Sign-off and a beginning of the new

A year ago I had a bright idea to document the store cats of Portland. It would have also be a good marketing for many small businesses with cats. This was when I literally had too much time on my hands.

Then something happened between then and now. I got busy. I started graduate school this spring. I have had one solo art show in February and have been preparing for three that will be opening next week. Aside from this site I maintain many others, as well.

And frankly, ideas ran out -- without influx of new store cat tips. I was counting on a community involvement -- sending in their favorite store cats in their neighborhoods. That did not happen. With Facebook page and Feedburner subscription data, there are only about 30 people who read this site.

Then there is a financial issue as well. I registered the domain name storecats.info -- which is about to lapse soon. I was able to get this cheap for the first year, but the second year it will be a regular price. The reality is storecats.info has been underutilized.

So I am shutting this down.

In the mean time, however, I have an alternate idea. This will be a participatory project called Kitties in the Cities. The Kitties in the Cities makes use of a blog, a wiki, Twitter and Facebook to maximize participation. You will be informed of this development soon here, but be sure to bookmark this site as "storecats.blogspot.com" rather than "storecats.info" or "www.storecats.info".