The Brainstorming Warehouse

Hello and welcome! My name is Valerie and I am a computer user and developer from way back in the 80’s.  I remember weeks upon weeks of playing Lemonade Stand in a computer lab, complete with 5 1/2″ floppies and the dreaded Blue Screen of Death risk, let alone having used a Timex Sinclair 2000, complete with cassette tapes as the data storage medium and loading mechanism.

My hope and intent with this website is to:

1. Display a variety of skills and talents (creative and logistics) ready to be customized to a client’s needs;

2. Educate the consumer of digital products and services to enhance the client’s experience, especially once they own a web site;

3. Contribute to online and offline conversations in ways that constructively contributes to both the civic and civil sides of our discourse and disagreements; and,

4. Remain an active Watchcat over the acts and actions of those in government offices, especially at the municipal level and most frequently involving municipal code books, agendas and meeting minutes.

Contact me for more information on how I can help you with your online goals this summer and beyond.

This website is home to my basic Portfolio Of Capabilities. 

The blog contains materials of value and relevance to past, present and future clients as it relates to everything and anything online.

The #MyCivilDuty hash tag project has already spun off two projects, one retired and one active.

The #MidlothianValerie brand is a style of both  investigative journalism and hard-hitting opinions on discoveries made using public documentation.

A few skills that won’t show up while you view the site:

1.  I have data entry rates up to 90+ wpm

2.  I have extensive experience cleaning up poorly rendered data from an OCR scan

3.  I have extensive experience cleaning up both customer and product databases, as well as tagging talents.

Contact me today for more details on how you can benefit from my creative and logistics skills.

Thank you in your interest about the #MyCivilDuty hashtag!

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to participate in a variety of projects in the direction of “civil” duty, rather than “civic,” which I selfishly prefer (only ’cause the artist in me makes me feel this way!)

When the pandemic first rolled over our nation, I decided to buy this domain name and then publish ideas and ways we could improve our quality of lives–despite the restrictions and risks.

For almost 10 months, it displayed a schedule of local food pantries and while the need for a trustworthy source is still ever-present, I couldn’t maintain it any longer in any reliable manner.

Next came a website regarding Crime Free Housing ordinances, now located at www.midlothianvalerie.com. 

I am now in the process of launching a new #MyCivilDuty project relating to local government meetings and the importance for the public to have access to the information that comes from one of these meetings.

And if you are looking for  ideas and ways to create your own #MyCivilDuty project, I have many seeds we can go through to see if one can be customized to your own passions.

If you would like to learn more about the #MyCivilDuty project, please feel free to contact me.

When I first started publishing materials about the Village of Midlothian, Illinois, I did not set out to create a new identity, let alone a brand, with my efforts.

At a certain point, I began wrestling with whether or not I could live with the word “Midlothian” forever being attached to my political efforts–and I decided that I could.

Since 2006, I have been more of a WatchCat, rather than a watchdog when it comes to the acts of local government officials. From over 200 videos of public meetings all the way to redesigning and republishing the entire Midlothian Municipal Code Book, I published thousands of entries under this brand name.

My approach has always centered around first having some form of public record to work from before forming strong-willed and sometimes strongly-worded observations about the record. This approach helped lead to multiple PAC office violations being halted, uncovered elements of fraud at all levels of our government process, including 30 forged signatures on a candidate’s petitions.

While I don’t have the opportunity to perform the in-depth research I used to perform on a daily basis, there will always be rhyme and reason for me to keep the brand alive and active.

I still accept leads for stories with the same requirements as always. If you can’t point me towards a public record I can get at, I can’t write anything credible about what you want the public to think about.

Please use the contact form on the website for any leads, questions, comments, etc.