gurus.  Funny enough, the Christian bashing came from someone who claimed to be a true Christian, but insulted everyone who questioned his doctrine.  It got really interesting last week when he declared war on all those who didn't agree with him.

It was very strange to find my name on his hit list, as he used his profile page to profile the people he targeted for character assassination.  The odd thing is that though he is blatantly breaking the rules of use on the freeweb sites, it felt like no-one was doing anything to rid us of his harassment.  Well when he decided to pick on me I had proof I could use to report abuse.  I was surprised to find I only got a box with an x to click, and the words 'report abuse' were replaced with 'reported'  I went to every comment I could find with the offensive file and reported the abuse.

Also I wrote a blog entry 'Character Assassination' about my reaction to the discovery of this campaigne he was on, to rid freewebs of Christians.  He popped his head up on a 'hot topic'  forum where I was quite active, with his insinuation that he had some great revelation of how evil I was.  I  entered a comment, concerning his challange; inviting all to check out his page, then to read my article, and decide tor themselves.  Well some people did, and he got a real dressing down from two skeptics who saw the dirty tricks he was pulling.  They are not going to be inclined to let him froth off at the mouth unchallanged.  It was wonderful, better than any Christian self-defence.  It proved to me that a Christian voice on the net is pleasing to God.

Well I had been cyber-pilgrim for quite awhile, as I learned the ropes of life on a blog.  At the time I signed up again, I was frustrated with finding handles, and passwords that I was really grumpy---hence, grumpypilgrim