Watts Consulting

More than you ever wanted to know about Alabama native Joe Watts

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Your Town Alabama Blog Again

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If it has been a few weeks since you looked at the Your Town Alabama blog, you should really take a peek again. I’ve added several dozen entries in the last three weeks (almost one entry every day). Good stuff, I think. I’ve noticed a significant increase in the number of hits the website is getting on a daily basis as a result of the blog, so overall I’m very pleased.

And in other news, I’m off tomorrow to visit the folks in Thomasville to discuss Alabama’s Front Porches. This isn’t my site design (actually, it is the old State Tourism Department’s website design that was borrowed for use in the Black Belt). The site design works okay, but needs some work. There are some coding issues that need to be addressed. Keywords need to be modified to tighten the tourism focus to the Black Belt and the counties that this project concentrates on.

The content is in need of some work as well. That’s where I come in. I’m working with the University of Alabama and Ala-Tom RC&D to provide some additional content–and content direction. We’ll be meeting tomorrow to get some organizational discussions moving forward. This is a pretty big project, and really important, too. Having grown up so near there with sisters who still live there makes me want to do all I can to make it a better place–and to show other people what a wonderful place it already is!

Alabaster man keeps WWII veterans’ oral histories alive on DVDs

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I found this to be really interesting. Wish we had done it with my dad. It would be great to do it for others. There are so many stories out there and they are disappearing so quickly. (Ann has taken to noting how many WWII vets are listed in the obits each day–and there are ALWAYS several. So many amazing stories disappearing every day.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews

An Alabaster man is passionate about preserving World War II
veterans’ stories for future generations.

Three years ago, Jeff Beabout took his camcorder to the
home of a veteran who shared how he trained as an infantry
officer, survived combat, returned to marry his sweetheart
and became a lawyer.

What’s Blogging to Me

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Wow. It’s been 4 months since I started typing things into this little box. I’ve found it to be enjoyable, for the most part. I haven’t really had much trouble coming up with something to say–even when that something has been basically nothing!

The other day, I was talking to a friend who got me to thinking a little more about exactly what I was doing. And, in a large part, I guess what I’m doing is taking the daily conversations that I had with my Mom and putting them on the internet for all to read (or for the few who actually visit to read).

I talked to Mama almost every day for the last 3-4 years of her life. To get a better understanding of just how much Mama meant to me, read my Mother’s Day Tribute to Mama. Those are conversations that I’ll always treasure, not so much for their content as, like this blog, they were more random thoughts and day-to-day happenings than anything else. We talked a lot about food. I’d tell her what we had for dinner and she’d tell me about a book she was reading. Nothing dramatic, just life. I miss that.

So, really in large part, this blog has become my outlet for talking about life’s little things, from the newsletter that I’m finishing up or a meeting I had to what we had for dinner (which, by the way, was fabulous).

The other thing that the blog has allowed me to do is share old photos and memories with my broader family. It’s amazing to me just how much my friends, many who I do work for, mean to me. I look back at the last 8 years of my life (when I started working for myself–yes, I’ve worked for myself longer than I worked for anyone else) and realize that so many of the people that I consider friends now started out as business clients. I think I’m lucky that  many of the folks I do work for have come to consider me a bit more than someone who works with them.

In terms of sharing things–like old photos–I bought a new scanner last week, so I’m really looking forward to getting it set up and moving. Lots and lots of photos to scan.

Siamese-Tabby Update

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Ann took the cat to the vet yesterday. It spent the night and we’ll pick it up today. It had not been spayed, so we’re especially thankful we caught it. (No need for 4-6 kittens.) Otherwise, it appears in good health–no feline leukemia or any other problems that the vet noted. Gave it all her shots and dewormed her, too. She’ll be back this afternoon. Ann’s taken to calling her “Thing.” She’s beautiful and sweet and extremely loving.

She just needs a good home with someone who will love her and give her the attention she needs. She’s calmed down a good bit since the first night and the vet says that spaying her will calm her down more.

Another Sourdough Pizza

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Well, I’ve been making pizzas for about 5 years now, with a lot more pizzas made in the last two years. I’m still working on getting the dough and the toppings perfect (I’ve gotten the dough to a place where I feel pretty comfortable serving it to anyone, though). I’m always tinkering with the proportions of different types of flour, but have a pretty good handle on what needs to go in to make it good. Lately, I’ve been tinkering with the oven temperature and the time. I’m not completely set on either yet. Some suggest a really high oven temperature, and that seems to work better. Lower oven temps seem to make the dough a bit tender and fluffy.

As to toppings, those are up to your imagination. I’m convinced that fresh mozzarella is almost always better (unless you use the smoked mozzarella like I used in my Three Mushroom Pizza the other day. Red and yellow peppers (I’ve been getting mounds of these from Grow Alabama lately) add lots of color and flavor. This pizza had the fresh mozzarella, Parmesan, and feta along with red and yellow peppers, red onion, garlic and olive oil.

Not my best, but very tasty.

Found: A Beautiful Siamese-Tabby Mix

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We’ve been watching this cat for the past two weeks. It acted like a stray cat, so we had planned to trap it and have it spayed and then release it. Turns out it is clearly someone’s pet. We’re trying to find out who that could be. Must have gotten out accidentally a couple of weeks ago. It is EXTREMELY friendly and pretty talkative. It appears to have already been spayed.