Tagged water

Two years in snapshot

March 15th, 2016

Neglected but not forgotten, I’m happy to tell you the Brainripples blog is a victim of its own success. With precious few moments for blog posts, stories, or poems, I’ve spent these past two years writing oodles of small business websites and marketing materials, helping organizations articulate and promote their brands and products, and supporting entrepreneurs through social media management and market research. (Last year I also helped my best friend on earth heal after knee surgery – so hip hip hooray for good health!!!!)

To see what I’ve been up to, I invite you to learn about some of these unique organizations:

ic2Impact Capital

This 15-year-old community development financial institution (CDFI) helps Northwest nonprofits develop affordable housing, community facilities, and retail space that enhance the lives of low- and moderate-income residents. I worked with the Noise without Sound team to produce a fresh website, launch the newsletter, and promote fundraising events with email campaigns. We also help them produce the annual report each year.

clientaccessComtronic Systems

Comtronic is a trusted Northwest family business that builds, services, and supports award-winning debt collection software for small- to medium-size collection agencies. I helped Noise without Sound produce the Debtmaster product brochures for 2011 and 2014, as well as advertisements for trade magazines.

seasys1Seabeck Systems

Need help with databases? How about business processes? Ready to launch your new startup? Call Peter at Seabeck Systems. After 12 years helping organizations get things done right, Seabeck Systems was more than ready to clarify their brand, update their website, and register a trademark. I produced Seabeck’s website, blog, and social media, and forged clear brand elements which we handed to Noise without Sound for matchless trademark design.

3SB3 Square Blocks

Two small urban design firms joined forces in 2012 and hired hired Noise without Sound for a new name, logo, and website. I joined the team to create their new 3 Square Blocks brand elements, plus crisp web content in plain English.

 

 

What’s ahead for Brainripples in 2016?

I have instructions from a few dear friends to make time for poems – so that’s on the list. I’m also consulting as a business analyst to help a business intelligence team gather requirements to design, develop, and deliver great software (which also means – yep – more software documentation). There’s a growing garden of tree photography just itching to come online, which includes hundreds of beautiful pictures taken during my adventures in Kaua’i, Hawai’i (mahalo, Dad). Finally I’m about to expand my services to include WordPress website and blog hosting for small businesses. I spend most of my time writing and producing web content, so this will provide one-stop-shopping for all of you who need a simple, hassle-free WordPress site.

Coming up next on the blog: tips for new writers…. and maybe an interview or two. Fingers crossed.

How about you? I want to know what you’re up to too – tell me in the comments!

Ficus wood, © 2016 Jade Leone Blackwater

Blog Carnival Love: I and the Bird (and the Great Blue Heron)

April 26th, 2011

I love birds. They are an important part of my daily life: I listen for robins and towhees when I wake up on Spring mornings. I watch for night hawks at dusk in the summer. Juncos nitter and nest in my strawberries and thyme. The sweep of raven’s wings overhead seems to follow me year-round.

Birds also keep my gardens alive and interesting (thank you to all the birds whose purple poops have borne new volunteers to my flower beds). Wherever I live or travel, I discover new birds whose calls and silhouettes are inseparable from my favorite memories.

Today I’d like to draw your attention to one of the longest-living blog carnivals, which celebrates the ornithological: I and the Bird. Blog readers and writers alike share a true friend in blog carnivals. These online periodicals consist of collections of links to many different articles, photos, videos, podcasts, and other online media, all of which illuminate a single, special topic (such as trees, plants, or invertebrates).

If you enjoy the company of feathered friends and have a few hours to spare this summer, Mike of 10,000 Birds welcomes you to volunteer as a host for a future issue. You don’t have to be a birder or keep a birding blog in order to participate – just a desire to look up, listen, and share what you learn.

Even if you don’t have time to volunteer, you can help keep I and the Bird alive and soaring with three easy steps:

1)   blog about birds

2)   send in the link

3)   spread the word

In this spirit I share the following images of the Great blue heron (Ardea herodias) at Big Beef and Seabeck Bay, as seen last Wednesday. I might have a diligent amateur’s success with tree photography, but I’m hopeless when it comes to birds (or anything else that doesn’t stand perfectly still for a photo shoot). Luckily for me, these herons were hunting for breakfast, and were not planning to move until the perfect catch swam by.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to sport a great, sweeping beard like this one?

Or to have the endurance to stand still for hours in the chill water beneath these mountains, waiting for lunch?

And herons aren’t the only birds dining in the estuaries…

Click here to read the latest issue of I and the Bird: “A few of my favorite wings” now online at Madras Ramblings, or submit your links today for the upcoming issue to be hosted at Twin Cities Naturalist.

Mike over at the Pacific Northwest Slugyard has some nice photos of nesting Great blue herons.

Looking for more bird resources? Check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the annual Great Backyard Birdcount, and the National Audubon Society.

Know a better (or more interesting) resource? Tell us in the comments.

And remember – blog birds, send in the link, spread the word – I and the Bird!