The Calm Time
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The calm time is one of those phenomenon that happens here and there, sometimes randomly, but usually in the morning just before the bite comes on and the sun comes along. If you close your eyes, you can visualize at least one calm time – perhaps recently, or perhaps from decades past. The water may reflect the sky, clouds or even a long gone boat or dock.
As the glass gives way to ripples, the vision of colors dancing can mesmerize and entice you into wondering what that day will bring. Calm always gives way to the elements of that day or the next. Calm never stays, it only visits, whether you are awake for it or sleeping through.
Today is not a calm day. There’s a winter storm bearing down on the middle US with a huge pinwheel of rain, snow and winds that forecast turbulence of epic proportions for Santa tonight. Tomorrow, Christmas day, it clears and kids and parents will bundle up and go outside to try out new toys, evidence of Santa’s superiority. For those of you caught in the nightmare of travel, sit back wherever you are, and read, surf and remain … calm. Even if you don’t fly fish, today you realize mother nature rules your day every day.
Feel Free to Think
So as you sit in the calm, safe and warm confines of wherever you are, take just one valuable second – I know how valuable each and every one is – and look at texasflycaster.com.
Are there any features it lacks or needs? Looking back at posts from two years ago, it’s easy to see the evolution of the site in content and character. 2009 was declared a make-or-break year, and it was evident by mid-year that the site is a make, but “change” for lack of a better term, is good. Rather than continuing to pimp the TFC ride, if parts need to be cut away, or more features added, this is your chance. The obvious assumption applies – silence is consent – to continue along the path of content and character you see evolving from last year and through next.
After finding a way to simply add a music player (Merry Christmas to you music lovers), the only other massive changes forecast is a new e-commerce page. That commerce will concentrate on unique and hard to find fly fishing items (suggestions are welcome). There is also a search on through the powers of WordPress, to create free standing user photo galleries. Those two things are all that remain in the way of changes in the feel of TFC. Statistics are showing the forum “The Fray” is the most consistently read page, although participation is minimal. That is how it was designed to work – snippets of information not necessarily worthy of full length posts, but needing audience participation.
As far as content goes, the balancing act – of fly fishing, food, music and culture – is one that is impossible to maintain with zero help from contributors. One of the spinning plates falls every year, and with luck one is glued back together to spin the next year. Maybe 2010 will see a restoration of that balancing act with the usual wobbles. It’s only partially up to the person behind the curtain.
Category: Culture on the Skids, Eating and Drinking, Life Observed, TECHNICAL
ON TAP – Most posts will also be available for audio download starting in 2010.