Back in the old days, writing a post was a relatively easy process.  I just wrote it, stuck in a few pictures, and clicked a button.  Voila. The post was up.

I realize if I ever get all of my problems straightened out, it will be just as easy now. But until then, I'm going ding-dong crazy.

Posterous is fine from my computer. Just as easy as before. But when I'm away from my computer, it is still giving me fits and I can't seem to get any help from them that makes any sense.  I can send brief text messages--110 characters or less--from my phone and it will post. Tonight I sent one that was too long and it only posted the last part of the last sentence.

But, I can't get any pictures to post.  And that is what I need the most.

Then tonight, out of the clear blue, my texts to Facebook wouldn't post. Pictures would post fine to FB, just no text. That prompted me to send a message through Posterous explaining to my Facebook folks why I wasn't updating from tonight's game. It posted on my site, and the auto-post thingy sent it through to Facebook.

I'm about ready to throw everything in the trash: my phone, my computer, posterous, Facebook, my sister, YumYum and @zooleft.

My ace technical advisor--better known as @jasonfalls--gave me some terrific advice. "Don't post text on Facebook."  Thanks, Jason. Just what I needed.

Tonight's game was terrific for basketball. Laura worked inside, Tank's sister Kimberly was the runner, and I cooked. Chuck worked in the stands hawking and while I was a little disappointed with his results, it is worth trying again, at least for the men's games.

Monday night's women's game was terrible, as they all have been this year. Thursday night's men's game had a huge crowd but still wasn't very good for us. At least we bailed out the week tonight.

So far, I only have one women's game next week on Saturday. Hopefully, I can come up with something to fill a couple days in the meantime. 

NOTE: As of 8AM Sunday morning, all of my texts to Facebook last night from the Liberty game (before I discovered they weren't posting and quit sending) have now posted. Now if I could only get Posterous to post pictures from my phone. . . . .

For now, Big Red is back to basketball at Liberty's Vines Center. After almost a month layoff when the kids were home for the holidays, last night's mens game with VMI was a good one.  If only all the games were like that, basketball would be far more profitable than it has been

.

With VMI's national leading scoring machine, and Liberty pushing for the top spot in the Big South Conference, it was the biggest crowd I've seen, eclipsed only by last year's nationally televised game with Clemson. Liberty won, plus scored 100 points for the first time since 2009.

Tank, Laura and I stayed steady all night making it our best game of the year.

Unfortunately, we lost out on the Fishing Expo at Meadow Event Park this weekend.  The promoter sold out all available space and that left us out in the cold.

Tomorrow afternoon is a Women's game against Charleston Southern with a share of 1st place in the Big South Conference at stake. It would be nice to see a similar crowd to last night's game, but I would be shocked.

Next week features three more games at Liberty.

Yesterday, during the final day of the Home and Garden Show at Meadow Event Park, I slipped outside to Big Red to catch a cigarette. I sat on my trusty bar stool that has been in Red for at least two years and I've sat on it about 76,000 times.  This time, the stool objected, collapsed and my fat butt hit the floor with a resounding thud.

I'm not sure what was worse. the bruise to my backside or the bruise to my ego. I am, however, awfully sore this morning. I wonder why?

The show this weekend was not as successful for us as I would have liked. It was a first year show and had pretty good traffic. Unfortunately, the crowd just wasn't a very hungry crowd. I didn't have the best location and was kind of hidden behind two of those big storage containers (8x16x8) that were on display. Also, since it was my first show at Meadow Event Park, people and even the vendors don't know us and that is part of the building process that takes a couple of events to take off.

I'd like to do this show again next time and see if that building doesn't improve my sales.

 The seminars were a huge success led by Andre Viette. He's a big draw among gardening folks in Virginia and the seminar area was packed at every session. He got a chuckle out of my story about planting 31 zucchini plants one year out of sheer stupidity.

I was very impressed with Anthony and Joe of Savor, the food and beverage division of SMG, the concessions folks for MEP. They were fabulous to work for and I'm only sorry my 

commissions to them weren't much larger.

It was great to find some old friends there like Lemonade John, his wife and daughter, and Steve Randall and Scott of TJ's Catering (Helmut's Strudel). And we saw some customers from Richmond shows and even some from back in my old days at the Fredericksburg Auto Auction.

Unfortunately, I found out Friday that I was getting bumped out of my planned appearance next weekend at the Richmond Fishing Expo at MEP.  The promoter just didn't have any space for me

 even though we'd done his show the past four years at Richmond Raceway.  Too bad. That was a really good show for us.

And, to clear up some old business, ie my last post ranting at Dell and Verizon.  The printer finally arrived on Friday, exactly one week from the promise of their sales folks. And, the Verizon technician came Thursday afternoon, after their promised visits of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning, corrected the problem with the incoming phone line and all seems well with our wireless system.  That leaves me to believe I didn't need a new computer, a new printer, or a new modem. It would have been nice to know that on

the first technical support call and would have saved me a lot of money. So, I'm still not happy with either company.

We've got a couple of basketball games this week as the kids are coming back. So after a good cleaning, Big Red will go back over to Liberty. And I get back to scrambling for bookings.

 

I'm one of those people that rarely gets angry. But, when I do, look out. I'm a maniac.

If you have been silly enough to click on one of the many links I use to drive traffic to this site, and you've been here before, I'm sure you've noticed a whole new look. Actually, just about everything is new.

My son, better known as @JasonFalls, engineered the changes and tells me my life will be much easier in the long run and that I will love all of the changes.  He assumes that one can teach an old dog new tricks.  I'm not so sure.

Seriously, Big Red has been moved to Posterous and it gives me some features I haven't had in the past. As both of my regular readers know, when I'm on the road for weeks at a time, I've never been able to post to this site as I don't own a laptop.  My postings all had to wait until I was back at my desk and had the time to think a bit.

Now, I can post from anywhere, anytime via my phone or via email. I can also send pictures and/or videos directly to the site. That makes my site much more accessible to me, and thus, I can annoy you on a more regular basis.

Those aren't the only new things, only the few things that I've learned so far. I still have a lot to learn and over the next few posts, I promise to make lots of mistakes and get Jason to fix them. Also, I have to go back over the archives and correct the things that didn't translate in the switch from Word Press, like paragraphs and caption codes. Eventually, it will be done.

A note about the funnel cake business: Big Red will be at the new state fairgrounds, Meadow Event Park, for the Home and Garden Show next weekend. It will be our first effort there and I hope to start a long and beneficial relationship with Anthony Lombardi and his crew. I'm really excited about this development and will probably try to figure out how to do a post from there. Sweet! 

After ending/starting the year with a bang at Winterfest at Liberty, everything seems to have fallen apart. Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining. Just frustrated. After I got home from a couple of days at Peggy's, my computer started acting up. 

I'd be on line and out of nowhere, I'd loose my signal with a box telling me I had no connectivity. This has happened on occasions before, but it was happening every few minutes. Finally, I called my computer doctor who worked on it and restored it back to factory settings.  This caused me to lose several important things: my calendar and my address book. Files and pictures were saved, all of my contacts gone.

Fired it back up and things were fine for about 15 minutes then I lost my signal again. This time, the doctor recommended I replace it as it was getting some age on it. So, I did and he was able to save again my files and pictures, but address book and calendar were still gone. I went through all of the pain of getting my calendar for the year re-established and began recording the emails I could remember.

My calendar is, again, complete. But I've lost several hundred email addresses, mostly from business contacts but also from family members and friends that I contacted mostly when I posted to these pages. Getting those back will be an on-going pain.

While re-establishing my calendar, I discovered that two of Liberty's football games in 2011 are at the same time as both the Richmond and Martinsville races. That will stress us a bit.

While my signal was better with the new computer, I still lost it periodically and after consulting for the third or fourth time with my service provider, they decided the modem for our in-house wireless network might be the problem and are in the process of sending us a new one. My old computer may not have been the problem at all.

Finally, the first time I tried to print something out, I discovered that my printer isn't compatible with the new computer's Windows 7. So, a new printer is on order. I hate computers. By the way, send me an email to chillie@houseofalls.com so I can get you back in the address book.

Big Red's year come to and end early Saturday morning with the conclusion of Liberty's Winterfest. It was the fourth time we've done the event and by far, the most successful for us.

The event started Thursday night. Laura worked inside, I cooked and Tank was the runner. We did more that night than we did both nights last year. Knowing that New Year's Eve would be nearly double those sales, Laura recruited Richard Parks to join us at the last minute and he was fabulous, handling squeezing and serving lemonade, helping Laura with drinks and serving. By the end of the night, a bunch of records had fallen and Tank had run off 31 pounds. That's not a good thing as he only weighed 76 pounds at the start of the evening.

Seriously, Friday night was the largest non-race event we've ever done.  The two nights was the largest non-race weekend we've ever done. We also sold almost 30 cases of bottled drinks, by far the most we've ever sold at any event. And we almost doubled the Winterfest totals from 2006 which was the largest Winterfest we had done.

Richard, Tank and Laura were AWESOME. I, of course, tried to nap as much as I could. Way past my bedtime both nights. For the year, sales were up by almost 25%. Not bad in another year where the economy sucked.

2011 is starting off on shaky legs.  I have nothing booked until the first race in April except Liberty basketball games (which have been terrible thus far). I'm looking for any kind of bookings anywhere.

Have Funnel Cake Will Travel, my new motto. Also would consider a more permanent set up if I can find it. Please contact me with any thoughts or ideas. Hopefully, a couple of trade shows at Richmond Raceway will come through and I have hopes of getting into the newFairgrounds for some shows. In the meantime, I'll continue my search.