Follow Victory Rolls & V8s with Bloglovin’!

The sky has not fallen. Despite the loss of (already-wrecked) Google Reader, we shall all soldier on! Also: I so want this darling little hen. You have no idea!

As any of us who happen to read a lot of blogs know, Google Reader is going away. After Google gutted Reader—hm, was it last year, or the year before—that it’s going away is no surprise. Still, many of us do read a lot of blogs, and finding a good reader with which to keep up with them is frustrating!

After a lot of shopping around (so to speak), I settled upon Bloglovin’, which is already quite popular with many artists, craft bloggers, seamstresses, and vintage lovers. It has taken some getting used to, but so far, so good. It’s very easy to import all of the blogs you follow via Google—Bloglovin’ does all of the heavy lifting for you—, it’s free, and users can still share blog posts and articles they like via the creatively-named “like” feature.

At any rate, that’s what I’m doing now, and I wanted to share it with all of you, who may still be wondering where the heck to go. You can follow Victory Rolls & V8s (as well as my other blog, What I’m Reading) via Bloglovin’. Not only that, but my profile is public—this way, with the Shared Reader on its way out, you can still see what I want to share with you by clicking on the “Likes” tab. For me, the ability to share was important—not all of you are as insomniatic as I am.

What readers have you checked out or decided to go with? Just think, twenty years ago the idea that the loss of a little online service wouldn’t have made any of us bat an eyelash. We’d probably have gone, “Huh? What’s a blog read—what’s a blog?”

Monday Escape: So, there was a bit of an accident…

…leaving me wishing I were built more like one of these critters:

“I shall call him “Squishy”, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy!”

Saturday afternoon I took a slight spill that shoved my spine, shoulders, collarbone, and neck up into the base of my skull. Let me say: fun times!  Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of pain and as a result (and as you can probably imagine), sitting is rather uncomfortable. Even holding a book up as I lie down is painful (darnit!), so there’s a lot of wishing for a way to project books onto the ceiling and yearning for copious amounts of dark chocolate and maybe some wine, too. Yes. Definitely red wine. Preferably from the Rhone Valley.

No worries, my doctor is preparing for me to Quasimodo my way into his office, but I’m not sure what I’ll hear and frankly, I’m not big on painkillers of any sort. Were I built like a jellyfish like one of these little guys I photographed at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, I’d probably be just fine! Darnit. Though I suppose an internal skeletal structure does have advantages….

At any rate, I might not be around for the rest of the week. But my pals and I still have you covered if you want to be entertained ’til I return (which had better be soon, because I’m a complete Type A and HATE not getting anything at all accomplished—believe me, the not working leaves me more frustrated than the pain does).

Route 66′s Carlyle Motel Neon for sale on eBay

Sometime Sunday, a piece of Route 66 history will be sold via eBay auction, and for the last time leave its home in Oklahoma City.

According to Route 66 News, the neon sign disappeared in January, replaced by a “nondescript, orange-and-white lettered backlit sign”.

Much of the neon from this, the original Carlyle sign, has been salvaged, and the sign was in working condition. It sounds like hail damage and the cost of maintenance are responsible for it being removed from its Mother Road post of over half a century.

As a documentary photographer, I shoot places like the Carlyle to show them as they are—and as a sort of insurance should they be lost. This is actually one of the bittersweet things about my work; quite a few of the places I’ve photographed, several of them quite historic, have been razed or destroyed by the elements, or, as in the case of the Carlyle Motel’s neon sign, they’ve been taken down for sale at best and for scrap at worse (as in the case of Cincinnati’s Capri Motel neon).

I must have had some odd foreboding about the Carlyle, or had simply learned from experience, because when I posted the above photograph of the neon sign and this photo of the sign, which also includes the motel’s office, I wrote, “…Sometimes I like to get the offices and buildings. We never know when they’ll be disappearing, after all.” Indeed. Getting them together was, as it turns out, a good idea.

The Carlyle started business in 1943, when Lyle and Ruby Overman left their pretty and successful but frequently-flooded motor court on the Meramec River in St. Louis.

Leanne Cole on an artist who inspires her

Fellow photographer Leanne Cole put up an interesting post yesterday—talking about one of the painters whose work has shaped her own. In addition to sharing the work of Rick Amor, she has shared one of her own photographs, interpreted in a vein similar to Amor’s work. Please go take a look!

Very quick shop (and by default, ArtFire) tour

Send some art to your mailbox!

I recently received an email from, sadly, a customer having trouble checking out of my shop. Turns out it was PayPal. Just the same, while I’m of course helping them personally, posting a quick little shop tour seemed like a good idea.

First of all, though: If you’re having trouble checking out, first of all, make sure those numbers are punched in correctly! I’ve had moments before when I couldn’t get an online retailer to accept my information, get irritated—only to realize I’ve transposed a number. If that is not the trouble, please make sure your cookies are turned on; otherwise, the shopping cart won’t function! Finally, if PayPal or Amazon still will not let you check out…email me, directly or via the “contact seller” buttons in the store. Nine times out of ten, once you have the invoice I issue via PayPal, things go very smoothly.

No doubt some day online shopping will all be very Star Trek-ian (okay…that was  not flagged as a misspelling…now I’m nervous. Is “Star Trek-ian” an actual word?!) and we’ll press our finger to a pad and *click!* all done. But ’til then, we have to deal with all sorts of things.

I do hope you don’t mind my doing this! Keep in mind, too, that since my shop is on ArtFire, what works in my shop (policies and such aside, of course) is going to work in the shops of the other wonderful independent artisans and designers on ArtFire, too.