Please note that the first two posts are "sticky" -- scroll down to see more recent posts. Also, many new posts are back-dated, so be sure to check various categories (like humor) for "new" posts.

Blasts from the Past

This section of the Silver Gateways is for things that were once elsewhere, like our Xanga blogs once upon a time, that are being collected for archival purposes. There probably won’t ever be anything really new here :-).

Posts from Morgan’s Xanga blog have been added, but those from Roland’s Xanga will be added as back-dated links to his Justice Log.

Roland’s older political stuff can also be seen on Daily Kos. Those posts may or may not be copied here.

Since Livejournal managed to lose a bunch of images during their scrapbook migration, I’ve moved the stuff from “Morgan’s Memories” over here, with that as the category.

Update, May 2021: Since Roland has decided to revive the Justice Log, I’m moving all of his (and some of my) political posts to The Justice Log 2.0. This includes not just his old Justice Log posts, but some things posted to other blogs. If you notice any broken links, please let me know.

Why another journal?

(Cross-posted from morgan_gw)

I’ve been thinking for a while that a) I need to get rid of a bunch of “stuff” that’s taking up space in our not-very-big house, b) that’s easy to say in the abstract, but lots of that “stuff” has sentimental value, c) it’s really the sentiments, the memories, that have the value, d) so why not write down what the memories are, so they’re not lost, and then get rid of the chachka?

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Holiday Ornaments, 2021-2023

Once again playing catch-up on our yearly holiday ornaments…

2017 ornament - Geo

Geo 2017


It only took me six years to finally get around to printing out a picture to put in the 2017 ornament for our then-new kitty-boy (IIRC purchased from Cost+ World Market).


2021 ornament - Dyskami books

2021 – Writing for Dyskami


2021 was a big year — Roland changed their professional name to Robin Flanagan when they were able to quit their office drone job and start freelance writing full-time, thanks to Dyskami Publishing! The ornament includes the covers for BESM Multiverse and Absolute Power vol. 1 & 2. Custom ornament from (OwlThatMatters) on Etsy.


2022 Ornament - Slava Ukraini

2022 – Slava Ukraini


For 2022, I wanted to buy an ornament from a Ukrainian artist, and I found this beautiful piece by (SoftCloudUA) on Etsy.


2023 Ornament - RIP Mom

2023 – RIP Mom


In Feb. 2023 Covid, RSV, and substandard hospital care caught up with Mom :-(. At least she’s with Dad now. Custom ornament from (giftyave) on Etsy.


2023 ornament extra - Weird Things

2023 extra – Of All The Weird Things…


2023 extra: Not our “yearly” ornament, but this one was just too cute to pass up! Highly customizable ornament from (HomeSweetO) on Etsy.

Post migration — political stuff moved to Justice Log

Most of the political content of Relics has been moved to the Justice Log 2.0 (which will take you to https://silver-gateway.com/etc/justicelog/ if you want to skip the redirect).

The political stuff that’s still here is mostly things that we posted to Street Prophets when that was a thing. Those got moved to Justice Log on a case-by-case basis.

Holiday ornaments, 2017-2020

And we thought 2016 was a dumpster-fire of a year…

2017 ornament - Geo

2017: Geo


In 2017, our old kitty-boy Fuzzy crossed the Rainbow Bridge. It took less than two weeks before deciding that a kitty-less home was unacceptable, and we adopted a new kitty-boy, Geo (the name his previous people gave the shelter, and none of us came up with an alternative). Or, as he’s more commonly called, Boo. In retrospect, we probably should have named him Chewey. 😉 (2023 edit: It only took me six years to finally get around to printing out a picture.)


For 2018, we picked up a Spider-Man ornament somewhere and decided to call it good. Again, no photo yet.

2019 ornament

2019: It wasn’t all bad…


2019: Custom “It wasn’t all bad…” ornament from Etsy (JustFollowYourArt).


2020: Another Etsy ornament, “A Year to Remember Forget” (LovelyCuteStudio). The year was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 ornament 1

2020: A Year to Forget

2020 ornament 2

2020: A Year to Forget

Belated Honeymoon, 2008

By way of getting this all on our site and not just LiveJournal, I’m copying over the “honeymoon” posts from 2008. Since I’m giving them the date they were originally posted to LJ, I’m adding this to point them out.

Holiday ornaments, 2013-2016

Another catch-up post.

2013: The scroll-work is from the header image for Roland’s “Weaver’s Knight” story, to commemorate his web serial.


2014: Cinnamon stick bundle with brass bell (photo pending). The bell reminded me of a string of “Bells of Sarna” that hung in the house for most of my childhood. Mom had had emergency heart surgery earlier in the year, so when I saw this one at Dragonmarsh it seemed a good ornament for the year.


2015: None of us could think of anything remarkable for the year, but I didn’t want to skip it. So, I went as plain as I could manage — black text in Times New Roman.


2016: It was tempting to go with the popular Dumpster Fire for this year, but instead we went a little more subtle. I couldn’t find a weeping Statue of Liberty, and all of the “Weeping Angel” versions of the statue were snarling, so we just went with a Weeping Angel.

Updates and new registrations

I’ve spent a couple of days cleaning up old/bad links, and somehow in the process attracted a lot of spam registrations.

If you’re an actual person with an interest in the site and I deleted your registration, please contact me and let me know. Or, re-register and edit your profile to give me some indication that you’re a reader and not just a spambot :-). Thanks!

Photo of us

I’m posting this here to show it to someone, and may or may not pull it down afterwards :-). This was taken at Dylan’s high school graduation in May 2010 (has it really been three years already?). Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
Dylan high school grad

Holiday ornaments, 2009-2012

When we went to set up the tree this year, I realized I hadn’t made notes for the last few ornaments! So, here they are.

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Holiday Cheer

Another category is being added to the Relics: Humor :-). Over time I will be taking emails that I’ve collected over the years and posting them here, dated when I received the original unless otherwise noted. That way, I can share the joy instead of having these things buried in my email archives. They will all be categorized as “humor” and tagged with whatever else applies, like “cats” or “yule” or such. Enjoy!

Morgan’s Grove

While I may or may not move things from my pbwiki “The Grove“, I wanted to at least have a link to it here. In addition to several articles from Street Prophets, it has a couple of other pieces I think are worthwhile.

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