Tag Archives: YouTube

Montana Book Festival 2021

October 21, 2021Montana Book Festivalauthors, books, China Reevers, COVID, Eileen Garvin, Missoula, Montana Book Festival, reading, YouTubeKaren Buley

A few months ago, the Montana Book Festival 2021 (MBF) was on tap to offer in-person and online events. Then in August, rising COVID rates in Missoula County compelled the MBF Board of Directors to shift the entire Festival to virtual events.

On Saturday, October 16, China Reevers hosted the Montana Book Festival 2021 conversation with Eileen Garvin and me—“With a Little Help from My Friends: Writing Fictional Friendships.” I loved chatting with Eileen about our books—The Music of Bees and Perimenopausal Women with Power Tools—and the craft of writing. Our respective readings were highlights as well. In addition, the virtual format reached a wider audience, and the event was later uploaded to the Montana Book Festival’s YouTube channel.

Perhaps you didn’t have the opportunity to tune in. Or maybe you did, but you would like to revisit these questions:

Amy Knutson gourd and Karen Buley mirror

How did gourds, mirrors and a tweet shape Perimenopausal Women with Power Tools? What sounds like the parking lot behind the 7-Eleven? What might a budding orthopedic surgeon practice on? How long do honeybees live?

Find out the answers to these questions and more on the video below!

And invite me to visit your book club here.

Thank you, YouTube

June 21, 2013YouTubeGagnam Style, libraries, reading, Windows Live Movie Maker, Word Press, YouTubeKaren Buley

In the past several months, YouTube has become one of my go-to sources for information. My old website, created more than six years ago, was in desperate need of being updated. YouTube videos, along with books from the Missoula Public Library, schooled me on how to create a website using WordPress.

As you peruse this site, you can judge for yourself the value of my self-taught lessons. I admit, I am pleased with the results.

I also learned how to use Windows Live Movie Maker by watching YouTube videos. Not only did I learn how to make a movie, I learned how to create snapshots from existing footage. Again, after looking at the picture that follows, you can be the judge.

Nearly three weeks ago, I was introduced to the Prancercise video on YouTube. Then, it had more than three million views. I later learned that’s not so many, though to me, three million is a lot.

Days later as we joined thousands of Seattle Sounders fans marching into Century Link Field, my goal was to start a prancercising contingent. My accompanying friend and family told me they’d watch, and scooted away as I began my mission. I didn’t think it would be hard to find others who were willing to Prancercise with me.

I was wrong. It wasn’t that the three people I asked were unwilling, it was that none of them had seen the video nor knew what I was talking about. My three strikes reinforced what I’d been told earlier that day. Three million really isn’t that many in the YouTube world.

Perhaps if I had tried to rally some fans to dance Gagnam Style, I would’ve had better luck. The problem was, though I’d watched P S Y’s video, as have—I recently learned—more than 1.6 billion others, I don’t know his dance. I don’t know how to Prancercise, either, but I was willing to give it a try.

Since I’ve learned what I needed to about WordPress and Windows Live Movie Maker, it might be time to resurrect P S Y’s video.

YouTube, thanks for giving me the opportunity to laugh. To learn. And to share.

Nursing and Books

December 31, 2012Nursingbooks, Eric, mothers, nurses, Nurses on the Run, Word Press, writing, YouTubeKaren Buley

I have loved books for as long as I can remember. And for almost as long, I have been fascinated with the world of nursing. My mother sparked my interest with her stories when I was a young girl. Later, countless Cherry Ames books fueled my desire to become a nurse. As did my candy striping days. I felt important beyond measure when I walked past the bold-lettered sign at Saint James Hospital: NO VISITORS UNDER THE AGE OF SIXTEEN and knew that, though only fourteen, I had a job to do.

Fast forward to 2012. I’m an OB nurse, I would say. And a writer, I added in recent years.

The former has ended. The latter has not. Less than three weeks have passed since my exit interview for the nursing job I held for nearly twenty-one years. It felt bittersweet as I walked into Community Medical Center to offer parting words that day. Bittersweet, knowing I would be replacing the wonder of birth with the wonder of books.

I said goodbye to my old website this month, too, as library books and You Tube videos taught me about WordPress. Looking at the photos our older son, Eric, helped me stage for my website years ago induced pensive feelings. Those photos captured much of my and my mother’s essence. And though neither of us is practicing right now, we will always be nurses.

So I share the photo that graced my website for six years and helped garner stories for Nurses on the Run.

I share one of our alternates, too. It’s a poignant reminder of the boxes of childhood books my parents moved on my behalf. Not once, but twice.