Serendipitous Occurrence and Strategic Interferences
Serendipitous Occurrence
One of those serendipitous occurrences happened. One day. years ago, when I was slip-casting and we had a large quantity of baby penguin molds created for a Smithsonian order, for no particular reason, I decided to produce them in quantity. I realized that I have enough baby penguins on to sell as fundraising rewards for a nonprofit organization or as corporate gifts.
The serendipitous coincidence is that I clicked on an email from LinkedIn and up pops up is a job ad for Publishing Assistant, Penguin Workshop (Open to Remote) for Penguin in Children Books.
Universe, am I supposed to apply? It’s very competitive but if it doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time, why not? The job description sounds as complex as working in Andersen Design. Meanwhile, can I approach Penguin Books on other levels?
Penguin Publishing has a lot in common with Andersen Design, Penguin Books was founded in 1936 Penguin Books was originally founded in the UK in 1935 by Allen Lane, who envisioned a collection of quality, attractive books affordable enough to be “bought as easily and casually as a packet of cigarettes.” source
That is similar to Andersen Design’s mission to create a handmade product affordable to the middle classes. I like how they present themselves and that they give to social justice causes. Bit is it real? There is no roadmap or how to proceed in contacting them but I need to reach out and find support networks.
Enough of that, lest I bore my reader!
Today I am offering the Baby Penguin retail at a 20% discount using coupon code 5QNNIEKY6AKL
Talking about subscribers, my newsletter does not adhere to conventional wisdom. According to the top content providers to be successful one must publish every day, if not several times a day. Since I usually publish once a week to ten days, I have come to realize that the part of the cycle where I pick up the most new subscribers begins after the open rate has slowed down. Lately I am posting too frequently to give the subscriber cycle a chance to kick in. I will be getting back to my former cycle soon but for now I am just going with the flow.
I saw a post today about the top ten AI writers and I misinterpreted it to mean newsletters written by AI when It actually mean humans writing newsletters about AI, the latest new thing, following bitcoin and NFTs. It occurred to me that AI is the epitome of conventional wisdom. It picks up strings of words that are commonly out there and spins them back. Conventional wisdom is just conventional, an individual’s wisdom has to spring from lived experience.
Strategic Interferences
Continuing my narration of testifying against the Boothbay “replacement” school charter in a public hearing at the Legislature on May 9.
There were obstacles to presenting my testimony every step of the way- First the fact that the boards would not publicly state where the public could read the new charter. Then there was not an announcement that there would be a public hearing at the legislature encouraging anyone who wanted to testify. The boards clearly wanted to keep it amongst themselves. Then, once I was registered, I realized shortly before the hearing that I had not been sent a zoom link, Once I got the zoom link it did not work at first and I had to contact tech. Then the meeting started about an hour and a half late but there was no explanatory message other than “The meeting will start soon”. I was already in touch with tech, who explained it might be delayed for a long time. Then I was connected and my audio icon displayed and I was on unmute but when it was my turn to speak, I could not be heard and right at that moment I had to figure out that there was a third control on Zoom that I have never had to use before on any other Zoom conference. On that control my audio was turned off and magically turned back on just in the knick of time. I am not entirely sure how that happened.
Afterward I received a strange email that said my documents could not be sent to the Legislature because the size was too large for an email attachment. I had not sent an email but had uploaded the docs on the portal and received confirmations for both. I am still working through that one.
In the past I have observed that I have issues downloading files from the Maine Gov corporate name search but only for files associated with Boothbay, including The New Heights Group. It seems something fishy is going on.

In other news so glad to hear that Boothbay Harbor rejected the ordinances that were “aligned with state law” It takes a village- glad to see Boothbay Harbor is acting like one.
Also good news that the Working Waterfront Park will be making an appeal in superior court against the Boothbay Harbor Appeals Board ruling that completely closed the park down over a technicality- and on an expedited basis. More on all of that later. I am off my usual self today.