Posted By Smudew on October 23, 2009

… our adventures in cyberspace. Back then we were still using AOL and Prodigy … remember that – yellow box and a book of keywords … and Don and I met on the boards on Prodigy. A few months after that we met in real life and a few months after that we got married … Happily, I might add!

The internet as we know it today did not exist then. It was much much smaller, more friendly and personal and a lot of fun. I decided I had to have a website, so I bought a book, and while riding in the car from Georgia to New York to visit relatives, I read it from cover to cover and learned how to write html and make a website.

smickandsmodoo was created.

I have recently purchased a new domain name; smickandsmudew – because it always bothered me that people ALWAYS pronounced it incorrectly – SMow-doe instead of Smu-dew.

We have been married 13 years now and our interests have changed dramatically. So, I decided to start up this blog and see where it leads. We both love hiking and computers and have recently been learning a lot about photography and slide shows. We have worked our way up from Paint Shop Pro to Photoshop CS4 Extended and we use Photodex Proshow Producer. We have all the Serif products and also use Sony Vegas Movie Studio. We are still figuring it all out – or trying to anyway. It is fun.

We both also have The T-Mobile G-1 Android phones and we love them … but that is another story.

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Posted By Smudew on September 24, 2009

We Love This Commercial!

Click Here To Watch

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Posted By Smudew on September 21, 2009

I want to share a video we saw yesterday. It is filmed in a Belgium Train Station and is one of those things that just makes you smile and makes you feel good! The people who made this wanted it to seem like everyday people were just spontaneously joining in, and I think they did an excellent job. I love to watch the spectators, too! Notice all the smiles on their faces. Gives me goose bumps and makes me smile!

Click Here To Watch

We saw this on Steve Bass’s Blog, He usually has great stuff on there. Pay his site a visit.

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Posted By Smudew on August 18, 2009

When I started this journey to update the website, I really thought that I was going to do something like; “Off with the Old, On with the New” kind of thing. I am thirteen years older than when I originally set up Smick and Smodoo’s World in 1996 … I have different interests now … I don’t have any wee folk running around the house anymore … I didn’t “just” get married … etc…, etc… Another reason I thought I would not be updating the music part was because I have Microsoft Vista on my computer, and, to put it quite frankly, the midi’s sound horrible on Vista. Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, removed all the midi stuff from Vista. Isn’t that nice?

But as I have been re-doing the site, I have found a few programs which return the midi files to their previous glory (or something close), so I am finding myself falling in love with them all over again! It is really wonderful.

Another aspect of this journey is that I just lost my beloved little Mama. She was one of my two best friends and I miss her everyday! She gave me the gift of her music, she gave me the love for music and as I am doing the songs over and adding the sing-a-longs, I can hear her sweet voice.

So, what I originally thought was going to be something agonizing is turning into a Labour of Love.

This journey will take a while, but I am enjoying the ride!

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Posted By Smudew on August 10, 2009

… I just am not happy with this website … too many pages!  So I moved all the Dreamland stuff over to The Canteen and got rid of Dreamland.  I copied the brief summary on the About page onto the Home page and got rid of the About Page.  So – two down!

Now I have to figure out what to do about all these music pages.  On the old site, we had over 700 songs – many of which I did not even like.  Over the years there were a lot of requests, etc.. and songs got added left and right.  I do not want this new place to end up like that.  I only want music that I really love on here.  The problem I am having right now is how to categorize it – if at all.  I like all kinds of music…old RocknRoll, Oldie Goldies from long, long ago, country, gospel, etc…etc…  I do not want that many pages.

The Canteen is where all the music that was from the WWII era and back – We have sing-a-longs at some of our meetings and this is all the music we love.  Right now I have the Vocal sing-a-longs all in Smudew’s Place … I don’t know why I did that – I think my original intention was to have all my absolute fav’s on my page (Makes sense, doesn’t it) …

The reason I got rid of The Dreamland Ballroom is because it sounded as if it should only have … well … ballroom stuff …

I am having the same problem with the Old Time RocknRoll Page …  that title is too limiting … I think … 

And another thing … The Wee Folk Page – I did that page 13 years ago, when we had wee folk running around the house everywhere …  we don’t have any of those anymore … so I have to admit, my heart is not really in it anymore … But, the Wee Folk page is linked to by lots of places for children – as a fun, safe place to come and visit … I really hate to get rid of it … so I am updating it …but, like I said, my heart isn’t really in it.

The title of this post says it all …”I am So Confused!!”

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Posted By Smudew on July 29, 2009

We have several HUGE projects yet to do around here. Sometimes when I think of them, I get overwhelmed! But, we will get them done – one at a time.

Go over and see the Office Video to see how that “to-do” went!

About 7 years ago, we started building a huge addition to our house. The addition included a whole apartment intended for my mama, a den off the back of our house, an extended master suite and a rear screened in porch and a large deck at the back of the house. It took a lot of building to accomplish this because, while the front of our home is at street level, the back of the house is about 30 feet off the ground. So we had to build a sub-basement, and then a basement on top of that and then the actual addition on top of that. Only three people worked on this; Don (Smick), my brother Brian, and Me (Smudew). We worked every weekend for 4 years.

Then “real-life” came along, as it always does, and everything just stopped. Now several years have gone by and we need to get all this stuff done!

Projects, Projects, Projects

• Clean Out Basement Apartment
• Clean Up Construction Debris
• Remove Roof From Apartment (It Leaks)
• Paint Interior of House
• The Master Bedroom – Half Finished – What to do?
• Photos, Photos, Photos!
• Build Screens for Lower Porch

Category: The Big To-Do | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Smudew on July 29, 2009

Over the years we kept adding stuff and adding stuff until the office was a very scary place! We took several weekends and completely re-did it and I think we did a pretty darn good job! … If I do say so myself!!

Click to Watch!

Category: Completed, The Big To-Do | 2 Comments »
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