The simple design and text of the t-shirt reinforces the branding of Sugar Loaf as a center for the arts and education.

Sugar Loaf has long since been a mecca for the arts with significant educational opportunity being offered by many of the artists living and working here, but that message has been diluted over the years.

The typical advertising for a typical town with typically trendy shops will of course have everybody's name plastered all over every hand-out, promotional item, print ad, and television spot produced (the only way to get anybody to contribute) while every person who looks at any of it will be put to sleep immediately.

Sugar Loaf is better than that.

There are people in Sugar Loaf who are the best of the best at what they do, and many of them give classes helping others become the best as well.

As a branding exercise the Sugar Loaf University t-shirts are kept as simple as possible so the message of the excellence of Sugar Loaf rings through loud and clear.

The shirts are meant to engender discussion and pose questions instead of shutting down conversation with immediate cliché answers as in, "Oh, another t-shirt with a bunch of advertising on it."

One such conversation occurred in Anne Marie's Deli this morning between Mary Endico and Spencer Effron.

Spencer was over-the-top excited to get his free t-shirt yesterday, and today he told Mary how much his daughter also loved the t-shirt but asked him, "Where is Sugar Loaf University?"

Spencer told her it was a gag, so Mary got the opportunity to explain that it is not a joke ... real college credit can be received from numerous classes which have been ongoing for years in Sugar Loaf.

Clay Boone has students who have been with him more than 20 years!

Plus there are many more stories similar to Clay's (see some of Clay's students work), but nobody ever talks about it, and the people giving those classes have never needed to advertise.

I just got sick and tired of hearing Sugar Loaf referred to as a laughing stock by people who have never been given a clue, so I decided to do something about it.

Anyway, the truth has always been here right under everybody's noses, so click for more information about Sugar Loaf University.

And the next time Mary finds herself in the situation of having to explain, I hope she has memorized the following statement (the rest will be obvious): "The Sugar Loaf University t-shirts are a branding exercise clear and simple."

As for myself (since I am an artist) I would never do anything just for the sake of branding, so I have to admit that my main interest in the t-shirts has nothing to do with Sugar Loaf at all but is merely a study in semiotics.

A very successful study I might add.

Proving once again that this most special of places for learning, achieving, and improving (Sugar Loaf, New York) is the most special place of learning, achieving, and improving there is.

The only suggestion I might have to better it is: "We need more Connie's."

I saw somebody wearing the t-shirt and got the website from it.

The page said to post here for information.

What do I have to do?

I will send you e-mail and help you get all set up.

BTW: I do not get paid for this, but it is my honor and privilege to help.

There are artists in Sugar Loaf who do the same level work but have told me (or Mary) specifically that they wish to not be famous, nor to be shown online.

On the other hand, there are people (not artists) who constantly complain about how bad their business is, as if they were not in control of it.

I have done what I can.

C'est fini.

Have to tell you, yesterday during the snowstorm the Endico Studio made enough money to pay your rent for the month.

Also hope that someday Randy will be able to make his rent in a single snow day.

Grab the thumbnail to copy over from here:

1) Right click.

2) Save Picture As...

It is a very interesting story, and I'll give you the run down during the next meeting as one of the Old Business agenda items.

Or maybe we could hook up with Clay, and he can tell you directly; he loves to yack about the past (we just can't call it a meeting).

Yo Randy, we have ok'd it with Endico that you may park in the studio parking lot today, if you should choose to come open Bee Positive.

BTW: There is a nice path already shoveled to your door.

You should probably add that the parking lot is also open to Sugar Loaf University students (both credit and non-credit).

Hope this doesn't blow up in your face.

I think the weekenders would show up and assume the owners of the Meadow had it done, never had a clue it was us.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Maybe the view from Roamer's Alley may change my mind.

My quandary is trying to decide if your spelling of the place is a tongue and cheek nod toward my writings about how it is named after a family, not an activity; or if you really did miss that it is Romers' Alley.

However, as I put it so eloquently prior, "Nobody cares."

On the other hand your enlightening will probably be somewhat delayed as it is unlikely the Alley will be dug out from under the snow until late June at the earliest, no matter what you call it.

Can't blame them much, I shoveled us out 5 times last night and Mary did another this morning, but it still looks like we haven't done a thing.

At the time of the UPS photo yesterday (bringing matboard for Mary to finish some custom jobs), there were already 10 inches on the ground.

The plowing service should be here as soon as they finish the Barnsider parking lot.

So there goes last month's profits, but I am sure our lovely neighbors will be thanking us for it.

It was the year 2000 and nobody thought digital photography could ever be as good as film, but I knew better.

I spent three months researching cameras looking for one that would do the job, and it turned out to be a very hard thing to find.

I had to learn all about digital photography and compare lots and lots of technical specs.

When I finished the research I told the manufacturer not to waste our time but just put us in touch with their best installer.

Only after I told the installer what we wanted and contracted for them to deliver did I find out they had just installed the exact same system for the Museum of Modern Art; plus the Vatican and U.S. Department of Defense used the same.

I assume those places hired teams of fancy consultants to come to the same conclusion I did myself.

The technology is used for satellite imaging applications such as Google Earth.

At one point I had to talk to the Department of Defense about how they handled a problem with the lighting, and their solution brought us closer to where we wanted to be, but it didn't totally get the output up to the quality Mary and I demand ... so we worked a little more on our own to get it going.

In any case, in retrospect the camera was the right choice, because 14 years later it still has three (3) times greater resolution than most current high-end cameras, and that is even before considering the large format camera mount and lens optics which really make it special.

It was expensive though ... cost us a little more than two (2) nice houses in Middletown would have cost at the time.

I don't know what I would have done with two more houses, but we have photographed well over 6,000 of Mary's hand painted original watercolors with no end in sight.

Thank goodness people in Orange County, New York have a sophisticated eye for fine art and like to buy expensive paintings.

I am sure nobody in Sugar Loaf has a clue we have the camera, nor would they know what it means if they did.

That page makes you seem a little whiny; are you feeling sorry for yourself?

I am just going to find someplace with more people like them and finally get my ass out of this laughing stock little hamlet where people like those three (3) have become the exception rather than the rule.

You mean the events in the stories I wrote (ongoing) are universals that have also happened elsewhere?

I knew my stories were great literature, but who knew just how great.

In any case, by your saying "marginalizes them," I'm assuming you meant to say, "… marginalizes the artists who built them."

Did you yourself get chided for pointing out these simple obvious facts?

Maybe it is merely the truth that makes them transient.

People don't seem to like the truth, while those who speak it are constantly searching for others who are comfortable with it ... or at least for those who won't go off the deep end when the truth is carefully stated.

I must mention that Sugar Loaf, NY expresses a rather long standing enduring legacy, but that seems to be because it is a "true artist community" not just another beneficiary of the slap-dash moniker now being applied to every trendy strip mall plus legions of socially engineered corporate land use developments all over the place, every one of them supported by donor dollars, not commerce, in order to keep the artists under control.

Still, what you say rings true.

You'd be surprised how many people live and work in Sugar Loaf but remain oblivious to the vast resources that are here ... in quality and quantity like nowhere else.

Can't really blame people for being oblivious; there are those in Sugar Loaf who profit significantly by keeping those facts hidden and have become quite skilled and aggressive in doing so.

Yeah, we were special.

The full story starts HERE.

You are a person who gets out and about, and you know things and people, so maybe you have a lead on where the next great artist community is happening.

I am pretty sure Burning Man has seen its day, Sun Dance is played, plus Sturgis has gone the way of Daytona etc, while South Beach only has its moments, but in the old days artists would show up for the (becoming) famous Sugar Loaf shows and everybody would be all chatty and full of information about where the actual workers were who were working on doing their work (though everybody was very envious of those of us here in Sugar Loaf), but as Mary and I found out this year, those days are gone, so we are relying on you to have a thought.

Anything in the air?

The place we are looking for will at the moment look very much like Scott's Meadow does right now today (just as it did way back when), but it will not yet be surrounded by a bunch of useless yuppies who believe they should be earning a full-time wage from a part time effort, along with those who will not even apply their name to their thoughts.

It will be a place nobody has yet heard about, and except for the people who are working there, it will be a place everybody is scared to come to and would never think about starting a business in it, and certainly never want to live there.

It will be without banners and overdone signage.

It will also not look like an easy mark to "make shitloads of money" where the locals couldn't possibly know what they are doing.

It will be a place where you will hear words said about it such as, "What?! Are you crazy? Why would you want to go there to live and start a business? You'll starve."

It will look very much like today's Detroit (but without the skyscrapers, small enough to manage), and in order to suit Mary it will have to be a little warmer than Sugar Loaf.

There will be no leaders, no organizations, no rhyme, no reason, no nonsense.

The people living and working there will appear crazy to the outside world, totally bonkers, rabid about their work, very un-American.

You know, the people there will say things like the first line on Andy’s website (“I love what I do …”), but they will actually mean it.

People who teach there will be giving people the real deal information and skills they have spent years perfecting, not just the "experience."

I understand that Mary and I are somewhat different from regular folks, but that is the point: there used to be lots of us here, and I am sure there are lots of us someplace else at this very moment.

So if you catch wind of that place, please tell us before it is ruined; we have had enough of this bullshit soulless laughing stock of a Sugar Loaf (paraphrased from Winship's words with a nod to Luft Gardens).

And while you are thinking about where that place might be, put down your bottle and flag us gone.

BTW: Talent is bullshit; work is the thing, and of course it is all for naught, always has been, always will be, but that has nothing to do with the doing of it.

We took a look at that website (newest result of that scam initiative), and it is definitely using old technology — totally incompatible with most of today's web browsers.

You probably feel vindicated.

I'm not even going to mention the problem to anybody, because last time I did they blamed it on me.

Think I'll just be veh-wee, veh-wee quiet till all this stuff works itself out and I receive a written letter of apology.

Mum's the word.

Yo, Randy's brother, Randy says you ran across an alternative to Sugar Loaf somewhere in Arizona that is full of top quality artists working on the continual pursuit of improvement and running their businesses full time with an overtime commitment — that is to say something very similar to the old Sugar Loaf.

Randy forgot the name of the town, so if you could post the name here, our core group of successful Sugar Loaf artists can start researching it as a good place to move to.

Clay Boone has already been researching Wyoming for us, but we had to explain to him that a bunch of tommy-gun squirrel hunting red-necks are not necessarily artists.

For any of the locals interested in seeing what Sugar Loaf will look like after the artists leave, go down into Scott's Meadow and look around; be aware a movement is currently underway to bring Romers' Alley up to the same fine standard, and the Theatre has recently made significant progress in a similar direction.

As for myself, I am just a little tired of being the only person in town who will point to these facts while the hamlet's major Advertising Agency still refuses to put out a shingle stating their purpose but instead continues pretending to be a jeweler ... and has begun charging people for work the Guild already did for free.

My plan was to put them on eBay at $100.00 each with the note: "You paid too much for this shirt; let that be your first lesson."

But there will be a massive discount on Connie related shirts, so just tell us how many and what size, and we can order them to put together a deal you can't refuse.

Otherwise, they cannot be bought, they have to be conferred.

While I was in your shop (talking about how slow today is, what with snow, cold, etc), Mary sold a painting to two people from Syosset of whom one had been here in the warmer weather and brought their friend back to see Sugar Loaf, specifically because they were both sick and tired of going to trade shows where it is, "all the same crap," (their words not mine), whereas Sugar Loaf is refreshingly REAL!

Truer words have never been spoken, even if I did not say them myself.

I am pretty sure you will not let us down but will continue to let them see how special this place is.

As an aside, be careful about getting hooked up with people who would like nothing better than to make this little hamlet just exactly like those shows, shops, and outlets, that people are coming here specifically to avoid, and doing so in the dead of winter during some of the worst weather on record.

I want to join by offering —

The Art
of Communication:

a blend of expressing your creative talents while increasing your communication skills.

I'll be working on the curriculum and present the offering as soon as I move to a larger shop.

There is no town, nowhere, nohow, that's got what Sugar Loaf's got.

Suck on our shorts, big-box stores and mega-malls.

Too, too, too, toooo good!

Thanks, Randy.

In the place of: "Sugar Loaf University should be your choice," it should read, "Connie Rose sould be your choice."

Toughen up, will ya?

BTW: If you run into Randy Brown ask him, "Ok, Randy, now who's yer mommy?!"

Give away the truth!

The returns are greater.

And you say it is all simple technique that anybody can do, and for FREE!

One would think the locals would be all over this Sugar Loaf Guild Forum like white on rice trying to learn as much as they can about online promotions and basic computer functioning!

That is usually the case when you can't get a straight answer.

I will leave all this up for a couple days to give the other Guild members a chance to see it.

Then I'll simplify the entire Forum and go into hibernation mode while the Chamber flails around trying to figure out how to beat me.

Can't be done.

It only took three days.

From "no search results found" with a bunch of alternative choices to:

Here is what it looked like before:

The difference between trying to fight your way to the top of a heap of the trite and typical, versus presenting the world wide web with something actually different.

But enough parlor tricks.

Post here or e-mail Mary just as soon as you see this (a repeat of the link on post #6673 for convenience).

Then I can hide these last few posts from the prying eyes of those who would do us harm.

Once again, totally easy, TOTALLY FREE!

Randy, hopefully the link below will not get to you too late for you to watch this happen:

Bookmark (Favorite) the Google returns for the link immediately above, and check back over the next few days to see what happens.

Keep quiet about it, and don't tell anybody what you observe.

11/24/14 update: Actually that only took three days, but here is what it looked like before:

Mary will show you how to do it for yourself, takes a couple minutes, nothing to it (actually takes less effort than the bullshit requirements for the new Chamber social media nonsense), and it is FREE - TOTALLY FREE.

He wouldn't listen, and now he is gone ... much the same way most of the people going along with the recent Internet Scam will also be gone soon enough.

The scammers will just move on to prey on the next set of unwary newcommers.

Anyway, Mary will drop by, show you how to do this for yourself — all free, already set up, all simple, the Guild gets nothing, and did I mention - TOTALLY FREE?!

It has come to my attention that you have chosen to stay away from that social media web presence scam which was specifically initiated in an attempt to shut down the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

Of course, I realize you did not refuse to partake for my benefit but because you understand it is worthless foolishness; however, you still win a boost to your own Guild web presence pages.

It is a reward for your clarity of observation if nothing else.

Otherwise all of our projects with regard to those people who did participate have been placed on hold (for reasons explained below).

Also you mentioned that people are finding your pages easily enough (I am the best there is with search engine optimization), but many are disappointed that your work is not yet displayed.

So while we are taking a break from development of the other stuff on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, we will focus on getting more of your images online.

In any case, I will still have to endure a brief time when those haters pretend their initiatives are working before the final recognition settles in about their assured failure, and I would be stupid to be adding to the Guild website while that process is ongoing.

There is an old story about a heated cycling competition wherein somebody complained that one of my friends was not pulling his fair share, but my friend shouted back, "You are just trying to beat me, and I am not going to help you do that."

The Sugar Loaf Guild website and programs have been a massive benefit to local businesses, those against us included, but I would be stupid to continue helping people who are actively trying to injure us while they take the credit for results of my work and at the same time are charging for services we have offered every shop in town for free.

I am not going to help them beat us.

The trouble makers are certainly not long for this little hamlet, so when this is all over Mary and I can get back to our standard all out full steam ahead promotion of the town's artistry.

In the meantime, here is a little gift to you.

Everything I say about your work on the page is true just so long as you never forget that Clay's yer daddy, Connie's yer mommy, and Mary is your big accomplished sister, etc, etc.

Randy, here we go; you will see right away that something happened, even though the images are not large enough to see the actual numbers; in fact the numbers would just make it harder to see.

These are screen shots taken from my logs review this morning, and what you are looking at is merely a Microsoft Access Database file that I designed to filter and arrange the raw data so it makes sense.

Image number 1 is a typical screen of attachments to the Sugar Loaf Guild website; you will notice it is quite sparse (and if I showed it to you in person I could show you how most of it is bots but programs such as Google Analytics, not to mention those scam artists who just raped this little Sugar Loaf community with Vapor Ware and in the future will take credit for work I have already done, would report these results as thousands of hits):

Column A shows the IP#'s while Column B shows the "referers" (such as Google, Bing, tweety-face, or another website, etc):

Image 2 below is page 1 of 4 of the attack, and you will first note there are no "referers" (these hits came from nowhere):

Put the images in separate TABS for easy comparison.

Pay attention to the extreme regularity of columns between A and B in the Attack version (there are slight variations that can be seen on closer inspection as the attackers tried numerous paths to access the database).

You will also see in Column A that the IP#'s from which the attachments come are changing regularly.

The numbers occurred in blocks in the order shown below starting with the first one at MIT:

18.187.1.68
173.254.216.68
199.254.238.44
166.70.207.2
72.52.91.19
128.6.224.107
173.254.216.67
18.187.1.68
64.113.32.29
128.6.224.107
216.218.134.12
173.254.216.68
208.115.111.71
64.113.32.29
204.8.156.142
72.52.91.19
216.218.134.12
173.254.216.68
64.113.32.29
173.254.216.68
18.187.1.68
128.6.224.107
178.18.17.204
18.187.1.68
66.180.193.219
18.187.1.68
173.254.216.68
204.8.156.142
184.105.182.85
72.52.91.19
204.8.156.142
72.52.91.19
128.6.224.107
128.6.224.107

Several of the numbers were repeated while MIT (the apparent ring leader) appeared 5 times.

So sad for MIT that they do not have 10 teams combined that could touch the hem of my online skills.

The entire attack took 26 minutes 21 seconds with less than a half dozen other attachments during that time period (which is itself an anomaly).

Below is a link to ARIN, the Internet naming authority, where you can check the point of origin for the IP#'s starting at MIT, then San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Fremont, Rutgers, etc.

Copy/paste the numbers into the top right entry box:

After you have had your fill of IP# tracking, take a look at the link below which shows the page that people who piss me off are forever after bumped onto when they try to attach to the Sugar Loaf Guild:

Thanks to Connie Rose for the image that she cut from the Sugar Loaf Guild town brochure (in about a second and a half) while talking to me about the weather or something.

Man, does this little town have TALENT, or what?!

The English letter equivalent for the first symbol is?

The second?

The third?

Put 'em together and ... ?

It was a very humorous and unsuccessful attack, in which they tried repeatedly to break into the underlying database using several different methods.

Very funny because they were using attack methods that would have worked if the Sugar Loaf Guild website was structured the way most websites today are built, but the underlying files of the Sugar Loaf Guild are hand coded singularities which do not respond the way the attackers would suspect.

However, here is the big secret: there is nothing on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, so the people at MIT (just like that nasty forum poster had done previously) were merely tilting at ghosts.

Better luck next time, numbskulls.

You should keep quiet about the attack, and report all the new activity as a "significant increase in web activity" due to "specific successes with social media initiatives."

That's what everybody else does.

Oh, that's right (I forgot), you are not getting paid for this.

And you are leaving the sound of this particular one hand clapping unstated in order for the next person to have the fun of figuring it out?

As an aside, LAMDA <> LAMBDA, but I am sure you knew that.

It is beautiful and is full of fantastically positive energy, and we will gain from it each and every day.

I would love to hear how you produced this piece, and we are both so grateful to you and Bob, plus Mac for linking us.

I have been humbled throughout our communication.

I am in your debt!!! Pam

Positive energy is the absolute very least aspect of the painting to consider (almost equal in irrelevance to "beauty"), both in intent and in execution.

Sorry.

You have the option of tracking down a truly gifted watercolor artist, showing them the piece, and then letting them explain the difficulties overcome in the production of such a museum quality piece.

If they do not use the term "mud" as the most likely potential pitfall and outcome (especially in light of it being accomplished using "wet-on-wet" technique), you should dump them as a consultant and move on to a more thorough search for deeper expertise.

After you feel you have successfully completed your review, and have confidence in truly understanding the work, you may re-apply for certification.

At that time the follow up question will concern the impossibility of accurate reproduction of the painting you are looking at in any other medium: an original is an original is an original.

A guideline for gaining understanding is to compare the piece you have to posters, prints, and fine art books, plus online images ... looking closely at the color temperature value variations plus depth of dye saturation and detail overall.

Keep in mind that merely the (successful) inclusion of such wide temperature range variations within a single piece is in itself a mark of mastery, and that should get you started.

I have toggled your note over here to the Guild Forum, because the Endico Forum is reserved for Mary's fans.

BTW: You do not owe us a thing; give it to MacMurray College.

The new T-shirts are at the screen printers; the new ads are ready to run, and the required paperwork is complete; so everybody, "START YOUR ENGINES!"

[That's right, Randy; you've never heard that before; it's mine.]

I am truly in awe of what you guys have done, and I recognize your crediting what you have been able to do, to what you learned at Macmurray College.

As you know, I have not yet received my Endico, and I expect to be even more grateful when it arrives.

I am so proud to know you and truly am humbled that you responded ... you know that I have genuine experience with someone who tried to survive as a painter.

TU!

P

I thought I was going to have to call an intervention for the person posting all the nastiness, but now I will be sure to expand the interventions to include your own over the top flatteries.

Maybe you just need to get out more, but I can tell you without question my compatriots in Sugar Loaf are laughing their asses off at the thought of my being any more than just a run of the mill everyday Sugar Loaf artist.

The person you know who tried to survive as a painter only made the simple mistake of not trying to do it in Sugar Loaf, the one true place in the universe where a life in the arts is not only possible, but probable.

In any case, assuming we are talking about the same person, I know for a fact the work that I do (and Mary's as well) is but a poor reference to that person's own level of talent and skill.

Right place, right time for us (which as it turns out is this place and anytime).

UPS says your painting arrives by Thursday.

There will be a test.

Mary Endico was just here in the Boswell Pottery Studio, and somebody mentioned they didn't know who she is.

Man, I had to take several steps back believing she was gonna blow.

BTW: I think I do know who you are, Connie Rose.

Nothing has ever been done like that in association with me.

I am humbled that such an outstanding and accomplished person as Bob Fugett would do this!

Thank you and know that you and Mary are highly valued. P

Though I grant you it has been rather difficult keeping that clear, because there are significant commercial interests allied against us and working overtime trying to hide that fact.

Otherwise, I have been helping people with their writing skills, so if you will allow me a comment regarding your own.

I would tone it down a little on the "outstanding and accomplished" part, while the term "person" has been the subject of much debate.

I don't remember how I helped ... not a surprise ... but I'm always glad to expose ignorance when and where I can.

I've only been a part of the Sugar Loaf Community for a little less than a year (but I have been visiting for over 30 years), and I have learned that there is no one else here that has contributed as much to the spirit and promotion of our community as you and Bob.

There are others who have done a great job of supporting what we are all about, but their efforts seem to pale in comparison.

I have talked to a lot of people in the last year - you know that I try to learn something about everyone - and everyone who says they have visited twice knows who it is that are the "anchors" in the village.

I start asking "Have you seen this or visited that" - "How did you learn about us"?

They all answer with a vague reference to something they saw or read, and then I give them a copy of the Sugar Loaf Guild Brochure telling them what they can find in it.

Their response is always "Wow, thanks."

It's as if I have given them a treasure map, and actually I have.

I have had a few people return and say it was because they visited the Sugar Loaf Guild website and learned so much about the town, and how there was so much more here than they originally encountered on their first "walk about."

It is the Guild Brochure that leads them to the Guild Website that leads them to the Treasure (a return to Sugar Loaf).

The brochure is beautiful!

It's a work of art ... as it should be.

My hat is off to you and Bob, and my thanks goes to both of you also for your work of art that is the Sugar Loaf Guild website, not to mention I am thrilled that it includes me.

There is a sign in my shop that says "People will forget what you say and forget what you do, but, they will never forget how you made them feel."

The Guild Website welcomes them into a unique place of incredible pictures, color, information and history.

They feel wow'd ... and they remember.

When they get here we all make them feel wowed again by our interest in them... and they remember.

We can't bicker and snipe at one another, and then turn on our heels and say "Hello, welcome to Sugar Loaf" and not have it sound hollow ... they feel it and they remember.

I know I am preaching to the choir.

I know you get it.

I know that the effort you and Bob have put into supporting Sugar Loaf has been phenomenal.

I admire and appreciate your continued efforts in spite of the negativity you sometimes encounter.

If that negativity comes from ignorance, as it often does, then your narrative and Bob's summary recently placed in the forum should clear that up.

If it doesn't come from ignorance for some, then it is from stupidity, and you can't fix stupid.

On the other hand, if it is just malicious or petty (as appears to be the case with the most recent attacks), ignore it.

Never give it credibility or the slightest chance that your thoughts about it could taint the beauty you create.

By the way, I've never had a visitor comment about the Forum to me except my son, and that's because he reads everything.

I read it because I learn something from it each day.

I have seen some comments from visitors and they have all been very positive.

Only intra-community posts have been negative (and from only two point sources at that).

But, you already know that.

As an aside: I thought after I wrote this that I could have put it all in the Forum.

If you would like it included there, I am sure Bob can cut and paste.

On the other hand, your e-mail regarding the recent spate of malicious comments and commercially motivated misrepresentations of the Guild is typical of the strong outpouring of good wishes we have received, so it is as good a letter as any to represent the feelings of those around us.

The website usage logs show that this most recent mailing (that you are responding to) has proven to be the single most successful promotion (albeit accidental) that has been accomplished in Sugar Loaf since we came here 37 years ago.

I am still reeling from the number of actual human readers that have shown up on the Forum.

It has been the perfect springboard for our full-out Social Media Sockets Campaign, also well under way.

You mention in your letter that you read the Sugar Loaf Guild Forum daily because you learn from it.

So here's a lesson.

Get your butt back to town and get back to work.

You obviously have too much time on your hands.

As for Mary and me, I believe we have made it abundantly clear that we are not making money off the Sugar Loaf Guild; we are spending money on it.

If Jay were more open with his communications, the team would have provided a hot-link for that mention of the Sugar Loaf Historical Society.

No need to send people to something that has restricted access.

"Absolutely, totally, 100% open" is our motto.

Otherwise he reported a typo, and that is a treasure, so get over yourselves.

You will be able to add the html wrappers at your leisure; and once you set up one as a template, it will be just copy paste and changing a couple numbers while most of the organizational work is already done with what is on the Guild version ... unless Clay finally makes it into the 19th Century and realizes there is a whole world going on around him.

Once you have Photoshop up and running, the resize, etc will take less than 5 minutes to show you (much, much easier than anything else you've done), and you can bring your laptop over to Clay's and I'll show you in person ... if you don't realize immediately that I can step you through it online just as fast.

Maybe that cantankerous old granpappy Clay Boone will get happy for a minute or two.

I'll have Mary send you her most recent e-mail response to the nastiness below; you're gonna love it; not to mention we just heard from Jay Westerveld (Sugar Loaf Historical Society) who actually said we are doing GREAT with the Guild website.

Go figure.

2) Yes, each image is currently on its own; you can add html wrappers at your leisure if more information is required; you will notice the information provided with the larger images on Clay's Guild version is very sparse, so press Clay to see if he has any actual viewers who are looking for more information; maybe a simple larger image will be enough.

3) Clay said he was going to pay for your Photohsop, and Photoshop Elements is probably all you will ever need; it is $62.99 on Amazon; here is a link:

You could download the PC version instead of waiting for a disk.

4) I think you are pretty much done; ALL of Clay's images are now available from his own website; it takes time to make woodcarvings so he will be adding them very slowly and worse case I will size them for you here, put them on the Guild version, and you can grab them there.

I opened the Lobby.htm page here, and it loaded super fast; you are the BEST!

You might want to remove his cell phone number from the Contact page until he gets it up and running again.

Also 2nd from top left of Organizational Signs is missing both thumb and larger image: #622

Congratulations! That didn't take so very long, right?

Due to the fact that an e-mail provides a driver's license grade ID, we have used the return e-mails to identify the final culprit and our lawyers should be contacting them very soon.

The mystery is solved.

Thanks again to all who responded.

Everybody: don't forget to let us know how the Social Media Sockets campaigns are coming along.

Nobody else has them, because they use proprietary technologies that are not commercially available.

It truly is the next big wave in advertising, and only Sugar Loaf has it — beating the big-boxes at their own game.

So far for us the Sockets campaigns and Town Brochures have been our biggest successes, along with the other initiatives mentioned below (6636) and on the Financial page.

Remember the Sugar Loaf Guild never asks for money, but we ourselves continue to pour money and effort into a wide range of town advertising.

If you want to give somebody money (and be part of a "group"), go talk to the Chamber.

Thanks again, Sugar Loaf, you have made us true winners.

I have never experienced someone asking for money for the guild, however, I have had several clients ask why this “guild” bashes Sugar Loaf, it’s people and it’s businesses on a regular basis, online in a public forum.

Your concerns should be on what your little “guild” DOES represent, ZERO UNITY and SUPPORT for all of Sugar Loaf.

If you and your “guild” care to truly provide support for this commUNITY then I suggest you begin with a POSITIVE, SUPPORTIVE blog, not one that leaves the world wondering why you are even here, and in turn, why should they bother coming here.

Thank you for reading and have no fear, the guild is clearly represented all on it’s own.

Too bad it’s in a sad way.

Laura Vreeland
Laura’s Sweets Specialty Bake Shoppe
Proudly~ Sugar Loaf, NY

I assume the negative Sugar Loaf bashing to which you refer are these two posts:

6281
6510

Those two posts have always been a concern.

The earlier one ("Is this forum some kind of a joke?") was posted by someone who has significant financial interest in seeing the generous Sugar Loaf Guild programs not move forward, and in fact, only moments before their posting, they stood beside me while being shown the website first hand, smiled in my face, and thanked me for all the great work.

The later one ("gigi") comes from someone who has never spoken to me personally, so I assume they were influenced by the first person (and obviously did not review the entire website themselves); plus they believed this website to be a "town" website, so I always thought they were just misguided.

All the negativity found in the Forum has been identified as coming from two known sources alone.

Otherwise, a public forum is just that, a forum which is open to the public.

Therefore your customers are always welcome to post positive messages in the Forum in order to offset any negativity—negativity which has been quite sparse in any case.

Any truly public forum will always be subject to some negativity.

Thanks again for the feedback, and for attaching your name to it.

If you wish to not be associated with the Guild, I will remove "Laura's Sweets Specialty Bake Shoppe" from the Guild's active advertising programs and this website.

Just post a note here in the Forum.

BTW: I always like to help people, so here is your free English grammar lesson: the possesive form of "it" is "its" while "it's" is a contraction of "it is."

Usually I will make those changes for people who post here, but I did not want to add to the confusion by altering your original e-mail submittal.

Of course I mean the email that you sent directly to Mary Endico, the 37 year full time Sugar Loaf artist who among other things ran the next four Craft Fairs after her arrival (1977) while establishing a procedures manual to be used by all the organizers after her, and then organized the art shows (when all events were true juried exhibitions), put more than a quarter million of her own dollars (earned from sales of her own hand painted watercolors to people visiting Sugar Loaf) for the restoration of her studio & gallery on main street, plus $15,000 into the lawsuit protecting the trees defining the Sugar Loaf skyline, and continues to maintain the parking lot servicing customers for most of the center of town (on her own property, at her own expense, with her own liability, while nobody in town has ever been charged a cent for its use), and she has worked tirelessly on town beautification efforts (even going so far as requiring me to previously become an 8 year member of the Town of Chester Planning Board in order to further her efforts), and not to mention just last year she put another $22,000 dollars (her own money) into generalized town advertising ... that includes this website which a group of people are currently working in concert to destroy.

I am sorry to mention all that here (though much was left out), but people seem to have forgotten.

Bob Fugett

In corporate America people fight to gain a position of power and authority.

In Sugar Loaf people fight to avoid a postion of power and authority.

We also have skills, and we depend on them to provide our living, which is a thing quite rare where you came from.

If you are good, I will show you one of the finest examples of top quality art work that I have ever seen.

It will be your biggest eye opener yet, and earn you your diploma.

I also would like to confirm (hopefully) that the Canvas did not take the opportunity while running the article about you to hit you up to pay for additional ad space.

I will always have fond memories of Sugar Loaf (discounting for personal issues - haha).

For the gifted, Sugar Loaf is a great venue; for some of the others - well they come and go.

You have put together a great site, and I hope the Guild outlives the naysayers.

I hope for a good, happy, prosperious year for All. Mike

For some of the rest of you, "Did you hear that, Sugar Loaf naysayers?! "

That was Mike Wilson a representative of the best of the best of the enduring Sugar Loaf community, a community of artists and artisans who do not even need to live here to retain membership.

A community so subtle in presence but powerful in effect that one might easily miss seeing it despite thriving off its existence.

There are those in the hamlet today who might not even know where the Parsonage is, but they are still benefitting from the hard work that Mike Wilson put into it.

Work accomplished by Mike's own hand.

Due to the fact the Guild, like the Sugar Loaf community, is merely an idea (an idea that keeps on giving), it cannot help but outlive the naysayers.

Good ideas are cheap and easy to maintain; nay saying on the other hand is a very energy intensive and inefficient activity ... doomed to failure.

Thanks again, Mike, for your words in this forum and for your work in building the Sugar Loaf community.

PJ refers to either "Pre" or "Post" the name of his first wife who was an unparalleled really, really, really bad influence in town.

I will guarantee you that if she were here now, the Sugar Loaf Guild brochures would be disappearing out of the kiosk, along with numerous shops, the Barnsider, and any number of display counters within the quad-state area.

Things have never been quite so bad again after her leaving (neither for Sugar Loaf nor for Mike), though it has come to my attention there is currently a valid contender to her throne of tears, a pretend artist and all.

Happy New Year to you and Mary.

Can't believe, but after all these years stumbled accross this site.

Talk about memories.

The Parsonage that I spent more years, money, and sweat salvaging looks great.

Your own word "artistry" makes Sugar Loaf look like Paradise.

Have the day-to-day political BS ever slowed down and have people united to help the town?

Now divorced from Jill and Lorraine.

New Guyanese woman on the list (some say I just don't learn - haha).

Very best wishes to you and Mary for 2014 !!!
Mike

In summary you are famous on the Guild website though you were not referred to by name, so people are just going to think I made this whole thing up about you writing in this Forum.

You have actually found this site rather quickly, because it is still less than a year old, give or take.

Did it myself, funded it myself, and Mary took all the exterior photos (well ok, I guess she was actually the one who funded it besides).

And no, the day-to-day BS has not abated (though one new guy in town believes things used to be so "together" when he used to drive through in his car), and I am under constant attack from others for putting the truth out there.

One of my neighbors actually stood beside me in the studio shaking my hand, slapping my back, and beaming with thanks for what Mary and I have done with the Guild website and advertising, then promptly ran home to post ugliness just so they could run around town deriding the content of this Forum, using their own post as the prime example.

On the good side, the true artists are still here hidden away in their studios while servicing a world of adoring fans who come for the work and ignore the burgeoning nonsense.

Here is a snippet from one of my stories in Bob's Corner in which I believe you will recognize yourself and the work you did on the Parsonage:

"It got so bad a would-be glass artist accused their blown glass teacher of hiding secrets from them (as if the craft did not demand years of careful work and study), and they made the comment while sitting outside the Barnsider smoking cigarettes and complaining their husband (feverishly hanging sheetrock alone in full view directly across the street) was failing to finish the build of their shop in a timely manner."

I can hear people in town now, "That person Mike did not post in the Forum; you are making the whole thing up just so you can mention one of your stories again!"

You will recall I last started the Guild website in 1997 with offers of free services even greater than today, but I got so hammered by vested contrary interests (particularly by someone you know) that I put it off until things settled down.

This time the exact same stuff started all over again, but Mary and I have ignored it while maintaining a record of the true story and forging full steam ahead.

In case you missed it, the snippet above is from my 6th story (out of currently 9), and it is titled:

You will certainly recognize the facts as facts and enjoy reading all the other stories from the beginning.

Otherwise, Sugar Loaf actually is pretty much of a Paradise—for those who want to be full time artists and are willing to do the work to make it happen.

In general, those people still don't waste their time attending the bullshit group meetings.

It would take one of those groups a few hundred years to put together a website like this, even if they could figure out how to come up with the money (money I avoid needing because I have skills).

In any case, I am sure your taste in women has improved, so you will not be pulled through the ringer again in 2014.

Just like Christmas morning, it is New Years Day, and you are still working!

Anything less than a 100 hour workweek here is considered part time.

Besides I have some ground to make up, because after the woman from Yale was here, Mary told me, "If you ever leave me in a room again with another smart humorless bureaucrat, you will be packing your bags."

Don't tell him about it, because I think the guy hates me, but he will be powerless to stop it.

In the meantime, Mary reports painting sales for the year are up by almost 30% over the previous several years.

Don't tell anybody about that either; they might think the Guild website and initiatives have been successful and hate me even more.

Don't you owe him an apology.

Here, Randy, as an apology, a link to information about that guy who was as I thought, though we were reading merely a gifted translation of his words not the actual words themselves:

You will notice that the Wikipedia article uses the pronunciation style which I showed you, though some of the symbols are specific to German thus not found on the graphic chart I gave you which does show the entire English vowel system (complete) but no other languages.

As an aside, I hope you realize the person who put that first nasty comment in the Forum did so specifically for the purpose of running around town and telling people how bad the Forum is, specifically by pointing to the statement that they themselves put in it (using an alias).

Thank you for putting this "Historic Hamlet" in perspective through this guild website.

"Historic?! What we are doing right now today is historic."

You are going to love this.

But first let me apologize for the way the Forum posting screwed up your formatting.

I could see what you did in the database, but html simplifies spacing, so I hope I retrieved it for you.

Ok, here we go with what you (being the one true Sugar Loaf artist grown and bred) are going to love!

With regard to that thing I wrote below about the person who posted, "Is this Forum some kind of joke!"

Well, it jogged Mary's memory, and she said, "Wait! I have e-mail from the person you think did that, in my watercolor sales database, so you missed checking. Run that IP# against it."

I did, and voilà, that nasty hateful despicable comment has now been indisputably confirmed as coming from exactly the person I previously decided it must be.

I had substantial evidence before, but now we know beyond question.

People cannot post in this Forum (or be on this site) without me having their IP#; people cannot send e-mail without including their IP#; most people have a static IP# associated with their home or business—even though Optimum pretends you have to pay extra to get one.

I don't know what it is about my statement that people do not understand, "I pay very close attention to my web traffic."

Much closer than can be done with Google Analytics.

That is how I know (within hours) which advertising is helping us, and which advertising is a waste of money.

In any case, an IP# posting = IP# e-mailed, and e-mail is a driver's license grade named source.

Want to know who did it?

Here's a hint: "The broader the smile the greater the deceit."

Just the sort of thing we need.

Make it yourself, and treat customers like royalty.

I mean think about it; much of the stuff he makes is just recycled nonsense from big-box crafts stores, but if a person goes into one of those places they are confronted with a giant cavernous lifeless void full of details, and the sales people are at best barely conscious, selling stuff made by slave labor in China (or someplace) of which they have little or no knowledge.

But if somebody goes into Randy's studio, they are confronted with a lively Randy (a very good thing), and the stuff is put together by his own hand (mostly).

Doesn't get much better than that.

Well, ok, there are shops in Sugar Loaf having all that plus truly unmatched world class product ... can't get it ANYWHERE else.

Try to beat that with online shopping, or massive commons.

Actually, I have encountered a few Sugar Loaf "Ways."

I'm choosing the stay creative, positive and supportive "way."

With your help it seems to be working so far!

My Daily List is:
1. 30 min on exercise
2. 30 min on typing
3. 30 min on writing
4. 30 min on guitar

Then there is the creative time in the shop.

In that order.

Biting off a big chaw I know, but to commit is to begin.

I am sure it has not been lost on you that when you first got to town I could come over and have a long conversation, but already in the few months you have been here (due to your work on your own product, and correct presentation of it), it is now impossible for me to stop by and have more than a few minutes of your time, and in order to have a coherent conversation I have to keep popping out onto the bench while we are interrupted by the flow of your adoring fans.

And a number of them are multiple repeat return customers ... already.

After the last time I was over to see you, I pointed out to Mary the irony of the pile of possible advertising venues you were considering on your work bench while you could barely keep up with the steady stream of people already arriving.

It is something I have seen over and over: make it and they will come.

I also pointed out to Mary the obvious fallacy of most of the advertising done in Sugar Loaf over the years, and handled by people who really would like to see us fail.

If that advertising worked, there would be no need for it (the strong artisan shops already never bother), therefore those in charge of it need to keep business in town hobbled in order to continue collecting on services (no more than prayers actually) presented as community services ... which are nothing like community service plus coming from a pretend artisan.

Be careful out there Randy, people have smiled big right in my face, slapped me on my shoulder thanking me for the great work done on the Guild site plus our $17,000.00+ (our own money) already poured into town advertising this year, then run right back to their computer and posted nastiness in this Forum such as, "Is this Forum some kind of joke!" with follow up lies about what the Guild site represents throughout town.

Also do not open up strange e-mail requests, even if they are supposedly from your own son.

On a lighter note: Will you be open tomorrow?

I am giving a tour to a high powered funder from Yale University whom you might like to hook your wife up with, for possible coordination with Orange Regional Health Care funding efforts.

And for next year Mary and I have already begun work on the Sugar Loaf University T-shirts and advertising spots.

BTW: Don't let on to anybody that Sugar Loaf has a vibrant, energetic, and unstoppable community in place; we like to keep that fact underground and under wraps; hope I won't get into trouble for letting you see it so quickly.

Keep me out of trouble by telling everybody you meet that they should never come look at the Guild website, because it is horrible, and I am an insufferable asshole.

Do that and I promise I will not let you down.

It is Christmas morning and you are working!

In Sugar Loaf anything less than a 100 hour work week is considered part time ... and doomed to failure.

Ready, here are the items for your ToDo list:

1) Touch type 5 minutes; try to beat 4wpm

That's it; my gift to you.

If you really must, add a thing or two later, but don't do it until this item has become second nature, not even a thought.

It is your path to beating the "chump change" earnings you thought were significant in the best of your past jobs.

Sugar Loaf will provide the rest; it has for a lot of us in the past and continues doing so for a lot of us today.

You will soon be as far ahead of the crowd as I am, maybe farther.

I would like to take this opportunity (hope I'm not too late) to beg Randy to move into the open shop just to the north of us.

Currently Randy is undoubtedly the strongest new attraction that Sugar Loaf has, or has had in recent memory, and the reports we continue to receive about the true over the top satisfaction that all of his clients profess is just astounding.

Please, Randy, move in next to us; it will be a boone to our business!

Besides, I spent a lot of time out on the street during development of the Sugar Loaf Guild website, and I can tell you that business is so booming in Romers' Alley, they really don't need your extra boost.

Completely disgusting and self serving!

It is My Sister's Closet with 22 visits to the site.

Congratulations to My Sister's Closet!

Got there by means of a Google search.

She has a Mac computer.

Precious little browsing as usual.

Here are my notes tracking her activity:

Gigi 12/20/13: ggl > / 1s idx 3s fav 1m15s, Par9TxtLobby > gal 10s, Img3Txt > colslctd 21s, col2021 15s, 569 32s, nav > book/haute

Click on the links to follow her path.

Think I know where she lives, as if I did not know already, but the final tip-off is called "self interest."

She also took a look at this Forum a few hours later; didn't look at anything else on the Guild website; probably doesn't want the truth of the site to screw up her belief about the site.

Her last post using the alias "Anon" was #6579 below.

Still, best to not be saying bad things about my peeps or about my Guild (which does not even exist anyway yadda, yadda, blah, blah, quack).

Did you hear what I did?

A College Trustee from where I went to school contacted me hoping for a donation; but I turned the tables on them, talked them into donating $500.00 dollars themselves, and additionally they are having the college run an Endico Watercolors promotion calling Mary an internationally renowned artist (which she is).

Among other geniuses I can now claim the moniker marketing genius, and the best part is I used the education that they gave me in order to do it ... used their own sword against them.

I am legendary.

Just because somebody calls themselves "Anon" on the Internet, that does not mean they are anonymous.

Static IP#'s are used to track down pedophiles and other criminals every day.

Yours is: 69.122.121.228

Want me to show you on the map the physical location that IP# is assigned to?

Or the IP#'s associated with the other shops in town?

Otherwise, I am sorry to inform you that, in fact, there is no Guild, just me (Bob Fugett); and Mary allows the website under protest.

All the hatred you feel toward people in town, that you think justifies your ranting in this Forum, should be directed squarely at me, and me alone.

Nobody else even knows you exist (people in town are barely aware of this Forum), and I only know you as IP#: 69.122.121.228

You may name yourself whatever you wish, but that IP# is not likely to change.

All the expenditures for advertising and programs on the Financial page came out of my own pocket, along with all the design, production, and paste up being done by me alone, not to mention all of the writing plus computer coding (yes, I am a genius): no donations from any other people in town are received, no dues, no meetings, no grants from outside sources, no nothing.

This website costs me less than $4.00 a month and is paid-up for the next 10 years, so it is unlikely to shut down even if I'm dead.

It is at the top of Google and other search engine returns simply because I am really, really, really good at such stuff.

Ok, Mary did go around and take a photo of absolutely every business in town (keeping them updated) to make this website the only fully inclusive Internet presence in Sugar Loaf, but still ...

The Guild you think you are fighting against does not exist.

You are jousting at a ghost.

Gigi, you really are off the deep end, and I have been too nice to you (partly because this is so juvenile I at first thought you were a kid).

Future posts from your IP# will be removed as inappropriate ... unless I decide it is better for people to continue seeing how small, mean, and hate filled you really are.

Therefore, you might like to work on your writing skills, because I will no longer copy edit your grammatical errors.

I assume you will be checking back here in a couple months like always, so I will not have to try to track you down in real life in order to explain all this to you in person.

Nobody else in town cares about you either: they are not against you, they just don't care one way or another.

Each of them has a thing called a life to attend to.

You yourself should probably seek professional help for whatever substance abuse problem it is that is ruining your own life.

People in Sugar Loaf are not your problem.

But thanks for giving me an opportunity to put something truly interesting in this Forum.

Usually visitors to the Guild site are quickly shuttled off to do business with the best shops, and they rarely ever see this Forum, but now if somebody from the outside world does show up here and reads my response to you, they will be excited with interest, and I will be building a larger readership.

So thanks again.

For historic interest:

Gigi One
Gigi Two (aka: Anon)

Over the last ten years or more, every time I heard about another cell tower going up and ruining the vista, I complained to Mary saying, "First off they shouldn't even have to put up any cell towers. I mean cable goes along that wire strung across the street from us, and they could put receivers on critically spaced telephone poles that (unfortunately) already exist."

It would be extremely cheap, efficient, and they could run as many services as they want without anybody even being aware of it.

So last night around 2:00 am, I heard a bunch of ladder noises coming from out on the street; then my Internet went down, and I noticed the television (running on mute while I worked on French vowels) had frozen.

I thought, "That makes sense. Optimum must be working on that aggravating problem across the street they always have trouble with."

Then this morning I'm going through my regular routine which includes re-setting my iPod WiFi just before syncing my database, and bawhaam, I see a half dozen new WiFi connections.

So Sugar Loaf is now a WiFi hotspot.

Looks like we are inching toward the day when enough people are online and sophisticated enough about it to finally understand what I have done, or more to the point, what I am capable of doing.

One of these years that winter fat will start rolling over into the next winter.

Otherwise, sorry Mary harassed you about it; I think she just got tired of harassing me about my own.

The Canvas uses the guild website for their basic research regarding who's new and what's what.

You don't need to change a thing.

Double click the zip files which will open up a folder full of jpg images (50 per folder), pull the images into your local directory.

There is only one (1) htm file, the LobbyDEV.htm.

Pull the DEV file onto the server, nobody can see it, and it can't hurt anything ... just make sure everything is correct before overwriting the actual Lobby.htm file.

Also pull over all the large image files (jpg's out of the zip files), put them in the images folder on the server.

They also will not hurt anything but allow you full freedom to test.

Just to make sure: backup, backup, backup.

Tell your boss you need 15 minutes off work, go home, do it, be back by lunchtime, with 10 minutes left over for your own use.

Have you noticed the disconnect in everybody's thoughts about the Affordable Health Care fiasco?

Everybody is scared shitless the NSA is tracking their every move when actually the government can't track people's personal information even if the people themselves take a week out of their lives in order to give it to them while begging them to take it.

The problem with the Health Care site is that they tried to manage the problem, not fix it.

The basic problem actually is all these competing multiple non-standard databases, but instead of putting together one authoritative replacement version (starting small and cheap and allowing it to grow naturally), they just tried to tie all the existing nonsense into one big dysfunctional package.

I don't think they meant for the dysfunction; I've just never met a politician who has a clue about technology.

Seems like they all bought the Tweety-Face lie like most everybody else.

To summarize: In retrospect they never meant to provide health care, just another "Shopping" experience, complete with lucrative kick-backs into their own pockets (I'm assuming).

On the other hand you yourself have been unsuccessful in opening a standard zip file, full of standard image files, and pulling those files from one folder, into another, and then into another.

Maybe the government was doomed from the start.

Good to hear from you.

Otherwise, I am sad to tell you that hearing Randy sold 5 things to the bus people now makes me totally in favor of those buses (never thought I'd say that), and my policy update now states: "What this town needs is more Jolly Buses and more dangley things."

Finally, something I said that will not be controversial.

Actually I can see already that you have just saved me countless hours of work. Can't thank you enough.

As for the larger images, I still need to pull those from your site to mine. I'll also do that tonight as well.

I only started by pulling the thumbs over and then had to look for a while at how you organized things and where everything was placed.

The thumb of Buffalo Bill, accompanied by the larger image was sort of a test run on my part to see if I was doing things correctly.

Tonight I'll get going on what you have provided as well as getting the larger images pulled over.

Let me try putting together a zip file so you don't have to grab the big images one at a time.

I'll email it.

Great changes to Clay's website!

I see that all the thumbs appear to be in place, so the full size images must be close behind.

I hope you are not putting them in place one at a time.

You can highlight the full folder of large images and drag/drop them onto the server in one motion.

If the copy process fails at one (or several) point(s), you can always fill in the missing images individually.

I will prepare a quick stop-gap version of the lobby page to allow all images to be published immediately ... and that should shut Clay up.

In the meantime check to make sure my plan is not false logic:

On my iPod over WiFi the entire 298 thumbnails load in about 30 seconds (with plenty to look at during the process), and Safari drops the scroll bar that appears on my PC (which loads the page even faster).

Unless you find the load time is insanely unacceptable, I will go full steam ahead putting together a quick page for you to copy/paste onto your own site which will include all the thumb nail images but arranged and categorized like this:

I will link all the thumbs directly to the larger images (sans info), so you can fill in the info page wrappers at your leisure.

In the meantime, try not to say bad things about the other businesses in Sugar Loaf (or Warwick, Chester, Middletown, Doylestown, everywhere else really) who for the time being choose to live in a 19th Century slow worthless Tweety-Face world.

I certainly try not to give them much grief, but I still can't figure out why it is that it is always ends up being all MY fault they can't get their acts together.

Here; you can take a look at the page as I develop it:

11:46 am - All Done!

1) Right Click

2) View Source

3) CTL-A

4) CLT-C

5) Save as txt file named "LobbyDEV.htm"

6) Pull it onto the server

7) Make sure it looks ok

8) Backup your current "Lobby.htm"

9) Overwrite with the "LobbyDEV.htm"

10) Pull it over to the server

11) Done-itty, done, done, done!


: )

BTW: It's 3:15 pm and I just had Mary run down and roust Clay to come look at the page. Everything is ok.

We will take your kind suggestion under advisement and see if something can't be done about it.

What was it exactly that put you over the edge (again), the French?

I just did a search for your poem (in quotes), and that particular construction is unique on the Internet!

Linguistics is about observing how people talk to each other.

Did you know that in France to live is to see?

Actually see in the past and live in the present.

Ironically the simple truth of the matter can neither be stated in French nor in English.

If you ever did write it in French, even though it should be immediately obvious to every French speaker, you would only be told it is grammatically incorrect.

In English the concept itself seems impossible, or at least that has been my observation in Sugar Loaf ... where a large number of people live without seeing.

So how's about that, looks like I just wrote my first French poem.

"Tu vis est tu vis."

What I stumbled upon was the fact that some communities (Countries, to be more specific) actually go out of their way to draw a clear distinction between merchants, craftsmen, and industrialists ... and in so doing they establish a very simple comparison.

In fact it is a legal distinction and throws an obvious light on the reasons artisans always do better than merchants in Sugar Loaf.

Here are a couple of easy paragraphs in English:

In the meantime, I will go back to trying to figure out why it is that when I clear my throat around francophones they think I said something.

How are you? Hope you're well.

It's been a while, but the final piece has been published today for the John Markus short-form documentary video, and I thought you'd be interested in seeing it.

You are welcome to post it on the blog if you think that would be appropriate:

We hope you enjoy the piece.

All the best,
Pam

It was great to see John's mom and dad again, and the excerpts from the historic London, Ohio, video gives me a chance to point to a taste of the full length video available at the London Public Library.

[This is a follow up to London, Ohio posts starting at #6287-6371]

In any case, Peter was rather kind in accepting the money; most of our neighbors won't even speak to us.

It was something to behold, what with Mary being about 1/64th the size of Peter.

What was that all about?

Mary was trying to give Peter a check, and he was refusing it.

It was a custom made table that was constructed specifically to fit in the entryway of the Endico studio, and there was some question over what it was worth.

Negotiations began at zero, then quickly escalated to $100 dollars when Peter realized the gristly little old pygmy woman wasn't going to budge on writing a check.

Mary finally talked him up to $200 dollars after refusing his $150 dollar offer several times.

The table only went so cheaply because I had failed to clarify with Mary beforehand the bottom line.

Manon Von Uchtrup had shown up to deliver the table without a bill, but Mary remembered the table she pointed to as model for the custom job was marked $400 dollars.

So I told Mary to give them a check for $1,000 dollars (after all it was a custom job), and if they didn't take the money, I was going to carry the table back myself, but I missed telling Mary to accept absolutely no less than $400 if Peter tried to talk her down.

If 18th Century would charge what their product is worth, Manon might not have to be working five (5) other jobs (though I do suspect she just likes being out in the community doing significant work).

Just a miscommunication was all.

Our customer also finally made contact with that supposed sign maker, so maybe things will work out.

If not, for good town PR, Mary and I have personally offered to give them back their $43 dollar deposit, and Clay has offered to make a sign matching (but better) than the one they ordered and for FREE ... if things go sour.

The customer didn't even know who Clay is, even though the booth they ordered their sign from was within 25 yards of his front door.

The one (1) customer Mary thought she was getting from that "show" ended up trying to bargain on the price of a painting, so Mary sold it to somebody else.

Festivals!

What do you think is up?

I wish I had the time (or rather the inclination to make time) to study what you have put together — OMG, now that I have peeked please don't tell me there will be a test!

Time is what you make it.

The test will be a self test.

Here is the single question:

"Will you be able to endure the blow back if you ever are foolish enough to try and get somebody to understand what you have seen?"

On the other hand you have given me a quandary.

I probably have to leave the previous post published in order for the next person to guess at what you are talking about.

Actually I should say this and associated pages.

As soon as the Gang of Three has seen it, I will toggle this post off as otherwise distractive.

In fact web activity generated from Internet searches by actual human visitors to the Luft Gardens spotlight was so strong that improvements for contact to map links was identified and enabled.

The improvements were made specifically because of observed behavior of human visitors to the Luft Gardens spotlight, but everbody benefits.

Thanks for the update!

Some sort of a post tweetie-face web presence had to be here to handle such things as the following:

This morning Mary received a phone call from a long ago customer who was here a couple weeks ago for the "Festival" and put a deposit on a supposed custom sign to be made by one of the exhibtors.

Afterwards the customer had not been able to make contact with the seller and considered their $43.00 lost, but they just wanted to make sure the incident was reported so that the "craftsperson" would not be invited back

I guess they remembered our old process (now defunct with the new organizers) of actually jurying people into shows with a follow-up and blacklisting if the exhibitor caused problems.

In any case, nobody was returning the customer's e-mails while the Chamber website doesn't even have a phone number posted.

So they called us.

Mary gave them a couple of direct numbers to call, but wouldn't it have been nice for them to have a place like this Forum to publish their concerns?

On the other hand a review of the recent blow-up over content in this Forum (actually the entire website when complainers were questioned) revealed that every single person who was having a problem with the Guild site was also having a problem with their own substance abuse ... so I would be remiss if not reopening to sober comment.

Mark youself down as FIRST.

Given the amount of effort Rachel has put into actively trying to get the Guild website shut down, don't you find it odd?

It looks like somebody copy/pasted your words directly from the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

How do you feel about that?

Reminds me of the time a local bicycle club censored one of my articles in their newsletter, so I started the American Road Cycling website.

Later after constantly hearing how popular my writing had become, the club officials asked me to edit their own newsletter.

I laughed and declined saying, "Sorry, no, I already have a significant readership online, but you had better read the American Road Cycling website, before feeling disappointed, so you will be glad I didn't agree to edit your paper."

In this case, however, I feel like I have just put my kid on the bus for the first day of kindergarten.

It is a pretty special once in a lifetime feeling.

On the other hand, that ad is probably going to be just one more thing I get blamed for.

I plan to put the forthcoming comments on my wall right next to the ones from the people who at first told me I was making a big mistake by not tying into the Chamber site, then later complained how I had taken over Internet search returns for Sugar Loaf thus allowing this website to speak for the town.

Hopefully that ad you dropped off was not placed by the person who is running around town trying to make a buck off my efforts, and who has otherwise totally stopped producing their own artisan product while desperately trying to cover that fact in the eyes of the public.

All they have accomplished is to bring more attention to the Guild website.

Can't blame them for trying though.

Well, maybe a little gratitude on our part but not that much really.

We will also on occasion be sending people down to your shop with the same expectations ... zip, zero, nada for us, because setting somebody on the correct path is its own reward.

On closer examination the problem seems to stem from shops that have ceased producing their own product but continue to cover that fact while pretending to be actual artisans, as if they were still following the model of the long standing truly excellent businesses in town which have worldwide followings.

Additionally among those pretend shops (clearly out of the mainstream) the underlying cause seems to be substance abuse problems, which is an added reason for their horrific outcry when the truth of robust commerce in Sugar Loaf was revealed.

Substance abuse is not something easily rectified, and it is certainly outside the scope of this website.

Did you know that you can take classes in Sugar Loaf for college credit?

I figured you did not; very few do.

Readership of this Forum remains strong ... even post-shutdown.

Always have, always will.

We have already worked through most of the artisan shops, so if you want to be fast tracked just stop by the Endico studio and tell Mary to put you on top of the list.

Make sure you read the stories and understand the Guild website first, because you will be quizzed.

As Aaron from Luft Gardens recently said to Bob Fugett, "What is important is the work."

Almost immediately and ever after every business in town has remained strongly represented on the Photos Page and Walking Map.

Adding profiles, spotlights, product links, and 360 surrounds to this website is an ongoing process.

Did we mention totally for FREE?

You don't even have to give up your right to complain.

If there is a massive outcry we will reopen this forum to public comment.

This is
a repeat
of #6510

It just lacks appeal.

It lacks a reason for people to come.

I believe the goal of having the Bakery Boss come to help that amazing little bakery will do a lot for the town.

Lets face it — the town needs help; it needs publicity.

The reason so many Sugar Loaf businesses are against having any publicity is probably just because so many of the shops need a makeover themselves.

For anyone to say that the bakery is not truly art work, they should be ashamed of themselves.

What happened to local businesses supporting each other.

Shame on you jealous souls.

The only reference to that which I can recall came to me via Peter Von Uchtrup of 18th Century Furniture when he mentioned something was said by somebody from the bakery itself.

I don't recall the exact quote, because at the time it seemed such a ludicrous concept I discounted it as a miscommunication.

Also as far as I know, I am the only person in town who found this low budget pandering cable production a total fiasco.

Plus I cannot find the shops you are talking about who are in need of a helping hand up, nor was anything provided to the bakery that could not have easily been provided times over by the local community had somebody cared to ask.

It is all very confusing to me.

In any case thank you for the comment, because it proves the thesis I have personally been trying to explain all over town.

After I started working on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, I went around and talked to people one on one and found that most shops were doing very well indeed.

But the truth about the continued prosperity of the artisan shops has been snowed under by years of unfocused typical advertising.

Your comment is the perfect confirmation of that fact.

In a day or so all of this Buggery Boss stuff will be a forgotten minor footnote.

Now I have to set about explaining to people that "gigi" was an actual person posting and not just something I made up to support what I have been warning about.

The word "pwned" is web speak approximately the same as the word "owned" but with a more aggressive trash talking taunt connoted.

Do you know nothing about the Internet?

The Painting Gallery Boss
The Woodcarver Boss
The Leather Boss
The Pottery Boss
The Candle Boss
The Hamburger Boss
The Photography Boss
The Handmade Clothing Boss
The Jewelry Boss
The Frame Boss
The Stained Glass Boss
The Hard Work Boss
The OPEN sign Boss
The Good customer relations Boss

Oh, and the "Get it?" Boss

OK I'm done typing about all the businesses in Sugar Loaf that have been in business for over 30 years.

I have orders to fill.

Some of the businesses you mention have been (and continue to be) highly successful members of the Sugar Loaf Community for nearly 50 years, not just 30.

I'm still trying to figure out what idiot might have said that culinary is not art.

It just lacks appeal.

It lacks a reason for people to come.

I believe the goal of having the Bakery Boss come to help that amazing little bakery will do a lot for the town.

Lets face it — the town needs help; it needs publicity.

The reason so many Sugar Loaf businesses are against having any publicity is probably just because so many of the shops need a makeover themselves.

For anyone to say that the bakery is not truly art work, they should be ashamed of themselves.

What happened to local businesses supporting each other.

Shame on you jealous souls.

The only reference to that which I can recall came to me via Peter Von Uchtrup of 18th Century Furniture when he mentioned something was said by somebody from the bakery itself.

I don't recall the exact quote, because at the time it seemed such a ludicrous concept I discounted it as a miscommunication.

Also as far as I know, I am the only person in town who found this low budget pandering cable production a total fiasco.

Plus I cannot find the shops you are talking about who are in need of a helping hand up, nor was anything provided to the bakery that could not have easily been provided times over by the local community had somebody cared to ask.

It is all very confusing to me.

In any case thank you for the comment, because it proves the thesis I have personally been trying to explain all over town.

After I started working on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, I went around and talked to people one on one and found that most shops were doing very well indeed.

But the truth about the continued prosperity of the artisan shops has been snowed under by years of unfocused typical advertising.

Your comment is the perfect confirmation of that fact.

In a day or so all of this Buggery Boss stuff will be a forgotten minor footnote.

Now I have to set about explaining to people that "gigi" was an actual person posting and not just something I made up to support what I have been warning about.

I should be dead by morning.

We told the rebbe guy from Kiryas Joel that he could have the entire contents of our house when he purchases it to open the religious school and drug rehab facility in it, but we are taking the little cupcake with us.

It is our prized possession.

Our Satmar friend said, "I should care?"

Realizing her efforts were futile, Connie reached into her car, grabbed one of the new town brochures, which anyone with a brain knows (along with this website) is the single most accurate representation of the true Sugar Loaf there has ever been, and with a pair of scissors taken from the same car (what people in the third world would call a mansion) and focusing in on the Endico watercolor shown on the brochure while ignoring vociferous complaints from Mary about using up an item she had paid for, Connie magically:

Every time I need some basic question about the arts answered, it always turns out Connie is the best source.

Though I do sometimes have to stretch her to the breaking point in order to get as much information out of her as I'm after.

Careful: there are about a million other Bodhi Trees.

Don't you wish somebody would finally come along who did their name search homework before opening their doors?

In any case, use your minions to do the full subtle Guild job of gathering the information and checking them out; maybe make contact if it seems appropriate.

I've completed the IRL study.

Somebody led them to believe we don't have Social Media covered and nailed.

I also have a list of people who have been problematic lately vis-a-vis our current goals, so we will slowly be phasing them out of town, but I will send you that list through private channels.

Otherwise, the Guild site has become a hot-bed of activity.

People have finally gotten around to giving the stories a thorough read, and I would guess the response on the street is upwards to 93% positive, especially from the good shops.

Wow, who knew people would get so excited about this.

Somebody said the economy is in ruins and somebody else said, "Let them eat cake."

Our sincerest apologies for Endico watercolors brief hiatus today.

We are taking the week off while Buggery Boss rapes then makes a buck off our high quality little hamlet.

This TV reality fiasco will be gone soon enough and we will still be here to reopen and wipe up their mess.

In the meantime our valued customers can reach us online to set up private viewings and be let through our back door for personal appointments.

Once again, sorry for the inconvenience and thanks again for helping us wade through another outsider intrusion.

Mary tore up the release forms and didn't sign them.

We'll be closed.

No time to bother with the bad folks.

Thankfully Charlie Maninno just did an image Google search for his name and found his clock from the town brochures at the very top of returns, so at least he knows that those "proposed" services are already being provided by the Guild for free.

If not for this most recent episode from the Bernie Madoff's of web design the town would understand that there are at least three people currently doing equal work (or better than) on their own, and without compensation.

Oh, by the way: close and continual tracking of website IP# activities has finally determined the identity of the faux "Peg" (renamed as Maggie here) who sniped the Forum in classic snarky troll fashion.

Although Bob did take time out to introduce the show's art director to a couple of the top studios in town, he only did so in hopes of making it clear that the signage hemorrhage on the corner of Wood's Road does not represent the true state of affairs in Sugar Loaf, and that if the "bakery" had a true quality product they would not need a makeover.

I have to say something more serious.

I want to thank our Guys who come out and save us when we need them.

The Sugar Loaf Engine Company does amazing work in our community.

I hear the sirens go off, and I always say prayers.

One prayer for the people who need help, and one for the selfless rescuers.

A very good friend of ours was badly hurt in a horrific accident on September 13th.

He had to be airlifted to WCMC.

It is only because of our local Firemen, EMT's, and Police that our friend is able to have the chance to fight for his life.

I humbly went to the Department and thanked them.

Thank you for doing that.

I now see the problem you were talking about.

On loading your home page my browser displays a warning which it should not.

Talk to the people at the hosting service, and ask them if they would like to make sure that warning never appears again, or if you should move to a service which will do it, and at less than 10% of what your current provider is charging you.

Your service provider seems to be the problem, but I am not sure why I did not see it when you told me about it, before we deleted that offensive banner ad.

The good news is that the warning doesn't show up on my iPod, which I guess is good for your business but now makes me worry about the security of my iPod.

Thank you so much for your time and support yesterday. I greatly appreciate all you and Mary do for Sugar Loaf and its businesses including The Country Life.

I am not sure about the quote that you were recalling when we spoke yesterday. It sounded familiar, but I could not fully recall it either. I am happy to say though, that Debbie and I love life in the country.

We are living it, breathing it and working it here in Sugar Loaf and the Warwick Valley as personified by our store, The Country Life.

“Country”, as a style, has gone through some transitions and now ranges from primitive to rustic to vintage to cottage. People often mix styles and include other defined styles such as Adirondack, Cabin and Lodge. It is not unusual to see homes decorated in Traditional or even Modern that will incorporate some décor that would typically be considered “Country”.

The Country Life has customers from the New York City suburbs who frequent our shop looking to bring home something to adorn their home that will give them the memory and feeling of life in the country, or simply put, the country life.

I view “country” as simple, comforting and connected – simple in style, providing a feeling of comfort, and connecting us to the open land.

Like a plant brought indoors brings nature into our homes, a handcrafted table connects us to a simpler time when everything in a home came from its surroundings before the time of factories and overseas manufacturing.

Here is more than you probably want to know about The Country Life. Have fun!

Thanks!

I'll stop by today to find out more.

It does start putting a few things in context though.

My own interests are very narrowly defined as "what do you make" not "what do you sell" but the more I find out about The Country Life, the more I understand why your business is thriving in Sugar Loaf while so many are complaining.

Listen up folks, The Country Life appears on the surface to be just another retail shop, but it is being run like a true artisan business.

No wonder they moved from Warwick to Sugar Loaf.

They knew this is where they would fit in, and where the good stuff is.

For other would be Sugar Loaf businesses, here is a look at what a real business prepares for themselves:

And by the way people: did you notice all of Ken's talk about what Country Style is, and how it works in human life?

That is called a mission statement.

Get one of your own.

Your new profile is up and running.

The text never arrived via email, but I'll stop over and we can put it directly onto your domain name website with the photos ... save a step.

I Googled how to get all your listings to show with a simple search for your user name on eBay.

It is too simple.

Just click the Advanced search, and select "By User" from the selection list on the left.

You will be able to put a link on your domain site that does it automatically.

This is going to be sweet.

Mary and I have found eBay (and online in general) close to worthless for painting sales (something about people liking to see the painting in real life before spending a bunch of money), but if we have junk around the house to sell at 10% of what we paid for it, things go fast, and Mary is always shocked how easily people find arcane pieces of equipment and oddities you wouldn't think people would even be looking for.

Here's Mary's current listings:

And:

Nothing in that proposal offers anything more than what the Guild site is already providing for free.

The only thing that would make sense is if Bertoni and Maninno are getting monetary kickbacks ... money directly into their pockets.

That's the best I can come up with; everything else points to the Guild website being far better for everybody involved.

Stroke for stroke, line item by line item, the proposal only regurgitates already established Guild services but leaves a few significant functions out, probably because they are technically too difficult to repeat.

Everybody wants to make a buck off our reputation.

Too bad they don't know how we built that reputation.

Bob Fugett was just asked by Anne Marie and immediately thereafter by Spencer Effron if he was ready for the upcoming Craft Fair.

When Bob mentioned that those shows used to be Juried Exhibitions, neither of them had ever even heard of juried shows, did not know the term or what it meant.

In the medical and academic professions it is called "peer review."

The committee would also go around during the event to make sure vendors were honest in their applications, and if they weren't they would be black listed for the following shows (same thing if they left early missing a day of three day events).

Top artists will not waste their time at lesser shows.

I explained that is why parking for events in years gone by extended to Warwick one direction and Chester the other.

The last show Mary ran had doubled qualifying applicants from 32 the previous year to 76 that year.

Mary got in trouble because the show ended up making money … despite her best efforts to spend every penny she could on advertising.

It was a feather in an artist's cap to be in one of the Sugar Loaf shows, and customers came by the thousands knowing that they would find high quality work done by the vendors themselves.

Don't forget, those shows happened during one of the hardest economic downturns this country has seen plus the oil crises.

Still things got bought by people who knew that they had to be careful with their purchasing dollar and only buy quality items that were made to last.

The current event organizers are probably themselves unaware of juried shows just as Spencer and Anne Marie were … which explains why the recent events are hard to distinguish from flea markets.

And people wonder.

People keep trying to donate to the Guild, and I keep telling them to give it to the Chamber instead, but all I ever hear is, "Well ... I'll just keep the money in my pocket then."

Except for Randy, of course, but he's a newbie pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna naif who also over thinks things.

Wait till he's seen a Chamber meeting.

Randy Brown (Bee Positive) told me he had heard a rumor about it, but I figured it was just another nonsense question that caused some nonsense person to go off the deep end again.

Randy also said somebody walked into the meeting late, just as it was happening, and got caught in the cross-fire.

It never occurred to me to ask what it was all about; who cares?

Shops in Romers' Alley are already organizing their own splinter group (an age old American tradition wherein democracy is best described as the proud success of warring committees of one).

The more the merrier.

As for us, the Guild brochures have already seeped into the collective consciousness and are performing miracles!

This time the printing was 9,000; however, people should consider there is an infinite supply, because Bob and Mary plan to just keep getting them printed due to the strong positive impact the brochures have already shown.

Clay Boone has distributed over 1,000 to kiosks in Middletown and north, with Newburgh planned.

Bob Fugett hand delivered a supply to every shop in Sugar Loaf with a steady supply placed in the Barnsider and the Sugar Loaf kiosk.

Mary Endico went around to shops updating older versions with the newest printing.

Denise Griggs of Practical Magick has taken hundreds to Westchester, and Mary Endico will be distributing to a few venues between here and NYC today.

Anybody with an idea how we should expand our distribution can post a note in this Forum — no Guild membership required — no sign in required.

These brochures have filled in the gap left by the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce which apparently has no budget for anything this year.

In any case, the Guild has an extra $300.00 to donate to the Chamber if we can ever find out how the donation will be published and receive trusted assurances that it will be.

Anybody wishing some of the brochures can stop in the Endico studio for as many as they require.

Clay Boone and Denise Griggs (Practcial Magick) are the current stars of distribution.

The Chamber list is what she grabbed first to send out notifications about her house for sale.

Thanks for fact checking the communication error.

Should I use your Photoshop image now?

And what are you referring to when mentioning the enlargement of pixels?

Are you saying I should change the code to make the image larger there?

Images can be resized smaller much better than larger.

You can make smaller ones larger, but they end up looking at least as bad and probably a lot worse.

Give me a second to put together a demo.

Now look at the actual image of the Hailey sign:

You will notice the size settings for browsers causes the Hailey image to display slightly larger (on your page), while the Echurch image displays significantly smaller.

CAVEAT: Your Internet Explorer browser may still be resizing the Echurch smaller even when you open the actual image.

Making the Hailey larger is part of the reason it is a little soft looking on the website page.

Change your image height and width from 450 x 300 pixels to match the actual image size of 310 x 200 pixels.

That will make the image sharper but a little smaller.

After that you can grab my images that were sharpened in Photoshop if you like them better.

I told Clay to make sure you had Photoshop installed and running on your computer before you come up for a lesson, but I can probably step you through sharpening and sizing online as soon as you get Photoshop going.

Photoshop does a better job of resizing than merely setting width and height in code then having browsers (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome) do the resizing.

Best case: images are resized in Photoshop; then the code is set to match the new image size exactly.

Unsharp Masking is a secondary step applied to the already resized image at the exact size it will be used.

Skipping this step of carefully resizing images for use is apparently the reason Jessica Hengen's postcards are so soft looking (not a substandard print job as we previously suspected), so I tried to explain the process to her, and she was making progress until her neighbor stepped in the way in order to keep her stupid.

In any case, I did a quick check and Photoshop Elements will probably be as much as you ever need.

As for the current state of affairs, maybe the person you got the Hailey image from can give you a camera original image that is similar in size to the Esterbrook image ... unless it was done with an older phone ... in which case you are soooo screwed (until somebody gets out to Wyoming and takes a reasonable photo).

In case you are wondering about the Sugar Loaf Chamber stealing my images, I did tell Randy they are welcome to use the images, but I asked Randy about it, and he hasn't spoken to the person who did it yet, so they took them before speaking to Randy, nor did they ask me about it either.

They took a bunch of them, from various sites, probably had no idea they were mine, and the Chamber President told Randy they didn't need my help because they had their own process.

I guess FREE help was too expensive for the President; they'd rather have the help stolen.

Numbskulls.

I am also pretty sure she had no clue that the great idea she had for a website was merely a subset of the smallest section of what the Sugar Loaf Guild website provides already plus more ... for free.

Maybe someday somebody will happen by who has done their homework before trying to tell me what I so desperately need.

I am also sure the members of the local chamber of commerce have no idea the number of my images that were stolen for use as their most recent website addition with neither request nor attribution.

I added Unsharp Mask for comparison.

It's Thursday afternoon and same ol' same ol'.

Two late day sales just made standing around all day well worth it.

Ho, hum.

They went onto the Walking Map, but from there (on the map proper) they clicked Bertoni instead of Bee Positive, so they probably wondered why they didn't get placed directly at Randy's sign on the Historic Photos page.

In any case, previously they were here 06/10/13 and arrived again yesterday via the same IP# assigned to: HVDN-GHVHS-1 Greater Hudson Valley Health Systems.

Randy might know who they are and be happy to tell them what they missed.

Except for UPS who knocked on the door the second Mary went to Lowes for painting supplies.

All of a sudden a big black Beemer pulls up to the front, and two lovely ladies hop out, run into the studio (where the lights are off), and Bob goes down to be greeted by, "Is Mary here?"

"Yes, she's out back; I'll go get her."

After finding Mary on the back roof painting the house, Bob goes in, says, "She'll be right here."

Mary comes in, and while Bob is turning on lights and music he hears talk about a house on the Cape, an invitation for Mary to come up and stay anytime (for free), and decorate the place with her watercolors, or they can send photos ... for her to decorate the place with her watercolors.

Another "dead" Monday in Sugar Loaf; another few thousand dollars.

Dear, Sugar Loaf, keep your shops open and your lights on — everyday — full-time while making something worth coming for.

You'll be glad you did.

Otherwise, stop throwing up ugly banners, illegal signs, and complaining about your lack of sales.

The local chamber finally realized they were missing the big picture and added a new walking tour to their website which outlines the long standing resident artisans in the hamlet.

At least three (maybe four) of the businesses are mentioned despite them not even being members of the chamber.

I believe they have at last understood what the real draw to Sugar Loaf has been and where their true resources lie.

However, if he was reading it, I would only remind him that one cannot go wrong with Windows.

And by the way, he should start his timer and get going on his floor exercises.

Here is something nobody but you guys are likely to see.

When I handed my music CD to Peter VonUchtrup (18th Century Furniture) explaining the process, archival materials, etc he asked, "Wow. How many of these have sold?"

"Not so many actually."

"Where'd the money for the equipment come from?"

"Mary's painting sales, of course."

In fact Beth and Don Duke (My Sister's Closet) told Mary her painting sales put their kids through college using the money Don made over the years working on our house in Sugar Loaf."

I forgot to mention that those sales were directly to street traffic in Sugar Loaf happening the same time Don and Mike were working on our house ... lots of people think Mary has outside galleries representing her work.

Not true.

Guild expenditures for all programs this year to date total: $16,821.97.

Also the Sugar Loaf Guild website now surpasses the local Chamber of Commerce website in total number of daily hits, plus a steadily growing number of regular new viewers has finally been observed ... some are very thorough readers.

This unexpected growth has been attributed to the new town brochures provided by the Guild, while Matt Kannon of The Barnsider reports they have been seeing a lot of new faces coincidental with the start of the Guild website late last winter.

We are still trying to figure out how to donate $300.00 to the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce despite the current president refusing to talk to us or even acknowledge our existence.

Anybody with a theory is encouraged to express it.

And by saying "to the stars" that is not idle chatter, because if I mentioned some of their clients by name, you would assuredly gasp, "Wow, you mean real stars, the most famous of people."

Therefore, I have begun work on the final chapter for the Guild website, and I may be able to mention specifics of their client list on publication.

Just remember, Sugar Loaf, you are famous and everybody knows it.

Maybe that has been rectified already, but just in case ...

The official record for who's been naughty and who's been nice seems to show Brad is on academic probabtion.

Therefore, the kids better do it, 'cause Santa ain't likely.

How bad is it?

What was I going to say, "She made a mug"?

Who'd read that?

Besides, "turning a chalice" is a significantly more accurate description of the actual event.

Whenever you see that many top level artists all in the same place, something is about to happen.

Did I actually see what I thought I saw?

This is that place, and that time.

What defines a Chamber of Commerce?

Sugar Loaf Guild would like to donate $300.00 to the local Chamber of Commmerce.

That will add to this year's expenditures toward Sugar Loaf promotions to date totalling: $16,680.54.

Unfortunately the current President of the organization has not returned our calls and provided information about how the donation will be published.

Anybody have any ideas?

Couldn't be helped.

I've loved Sugar Loaf since I first stepped foot on the soil when I was 13 yrs old.

My wonderful art teacher (from Bergen county) brought us there on a class trip, and I deemed I would (one day) be a resident artist there.

I own an Endico watercolor from the early 80's (before she had the whole building) and am proud to display it in my home.

I am sooo happy to see her prosper over the years.

She must think I was a weirdo—always congratulating her of her success like a staulker all these years!

Divorce has left me on a financial rebound, but I'm coming back, and WILL be a SugarLoaf artisan soon enough!

Any tips? Any suggestions?

The man at the frameshop told me I should have an alternate source of income ... Internet, etc. I agree.

Scott's Meadow was being renovated close to ten years ago, I spoke to the landlord, and visited back, and it still doesnt look finished.

I confess I havent been back in the last year though.

I now live in Greenville and work at the Warwick Winery, so things are looking up.

So one day, Jupiter willing, I can live my dream.

Nice talking to you, Bob, and by the way, I saw the ad in Canvas.

I didn't find an Endico painting sale to the name Hackbarth on her database, but we are always looking for images of early works that were out the door before our imaging process, so if you have a digital photo of the work, and an indication of the name it was purchased under, we can find the sale and get it on the published image database for provenance.

As for tips and suggestions about how to get going in Sugar Loaf, I would start by saying the level of commitment and quality of artistic work required is immense.

If you haven't done so already, make sure to read the nine stories starting with It was That Kind of Town.

Those stories outline what so many people have done wrong in the past to guarantee themselves failure.

However, you have already stepped outside that mold by asking how businesseses who succeeded have done it, before jumping in and assuming it is obvious.

On the other hand, it appears you have already gotten your first bit of bad advice.

If the Internet was suggested as a rational means of income, take it from me, the Internet is almost worthless for art sales.

As you know Mary has sold nearly 20,000 of her own original watercolors right off her work table to street traffic in Sugar Loaf.

We have routinely sent out postcard mailings to thousands of her collectors with specific reasons to check her website, but the number of sales that have come from the Internet has been barely enough to stop Mary from allowing me to close down all my websites and get a life.

Sugar Loaf is the opposite of the Internet: it is a living breathing functional home of the arts though it is surprising how many of the residents themselves remain unaware of that fact ... as you have seen, when it was suggested to you that having a full time business as an artist in Sugar Loaf is impossible.

What nonsense.

It is even more surprising how many of Mary's neighbors still don't know what she has done here, or how it has happened.

Part of that can be attributed to the more than full-time commitment required which makes her too busy to get out and tell them.

On the other hand, Randy Brown (newly opened beside Bertoni Gallery), reports that in the couple of months he has been here part-time, he has already sold over 30% of the one hundred works he has created since opening.

The secret to success in Sugar Loaf is to focus on making your own (continually improving) product, post and keep regular hours in your own studio which is open to the public, and treat customers with respect.

I am sure Randy is soon to outgrow his shop, so you might want to stop in (Bee Positive) and have a converstation with Randy while leaving your name with Rachael Bertoni in case his shop comes up for rent.

Romers' Alley also has a rather high turnover, and I am told the shop spaces rent for less than a local self storage bin.

Scott's Meadow is always in the process of being "finished"—it was that way the day we got here in 1976 (when we opened shop in the next to last space all the way down the hill on the left), and it remains the same today.

By the looks of things, the landlord (absentee) might have had their fill of trying to rent the tiny little cubicles they chopped it into after we left (guess we made it look too easy), and they might be open to the idea of letting somebody take over enough space (cheaply) to "create" something and build a following.

In any case, Sugar Loaf is undoubtedly the land of opportunity, not easy (takes the best of best efforts) but definitely possible, and those were just a few of the opportunities.

A number of the successful businesses have started by doing juried shows and exhibitions elsewhere, so I will leave you with a quote from Luft Garden's brochure:

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Theodore Roosevelt

Welcome to Sugar Loaf!

I tried to find a good explanation of pixels vs dpi online but was only reminded why it was so hard for me to get a handle on it.

However, I did find a shortcut (merely toggle off "Resampling"), and I also think I know what has been the main problem.

Send me one of your camera originals in whatever format you use for archiving, and I will prepare a quick tutorial and post it on the Guild forum in case somebody else has an interest.

The camera original can be of anything, and it doesn't have to be good (doesn't have to be out of your box or anything like that), blurry picture of the family dog will suffice, just the largest file and format you take off the camera and save as your authoritative original. -b

There is almost no traffic in the hamlet but a constant hammering and sawing as somebody works on one of the buildings.

That is to say, it is just the way I like it.

In the Endico watercolor studio a day like this means that any moment somebody is going to drive up, hop out of their car, drop a few thousand dollars on us, then jump back in and roar off pleased with themselves for having beaten the crowds while basically stealing a painting right off the work easel.

And that sound!

The intermittant pop, pop, bam, then whirr buzz, buzz whirr as something is getting done.

The woodcarver Boone is back in his lair, Connie the potter is turning her chalices, the watercolorist is in full production mode, and Jessica is starting a new sculpture.

The crowds have left us alone for a moment.

Couldn't be better.

It is another timeless Sugar Loaf day.

I was over at the Boswell studio the other day when Connie decided I had enough dropping by and finding her puttering around fixing equipment, maintaining the grounds, etc, and it was time for me to see her throw a pot.

So she sat me down in front of her production wheel, grabbed a slab of clay, centered it quickly and turned a chalice.

Holy bat shit Batman, it looked like nothing happened.

She dropped her fingers toward the clay, and boom there was a chalice.

It was smooth, beautiful, perfect, and I hadn't even seen her touch it; it was as if she just breathed on it ... a subtle breath and there's your pottery.

Like the old joke, "Want to see my quick draw?"

"Yes."

"Wanna see it again?"

I am betting a lot of people would like the opportunity to see that happen, but I guess it's just another one of those famous hidden Sugar Loaf secrets.

Really: yawn, sigh, there's a pot!

Wow.

Already beaten down by your day running around passing out the new Sugar Loaf town brochures, why did you stay up late spending the last 8 hours reworking the back page, getting yourself all overtired and red-eyed, just because Connie Rose complained about some pickayune little detail?

Really, why did you do that?

Bob was complimenting him (or so he thought) on the eight (8) new signs Clay did while out west.

Bob said, "Man Clay, those are beautiful. You sure brought wood working to a whole new level."

Angrily Clay cut him short with an almost spitting, "They're not wood workings, they're wood carvings! Don't you ever call them workings!"

Live and learn.

I was in the store last winter, and we discussed a painting I bought back in the 80's.

I gave you my name, █, and you found it!

Purchase date and all.

I sent you a photo of it — white birch trees with a rose colored sunset.

You archived it with the number, and of course I can't find the number or purchase date.

I ripped my house apart to no avail; I'm sorry to be such a pain in the ,,,,,,,!

Do you think you can find it and send me info?

It would mean so much to me.

One of my brothers is wanting it from my dad's home and is saying where's the proof that I purchased it!!!!

The audacity.

Thanks, Mary, for your help.

See you in the fall.

Bruce

This is Mary's husband, Bob, handling the night desk.

The painting is: #5910, purchased 10/26/86.

Mary will email you tomorrow to see if you need a written receipt.

Thanks for writing and absolutely no trouble looking it up.

Anytime.

Bob

Thank you for your kind words

██ and ██ are two of my favorites.

I have reserved painting #██ for shipment or pick-up.

The total will be $██.00 (free shipping on this) and included in the price is either a silver, gold, black, bronze or brushed pewter frame … your choice.

If you wish to have it shipped, I will send it out tomorrow, and after you receive the painting and ok it, I will contact you for credit card info.

If the painting does not meet your expectations I will give you shipping instructions for returning it (also free).

Otherwise, my studio is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays from 11:30 am until 5:30 pm or any weekday by appointment.

Return your physical address and frame color if you wish it shipped.

And thanks again for reminding me of ██ and ██.

Best,

Mary

As for the alcoholics: one of the prime motivators for posting the Guild website was the amount of online chatter about how bad business is in town, but we knew better: things are GREAT!

On closer inspection all the negativity was coming from a few bar stool bloggers.

As for the battered women: there is an entire quadrant of the hamlet that for the last 20 years or so has been held under the thumb of one of the nastiest most controlling "delegators" on the planet (owner of a vanity shop), but at least one person under that thumb has said, "You have to understand them; they have a good heart and really wish the best for everybody; they suffered a horribly abusive childhood, so we understand their nastiness."

Such a comment and allowance could only come from somebody (or group of somebody's) accustomed to denying then excusing abuse; not to mention there are businesses in that quadrant who even advertise that position.

Sadly it is an environment wherein I am by definition a pariah so can’t do a thing about it.

Beat the drum as I may, none of them are allowed to even consider the fact that I might have an artistic eye.

Our little Miss Polyanna could not believe it true.

Now she sees, albeit poorly.

The only thing saving me is the fact that people who know her understand it is obviously impossible for it to have been me.

I am still alive.

But the world being what it is, my only recourse seems to be to shoot myself and leave her trying to explain how she didn't do it.

At least she'll get a medal for it.

Another fine benefit of having an artisan shop in Sugar Loaf.

Jessica has been very complimentary and thankful.

I enjoyed reading through much of the Sugar Loaf Guild website the other day, but you probably saw my IP address already :-)

So much old Sugar Loaf lore. I especially liked your tribute to Roger Romer.

And just so you are aware ... I did like your brochure.

And I did not tell Randy that business was bad. (I skimmed the forum too) :-)

I'm selling the building because of being post head injury, burr hole, craniotomy and health issues which were triggered by medications from surgery and hospitalization.

I have become acutely aware over the few years since then that I cannot juggle all the balls.

I need to put some down.

Right now the shop only being open on the weekend is a dropped ball.

Moving the shop back to the house and selling the main street building is a step toward simplifying my life and moving toward sustainable effort and activity.

Wish me luck :-)
... and keep writing... the story about your involvement with music was awesome too!

Blessings,

Terry Boswell

Mr. Bee Positive would not have known what to do with any implication business might be down in town.

His experience has been so strongly just the opposite, but I know there are lots of shops who have done absolutely everything wrong then blamed Sugar Loaf for their failure.

I followed your read of the site very closely, and you have now earned a 4.0 grade point and top level standing in your understanding.

You will surely want to know about the couple of things you missed with regard to how insanely interactive the Sugar Loaf Guild website is.

You missed clicking the houses on the Walking Map itself, which would have brought you to the appropriate photo page listings just like the text links you did click.

And from every listing on the photo page you can click the Walking Map Link (bottom right of each photo) and it will pin the business on the Walking Map like: THIS.

The cross reference of Map Links is very helpful to people touring town with handhelds.

Also when you were on the Products page, it appears you missed the fact that it is also interactive; clicking on a product type will bring up a special shortened version of the photo page showing only the shop (or shops) that provide the product linked.

It is not surprising you missed those aspects, because a lot of people miss them due to the fact that no town on this planet has so much function built into to their website ... just one of the fine benefits of being an artisan in Sugar Loaf.

Here are my notes that trace your read of the site showing how long you were on each page, then which link you clicked to navigate to the next:

OOL-CPE-WRWKNY-68-193-148-0-23 ? > / 0s idx 1s fav 1m45s, FinalParNoExagger > about 1m36s, TxtFinalParMySituation > HistPho 23 1m5s, 360sNav > BoswellAndy360 (full load) 52s, 360FrameCaption492 (Boswell) > HistPho 12s, hNav > chat 13m32 mVrt > frm_que, mVrt > AnneMarie 5s fav 13s, mVrt > BeePos 13s, mVrt > BNE 10s, mVrtDJMan > DJ/idx 34s, mVrt > LuftGardens 21s, mVrt > FredUngar 31s, mVrt > ThatKind 1m, bNxtOnly > CandleMaker 3m, bNxt > MakersBreakers 3m2s, bNxt > FourStep 6m1s, bNxt > JonBaugh 5m37s, bNxt > TooMuch 5m30s, ThankYouJon > JonBaugh 37s, WeekConvincing RayBoswell492 > HistPho 21s, ? > HistPho (did see guildinv2.pdf - offer vids, sites, etc) 1m3s, bNxt > Startup 5m54s, bNxt > CuttingRoom 5m38s, bNxt > TruthBeauty (Maninno clock full load no clicks on Scotts Meadow historic photos or Financial page)

That was quite a read.

I am sorry to report that I do not have the correct card swiper to accept Blessings, but thanks for the thought.

He came across an article about a standard art gallery sales practice that will sicken every successful Guild shop in Sugar Loaf.

While there was a moment in time when Sugar Loaf was attracting the sort of mercenary low life's described in the article (due to the success of local artisan businesses that were certainly the opposite), those days are long gone with only a few remaining vestiges.

So to make it perfectly clear that the top Sugar Loaf Guild shops are unique in their handling of customers (and help point out the few bad actors who may remain in the hamlet), below is a link to an article about the type of sales technique that has never, and will never, succeed in Sugar Loaf over the long haul:

Guaranteed path to failure in Sugar Loaf.

Guaranteed path to failure in Sugar Loaf.

I'm not counterculture just counter to culture.

If this website wasn't so insidious and subversive, it would be more obviously insidious and subversive.

The distinction is not trivial.

This is a major success for the new brochure which is still in prototype.

She had asked Randy about the Sears Home because she recognized it as unique architecture.

Randy (Bee Positive) was paying close enough attention to know that he better shuttle her down to the Endico studio in order to get some historic perspective.

As the lovely lady and her husband were getting into their car to leave town, Bob thought it best to show her the brochure in progress, and when she gasped and immediately started reading it, Bob said, "Don't bother to read it now, here is a prototype copy we printed ourselves you can take with you."

Later Mary said to Bob, "That woman's husband is sitting on My Sister's Closet porch across the street," and Bob said, "Couldn't be; they got in their car and left."

Ten or so minutes later Mary said, "You're wrong; there they are walking in front of Sundog Stained Glass."

Apparently the interested woman read the brochure as they were leaving town, realized there was a lot more here than had met her eye, so they stopped and did the walking tour.

Later she showed up on the Sugar Loaf Guild site, looked at the Historic Photos page, then clicked over to the Sears Home on the Walking Map, and later still used a text link to click back to the Sears Home on the photos page.

Pretty impressive success for the new town brochure.

It was another one of those days where Mary was selling painting after painting to a steady (but small) crowd of Sugar Loaf browsers while we all marveled at the number of stores that were closed but whose proprietors will soon be on the airwaves complaining there is no business for them in Sugar Loaf.

I guess I will have to agree with them: they have no business in Sugar Loaf.

Too bad Connie is tucked away down around the corner and missing it all.

And too bad Brad was too busy to get up here in Clay's absence in order to see the glaring truth about the ongoing churning commerce inside the Sugar Loaf gates.

First time in Sugar Loaf.

He's headed off for a much deserved vacation where he won't have to put up with the likes of you.

Sounds like one of them pseudo-religious, quasi-techno, pod-people pyramid schemes; what do you think?

Does harken to the past though, don't it?

On the other hand these flyers have historically been a great help, maybe not the worthless current crop of them, but the old timey Jon Baugh versions like our newest is.

However, town flyers may be only a help to Endico I guess, because Endico is the only person in town who seems to need to make a living from people coming to town.

Nobody else in town gives a shit about Sugar Loaf; they just use it as a bedroom community for doing Renaissance Fairs and Religious Festivals or writing historic books from afar while hamstringing the local community in hopes of supporting their thesis it can't be done any other way.

Good luck to newcomer shop keepers finding out the truth ... much less outsiders finding out the true uniqueness of the hamlet.

So far our experience has been that even just picking up that flyer and glancing at it goes a long way toward revealing the truth of the matter.

Those flyers ending up on the ground afterwards will just be gravy ... and provide another economic recovery jobs program for clean-up services plus fodder for recycling.

We are just doing our part.

Did you know Nick Zungoli was spotted yesterday morning, shirtless and across the street from his studio, cleaning up the mess his neighbors have allowed to fester?

I hate the man, and even I have to state right out loud that was pretty impressive.

Somebody doing something more than bitching.

You've just been hanging around too many people who waste their time running around to outside shows, continue to shoot themselves in the foot at every possible opportunity, don't open their doors when they are in town, don't treat people correctly, and don't understand the town's street traffic.

You know, about how they should set Connie Rose up on a porch on one end of town, let her work in front of people, sell the product right out of her hand, and rake in the dough.

It is easy.

As soon as a shop keeper steps back from selling their own product in order to sell bits and pieces of other people's work, they may was well continue on back and drop off the cliff, because they have just become like every other trendy nonsense shop in the world ... good luck making that work here.

I mean Randy has only been here a month, and he is doing great, and his stuff is total crap.

You telling me you can't beat that?

Hell, Randy is already trying to figure out how to sucker a bank into letting him buy two of the buildings in town, and in another month he will probably own Sugar Loaf and that horrible Kiki woman (Jill Light) is probably going to help him do it.

You really think it's all that hard?

I've been trying to explain to Randy how that kind of output defines what a true artist does, because the truth about what has made Sugar Loaf great remains a hidden treasure (to the steady stream of here today, gone tomorrow hangers on with pretend venues), and there are still remnants of that view in Randy's perception of Sugar Loaf, which he sees as a splintered group of trendy shops.

The underlying glue that holds it together has always been hidden by the flurry of activity of wannabees over top of it, so you can't blame Randy for seeing it that way.

He will eventually understand, however, because Randy is in fact a true artist himself.

I've been telling people he is Charlie Maninno Light, because he has that creative spark and also does a lot of work with found objects, except at the moment Randy is using a bunch of low quality junk purchased at A.C. Moore, so his work is crap — but he is still experiencing strong sales (his first month open) which should be a lesson to every shop in town who fails to open their doors, and treat people right, but complains about their state of affairs.

The fact is, if you MAKE it, they will not only come they will buy it.

But like I said, Randy is the real deal, and some of his found objects actually are repurposed goods from the real world, so there is hope for him.

I look forward to the day I can stop saying, "Yeah, Randy is Charlie Light, but right now his work is total crap."

It is an overstatement anyway.

I did tell Randy I thought you were showing up on the Guild site to grab images when I explained the only people coming to the Guild forum are you, Connie, and Randy.

I had noticed the odd attachments coming from your same IP area, but with a slightly different arrival footprint.

So you are working on files that are only on your laptop?

I have tried all kinds of variations on what I figured you might name the test files online but haven't found them.

Here is the caveat: Make sure to test everything online while you are working on it, because sometimes there can be a subtle difference in the way files are served to the web, and it is easy to do a great deal of work only to find you have to redo it once you take it live.

If you have a live version, tell me the page file name so I can check it out.

Too bad you've been busy, I so hoped to get you seated in Clay's studio (without an attack dog) so you could see how much business he is missing (even when he is here).

Randy himself went there several times when he was moving into town (before Clay went west), trying to get Clay to make a sign for him but never connected.

He ended up making his own sign (it is beautiful), and people are already asking him to do one for them.

I see that as a very, very good thing.

I am pretty sure we will have to clean the poop off Clay's floor after he returns, gets going on the new Firehouse table, and I bring Randy over to look at it.

I have been trying to explain the whole thing to Randy, but when he sees it first hand in real life he will be spilling his guts onto the floor so to speak.

Might also become Clay's new neighbor.

BTW: I really haven't done so very much work on Clay's sites, I am just better than anybody on this planet when it comes to automating repetitive tasks, and handling such things as project planning, management and follow through, online coding, databases, organization of information, and mostly the articulation and presentation of all this plus getting stuff to the top of Google, etc.

The truth of the matter is that it is not so much the amount of work, but the vision, basis, and presentation of that work that defines what I have done, but it looks like I will not live long enough for the rest of the world to catch up close enough to get even a glimpse toward understanding.

As long as I get to stay on my bicycle, I really don't care though.

What I am about to do is generally a really, really bad idea, but you have earned it.

Plus I won't be naming names (because you know the situation) and like I have said before, you, Brad, and Connie are the only people reading this forum, so I can vent without harm.

The people mentioned will never see it.

First off, you will recall the people I brought in to meet you who are selling their house.

I do not need to know how that went (none of my business), but I just wanted to make sure you read the subtext.

On a lovely Sunday afternoon with Sugar Loaf maybe not packed but busy, I met them while I was walking down to give a prototype of the new town brochure (which I am sure they hated) to their employee.

It was the third time I walked down that afternoon, but the shop was still closed.

Also you might have noted that the owners of the shop had not even opened their other location in Sugar Loaf (the house which is for sale).

Think about that for a moment, then allow yourself to discount anything they may have said about hard times in the hamlet.

While that was going on, the following is what was happening in the Endico studio.

I have prepared a report from information given to me by Mary Endico about her weekend, and this is the part where I am going to shamelessly state specific dollar amounts.

I know this is in bad taste, but I think you need to know.

Sat:
1. $350 tree for hallway; have 9 Endico paintings already which were all purchased in 2007; still need more large abstracts for living room.

2. $64 moon; their first purchase, but they've been coming to Sugar Loaf for 30 years.

Sun:
1. Two (2) $250 trees and one (1) $64 tree; they haven't been here in 4 years but already own 11 Endicos.

2. Setup the sale of a $4000 painting to a couple who were here 4 years ago; I took contact information because no previous purchases, but they had remembered they liked my work; have limited space because they are collectors.

Otherwise, I talked to numerous other old customers who just stopped in to say hi and various new people who left with my brochure and a Guild business card in their hands.

"Not one person came in all day, but one person did go into the back shop." was the reply.

I had stood beside her for a full minute and a half before she looked up and said, "Oh, no. You again."

Get it, Randy?

The only reason I am reporting figures (this was not a great weekend for us), is because I've had it up to here with people in town who haven't a clue about the truth of the town, who break every rule in the book about how to run a business and how to treat their customers, and then decide they need to spout off about the sad state of affairs and throw up more signage and nonsense.

Not to mention there is the guy doing a major renovation to a building two doors down from us who has not even taken the time to come in and find out what kinds of businesses are flourishing in Sugar Loaf and why (never been in the Endico studio), nor even bothered to check the Guild website after I directed him to the information.

Shameful.

The last I heard he was expecting to rent to a lawyer.

So like I told you, Randy, save your pennies (if the other house doesn't work out for you), because soon enough the house two doors down from us will be for sale with a "very motivated" seller.

I am only telling you this, Randy, because I can see you are doing everything right, but as a newcomer artist it is very easy to run into people who are absolutely certain they know what's going on, but really don't have a clue (like Orange Regional doesn't have any local artists on display), and I just wanted to make sure you have your inoculation.

I know you were aware of Sunday's street traffic, and I am only saddened that Brad never got to sit in Clay's shop (sans attack dog), and see the same thing for himself ... to report back to Mr. Boone on his return — that what I have been saying is true.

I've done what I can.

Maybe someday somebody with a brain will go help the Chamber of Commerce finally understand.

I am certain I will not live to see it.

BTW: The phone, fax, and email on the historic document I gave you is obsolete, so I have redacted them from the online version.

Do exactly the opposite of everything you have heard is the secret to success in almost every other place in the world.

For example, consider such as the age old myth, "All of us are smarter than any of us."

Actually in the real world (away from corporate minders who wish to control you), that statement is found to be totally false.

The fact is: "The group is always significantly dumber than any single individual within it."

Ignore the crowd (even fight against it) and do something of significance.

The crowd will only do what it has always done: try to impose its will by virtue of its protoplasmic weight alone.

Every successful business in Sugar Loaf has long since ceased going to group meetings.

As far as the compliment all I can say is, "Awe schucks."

I saw the finished 360 Degrees of Integration of my shop, and it is fantastic.

Thanks for a job well done (as usual).

I even caught a glimpse of the "ghost" — that ought to give them something to search for and talk about.

Prospects of a "Town Brochure" - sounds incredibly positive.

Let me know how I can help?

Thanks again for all you do.

The brochure is already off to the printers (we've never been known to dally around), and it is different from any brochure you have ever seen.

It has proven so good in fact that Mary already handed out a prototype yesterday to some people who stumbled into Sugar Loaf for the first time.

They were flabergasted and extremely excited to get it.

Things are heating up, my friend, things are heating up.

As for what you can do to help: just keep being Randy.

Hopefully it will be done in time to surprise Clay when he gets back later this month.

He is probably constipated from all his dealings with cowboys out west, so we are hoping to help him out by having the final printing on his work table as he rolls into town.

When Clay sees the new Guild brochure, he is going to poop his pants.

Which return would you click on?

Success in Sugar Loaf is not a big mystery.

1) Find something you like to do.

2) Do it well.

3) Live where you work, so you don't have to commute.

4) Open your doors.

It's easy!

Maybe we'll make it the next Guild ad.

We are the absolute best at what we do, just like Connie Rose!

Thanks so much for stopping by and adding the pics and info to the Sugar Loaf Guild site! Looks great!

Pleasure meeting you and thank you again, we really appreciate it.

Aaron & Jennifer

Your work is emblematic of Sugar Loaf.

Shop's not new, just the profile.

I watched how you made certain that Clay Boone would have his own independent website preserving his images no matter what happens to you, and how quickly you got his son Brad Kibler up and running maintaining it, and how after Google was returning it for logical Boone searches, with Brad set to take control of the equity already established in the current website's temporary domain name (should he choose to do so before its scheduled auto-destruct), how you then removed most of the related posts here because they were too technical for this forum.

I get that, makes perfect sense.

What I don't understand is this.

Given the extreme high quality of the Sugar Loaf Guild website in terms of ease of use, extreme interactivity (even the Walking Map is interactive), the lack of distracting external links to all those so called "social networking" sites which are really only coporate logos being passed around Wall Street like lottery tickets, plus the Guild site's massively strong presentation of the essence of Sugar Loaf, not to mention the insane level of technology that has been brought to bear over the last six months setting up the process and infrastructure, what I don't understand is why you refuse to take payment for any of it ... even going so far as to fund some related external websites and standard print ads out of your own pocket while taking not a penny for yourself.

What's up with that?

Here's the problem.

My fee for authoring a website like the Sugar Loaf Guild site (to make it worth my stopping what I am already doing) would be $320,000 dollars per year with a five year contract plus some other conditions being met.

Therefore charging people anything at all for any of it would just be misleading.

It is probably not very obvious to people, what it takes to put together a Sugar Loaf Guild style website, so I understand why the value might not be recognized.

Don't forget, this website is purposely designed for simplicity and ease of use while hiding the complex details of the technology at work behind it.

In fact the goal is for a user to think nothing at all happened on the site; they just found what they were looking for and maybe learned something new about Sugar Loaf.

The extreme technical excellence of the website should not even enter their mind.

Except those who have done their homework understand that sites coming even close to the Sugar Loaf Guild are increasingly rare on the Internet, and that makes it even harder to see how truly far ahead of the curve the Guild site is.

In fact the Guild is so far in front of the curve that even taking a straight line direct run trying to beat it will likely fail.

Truly post-tweetie-face.

The person most likely to understand what I am talking about is Brad (Clay Boone's son), because I spent some time with him one on one explaining the technology.

But even Brad only glimpsed the smallest tip of the iceburg, enough to get him up and running with his own site but actually not even the tip, just a cartographer's rough drawn map implying the direction in which one might go to find the tip.

The full story would more closely show how I am able to do such things as teach Google to provide the world's best presentation of:

So like I said, it would take $320,000 per year in a five year contract (tax free) just in my own pocket with some other very important conditions met.

For one I would need at my disposal a roomful of programmers, because the last six months has taken me off my bicycle too much and I put on weight.

I will not do that again.

A roomful of replacements would be needed to take over the coding because programmers trained on the newer slower tools would need extra help to keep up with what I can do on my own.

The other requirement would be a massive promotional budget to help get the word out using old timey standard print and other traditional advertising methods.

We have spent over $15,000.00 in the last few months, and that is not nearly enough to show any remarkable improvement over the interest I am generating online for free, but it might be nice to inform some of the people who are still languishing on the other side of the digital divide.

The final necessity is that whatever project the website served would have to be culturally significant and extremely so.

Which brings me to the final reason I am doing all this for free.

The most important requirement for me is cultural significance, it far outweighs the considerations of time and money, but there is nothing in the world more culturally significant than what is happening right now today in Sugar Loaf.

That means I am obligated to provide the service at any cost to myself but free to everybody else.

I know it can sometimes be hard to spot the cultural significance of what is happening in Sugar Loaf because of the number of shops that routinely come and go after buying into marketing nonsense enticing them to follow corporate schemes specifically designed to make them fail.

Such stuff as banners, e-blasts, online networking, and standard advertising that mimics shopping commons and big box stores but doesn't provide a shred of possibility of beating them at their own game.

Or as Clay Boone has so aptly described shops who follow that line, "... those folks who only bring the brown trucks into town ignoring the fact a brown truck can just as easily deliver direct."

Those marketing ideas come from corporate stores which only wish they could compete with Sugar Loaf but can only struggle to cut short a few startups by distracting them into wasted effort on proven paths of failure.

Consider this.

Yesterday a first time couple from New York City came into the Endico studio.

They were taking a random ride out in the country specifically to get away from the City, and they just happened into Sugar Loaf, and just happened into the Endico studio.

They were beside themselves seeing such high quality art in a little out of the way place decidedly not New York City—where they had assumed all the great art to be.

In fact they soon realized that not only was the work they were looking at as good as anything in New York, it was actually better.

So Mary explained how that happened to be, how it was because of her process, and how that process is one which could not be supported by living anywhere else (especially in New York City despite her work having been shown there on occasion and recently used on the home page of the country's top watercolor show at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, NYC), and how she enjoys an international following with people coming from places as far away as Ireland, Japan, Europe and South America once a year to "check in."

As an aside Mary is not the only one in Sugar Loaf with such a following because of doing top level work.

Further aside even a local print publication purporting to specialize in regional arts has missed this fact in the past, nor am I sure they get it yet.

Therefore since I am the only one around with the understanding and specific skills set deep enough to effectively put it all online, it is my absolute duty to do it, and to do it for free.

I am an artist and have absolutely no interest in becoming a "web designer."

The Sugar Loaf Guild website and process is a profound resource helping make this the best place in the world to build a solid business in the creative arts.

This website is only one of the special supporting infrastructures like none other in the world available only to businesses in Sugar Loaf.

More people are becoming aware of that fact every day.

Korey found this online.

Check out #4.

Out of all the shops in the country ... and also, someone recognized it and located it in Sugar Loaf, check out the comments.

Doesn't get any better than this.

Sugar Loaf, its "that kind of town."

Actually it does get better.

If that website was not so ugly with eight corporate logos at the top but no mention (on its own) of exactly who, what, when, and where that sign exists.

Plus no indication of who owns the website, what authority they bring to bear on the postings (other than pretty pictures), and why somebody might want to come to the location of that sign in order to gain from whatever makes the shop preferred over every other record shop in the world (which it really is, because I know for a fact there are at least a few records there that are epic in the historic record).

Good thing a Sugar Loaf regular caught the error which is not so surprising considering the number of Sugar Loaf regulars that are out there.

On the other hand, this is the Internet, and it is very possible that the person who commented was the very person who placed the image there to make the standard big show about a robotic acquisition program.

Hard to tell.

I mean think about it.

Somebody thought it worth the effort to post the URL here, in a place nobody frequents.

In any case, D.J. (aka D.J.) should charge that website for the use of his image!

I should charge them for publishing a link and image reprint of their logo header.

Also somebody around here should have mentioned to me that D.J.'s pages had gotten corrupted and were refusing to serve.

However, thanks for letting me know that I had left the submittal form open to html injection.

All fixed now.

Otherwise, this was posted from an interesting IP#: an Optimum Warwick number which was last here 05/22/13 and not the standard Sundog IP.

Thanks for posting and prompting me to upgrade security settings for the Submittal Form to guard against html injections.

My thought is Korey did this whole thing.

I'll send Mary over to Sundog to confirm provenance of this posting.

Editors note: Whoops, never mind.

Mary just checked and confirmed this posting is indeed a Sundog submittal from Joann's upstairs computer.

Multiple IP#'s: the actual artisan shops in Sugar Loaf are rich, are they not?

Therefore I'll roll back on the security clampdown, and please excuse me for the impromptu Internet lesson; I can't help myself.

In fact this whole thing is indeed deemed:

Let me help him out.

Nighty night.

That was way back in '94 or '95.

I wonder if it's still hanging in there?

If you find it is there, I will go take a picture of it for the Boone Enterprise Level Websites.

He's simply the best there is at his craft.

Hands down and no question about it.

Clay ain't here.

What time will you be there?

Not bad for a kid.

Probably means that he has finally shook the hand of every person in Wyoming who has an Internet connection, or he got a big job and is working on it, or he got too drunk to talk to people and is taking a few days to sleep it off.

In any case, it means it is time to put Brad into Master Classes in order to get him ready for the big take-over (which looms closer every day).

Brad, here is your assignment.

Click on the link below and copy/paste the single line of code anywhere into Big Belly index.htm, then update it online.

After setup you will change the date appropriately (just change the number) each and every day ... no matter what!

It should take a total of 37 seconds each day, but it must be done consistently.

I will check every morning to make sure a change has been made.

This will give your final indication whether or not maintaining Clay's website is something you even remotely want to be doing.

BTW: Predmore read your article, and I sent her a phone number for the next person to contact.

Take a look at what I have to deal with more and more often.

In contrast somebody walked into Mary's studio Tuesday (on a "dead" day in Sugar Loaf) and purchased $3,000.00 worth of paintings, and then somebody on Thursday (another "dead" day in Sugar Loaf) came in and purchased one for $400.00.

Ask Clay if he has ever heard something like this (which he is likely to hear through his website): "Uhm, Clay, we bought a custom hand carved sign from you in 1991, and it has served us well for all these years, but we just closed the business and are wondering if you might know where we could sell the sign."

I'll give it a go Monday night and let you know how it went.

And thanks for the great story.

Finding out that you wrote the whole thing on your phone, leaves me breathless.

I knew that the few edits required were atypical for your writing, so I blamed Cookie ... guess I should have known better.

Man, what an effort, and what a great result.

Thanks for the story.

That is to say, this may shed some light as to the starting point from which you might want to begin your search.

As it just so happens, I was up visiting with my family for this Fourth of July weekend and was just laying out on the church pew in my mother's piano room.

With a pile of other old magazines and music books that were being cleared of dust and re-organized were a few copies of old newspapers.

Long time Sugar Loafers will remember the brief but fantastic publication known as "The Sugar Loaf News."

The copies that we have here are from 1987 to 1988.

In Volume 1, Number 3 of the Winter, 1987 edition of "The Sugar Loaf News" there is an article all about the celebration of Mr. Decker's 100th birthday.

It was quite a celebration, and Mr. Decker was quite a man.

Anyway, in the article it states the following: "A brief description by Dr. Richard Hull about the world on November 27th, 1887, Ezra's day of birth, captured our interest. A video taped interview with Ezra was playing for view by family and friends. The tape was of Ezra speaking about Sugar Loaf and his earlier years. The video and VCR were graciously donated by Dr. Richard Hull."

So, there ya go.

Your starting point is with Dr. Hull who is a very well known Sugar Loaf historian, and it would only make perfect sense that his name would be associated with this historic event.

I'm sure if he doesn't have the video then he may remember who he gave the video to.

I was young when I knew Mr. Decker, but I can attest to the amazing capability, strength and fortitude of this brilliant man.

I can remember being out back playing basketball with friends or routing on one of dad's signs in 90 degree heat in the dead of summer and looking over to see Mr. Decker meticulously pruning his garden or climbing the ladder to do repairs on the chimney.

I would shake my head in amazement.

Dad would always tell me to keep one eye on my work and one eye on Mr. Decker out there in the heat, and once or twice I will admit that I'd have to run over there in sheer terror after seeing him tumble over.

But he was no frail man.

He was old in years, but in spirit he was strong and determined.

I'd nervously peer into his eyes, standing there over him like the dopey, goofy little boy that I was, and as he laid there on his back I'd ask, somewhat afraid, if he was ok.

He'd say, "Go get Clay, boy," and I'd start my vigilant gallop back to the shop to grab dad.

Dad would bring him into the shop and sit him down with cold water and a wet rag, and after a brief spell of selling my dad on the idea that he was fine now, Ezra would make the trek back over to his garden and continue on his way.

Mr. Decker was a great man (and many knew him better than I), but I remember him always as an inspiration.

As with the many other characters, craftsmen, artists, and people that I've known over the course of my lifetime, he was a true Sugar Loaf original.

Genuine, unique and fantastically amazing!

I see that zip file has not been copied over to Big Belly yet ... run into a problem?

WOW, Sugar Loaf sure has changed since I was a child. I hope to bring my kids there one day to see where I grew up in my younger years.

I received your package today. Thank you. I can't wait to start reading.

Liz

One night around midnight long ago, Mary and I walked in the starlight through the open farmland from a party near the far end of Black Meadow all the way back into Sugar Loaf.

We did not see a single car the entire time (took almost an hour), and we spent most of the time in the middle of the road...totally unafraid.

Now that entire corridor is filled with houses and developments with a fair amount of light pollution at night, and you would be hard pressed to find five minutes any time night or day without several cars going by.

You would have to be daft walking there at night even if hugging the curb.

On the other hand, within Sugar Loaf itself the number of long standing businesses that remain unchanged is remarkable.

It is a testament to the quality of their product and a business model that is shockingly different from most other places.

One of a kind, hand made artisan items, available directly from the people who make them.

Pretty cool.

Maybe Mary will get a picture of your old homestead for you.

Please, stand by.

While being blown away with her paintings, I also saw your CD's with the note that they were not actually for sale there but said I could download.

I have not done so yet (only because I'm a musician too & it felt like it would be kind of like stealing).

But I do love your sound and just wanted to communicate that to you!

All the best,
Dorraine Scofield

I am sorry the CD's were not for sale in the studio, but it recently came to my attention that I only have 8 left, and the process with which I made them is not so easily repeated... long story involving gold substrate archival CD's and custom 200 year archival printing of the insert done with a printer that is no longer made, and mine is fried.

Thankfully, there is the Internet, so all is not lost.

Please enjoy the music as my special guest and forgive the couple spots where the master tapes were hydrolized by the time I digitized them.

Also, as a first time Sugar Loaf enthusiast, you qualify for a free copy of my book.

I will send you e-mail to get your physical address for sending a complimentary copy.

Extra thanks for taking the time to write and asking about the downloads.

You sure quelled that nonsense post haste.

Now back to business.

Brad, have you made progress on getting those images posted for Clay?

Liz, did I provide enough linked information to answer all your questions about the state of the union in Sugar Loaf?

Connie, how are you progressing with those four (4) books: Golden Holocaust, Effective Study Skills, Carlo Juggling, and of course my own Impulse and Strength?

Randy, that reminds me, I assume your own progress with my book and your guitar is moving along apace?

To the Warwick Humane Society, Sugar Loaf Fire Department (and all the other organizations that Sugar Loaf Guild has provided funding for this year), you are quite welcome.

Judy, thanks again for the Ezra Decker woodcarving photo, and did either of the two people I suggested as possible sources for information regarding Ezra's 100th Birthday video ever respond?

And finally to all, sorry for the recent slight diversion, the previous person posting was of course not the Maggie you all know and love.

They did not provide their true name, but our best guess is it was a local who keeps trying to get something going online but has been perennially unsuccessful... obviously didn't recognize a state of the art next generation authoritative non-automated truly interactive forum designed for the post-tweety-face-world.

Too technical I guess.

In any case whatever is truly new always has to go through a period of snarky troll attacks, so we should all thank that person for helping us through the startup phase.

It is unlikely we will ever see the IP# showing up around here again.

An open dialogue is the best thing possible, especially for a situation such as the one within which I find myself regarding Sugar Loaf.

There are no negatives to speak of, while the solid businesses in town could care less what is muttered about them in marginal online rants.

Most of them don't even bother to advertise except through their long standing proven channels including word of mouth, direct mailings, and international publications.

Their work speaks for itself, it is the best there is, and their customers (the true critics) know this to be true and keep coming back for more.

For my own part I might shut down the Forum if not for my substantial investment in rope commodities which I dole out freely, allowing the unwary plenty of it to hang themselves with.

Did you honestly believe this forum is not moderated?

The IP# this submittal came from is a static Optimum Online number that was first recorded on the Sugar Loaf Guild website 05/29/13 at which time they were on the home page for just over 2 minutes before clicking the left side vertical menu to view Bertoni's listing and 11 seconds later clicked over to the Walking Map pinning once again the Bertoni location.

Three days ago (plus before that on the 23rd), the IP# appeared on Dr. Art's site.

Sure took them long enough to comment: almost 1 full month.

In any case, as a factual matter this website is neither.

Must be a disgruntled employee or a former Bertoni tenant.

Funny stuff.

I still have my old guitar book from our lessons back in 1980. I have shown my kids my trophy from the guitar competition that we went to. Now that's a blast from the past.

To catch up a little: We moved to Florida all those years ago. My Dad passed in August of 2007. My Mom, brother and sister all still live in the same area. My Mom still has Mary's paintings hanging in her house. I moved about 1/2 hour from my parents back in 1986 and still live in the same town. I have 2 kids. Wyatt is 15 years old and Madison is 11 years old. The kids keep my young. I divorced my husband back in 2009 and life is much better now. Besides playing my guitar, I love to ride my motorcycle. I purchased a motorcycle after the divorce and my boyfriend (Jr. high school crush) and the kids love to ride. It's another relaxing thing for me to do. Life is great!

Well, enough about me. How are both of you? How is Sugar Loaf? I have always told my kids that if we ever go to NY that we will have to go to Sugar Loaf so I can show them the town. When did you open a recording studio?

How did I make "Impulses and Strength" possible? I would love a copy. My address is: ██

Watch this.

With regard to how things are in Sugar Loaf, they are great.

Scroll down the page linked below for current photos of all the shops in Sugar Loaf with hot links to websites, Google Maps, and my own Walking Map:

You can click on any building on the walking map image (linked next) to view the shop that is currently housed there:

However, you might be surprised how many people in town are missing the fact how good things are, so take a look at these nine stories to understand why they are missing out. It starts with:

As a special side trip to see how the recording studio (now gone) developed see the flipbook near the bottom of the page at:

In answer to how you made the book possible: without students to confirm the validity of concepts, how could I know what works, what doesn't, and why?

Therefore your complimentary copy is in the mail.

So there you go, see how my process works?

With a few simple links, I have given you more to read than you are likely to, and I have also established an overview for the next thousand or so people who ask me how things are going.

Cool, huh?

Do you have a Facebook page? How have you been? I remember selling Jelly-Bellies at the store. At least, I think I remember that. Please tell Mary that I said hello.

A friend of mine went to NY and she stopped by last night to tell me about the trip. I pulled up a map to show her where I lived, and the next thing I know is that I was showing her a Google Map of Sugar Loaf and telling her all about you and Mary. Then, I saw that Sylvia passed. She was a sweet lady, and I still have the rock tumbler and the rocks that I bought from her. After that, I started looking for you and Mary. Wow!

Now they are everywhere except here.

No need to say hi to Mary, she's been reading along.

Also no Facebook...too restrictive (and insidious) for somebody like me who effectively owns the Internet.

In fact, I always tell people my websites are for the post-tweety-face-world, a statement that will make perfect sense in time.

In the meantime a search for Bob Fugett right now will provide more than anybody should ever want to know about it today.

Since you were one of the test cases that made "Impulse and Strength" possible, where do I send your free complimentary copy?

I remember giving you at least one lesson at your parents house on the corner of Lake View Drive and Pines Hill Road back when I had guitar, would travel for in-home lessons.

He was my guitar teacher many years ago.

I would love to re-connect after all of these years.

Please email me at ██.

P.S. Bob, I still play my guitar. You were an inspiration to me as a child, and I have never forgotten you.

Elizabeth Censullo

This reminds me of one of my favorite new theories.

I always hear people talking about how prescient they are because of how many times somebody they were just thinking about shows up or contacts them.

I finally got aggravated hearing it so many times, so I took a few extra minutes trying to figure out why it is such a common myth.

So here's the theory: what if people's inner mind has absolutely no perception of time?

By that I don't mean a "poor" concept of time, as in I missed that appointment by five minutes because I thought I had longer, but absolutely zero concept of time, as in 10 years, 5 years, 3 minutes, it's all the same to your internal perception.

Plus things you think about as "future" might hold the same timeless space in your mind and be easily transposed to proximity with any other memory or thought (with thoughts being indistinguishable from memories at that level).

Therefore whenever anybody shows up after a long time, you might have thought about them once 7 years before, but your mind's perception (at the basic internal source) could easily transpose it to, "Man, I was just thinking about them!"

So here is how that theory works in this present context: I was just thinking about you last week, and I know exactly when.

I was finishing up one of my bicycle rides that goes by your old house.

I thought, "It is strange how I have never stopped feeling like this is the Censullo house, and they are just gone for the day."

I continued, "What is really odd is how I have the exact same thought every time I ride by here, a couple dozen times each summer, not to mention the times I drive by here in the car (many more) as well."

"Looks like Tommy just finished barbecuing. I wonder if Elizabeth is still playing? She sure was smart and talented."

So thank you for confirming my theory.

I was just thinking about you, and any time you ever would have written I would believe the exact same thing, so it's great to hear you are ok.

That means you win a free copy of Impulse and Strength, but I'll get your physical address via e-mail.

Bob

Just a note that my website address is kmdesigns.biz.

Can you please update this.

Thank you

Kim

Bob had been fooled by one of those online auto-aggregators into posting an old link.

But now I think we've got it.

Check out the corrected link from the Historic Photos page.

Thanks for helping improve the Guild website.

Mary

Why so?

A lovely couple was just in after purchasing their fifth home.

It is in the Poconos, and they were checking it out after the closing.

The husband wanted to celebrate by going to Mohegan Sun, but the wife said, "Let's go to Sugar Loaf instead and buy art."

They had not been here in 27 years but still remembered the reputation we built way-back-when and maintain to this day.

They bought five (5) paintings and of course have a whole bunch more walls, nooks, and crannies to fill with art of all sorts.

So congratulations, Sugar Loaf!

You have held on to the reputation of being the one place to buy singular works of artistic excellence directly from the artisans who make them.

That very particular uparalleled reputation we worked so hard, watercolor after watercolor, tune after tune, meeting after meeting, promotional ad after promotional ad, year after year, day after day, cherished customer after cherished customer, hour by hour, minute by minute, we now hand it back to you again, Sugar Loaf, page by page on this website.

Don't lose it.

The only other animal I have is an owl; he made me three, one for each of my children.

Two have gotten lost over the years, but I still have one left.

I think my daughter checked with the Chester library, nothing.

I will send you a picture of the owl.

I really do appreciate you looking into this.

First stop in my effort to track down the video will be an attempt to get somebody else on the job.

Watch how I do that.

Yo, Connie!

You are able to put up with church people and know how to do things online, see if you can't come up with a lead on the missing Ezra video.

There.

We'll see how that goes.

Judith, thanks again for the great project.

I have a few of his animals that you have pictured on the website.

I would like to know what happened to the video that was made on his 100th birthday party which the Sugar Loaf Methodist Church put on, November 28, 1987.

I wish to obtain a copy for our family history.

I would really appreciate a reply on this.

Thank you.

Thanks for writing.

I love an interesting project, but I personally avoid church people like the plague, so before I go around poking my nose into places I ought not be, let me check to see what you've done already.

1) Have you checked with the Chester Library?

Maybe the person who made the video thought to put a copy there.

2) Which begs the question, do you know who the person was that made the video?

Maybe I can track them down.

3) Have you checked with the Chester or Sugar Loaf Historical Societies.

They are not as clever as I am, but I believe they have something online.

In any case, Ezra was a real special person to us, so if you have photos of more of his animals that you would like to add to this website, I would love to post them.

Also any information you would like to add about him would also be great.

Thanks again for writing.

Bob

We know Clay has told you about it but thought you'd like to see first hand examples of a situation which is only getting worse.

In the Endico Forum read carefully the questions and answers starting at: Post #6207

Note how many people are willing to pretend being Mary's customer in order to try and profit off her work without her involvement.

Each query has to be treated as a valid one because of the full day of lag time before web usage logs can be reviewed, and they will show these people hit all the expected places and landed on "How much is my Endico worth?"

With each instance of this nonsense the language forbidding such questions is strengthened on the input form, but it only seems to make the next person more circumspect trying to avoid the obvious revelation that they are merely looking for a way to make a buck on Mary's reputation.

These jerks really think they get to talk to Endico.

Only her collectors get through.

Think about it: why can they never come up with the name of the person who gave them the painting?

Might that name be Yard Salem?

I hate the Internet, and if we were not making a sale once or twice a year because of it, I would never even turn on my computer.

Not hardly enough return for the massive effort required but something I started and can't seem to stop.

And Clay phones me today all excited about somebody in Wyoming seeing his website commissioning a sign.

I am pretty much screwed.

Well actually, I guess it is now you who are pretty much screwed.

I am pretty much relieved.

What you have done at no cost for us is incredible.

I read the back and forth between you and Brad and have no idea what ya'll are talking about.

I only know that the finished product that I see is terrific.

I write SugarLoafGuild on the back of my business card that I give to anyone that comes into the shop and we chat a little.

I say "if you really want to learn about Sugar Loaf and its artisans..."

We are almost finished with the process of having him take over BooneWoodcarving.com, so when this tick bite kills me Clay will still have a website (not that it has ever done him any actual good).

Brad has never authored a website before, so I told him to setup a bogus domain name to practice with, then I showed him how to copy/paste Clay's old website over.

Here is what Brad has done in just a matter of a few hours work (don't forget he was learning how at the same time):

Couple more minor tweeks and I can deed BooneWoodcarving over to him, and voilá, fait accompli.

Clay's website run by his own son.

I had told Brad to get BigBellyWoodcarver.DUM, due to it being most appropriate to a Boone related website, but apparently .DUM was not available (go figure), so Brad went with the .COM

You also might like to alter the Copyright page info, because that was just a bluff anyway from way back when there was an outside chance somebody might actually honor such things.

And as a reinforcement of my caveat below: Think about how much actual effort you put into getting that site up and running.

Got it in your head (remembering you are a rank beginner)?

Good.

Now you will understand why I took a step backwards and gasped when the guy who makes my eyeglasses told me he recently spent $4,000.00 dollars for the design of his website (an obvious template site) and then started paying $30.00 a month just to keep it going.

And his website is peppered with ads for competing products.

If I were a newbie (say like Brad), I might fall for it, but as it is I am not even falling for the CIA plant who is pretending he defected to China.

I'm sure the Chinese ain't buying it either, because they're a durn sight smarter than me.

Only the target audience is likely to fall for that whole charade, and we all know who that is.

Except three or four really weird hits from Forida (state), Indiana, and Texas (or Colorado I think without checking), and all exhibited the same unprecedented footprint which may or may not have been people, so it might have been the work of Brad who has friends.

This morning we saw a possible Brad visit via a "Norton Safe Search" which is probably another one of those "systems" that helps "hide" somebody on the Internet.

Kids gotta try I guess.

You might like to mention how insanely efficient Brad's attachment to get the Boone Brochure index.htm was.

Only hit it twice 4m42s apart.

Bravo, Brad, whom I believe may have a friend near Indianapolis.

So overall (now that the full logs are reviewed in a world record time of 1.5 hr) it was Connie, Brad (from a few IP#'s and maybe a friend), Bee Positive (an increasingly rare arrival), and not much else.

Google Analytics would have given me the total in the thousands, and the US Government wouldn't have had a clue one way or another.

Now that I have my morning routine done I can go see if I should be getting on antibiotics for my most recent tick bite.

Rachel Bertoni is running an ad for her free music series and has room for 12 of the local shops at $70.00 per.

The Guild has committed to one space and Endico watercolors has committed to another, so that means only 10 left.

UPDATE: 4 spaces remaining as of 10:26 pm 06/17/13

Make that call!

Man that was easy!

Please tell me that wasn't the only thing I could've done from the start?

That would have saved a whole lot of time.

Then again, I wouldn't have learned as much.

I believe that from here on out I'll be able to add pictures easy enough.

As for the design and order of where the pictures go, I'm sure Amber can help me with the code but otherwise I'll call you when I have issues.

I'll be in town this weekend, so maybe I'll stop by if I have questions.

Let me know if anything looks out of place or not working correctly.

Actually it only seems easy now.

Have you so soon forgotten how hard it was just to get a file (any file) onto the FTP site, or even get the FTP site open on your desk?

How quickly they forget.

You should have been around years ago, when this stuff really did NOT work as advertised.

I'll do a close inspection of the full site tomorrow after my morning's website usage logs review, sometime around 2:00 pm I would imagine.

I hear they're looking for a few good men like you!

The Warwick browser took a look at the Guild Financial Report...see link in footer at bottom of this (and every) page.

Otherwise it was just Brad and Connie overall with a possible extra Brad on the Boone website looking at 81 of the flipbook photos.

BTW: Connie saw the upgrade to Fugett Sound, but Brad attached with his handheld so only got to see the old mobile version (not changed).

Man, I sure do love knowing stuff.

Sky's the limit from here!

Plus you are recipient of the coveted Connie Rose: I Didn't Put A Space After My Comma Award.

Double dude!

BTW: An ellipsis is three periods…not five.

I will have Amber call you in a little while if that's ok with you.

She'll be sitting at her computer, and she'll be able to tell you what she sees and what she's doing.

Is this ok?

You might want to post an aid.

Once you can change things on the faux website, you could either grab a copy of Dr. Art's site or the old Boone site and blast it onto your test site.

Both those sites are straight html and should be easy to copy (not for you of course but for Amber):

Real-live changes will be coming to our favorite little pseudo web site as early as tomorrow!

I finally lassoed that wonderful, hi-tech-saavy-computer-whizbang-extraordinaire, daughter of mine.

We have a date with web design destiny tomorrow morning!

Stay tuned....

I have been looking for it every morning...can't wait.

If you run into trouble give us a ring.

If you are in Sugar Loaf you can drop by.

After you get all that going, you guys can run out west and drag Clay back.

Tell him we have all learned our lesson, and he can have all the assault rifles he wants for shooting turkeys...if he'll just come home.

Today we received this via snail mail:

The text read:

The heck with finding a Craft Community; I'm staying right here, and I'm not telling you where here is.

As you already know, I've placed some ads.

Traffic here is very heavy.

It took me an extra 30 minutes to get to town the other day.

If not the 300 head of cattle, then you have to wait for the mule deer or elk to cross the road.

Anyhow, take care and thanks for all the help...Booner.

I am selling them on eBay as rare historic artifacts of stuff reasonable human beings don't waste their time doing anymore.

They fetch a pretty penny.

When I touch base with Dad in the next day or two I will ask him if he has spoken with anyone from that area during his travels.

He does have the "schmoozability" of Jarvis Boone, however, so I would not be surprised if he came into contact (somewhere along the way) with someone from that region who was impressed enough to check things out.

There is a sizable industry based on tricking people into believing just the opposite.

Clay already has people visiting his website to find out a little more about him even before he joined the local Chamber out west and before his display ad has run.

Randy Brown has been doing the same thing here.

Schmoozability aside, however, Clay's big draw is the quality of his work.

This morning's website usage logs review showed that Clay Boone is still very active out west with two separate users showing up from Casper and Douglas, Wyoming.

After reading Clay's home page each visitor bookmarked it...a big win.

I am writing this while ignoring our telephone that is ringing off the hook with telemarketing cold calls, probably because somebody got our phone number on one of the lists I spend my life trying to stay off of.

Why these telemarketers think I am at all interested in "increasing my internet ranking" is anybody's guess, probably because they have convinced so many clueless business startups that "web search optimization" or getting listed on any number of a million "travel" sites has anything at all to do with building an actual business.

In any case, I never pick up the phone unless it is a proven customer or Mary when she isn't around.

You might mention that aside from Boone's activity Kayla was also spotted on the Endico website getting there from a Google search for "mary endico," probably trying to figure out who the weird old woman was updating my order for Kayla's first custom made leather dog collar.

Also there was that person who came and took a look at Boswell's house and read the Ezra Decker article.

It was cute, because they were apparently using some sort of cloaking software of the type people are lead to believe "protects your identity online."

Funny stuff!

Yesterday on the way out for my bike ride, I stopped by to check on Connie Rose and found her rolling clay balls for some purpose or another.

When I stopped back after my three (3) hour ride, she was in exactly the same spot, still rolling out balls...though significantly beaten down by the process.

That, my friends, is the life of a true artist.

As the saying goes: "Art is war."

The shop behind us is about to close with the owner complaining, "Not enough people come down the lane."

Bullshit!

Not enough hours being open and servicing the clientele appropriately.

Mary (out back with her dog) is very much aware that more people go to the shop behind us than come through our own door (monitored by bell and security cams) because venturing down the alley is an adventure.

People get there and find a locked door, or poor service.

It's the sort of misrepresentation that adds to the myth of the ghost town (always has) and causes people who should know better to devolve into gimmiky promotions (or shift their business model out of town) while overlooking the simple fact that we don't really need any more customers in Sugar Loaf; what we need are more artisans to help us handle all the customers that are already coming here—still being attracted by the reputation for artisan work built and solidified years ago.

We only need another rabidly excellent artisan (or two) who will open full time every day (not just weekends or parts of the week)...and I will be able to get out on my bike more often.

That is why we are going into aggressive all out full-on find the artisan mode with our new ads.

Otherwise, I am pretty sure I can eat whatever I want, so I will.

In any case, now with the famous period (or comma) with no trailing whitespace, this is Classic Connie Confirmed.

Previously on Sugar Loaf Guild Site 06/10/13, attached via ? to / (home page) then 3s later clicked the header navigation link to the Forum.

That would imply a bookmarked browser link established using a different IP# or input by hand.

Tomorrow morning my logs should show a very similar footprint as the one described above, then a submittal past the Captcha onto the Forum of course.

I have my suspicions but am always wary of making unconfirmed assumptions, so I think I get it but am withholding comment pending more information or standard known tells which would be found in more extensive text input.

I guess I could always conclude: Connie with a beer in hand stamping a cigarette butt under her heel.

At least I got to look up the spelling of withholding.

Now if you will all excuse me, I have to hack some mainframes in China while trying to figure out why Apple still exists.

You were right!

On page 24 of Impulse and Strength I did mention emotion in that context.

However, you will notice I at least reversed the word order: emotional and conscious became conscious and emotional.

If I were to revisit that section I would mention only "conscious" in the second instance with a parenthetical suggestion of allowing "emotional" involvement to take care of itself, because for most people conscious involvement is what requires the effort while emotional involvement is effortless and distractive.

3rd paragraph below "Drawing the Line".

Today is Wednesday and a steady stream of shoppers are walking through Sugar Loaf carrying bags and purchases.

Can't blame them much; the only reason I'm looking outside is because I'm deciding if I can get out on my bicycle; plus it seems short-shorts are back in style.

In your readings, here is something you missed that you might find interesting.

On the page linked below, pull down to Flipbook History of Fantasy Factory > Endico Watercolor Originals and click through the photos:

There are short descriptions attached below each photo.

Which reminds me:

Brad, can you think of any reason Clay Boone's website has been experiencing significant browsing from the Troy, MI area?

I know Clay already has two sign jobs setup in Wyoming, and I see how his display ad placement out west has affected his website traffic, but I am only guessing that there are Boone family members near Troy.

Am I correct?

Next Generation Hobbies was the perfect complement to artisan shops in Sugar Loaf.

It was not in any way an instance of the Sugar Loaf Four Step but merely collateral damage of the hamlet's recent lack of advertising focus.

And, Bob, stop weeping about how wonderful that shop was and how much better than you could have even imagined...after you finally went in.

Thank you for all of the information and directing me to the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

It is very informative, and I enjoyed my Swag Bag!

I checked my notes again after I got home and realized you and your dad had clicked on the wrong building (easy to do on the small map), so that is why I thought it was KM.

In any case, I was correct in seeing the hand of Kayla all over the browsing, so thanks again helping me keep things straight.

Connie knows all this stuff very well and is only pretending she doesn't so I will write something about it.

We started a rant/conversation about learning to juggle, play musical instruments, dust, clean, paint, think, throw pots.

I told you about how I was working on the throw/throw catch/catch exercise I had seen on a youtube video.

You shook your head and said, "No, no, you aren't even supposed to be working on that yet."

Then you talked about hand position.

You showed me an app that shows the workings of the muscles.

My brain cooked that experience like a fine crockpot meal.

I came to a wonderful/scary/pitiful realization.

I don't even deserve to even try to throw pots!

I really have no idea what the hell I am doing!

No wonder I have hit or miss days.

I have been lulled into thinking I can make pots when all this time I have been guessing and hoping and getting some lucky days.

I am now very decidedly working on finger placement, direction of my energy, and knowing where my left foot is.

That will insure the exercises you will be developing over the next few months will make it to print in a way that will be helpful to other potters who have not had the benefit of 25 years pot throwing experience but maybe get there sooner than you did due to your efforts to help them.

Which reminds me: a Zen archer practices raising and drawing the bow for 25 years before an actual bow touches their hands.

Here, compare commas in the column at left to your original submittal below:

OK,without a brownie for inspiration,I will try to explain "What the hell I was talking about."

When you came to the "sweatshop" and brought me a book,remember? We started a rant/conversation about learning to juggle,
play musical instruments,
dust,clean,paint,think,
throw pots.

I told you about how I was working on the throw throw catch catch exercise I had seen on a youtube video.

You shook your head and said,"No,no,you aren't even supposed to be working on that yet."

Then you talked about hand position. You showed me an app that shows the workings of the muscles.

My brain cooked that experience like a fine crockpot meal.I came to a wonderful/scary/pittiful realization.

I don't even deserve to even try to throw pots!

I really have no idea what the hell I am doing!

No wonder I have hit or miss days.

I have been lulled into thinking I can make pots when all this time I have been guessing and hoping and get some lucky days.

I am now very decidedly working on finger placement, direction of my energy,and knowing where my left foot is.

I can't believe the conversation that I had with a semi-retired musician and high tech studio mavin who helped me with my pot throwing.

Something happened during a duet like rant about M. Endico, Jeff McBride, juggling, apps about muscles, etc.

I will totally need a walnut infused brownie in person to explain.

But everything is changed and a new awakening has taken place.

I don't know if I should kiss you or punch you in the face.

The more you know, the more you realize what you have yet to learn.

Thanks a lot. Maybe.

What the hell are you talking about?

In any case, I do have to report that I shall never again be seen wandering around town, because I have now totally lost it and gone over to the dark side.

Here's the deal.

You know all the offensive signage that has been the talk about town lately?

Well, I cornered the woman while she was visiting Randy at Bee Positive, and laid down the law, actually just mentioned the sign law and how all that nonsense is nonconforming (not that anything in town is in conformance).

Obviously one cannot do such a thing without showing up later with Swag Kits for all, right?

Also I needed to do a site visit to fine tune the walking map hotspot links.

So I dropped in at Practical Magick with T-shirt, water bottle, guild cards, and a financial statement in tow (you know that sheet about all the good things we have been funding such as $1,000 for Wikipedia, $300 for the firehouse, $300 for the Warwick Human Society, bunch of print ads, no dues, no meetings, no responsibilities, etc).

Long story short, I hesitated at the front door trying to decide if the shop was even open, almost killed myself trying to step over the doorsill past the covered windows and door, ducked into and under the late 60's vintage entrance curtains, not beads mind you, but still...

I half thought my skin illustrations would soon come alive.

Anyway I had a conversation with her (Denise I believe) and she did not say one thing during the whole affair that was not spot on and correct with regard to what she is doing there and why.

She even "got" the back of the T-shirt faster than anybody so far.

Then when I walked out of the shop I looked around at that gawdawful proliferation of overrun signage again and realized, "Shit! This is just perfect for that little shop. This is only a spillover of the articulation of her vision for her shop. Nothing else would be appropriate here, and anything less would be a distraction."

That place isn't even a shop; it is a movie, a period piece, an exact replica of something not seen in such shining disarray since Daytona Beach spring break 1969.

It gave me goose bumps as I almost wept and fell in love with it.

I am now worthless to everybody else and would actually stand strong for her right to have it exactly like it is (first amendment and all that), even if she extends it in any way she might see fit.

Also, did you know that Kayla, over at Scarlet's Way, never even heard of Connie Rose before, nor had she heard that world famous potters were working not 50 feet from her shop door?

And let me tell you, when it comes to being on top of one's business Kayla has no peer.

Plus she attests to a very vibrant Facebook process, so what has Connie Rose been doing with her time?

Transferring by hand an endless series of communion sketches from young people's paper renditions onto chalices for firing?

You people need to get out more.

I woke up with a cup of coffee this morning and logged on.

Although I live in South Florida now, it was a real pleasure to be brought back to the unforgettable hamlet of Sugar Loaf.

Years ago, I used to spend all of my time with Patrick and Sumari down near the tracks at their shops.

I'd listen for the chimes, be guaranteed to run into a creative rogue or two, and I must have put a gazillion miles in walking up and down the street.

It's been eight years or so, but man, I think of those times almost every day.

Sugar Loaf, and its artistry, has really propelled my life.

We always have points of reference, as people and as artists, and Sugar Loaf has provided me countless opportunities to remember: for one, that staying creative always pulls you through.

Which brings me to thank you, also, for posting Bee Positive's brochure.

I know that you are in for a magic carpet ride with Randy Brown.

He is the real deal.

I've met some powerful people in my life - but no one has been more consistent than he.

He really IS the way he seems.

The creativity and sincerity that pours out of him is electric.

He has been a huge influence on me for the past 40 years...I know this because he is my father.

I'm so excited for him and all that he can share with all of you now.

Thank you, Bob, for starting my morning today.

Your work and obvious dedication is extraordinary.

I look forward to logging on and imagining me being right there in Sugar Loaf again.

And just so you know...I grew up listening and watching my dad, Randy, pick that Epiphone like James Taylor.

His playing and his voice have never left me.

He told me that he read your book, reached for his guitar and was stunned.

Something had come over him.

I wanted to thank you for that as well.

Help, help!!!

Now with his son Tim, Randy has lashed me to a bed in their basement and broken both my ankles with a sledgehammer.

Aside from that, Tim, should you not be wasting your time on this forum but rather be working on a movie script?

When I said, "I bet I know just who did that piece," they told me that it couldn't be, because Orange Regional did not use any local artist's work.

However, the description of the work was such that I was sure I knew the artist, so I went over to look at it myself.

Turns out it was exactly who I thought it was: Laura Breitman.

Not too long after Mary and I came to Sugar Loaf, Laura moved into the building at the end of the cul-de-sac beside our house...had dated the candle maker for awhile.

Later her (now) husband Mike Needleman worked with Don Duke (our neighbor across the street) on the major eco-friendly retrofitting and renovation of our house at 1386 Kings Highway (two doors down from the Candle Shop).

For one Halloween party early on at the Rob Wright Pottery and Sculpture Studio (in the building that later became Syms Jewelry, and then Arlene's, and later Pisces Passions), Mike and Laura were in attendance with Laura in short-shorts on roller skates (like Rollergirl in Boogie Nights but long before) and Mike came dressed in Middle Eastern garb and never once dropped out of character or even acted like he knew Laura.

Mike did such a perfect job, it was years before people found out the "mysterious Muslim guy who showed up unannounced to the party" was actually Mike...and decidedly not Muslim, not that there's anything wrong with it.

In any case, Mike and Don's renovation to our house lasted three years and included all the work done inside and out, except for some stuff I did myself (like the upstairs bathroom) and the internal audio specific portions of my recording studio which was handled by a professional audio design company.

That is why I was sure I knew the artist: I do!

But you failed to mention the artwork was actually a print reproduction of Laura's work, not one of her originals, so it is not really art at all.

More like a poster.

If that is what Orange Regional considers art, I shudder to think what they might consider clinical practice.

Due to the recent quandary arising from the presentation of that thorny consternation with regard to intellectual property rights and management issues, we suggest you undertake an extended study of musical indeterminacy as it relates to the surrounding subjects of Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, not to mention whipple and mark trees, and of course Calder (friend of your mentor Vera Newmann).

In the meantime, it is probably acceptable leaving the website status quo but best to get back in your hole and put this puppy on hiatus.

Right now I'm working on a big placard to carry in front of the shop between playing my guitar and singing protest songs.

The poster reads: RAY BOSWELL UNFAIR TO CONNIE ROSE!

That woman should be up front on the porch of a big main street shop making stuff for people to purchase.

Could that be true?

Her studio is way back out of the way in Romer's Alley, so who knows?

More coming soon!

I just stumbled upon your Impulse and Strength Book - purchased it for my Kindle!

Also listened to some of your music and visited Mary's website.

It's weird and wonderful connecting like this after so many years, and by accident.

Cynthia and I are doing great. We hope you guys are too.

Our last visit to your place was when our son Ryan was about 2 years old - now he's 33.

I'm glad you are still making music and art and still in Sugar Loaf.

Hope to hear more from you.

Bruce

This was not actually by accident old friend; I set the trap and have been lying in wait for this very moment.

I have a present that I have been saving for you, so return your physical address via return email.

Otherwise here is something interesting which you would find on googling "MacMurray College Bruce Mathieson" (without quotes), but here is the direct link:

Make sure Cindy has on her Depends Adult Diapers when she reads it.

And yes, everyone, this is the famous Bruce Mathieson who is one of those people that taught me how to think.

Below is an historic photo on the eve the two of us were to be purchased in a slave auction to co-ed women in the Student Union:

From left:
Bruce Mathieson
Bob Fugett
1969

Click the image for a better view of why Bruce commanded the higher price.

Today Clay Boone leaves for extended travels in the great Out West.

His itinerary will include (but not be limited to): Red Lodge, MT, Rapid City and Sturgis, SD, Park City, UT, and Jackson Hole, WY.

This is all part of a grand wager he has with Bob Fugett.

Bob bet Clay $1,000.00 dollars that he could not find anything like Sugar Loaf anywhere else anywhere.

If Clay finds a place like Sugar Loaf (in terms of density of actual full time high level working artisans), Bob will have to hand over $1,000.00.

If Clay cannot find anything like Sugar Loaf anywhere else anywhere, he will have to admit to Bob that he is wrong, which is a far sight bigger loss than a mere $1,000.00.

Bob is looking forward to collecting his winnings.

Not to mention the grand attack dog Cody Bear will be riding shotgun out west.

I think I will take over Clay's classes while he is away, because I've seen one, and apparently the only skill a teacher needs is to carry a whip and crack it every time people start talking and stop moving wood.

Otherwise, the students run their own show.

Next up: blown glass artist.

It illustrates how easy it is to underestimate Sugar Loaf...before you get here.

Randy has lashed me to a bed in his basement and broken both my ankles with a sledgehammer.

Stop the presses!

After Bob Fugett made his big deal about never going to hear from Randy Brown after putting together his quick down and dirty web presence for him, Randy stopped by today and dropped off a hand written thank you note.

Randy had not even seen Bob's email yet.

How much egg do you think Bob can lick off his face before he gets too fat for cycling?

We will publish the letter soon: hand written ... whoever heard of such a thing?

I missed seeing them because I was working on: THIS.

It took a lot of time and intense careful effort to rip apart the guy's brochure and repurpose it online, but it was worth it so he would have at least some sort of a web presence.

Once again, the 'THIS' found above is a link, so click on it.

Bob Fugett

Mind you I did all that in full knowledge that the person benefitting would not even click to look at the Guild website, nor bother to merely send a return mail Thx.

But like I said before: I am going to find the person who will become the next great Sugar Loaf Supershop, starting with a potter who will blow the doors off the current crew (and once again I hope my saying so out loud does not cause somebody to spit and crumple a perfectly good clay form).

I think she is trying to stay slim by cutting out the beer and pasta, so she can get trim and agile like some of Sugar Loaf's more successful Lady Artisan/Shopkeepers.

I wish some of these busybody commenters would inform my firstborn that hard work and talent (and more hard work) got her this far...not playing online and smoking cigarettes.

Just think what Connie might have been had not the apple fallen, not so very far from of course, but certainly a ways down the slope below the tree of its genesis.

Even if I could understand such an odd accent from whatever corner of the third world it came from, I still wouldn't be able to hear enough of it to decide if the person was mad about something or just excited to see somebody acting rationally (in a country not known for that) and being complimentary on a fashion choice.

It goes without saying the person should never be told the amount of money that would immediately change hands if anybody found out my verifiable footprint is visible in the dust at any given location.

It is assumed that the clay dust that might stick to those peds could have been swept up and reformed into pots—the very pots that make such living for Ms. Rose that her lavish lifestyle should include hired security from the Dominican Republic.

By the way: the highlighted text above ("not think that") links to a pertinent YouTube college student video if you click on it.

How should I address it?

Aren't you Bob Fugett?

After walking around the show this weekend I feel like Charleton Heston in the last scene of Planet of the Apes, "You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

I also feel like Bob Fugett circa 1976 in Scotts Meadow during the time he got a key from every shop in the Meadow in order to let in customers coming down the hill who would ask, "Why aren't any of the shops open?"

Bob would hold up the wad of keys and respond, "They are all open. Which one do you want to see?"

Then he would hand the money over to the individual week-end shop owners saying, "Look what happens here in the middle of the week...but you have to be open."

I have found artisans before, and I will find them again.

I am sure there is somebody out there who will rip the local disinterested potters a new one.

Can't wait to write about it.

[Whoops, don't let me make you crimp that form, Connie.]

Other than that, you might be able to help us.

We are going to use the next portions of the advertising budget to look for a potter who would like to come to town and start a lucrative open to the public working studio.

We have talked to the potters already in town (who are not open to the public), but they haven't got the slightest interest in taking advantage of the largess of the hamlet's robust street traffic, so it is time to put out some feelers.

We used to have a great potter who was also a sculptor, but he had a very clever way of turning off clients so didn't last very long.

If you run into a likely pottery candidate have them take a look at the Guild website; and, after they prove they have read it, I will explain to them the stuff about Mary's 20,000 paintings sold directly off her work table, about the continuing flow of very interested buyers eager to get real deal artisan products directly from real deal artisans who are making them.

I have to tell you, the money that people coming into Sugar Loaf are willing to pay for true high quality artisan work is virtually limitless...though it appears Mary and I are the only people in town who know this.

In any case, my review of the work at the most recent street fair came up bust.

Too bad the current event organizers have let the quality of the shows slip so horribly.

However, there has to be at least one potter out there who would really like to find their easy access, direct from their home studio, supportive audience.

Also I have an idea about the next artisan to find after the potter, but first things first.

We will be pumping a bunch of money into the search for a potter very soon.

Today the Sugar Loaf Guild donated $300 to the Warwick Human Society at their booth in the Craft Fair.

Also Swag Kit awards for Best in Show and a Purchase Award were handed out.

Here are the details.

Although the Craft Fair is not a Guild event (and does not focus on hand made one of a kind artisan wares), Bob Fugett assumed there had to be at least one actual craftsperson in attendance, and if their product reached the correct level of quality they should receive an award.

He established an ad hoc award for Best in Show which expanded into an additional Best in Show Purchase Award.

After walking around the event a few times Bob narrowed the Purchase Award down to a single exhibitor who had excellent quality hand pulled silk screened T-shirts and silk scarves (plus one Batik), so he used the Purchase Award to buy a T-shirt for his wife (the guild will not be charged for it).

But Bob understood that the winner of the Purchase Award should also be given an official Sugar Loaf Guild Swag Kit so the Guild will be charged for that.

Fortuitously awhile later when Bob was trying to make the final Best in Show decision between a couple of jewelers, Connie Rose happened by and helped him decide.

Most of you know Connie Rose as a life long Sugar Loaf resident, a perennial craftsperson and artist who has worked in numerous capacities for several top businesses (and one not so top) finally coming to rest as General Manager for Boswell Pottery...where she throws pots on the wheel and trouble makers on the sidewalk.

In any case, Bob asked Connie to help with the final choices for Best in Show, and she saved his butt on this one.

Connie pointed out that the work Bob was just about to bestow was in fact merely assemblies of ready made parts, so while they were certainly put together carefully and with a clever eye, they could not really be considered hand made.

So Bob said, "Well, there was this other place near the hamlet's south entrance, so let's go look at it, and you can show me what to look for."

When they arrived at the other booth, Connie said, "Well this time, Bob, you have picked correctly."

Turns out it was the work of Ron and Fa of Moon Angel, long time Sugar Loaf residents who allowed a booth to be opened in their name despite the Sugar Loaf Craft Fair having become a "small" event in their larger schedule of robust top line events.

Hoping to school Bob's eye, Connie launched into a description of the process required to produce such work as was being displayed, and the obvious truth of that description reduced Bob to goose bumps and a quavering lump from where he gasped, "Well, this is definitely the best of the best of the best here today, this is the realest of all real deals, the true article, so I don't care if they aren't outside vendors, I am giving them Best of Show no matter...after all, I do have to sleep at night."

Then Bob convinced Connie to help with the presentations, and the two of them traipsed back uptown to gather up the winner of the Purchase Award who would also come back and help with the presentation of the Best in Show Award not to mention get to meet some actual lifetime full time successful working artisans (which everyone agreed is a significantly different sort of creature in case you don't know).

Below is the pictorial summary of the day's events.

Click image


$300 Donation to
Warwick Humane Society

Left to right back row -
Guild Presenters:
Mary Endico,
Christine Louvet,
Joann Mannino

front row
Human Society Staff:
Annie Tinnirello,
Adrienne Lepre,
Dana Tuckfelt

Click image


Best in Show
Purchase Award
Left to right -
Alyssa Seaman (winner),
Connie Rose (presenter)

Click image


Best in Show
Moon Angel

Left to right -
Madison Monaco,
Alyssa Seaman
Connie Rose,
Hanna Monaco

Ok, some explanation: when we tried to present Best in Show (above) the frenzied crowd trying to purchase items at Moon Angel had the sales force so harried we could barely jump in and take our chances.

That is why the focus is a little soft, and Hanna Monaco is far right facing away from the camera...taking care of business.

Not surprising, because Best in Show really did mean Best in Show.

Click image


Pretty girl outtake -
Madison Monaco
of Moon Angel

We had it,
so we used it

Today the Sugar Loaf Guild donated $300.00 to the Sugar Loaf Firehouse to be used however they see fit towards equipment, programs, or education.

Below is shown Mary Endico and Anne Marie presenting the check to Len Knapp and Patrick McKevitt.

Click image


Left to right -
Len Knapp,
Mary Endico,
Anne Marie,
Patrick McKevitt

Did you know the volunteers at the Firehouse went out of their way to provide parking for the entire Craft Fair Festival and only asked a minimal donation from attendees in return?

Sugar Loaf Guild has donated $1,000.00 dollars to Wikipedia.

The Guild website is now linked on the Wikimedia Foundation Benefactors page.

Thank you for writing.

I have forwarded the information and toggled off the phone numbers here as a security measure.

Hope it helps out.

Here is what I forwarded:

Bob Fugett

The conversation turned to the upcoming festival and how the Firehouse is now charging event goers for parking in their parking lot.

Anne Marie asked if the Sugar Loaf Guild had a stand on the issue.

Could you comment, Bob?

The Firehouse is a volunteer organization whose members are willing at any moment (night or day) to drop whatever they are doing and run into your burning house to try and save your dog, not to mention put out the fire.

Are you kidding?

They should be allowed every possible opportunity to collect some money to pay for equipment, education, and programs making their task easier and safer.

Look, the people who put together the festivals are expecting them to bring money into town for the businesses here, and they never think twice how the disruption might affect the already actually established local businesses, such as Anne Marie's (who will be placing a helper at the barricades in order to help everyday regular customers thru them to get their breakfast, etc).

As an aside, the Endico Studio only stays open for the events because there is always one customer who shows up forgetting to call first, and that customer would be very aggravated to find a festival and no Endico.

If the goal is to attract money to Sugar Loaf, shouldn't the very first drips and drabs of that money go directly to the organization providing a large part of the parking—the Firehouse?

Get real people.

This shouldn't even require a comment.

The Firehouse maintains that property, will be responsible for repairing it, and takes on the liability of allowing people to park there.

Of course they should be allowed to charge for that.

Hejlsberg, Anders, Scott Wiltamuth, and Peter Golde. 2004. "The C# Programming Language." Boston: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 0-321-15491-6

And to wash away the sweat engendered by receiving a PhD level hard bound textbook, a special bonus of my own book on musical process.

Photos are pending, although I do believe somebody already facebooked the awards ceremony.

There has been a two way tie for this year's Most Avid Reader Award.

In a hotly contested competition for reading every single word (and then some) of the Sugar Loaf Guild Site, top honors go to Connie Rose (Operations Manager at Boswell Pottery) and Brad Kibler (Clay Boone's son).

Below is a photo of Connie Rose receiving her award.

Connie Rose (left)
receiving award
from Mary Endico

Connie commented, "I am flattered and had no idea...but isn't this just the perfect example of quintessential Sugar Loaf Guild process? I mean, it wasn't just some contest for the sake of having a contest. It was something based on merit, and I won for actually doing something worthwhile. Plus the award itself is very useful: a big thick book full of useful information, so I can keep on reading and learning more about the world around me. I love it, and you made me feel like I earned it. Thank you Guild!"

Having given Connie the originally scheduled award, the Guild is currently reviewing the particulars of acquiring another object of equal merit to give to Brad.

It has to be just right.

I'm able to copy the link, open in Notepad and manipulate "Bold" into "Italic."

I will repeat the process on my home laptop.

I've just learned something new!

See if this gets you going (I just stepped through it on one of my own sites, made sure it worked, but when I tried it on yours there was a slight change — no default page, just jumped right to the login dialogue), but it might still work for you, so try it.

In your web browser URL field enter:

ftp.YourDomainName.com
[the BooneBigBelly thing]

A default screen like the following will display:

It is telling you to do this:

A login dialogue will display for you to enter the User Name and Password that WinHost provided (it will be eight characters taken from your domain name, and whatever password you already setup):

A folder will open which will function more or less exactly like all the folders on your computer:

You can drag and drop, or copy/paste the file you have been working with.

Rename "Winhostdefault.htm" to something like "Winhostdefault_Old.htm"

Rename the Bare Bones file to "index.htm"

Now a standard http://YourDomainName.com in the browser URL will open that page.

You will also have to put the image for the helper screen in an images folder that you can also create in the FTP window.

BTW: This is a very insecure process, so be careful with it, and I never want to know your User / Password under any circumstances.

Any questions?

Note: permanent link is also at bottom of page in all Guild website page footers.

I tried to download FileZilla and got stuck right there.

I'm already lost.

Now, I can view the source code for the bare bones file so I suppose that's a start.

Although all I did was follow your simple picture instructions.

Perhaps I need more of the pictures!

At least I know how to change the "bold" to "italic" once I reach that stage.

I'm also having other technical issues with modems and internet providers, but I can work around that.

I'll be up Saturday.

Sorry, we'll need to use the training wheels to start.

Until your connection is set, anything I show you here will not work from your location anyway.

When you acheive a stable (fast) home Internet connection, problems such as the FileZilla download will likely disappear.

Besides, my experience has been that nothing that the Internet provides comes even close to being worth all the inherent associated trouble.

I had assumed you already had fast home Internet, because this nonsense is certainly not worth the cost of getting it if you don't already have it.

However:

1) Did you save, view, and alter that BARE BONES PAGE on your own computer?

2) Can Amber setup a Facebook account for you?

ADDENDUM: I just had a thought and tested it.

You really don't need an FTP client (such as FileZilla), because you can do this in Windows Explorer directly.

Get a good connection, and I can step you through it with pictures in about 30 seconds (30 seconds for you, couple hours for me, so get your connection squared away first).

Then open that copy in Notepad and change the Bold to Italic.

I am thinking we may as well leave this discussion here until it gets too technical.

BTW: WinHost once suggested to me this free open source FTP client -

I suggest choosing "Yes" to view only secure content when asked on getting to the page.

Also, if nobody at work has any suggestions, I will help you sort through new generation WYSIWYG html editors by selecting one of the free open source apps and testing it for you.

After sifting through some of the general tutorial information, however, I am completely lost as to where to even begin creating the site.

Perhaps we should get together soon, and you can walk me through it, as I have never undertaken the task of actually setting up a site.

I'll be up only briefly this weekend but next weekend will be back and have more time then.

Let me know if you have some time next weekend (or another time) that would work better for you.

Talk to you soon and thanks again.

I have hidden your new domain name here for the moment in order to avoid Internet search bots populating databases with the content before you are ready.

You have probably heard, "Things never get erased from the Internet," and the Guild Forum is not hidden to bots, so they would start linking that domain right away.

I have also toggled our discussion onto the American Road Cycling forum, so we can move the discussion over there and not gum up the works here.

Soon as I see you have read this, I'll toggle it off here, and we can continue over there.

Make your next post over at ARC.

There is a Submittal Form button at the top of the page, and it works more or less just like the Guild Forum (actually goes into the same database).

Otherwise, you have already finished creating the website!

Done and done.

That is all there was to it.

I have seen your default page serving, so now it is just a matter of adding a few files.

This is going to progress like a Space Shuttle launch.

A few moments of rumbling with stuff falling off the slow moving behemoth, then ZOOM, into space we go.

I have already set up some files to get you started.

First off: do you know how to FTP files?

Grab your tickets and hop on board for:

Once again, you are a most talented artist. Your work is amazing!

The dates that are in consideration are Fall Oct 28-31, 2014 or Spring March 24-27, 2015.

Would you please consider my request.

I also know how far in advance these dates are, but it is something that we require to be scheduled way in advance.

Thank you again for your consideration,
TW

Sorry for the confusion caused by the submittal form confirmation page.

My husband, Bob, is working on the problem, but the full text of your three submittals did arrive correctly.

I also typed your email address incorrectly when I sent my first response, so sorry for that as well.

Thank you so much for the very complimentary offer.

For the foreseeable future I will not be able to provide clinics, because I am tied to my studio creating pieces for my collectors.

However, I really appreciate the efforts of the Jacksonville Watercolor Society and wish to make a donation to the organization in the amount of $1,000.00.

I would like to make my donation in the name of the Sugar Loaf Guild...long story.

Also, could you take a quick look at this link to confirm it shows the Endico form problem you observed:

Thank you again for the flattering offer, and let me know where I can send my donation check.

You may respond by direct return e-mail.

Mary Endico

We met a week and a half ago at your studio.

You gave me a watercolor painting book. I am TW from Saint Augustine, FL.

I am the workshop coordinator of the Jacksonville Watercolor Society, and I would like to contract with you to conduct a 3 day watercolor workshop.

The contract would also include judging our fall or spring show and giving a demo at our general meeting.

It would require you to be here 4 to 5 days, so we would prepay your hotel, include meals, daily contract costs, travel allowance, fee for judging and demo.

You gave me a copy of Ed Whitney's "The complete Guide to Watercolor Painting."

We are from Saint Augustine, Florida.

I explained that I am a fairly new watercolor artist.

I'm a member of the Jacksonville Watercolor Society and the Florida Watercolor Society, and I attend workshops when they are available to me...Do you hold classes or workshops?

Thank you,
TW

Thank you for taking the time to write.

I currently do not have any plans to teach watercolor workshops but I will keep your name on a list in case I do decide to offer one.

It was a pleasure chatting with you,

Mary Endico

Those in town who are running actual businesses are still pretty much strangers to online activity while all the recent banners going up are truly just another example of Signs of Desperation with a couple rounds of the Sugar Loaf Four Step.

Despite this time around the Sugar Loaf Guild having received an extremely positive response from everybody contacted, it looks like I will still have to wait another 15 years before people fully understand the significance of my Internet skills and what these technologies can do.

No problem with that: I've got bicycles to ride.

It's just Peg Conner trying to fit in.

Looks like she missed reading Sugar Loaf Four Step Process.

I believe that Sugar Loaf has previously unreported resources that go well beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

It is great fun to spin my room around.

Thanks for your hard work and expertise.

Wow.

Who was the person that designed DJ's card, and are they still in Sugar Loaf?

Otherwise, I believe there is a typo in your post.

I am sure by "expertise" you meant to say "Thanks for your hard work and extra sleaze."

I am not aware of having any expertise.

Thanks for mentioning it.

Seems better than the eBay page, so I redirected links from his Guild Spotlight.

You might have noticed DJ's business card on his Guild page.

Well, the woman over at Sundog told me who did it, but I wasn't listening and only realized later she might have been talking about somebody still in Sugar Loaf, so if you know anything about that let me know.

Thanks again for the DJ tip.

Isn't that D. J. Mannino's eBay store?

Have you seen this?

Apparently Joann has significant Internet skills and authors her very own domain name sites.

That places her far ahead of the standard run of the mill Facebook crowd.

With Joann Mannino's help the web team has now set up a special calculator to make date/time conversions in order to keep a closer watch over the increasing activity on the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

Who knew?

The cards are free to any Sugar Loaf artisan.

Any who would like a handful of the official Sugar Loaf Guild business cards to display in their studios can post a note in this forum, or e-mail Mary, and they will be hand delivered.

Or drop by Endico Watercolors at your convenience and pick some up.

The cards are being made available for free thanks to Christine Louvet of MetaMORPHosis.

Thanks again, Christine.

You should probably mention again that the cards are free to all Sugar Loaf artisans.

And point people to the rollover showing both sides of the card.

It, as well as your article, was greatly appreciated.

We hope to send you some pictures soon.

Thanks again.

My name is Maddie Dake.

Jon Baugh was my great-grandfather.

I never got to meet him, but I hear he was a great man, and I have heard many stories about him.

We actually have a few of his paintings hanging in my grandparents house.

Thanks for this piece of history,

Maddie


PS: His real name is Herbert Henley McGuire; born in Gadsden, Alabama; October 31, 1908.