Have you seen the pie house?

Just a quick post about an art show

I recently went with Lisa and her family to an art show in the Botanical Gardens in the Chicago suburbs.  I’m a sucker for a good art show, which I suppose is why they have them in the first place.  While I was thoroughly enjoying myself walking through neatly manicured vegetation, I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was to have a botanical garden in the first place, let alone an art fair in the gardens.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think its great that in many places there are botanical gardens that safeguard space for the enjoyment of nature… I just think we’re all missing the boat.  Why don’t we make botanics more commonplace in our daily lives? Why aren’t we funding the creation of walking trails through nature and safeguarding what we already have instead of commercializing natural undeveloped land and building small single serving gardens for our enjoyment?  Thoughts?

Essential Plugins for WordPress Websites

Recently I’ve been a huge proponent of WordPress.  It’s versatile, easy to use, and extremely powerful.  But without the right plugins, your WordPress site might not be operating at its full potential.  Here is my list of essential and non-essential plugins for WordPress.  Expect updates as I find more.

Essentials

Akismet – Awesome spam blocker.
Google XML Sitemaps – For search engine optimization.
Greg’s High Performance SEO – For search engine optimization.
WP Super Cache - Make pages load faster.
WPtouch – Make your site mobile.
XML Sitemap Feed – For search engine optimization.
Fast Secure Contact Form – Add a contact form to your website.
Jetpack by WordPress.com - A bunch of social features and add-ons.

Good but not necessary

Mingle Forum – Create a full featured forum.
GD Star Rating - Enable star ratings on posts.
Q and A - Create an FAQ