2007

Cook’s Illustrated is one of my favorite magazines at the moment (I’m living off of my mom’s old editions since it’s not available in Italy).  Right now they have a free trial membership to their web edition!  Exciting!

It’s a clarifying experience to overhaul your website every now and again; it forces you to think about why you ever bothered to start writing in the first place. 

My endeavors into information technology started when I was a senior in high school. My English teacher, Mr. Crowe, introduced us to a multimedia presentation software called Hyperstudio.  I can’t even remember what my project was about anymore…I imagine it had something to do with Disco, which I was utterly obsessed with at the time.  We had to incorporate a certain number of images, sounds, handmade graphics, movie clips, etc. and present a ten slide presentation on a topic of our choice to the class.  I remember being fascinated by all of the groovy special effects and cool transitions that hyperstudio had to offer.  (I’m sure that now, seven years later, hyperstudio has been completely superceded by some even more advanced software).

Then in college, further inspired by my best friend Carrie and her website, and after taking a free extracurricular class about Fireworks, another graphic design program, I decided to branch out on my own.  I created Shiraterria  and decided to take a college course called Computers in English Studies.  My final project for that class was a hypertext poem (which is crying out for an over-haul).

During one summer I worked for the Summer Recreation Department in LeRoy and decided to put on a talent show with the kids I had been doing arts and crafts and yoga with all summer.  We didn’t have access to hyperstudio (it was probably already outdated at that point!!) so I decided to use Powerpoint to create backdrops for each kid’s talent (to be viewed on the Big Screen at the LeRoy Theater!).   I think my favorite was the background that Tyler Murray created for his juggling egg act.  It consisted of a dancing chicken and the words “Bawk!  Baaawwwk!” flying in at different angles and velocities.

And that’s how moltenchocolate.com came about!  Originally it was just a place for me to write (being and English major I recognized the importance of writing and rewriting as much as possible).  MoltenChocolate gave me a place to tune my writing voice and style and practice all of the things I was learning in my English classes.  I’ve always loved working with color and doing crafts, but now that I’m getting older, I can’t really justify spending hours making glitter-covered popsicle stick frames, so web design has become the main outlet for this creativity.

When I graduated from Bingo in 2003 I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this creative space behind and so Moltenchocolate evolved into a sort of Friendship Portal that I use to keep in touch with family and friends and continue to use as an outlet for that creative craftiness that would spend hours with sequins and beads and oil paints every day if it could. 

And so with this new overhaul I vow to try and write at least once every other day and to no longer supress all of this inner craftiness that needs an outlet!