Friday This-and-That

First off, yes, I am posting this after 4pm - it's been a bit of a busy day these last couple of days, so I haven't had a whole bunch of time on the computer. ;)

We got a lot of random housework done (including putting all the VHS tapes into two shelves of a bookshelf, two deep), and over the weekend we should be getting a bit more done.

One of the projects that we're working on is cutting a, well, bush which has turned into more of a sprawling tree back down to its size. Just as a gauge of how bad the tree is entangled in itself, I cut a branch that goes over my head apart. However, it didn't fall, in fact it didn't move at all. However, the next branch that gets cut will loosen both branches.

I've already run once to clear a falling branch, I can do it again. I hope. ;)

I've talked about the fact that I live by the railroad, and that there is a box right here. In the last few days, they've been doing some work on the box apparently. The other day, I heard a train go through and the box announced the temperature as minus 42. Now, a crew truck has shown up in the same place that it had back in July and they're doing some repairs to the box.

I say repairs because as there is a train going over the sensor, it put out an alert only seconds after the engines crossed over it. I think the fella manually turned it off to keep everyone from hearing the beeping for the duration of the train. ;)

I'm heading out to walk now, since the train has a caboose on the end of it!

Sometimes Free Ain't Free

A couple of weeks ago, I read a blog post about an offer of Free Hosting through a company (which I had not heard of at the time, but they claim to be the "World's Leader in Hosting Services") called EasyCGI. At first, I was sure there was a catch, but when I checked out the page which outlines the promotion, they say that there are "No gimmicks or hidden costs."

My experience, however, has not been as smooth as their promotion would have it make out to be.

After doing a bit of searching and finding out that they were on the up-and-up, I decided to take the plunge. While the first step of entering my domain name, and telling them to keep it on my current registrar was quick and easy, my whole experience fell apart on the second step - giving my credit card information. The first time I provided the information, my card was declined. I thought that, maybe, I made a mistake on a number, or on my expiration date.

However, all of that was correct, so I did it again. Once more, my card was declined.

I should have given up at this point and contacted support concerning the problem. However, I tried it a couple of more times, and instead of getting a card declined message, I received a message saying to contact support.

So, I then contacted support using the web form that they have available. After submitting my message, they said that I would get a reply within 24 hours.

Sunday passes, and there is no reply from them. However, I did hear from my credit card provider - the fraud department called asking to verify that I was, in fact, the person who was trying to use my card with EasyCGI. I had asked them what the issue with the declinations was, but they could not give any information on that.

Then, on Monday, I decide to call EasyCGI's toll-free support line. I get through to one of their staff and told him about my situation. He said that they don't handle their own promotions and that there is some outside vendor who provides them, but he'd look at the situation and send an email to me about it.

On Monday night, after receiving no email back from that person, I then attempted to contact the "24-hour" support, only to be sent to their messagebank. Based on my experience with the web form, I decided that it would be better to keep trying to call. Then, I went to the Live Chat feature on the website. I told the person about my situation, and the immediate reply was to call or email the support department. I did some more looking around the website, and spotted a note that said if you weren't satisfied with the service, you should send an email with a subject line directing the email to a manager.

I then sent this email -

To whom it may concern,

I have been attempting to sign up for the August 2007 Free Hosting for
1 year promotion (details here - {snip website address for promotion} )
with your company since Saturday. The first two times I attempted to
sign up, my credit card was declined. After that, I have received a
generic error, with the only remedy being to contact support.

On Saturday, I contacted support via the Web form, and was informed
that I would receive an answer back within 24 hours. That time came
and went without any reply from your end.

I then called support this morning, spoke to, I believe, {an employee} -
I didn't make a note of his name, but he was decent to work
with. After informing him of the issues I had and giving him my email
address, he informed me that he would send me an email about this
issue. It has been over 16 hours since I called and have not heard
anything further back.

I would like to sign up for the hosting service, but I am unsure if I
will be able to. I would like to have some answers to my issues before
I attempt to sign up again.

I then waited a few hours, and after about 12 hours with no reply to my email, I decided to call the toll-free number once more - this time going through the Billing Department. The lady I spoke to was polite with me while I explained my situation. She looked up my record (by email address) and noted my call on Monday. However, what she said and what I was told on Monday had changed into two different things. She said that she had spoken to the person I spoke to on Monday, and he said that I was supposed to contact the vendor sponsoring this promotion, and that there was nothing about an email being sent to me.

When I asked about why I was still receiving the error, she said that I had been put on an IP blacklist for trying to sign up numerous times with "bad" information. She suggested that I send an email to the support department with the last four digits of my card, the IP address I used, and my email address. She also surmised that changing IP addresses might work to allow me to register.

So, I decided to change IP addresses and tried to sign up again, only to get the same generic error to contact support.

A couple of hours after that, I received this reply to my email:

Hi,

Your credit card ending in 'xxxx' was automatically blocked by our system after numerous failed attempts. We have removed this block allowing the signup to go through on another attempt. This ordinarily happens if there is a decline on an authorization attempt for the initial amount on the credit card. While our billing does not run until the first of each month, on the initial signup, the credit is checked for available funds. Additionally, there are conflicts in contact information that may also cause these errors. While our agents cannot extend a promotional signup, if you continue to encounter related errors, please contact one of our helpful support representatives toll free at 1-866-xxx-xxxx (internationally at +1.xxxxxxxxxx) for further assistance. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please let us know if you have additional questions.

To be honest, it makes more sense to me that the card would be blocked rather than my IP address. However, I find the explanation of the decline for the credit card a little mystifying. This being a free offer, and my not requiring the services of their domain registration, it would be more than reasonable for anyone to think that they would only need to have the card number for future billing - i.e. after the free offer finished. As far as checking for available funds - it's a common practice for gas stations to put a hold of up to $75 on a card when you go to buy gas, then refund the amount that you didn't spend after a couple of days.

I will also note that there is a minor inconsistency between my actual contact information and my "card holder" information - my address consists of four words, and the one on file with the bank has three, and my card uses my middle initial. I've never had a problem with the contact information in the past for other online vendors I've worked with, however.

As far as the information I was given on the phone, I'm still curious as to who this "vendor" sponsoring this promotion is, as I have found a bunch of sponsored posts, all of which link to a page at www.easycgi.com, which in turn redirects to the promotion page. The more recent posts about this have had links that go through tinyurl to EasyCGI's promotion page.

I'd contact the vendor, but I'm fairly certain it is EasyCGI who are sponsoring it - since when you go to sign up for their service, they have information about the promotion on the signup page. In fact, it's the first thing you see when you go to enter your domain information.

At this point, I've been through quite a bit of frustration, but I need to stand up for myself and for the fact that there are a lot of people out there promoting what is, really, a once-in-a-long-time opportunity. I'm sure that I am not the only one who has had similar issues with trying to sign up for this promotion.

Last Thursday, I sent a copy of this post, along with the note below as a reply to the support person who had written to me on Tuesday.

Thank you for letting me know. Unfortunately, I have had such a difficult time with signing up for the promotional offer that I will be letting everyone know about my situation. This includes posting the text below on my personal blog, along with visiting as many blogs as I can that have posted about the promotion and letting them know of the issues I have had.

Is there anything that you might be able to do to get this situation sorted out? If so, please get in touch with me as soon as possible so that we can make it so.

However, I have not received a reply to that email in a week, so now I am posting about my experiences. If you've tried to taken advantage of this offer and have had a similar experience, I'd like to know about it. Also, if you have signed up for the service, I'd like to hear how it's been going for you.

Honestly, I'm surprised that they weren't able to find a solution to the problem. I went into this wanting to be a customer of theirs, but after all of this, I can safely say that I'll stick to some of the more popular hosting services out there.

Back to School Shopping...out of control!

This week's Hump Day Hmm is all about school. There are a lot of stories that I could tell about my days at school, but I want to take a different look at going back - the school supply list. It's one of those things that are a big flashing sign to tell you that it's time to go back; they have the lists available at most major stores now, unlike in my day when they'd just mail you a list and you'd get on with it.

Of course, this is designed for the parent who lost their shopping list sometime during the summer (or for the parent of the kids who didn't want to go back to school...I remember being terrified about going back to school for the second grade, each year after that got better though...until college ;)), but anyone walking by can grab one, two or half a dozen.

I can not honestly remember ever having a list of things required for school as long as they have for this school year. Of all the junk I've kept over the years, I've not kept my school supplies lists, but I'm going to try to do a comparison based on what I recall. ;)

4K

This stands for 4-year-old Kindergarten. When I started school, they had a different term for this - "preschool". I didn't go to preschool, but I'm guessing that the required supplies were minimal - maybe a small bookbag and the occasional snack for the class.

Now, you have schools giving these toddlers (really, I think 4-year-olds are still toddlers) lists of items to bring in that include scissors, folders, backpacks, and even glue sticks. There's one school that is giving parents the option of bringing in gift cards to Wal-Mart for photo processing. Last time I checked, photo processing at Wal-Mart cost 19¢ per photo - 100 photos would then be $19. It makes me wonder how many photos they're going to print out over the year...

Kindergarten

I think when I went to kindergarten, we might have had to have a backpack, but it was rarely, if ever, used. We might have needed to bring in a pack of crayons, but other than that I don't remember a big shopping list like they have today. Then again, when I was in Kindergarten, it was only in the afternoon, not an all-day affair like you have today.

I think it's mostly due to that single change to all-day school that the schools are now asking for a list of items that you would normally see for first grade, or even second grade. The schools are now asking for kids to bring in upwards of 25 glue sticks (the rationale is that buy them now when they're cheap - that makes sense actually; it's something you see across many of the supply lists).

As you move up through the grades, there are some interesting similarities. For example, in first grade, schools are now asking that the pencils all be sharpened so that the teachers can give out pencils as the students use them. During the six weeks I was in first grade (which is a story for another day ;)), I was allowed to have my own pencils; if we needed a new one, we just got up and sharpened it, if it was a new pencil, we just had to sharpen it for a bit longer.

I also remember that by the time I was in third grade, we were allowed to have erasable pens - blue or black, however, most of us chose to stick to pencils; now, you have to be in 5th grade before being allowed a blue or black pen, but if you're in 4th grade, you have to have a red pen (or pencil). Ahh, the days of "hand your paper to the person behind you; here are the answers". I don't know if it was just me, or a lot of people, but there was a distinct style of writing 100 on a paper - you made the one, and then wrote the "00" as if it were two capital Os, making something that looked like this -

Another trend that I've noticed is that schools are now asking for color coded folders. What happened to getting just x number of folders? I remember getting folders of different colors, then labeling them with the subject; we all used different colors, and different designs. I guess that the concept of individuality is now frowned upon in schools?

Moving up to Middle School - grades 6-8 in my area - you have pretty much the same requirements as elementary school, but there are some added items. For example, they tell you the exact calculator you are to have for school - TI-30X IIS Advanced Scientific, needed for all 3 years; I had a Casio calculator that did the same things; I bet it was cheaper as well.

In 6th grade, you need to have a 3-ring zipper binder (so much for all the prohibitions of trapper keepers for all the previous years, now they tell you that you need one!), also 2 dry erase markers and a set of highlighters. 7th graders are required to bring 2 inch-and-a-half binders, a compass, graph paper, and a composition notebook. In 8th grade, you need to have two binders - one at 1½ inches, one at 2 inches. They also require a jump drive - at least they haven't said how big it has to be, but it is an improvement over a floppy disk. ;)

I think I made it through middle school using maybe 2 binders - a small one in 6th grade, then a larger one in 8th grade. Interestingly, there is no prohibition on the type of paper that students can bring for middle school - it used to be that you were only allowed to have wide rule (and it is still that way for students in elementary school). Of course, I always went to college rule since it was more efficient, and my teachers never made an issue of it ;)

Fortunately, by the time you get to high school, there are no lists of things to bring for class. You're pretty much expected to have a general idea of what to bring. If you're needed to bring other supplies in, the teacher tells you. As it is, one of the common restrictions - no wheels - was one that I ignored in high school, being one of the first with a wheeled backpack (which I later abandoned for a more traditional bookbag, one that I use every day now when I go out to walk).

What I'd love to know is what were you asked to bring to school when you were there - was it the laundry list, or just bring the basics? If you have kids in school now, do the required items seem ridiculous compared to when you were in school?

How-to: Add a Google Search Box to your blog

Here's a quickie for those of you who want to add a Google search box to your blog or website. It's a lot easier than one would think. ;)

I finally got the right idea of what I was looking for after haggling with Google's Ajax search API - if you want to have an almost fully functioning mini-Google on your site, definitely go ahead and install that. I will warn you though, it can get a bit confusing.

Instead of that, I finally found what I was looking for - a Google search box for my blog. This code is based on the code that is posted on Dave Taylor's site; I've modified it to put the Google Search button on the bottom, after the option section, instead of between the search box and the options.

To add the code to your Blogger blog - if you're using "New" Blogger - make a new Widget - an HTML/Javascript widget and give it whatever title you'd like. Edit it and put this code in, substituting your site's address (without http://) and name where indicated.

<center><form action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get">

<input maxlength="255"
value="" name="q" size="31" type="text"/><br/>
<input value="" name="sitesearch" type="radio"/>
The Web
<input checked
value="YOUR BLOG ADDRESS" name="sitesearch" type="radio"/>YOUR BLOG'S NAME<br/>
<input value="Google Search" type="submit"/>

</form></center>

If you find that the search box doesn't fit into your site's style (i.e. it's too wide, or too narrow) - just make the number in the size section (currently 31) larger or smaller, depending on your needs.

Save the changes, and you're set with a Google search box on your blog! ;)

Demystifying Blogger Template Editing

One of the most common criticisms of Blogger templates is that they're somewhat plain. This is somewhat true, however, it is also one of the biggest misconceptions. If you know where to look, you will find that Blogger's templates (yes, even the ones in the Templates screen) are almost infinitely changeable to suit any style you might want to have for your blog.

The easiest way that you can change the look of your blog doesn't even involve changing templates - you can change the colors and fonts used on your blog by using the aptly-named Fonts and Colors screen in your blog's dashboard. There, you can change literally anything from the color to the text on your page to the color people see when they put their mouse over a link. Each template will have a different set of items that can be changed; for example, on my template (tictac blue) - I can change the text colors, but the background color is set.

When you first view the Fonts and Colors section, you will see the list of changeable elements on the top, and your blog on the bottom. The really cool thing is that when you change something in the top, it is automatically reflected in the bottom half of the screen. These changes, unless you click Save Changes, are only seen by you - not by people who happen to visit your blog at the time.

If you don't like the changes you've made, you can clear the edits you've made, reverting your blog back to how it was when you started, or you can revert it back to the default colors for your template. However, note that this will revert all the colors to the defaults set out in the template code.

You can also use the Shuffle blog colors link to take the colors that you've used already and shuffle them up. To be honest, I think you'd be better off manually choosing colors than using shuffle - I've done it a couple of times and haven't liked the resulting look.



Something that deserves some special attention is the section in the middle where you select colors. There are two "special" groups of colors that blogger puts in to give you a bit of an assist - Colors from your blog and Colors that match your blog. To the right of that is a set of 65 colors which are generally good colors for a blog.

To the right of that is the Edit color hex code box - that's if you have a specific color you've chosen - likely from one of the great color-picking sites out there - and have a hex code for it. The range of colors that you can have in hex goes from #000000 - black to #ffffff - white, with all other colors represented in between.

Further down the list of items that you can change, you will begin to see some Font-related items - generally, Text font, Page Header, etc. Here, Blogger gives you a choice of six basic "universal" fonts to choose from - Arial, Courier, Georgia, Times (New Roman), Trebuchet (MS), and Verdana. While these fonts are alright, a couple of them are somewhat plain to me - Arial and Courier. Arial is one of those "I see it everywhere" fonts, and Courier makes things look like a typewriter generated it.

Aside from the actual typeface, Blogger give you the option of setting it to bold and/or italic, and you can change the size of the font to be as small or as big as you want. Of course, though, you don't want to have your font so small or so large that it's unreadable by your visitors. ;)

Edit HTML

However, Fonts and Colors is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to changing up your template. The quickest (and for a lot of folks, most intimidating) way to change your blog's look is by using the Edit HTML screen.

The reason I say that it can be intimidating is that this is the raw code that is used to build your blog's page. If you make a mistake, you can throw off the whole appearance of your blog. I know that even though I have experience in fixing blogs, I've made things disappear completely from blogs while editing templates!

The first thing that you should do when you're working on the edit HTML screen - especially if you're doing a major change to your blog's design - is Download the Full Template. This will give you a file that contains everything in the Edit Template box, so that if you do make a major mistake, you will be able to reupload your template from your computer and be back working again in almost no time.

In the future, I'll explore some of the more advanced features of the new "widget" based functions of Blogger code, but I'd like to feature some of the more common requests I get about templates.

Changing your blog's width

There are a variety of reasons why you would want to change the width of your blog - it might only be taking up a small part of your screen. You may have a header graphic that is too wide for your current template, causing it to "hang" over the rest of your blog.

One important thing to note is that all templates are different, so the exact text that you'll find in your code will be different to the code that I have. However, there are some key words that should be in all templates.

For this example, I'll use the code from my blog's template as it is today.



The section that contains my blog's width information is called "layout structure" - there are a number of subsections here that outline the styles of various parts of my blog.

The first section - #outer-wrapper - controls the overall width of the blog - on some templates, it may have a different name such as #content-wrapper. In general, the width of this section will be the largest number, as it is for the whole blog.

My template has a special background (to the left), so there is a separate #content-wrapper section to tell your browser that, while the blog is 847 pixels wide, the content can only be 763 pixels wide, otherwise it would cover the background image.

The next sections are based on the width set out in your outer or content wapper sections. #main (or #main-wrapper, #main_wrap) is the area covered by your blog's posts, and #sidebar (#sidebar-wrapper, #sidebar_wrap) is for the sidebar. If your template is a 3-column template, you will have two sidebar sections - called either left/right_wrap, or sidebar1/sidebar2_wrap.

Generally, the widths, along with the padding and margin numbers across the main and sidebar sections will add up to the width in the outer or content sections. In my example, there is actually a space of 4 pixels in the page somewhere.

To change the width of your blog, you need to make sure of a couple of things first - that you don't have a template like TicTac which has a background image that sets the width of the page to a specific dimension, and that you have an image of what you want your blog to look like.

For example, when I was editing a template from fixed widths to variable widths (you can check out what it looks like here; it is on a dark background), I sat down with a piece of paper and drew out the page as I wanted to see it. I then calculated the various percentages I'd have to use in order to make the page look good.

Another tip is to check your blog's stats to see what resolution your visitors are using - the vast majority of users now are on either 1024x768 or 1280x1024 pixel monitors, at least for my blog. You might have a situation where a majority of visitors are using 800x600. If that is the case, then you should design your blog to be around 785 pixels wide, so that people don't see the horizontal scrollbar.

Now that you've determined the width you want to set your blog, it's time to save your blog's template to your computer if you have not done so already. After saving, you can then begin your changes.

When I adjust a blog's template, I always start by changing the outer-wrapper or content-wrapper (the largest width in your template). That lays the foundation for the rest of your changes. For the purposes of this demonstration, I'll change the width in my blog to 1000 pixels.

This is what the blog looks like in preview, after just changing the outer-wrapper to 1000 pixels. You'll notice that the whole page has shifted to the left, but none of the content has moved.

The next change will be to make the content-wrapper 916 pixels wide (the reason is that the left and right sides are equally off-set by 42 pixels to accommodate the background graphic.

Here's what it looks like after that change. The main blog has not moved, but the sidebar has gone all the way to the right - that is caused by the bit of text in the sidebar code "float: right;" which tells the browser to put the sidebar as far right as is possible.

Next, I'll change the main section to be 635 pixels wide. (1000 - 84 - 259 (sidebar) - 20 (sidebar padding) == 637, then I rounded down to have a more "round" number).

This is what it now looks like - the main blog now runs into the area that used to be the sidebar, while the sidebar still has the end of the background image going straight down the middle of the graphic. All in all, it's not a good look. And even at 1024x768, there's a horizontal scrollbar - that can be attributed to the fact that the window isn't maximized, so there are a few extra pixels being taken up by the window border.

For comparison, this is what the page looks like at 800x600.

The important thing to note here is that if you were to have come to my blog while I was doing this experiment, you would not have noticed any changes. This is because I always, always preview any changes I make to my blog before saving the template. Since this was just an example of how to change your template, I can now go and click the Clear Edits button, and confirm that I want to discard all the unsaved changes.

Further Reading

These are a couple of guides for colors, you can put the hex figures into the colors and fonts screen under color hex code:

• Hex Hub HTML Color Codes - they've got the colors split into different groups, such as warms, greens, blues and purples. There's also a color mixer, but it doesn't work in Firefox.
• VisiBone Webmaster's Color Lab - here, you have what is known as the 216-color Webmaster's palette, or 216 colors that are "web-safe" - they allow you to see how a combination of colors works as each color you choose is set as the background and the foreground for any other colors you choose

For some more insight on how to put together your template, check out Snoskred's article Blog Design - Open Your Eyes.

The Week in Walks, etc. Vol 5

It's time again to recap the week in walking, along with the other changes in my world. As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger. ;)

Monday, 20th August

Another shot of some of the beads of water hanging off the needles of a pine tree; you can also see some of the webbing created by a spider.

Yet another wet day, but it wasn't too wet. When I started. On Sunday I had noticed a tree that was somewhat across the regular path, and as it happened, the tree had fallen completely across the path, so I went ahead and moved it out of the way. It's now sitting at the side of the path. However, by the time I was coming back, the rain had begun to intensify and the wind was getting a bit stronger, so I gave up on the umbrella and let myself get wet. ;)

Total Distance 5121 steps, 4.09km

Tuesday, 21st August

Another of the flowers along the pathway, as you can see, the sun was actually out for a few minutes..

Yay! It wasn't wet today, finally! The mosquitoes weren't that bad either - though I'm expecting them to be pretty nasty tomorrow with the higher temperatures expected. I decided to go along the long route, and use a version of the grand rounds route, going around and then cutting back through a route which cut down on my stepping through high, wetter, grass.

total distance: 5926 steps, 4.74km

Wednesday, 22nd August

A butterfly and another insect occupy the same flower.

Amazingly, the sun was out today! However, that made it hot outside and quite humid, so it was a bit of a challenge to walk - I just had to drink some extra water while walking. I walked the regular route, with the diversion. I was quite sweaty, but it all went well. ;)

Total distance - 5013 steps, 4.01km

Thursday, 23rd August

I think this is a moth, but I'm not 100% sure - they're fairly prevalent, and tend to be really small when they close their wings.

On Wednesday night, there were some big storms that blew through the area - and they caused a lot of damage, including a lot of branches in the road. Fortunately, by the time that I went to walk, most of the branches had been cleared to the side of the road. However, in the park, there was a branch that had fallen on one of the paths, and in fact a whole tree had fallen into the path of one of the holes of the disc golf course that is there. I went along the reverse regular route, with the diversion.

Total distance - 5314 steps, 4.25km

Friday, 24th August

Uh, yeah, this was taken with the flash - at 7.45pm. Like I said, it was quite dark by that time - likely due to there not being any sun to help out a little bit.

This is what I get for not walking until after I eat dinner. ;) First, I get asked why am I going to walk so late - simple, I hadn't walked earlier in the day. It was after 7pm when I started walking. Everything was fine for most of the "out" leg of the walk, but I started having troubles seeing when I was in the middle of the forest - growing darkness combined with humidity fogging up my glasses led to me taking off the glasses, putting them in my pocket, and moving along carefully.

As I was heading out of the forest, I could barely see anything, but there was still just enough light to tell where I was going, though I was starting to lose sight of things. I then decided that, while it wasn't raining anymore, I'd use my umbrella as a visibility assist on the road. Fortunately, no cars came in the lane I was in, though one did to the other way. When I was on the final approach to the house, I then heard calling for me from the house, so I replied by calling on the phone ;)

By the time I got back to the driveway, it was hard to discern the lines on the road further away than about 20 meters. I'll definitely make sure to get out there earlier now ;)

Total distance - 5423 steps, 4.33km

Saturday, 25th August

Some of the damage that the storms did on the long route.

On Thursday, I had decided that I would do two 'reverse' routes - then I did the reverse regular with the diversion, and today I did the reverse long route. The thing about the path I take is that it's normally equally balanced between uphill and downhill. However, it just seemed that going this way was a lot of uphill, and not so much downhill, especially when I went up a very steep hill that I had only gone down before. Nevertheless, it was a good walk. I even managed to find a stick that could be used as a walking stick - it's got all the bark off of it, but I'd have to do a little work on shortening it, since it's almost 8 feet long.

Total distance - 5500 steps, 4.40km

Sunday, 26th August

A turkey shows its legs behind a tree - it wasn't there a few seconds later.

It all started out well, but then a little bit into the walk, I had to go over to the other side of the road due to a motorcyclist stopped at the side of the road - he wasn't in trouble, he just wanted to watch the train that was there. After that, it was a normal walk along the regular route (the diversion I've been taking has become regular now ;)). However, I did spot a snake slithering into the forest as I was making my way back around to head out.

Total distance - 5184 steps, 4.14km

In the other news, I've kept to my goal of having my posts made by 4pm each day. I've also started to work on getting them written ahead of time now. I didn't go to volunteer this week, but I will be setting a day from now on to go volunteer, and sticking to that.

My goal for this week is to keep up the work on having the blogs posted early in the day; I am also going to write up a proposal to establish a website for an organization that I'm a part of; it had been started by someone else, but never got to its completion. The biggest challenge, I think, will be finding a decent domain name - the most direct ones are already taken. Another goal for this week will be to have somewhere between five and ten posts prewritten, or at least started ;)

You Wanted to See It

A long time ago, I had mentioned someone looking for a video of a truck using an escape ramp. That request was echoed by Radioactive Jam. As it so happened, I flipped on the National Geographic Channel today, and they had a show on about the science behind runaway vehicles.

The first segment mentioned the well-known (at least if you've watched those John Bunnell police chase shows) PIT maneuver - which usually ends a police pursuit. The case they mentioned featured someone from the Washington State Patrol PITting someone, but since he didn't have access to the local PD's frequencies, he couldn't coordinate with them on how to sort out the chase. So the bad guy got away. I'm just curious why they didn't have the local channels available to them - here, the State Patrol is heard frequently on local Police and Sheriff frequencies. I guess it's different in Washington.

Anyway, the last segment of the show featured the Runaway Truck ramps, and their science. They also featured a truckie who was forced into using a runaway truck ramp, and she says straight out that if it weren't for the ramp, she would have rolled the truck down a mountain.

All in all, it's an interesting video to watch. I think that's why National Geographic is one of my favorite channels on cable. ;)

Hail to the Chief...

While I watch a lot of TV, I usually never watched primetime dramas; I'd always preferred to watch comedies (and even those I've shied away from over the last ten years or so). There was a time when I watched Law and Order SVU, because I liked the stories and it was a really good show to watch, but even that didn't last too long.

However, one TV drama that I had never watched, and never really cared to watch at the time it was on TV (assuming that it had a massive political bias) was The West Wing. All I really knew about the show before really sitting down and watching it was that John Spencer died while the show was filming its final season, and that led into a discussion of the resulting situation. I didn't know anything about the characters, or really about the content of the show.

Ironically, last year, one of the new shows that I watched was the ill-fated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - created by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme - who also created West Wing, and Sports Night (all three of which have a season 1 finale titled "What Kind of Day Has it Been?"). It was an alright series, but after a couple of weeks I lost interest - mostly because it was on at 9pm on Mondays, but also because the storylines were somewhat confusing and hard to get into.

Then, Snoskred got hooked into the show, big time. Eventually, I was convinced to, ahem, procure, a couple of episodes - you know, take the show for a test drive. I think it took about three for me to be sucked in.

The thing about The West Wing is that it is an intelligent program. It's not filled with the double-innuendo that you see in most comedies nowadays, and it's not filled with blood and guts and murder investigations, like most modern dramas. It's a show that goes very far to give an insight into the world of Washington and of politics. As someone said in a review of Studio 60 on Amazon - "Could it actually be that if "West Wing" was first being premiered this fall that it would also not last one season?"

Unfortunately, I think that would be the case - in early 2006, the West Wing was not performing very well on its way to the end of the series; in fact, NBC put it on Sundays at 7 - against the Simpsons and Extreme Makeover Home Edition and whatever was on CBS at the time, mostly to just let it finish its run. Today's TV is all about the ratings - not the quality. Luckily, we have had the priviledge to have quality television in the West Wing.

Part of the reason I've loved watching the show so much is that the writers knew how to tug at all of your emotions - from humor to fear to just times where you want to cry (the end of season 2 was the first time that I really cried at the show, and the final episodes of the series were awfully difficult to watch). Another great thing is that, in the final season, they knew that the show was coming to an end, so John Wells did an excellent job to close the series - letting you know what the characters would be doing in the future, and even bringing back an old friend and putting them back into the fray. It was, really, a great way to end a show, and it reached a logical end with the end of a Presidency, and the beginning of another.

Yes, the show did have some less-than-stellar moments; an episode from season 5 - "Access" comes to mind with that, but almost all of the 150+ episodes were of excellent quality. Like Snos said at one point - it's hard to believe that people had to wait four and a half months between seasons hwen the situations at the end of one season make it necessary to watch the next one, two or even three episodes. At one point, I even watched half of one season in one day, and I think that if you were determined, you could watch all 7 seasons in a sitting, but that would take a massive effort. :)

The only thing that I missed out on with the way that I, ahem, procured, the series was the commentary tracks to the episodes that they put on the DVD sets. One day soon, I hope to be able to get the full series DVD set; that will be a major acquisition for me, but that doesn't mean you can't go and buy it for yourself. However, if you just want to take the "test drive", I think you know where to find these things. ;)

Now, I have to find another show to watch at lunchtime....anyone have a suggestion? ;)

And, I want to leave you with a couple of my favorite scenes from the show -

First, from Season 3, President Bartlet calls the Butterball Hotline and tries to not reveal that it's him....

And this other clip from Season 3, CJ lays down the law to Josh -

Take a walk for a good cause

Note: This is a sponsored post.

One of the emerging health problems facing the US today is Alzheimer's Disease, especially as the average age of our population goes up. It is a condition that receives some attention, especially when a famous person is affected by the disease; the most notable case being President Reagan. There is one organization who are making an effort to get the word out there about the disease, along with finding ways of defeating it.

The Alzheimer's Association has been in existence since 1979, and every year since 1989, they have been holding Memory Walks across the country, raising in excess of $225 million for Alzheimer's research and support for the people who have been affected by the disease. While I do not have anyone in my immediate family who has the disease - I've seen its effect on actual patients and their families.

In fact, one place that touched very well on the disease and its effects was the TV show The West Wing - where CJ, the Press Secretary, had a father who was affected by the disease. It was the focus of an episode from season 4 - The Long Goodbye, where she has to go home and handle the effects the disease has already had on her father, including the fact that his wife has left him.

Over the next two months, over 600 Memory Walks will be held, including two in my immediate vicinity - I've seen the banners for the walk in previous years around the area it is held in but haven't looked into any of the details of the actual walk. Right now, the Alzheimer's Association is looking for people to sign up as a Team Captain for the Memory Walk.

What being a team captain involves is leading a group of approximately ten other people in raising funds for the walk, and to rally support - either from the general community, or from within the group you've recruited your team members from. They could be the people you work with, your neighbors, your friends - anyone; all they need is an interest to help out for a good cause.

Also, as a team captain, you get some experience with being a team leader, a team player, and also some basic management skills - great things to have on a resume to send to potential employers - it could help make the difference between getting that job or being passed over. It also shows that you're willing to be a leader within your community and willing to take the initiative to get something started that you may not have done in the past.

On the page to sign up as a Team Captain, the Alzheimer's Association has all the information you need - where the walks are located, tips on how to set goals for your team. If you do decide to sign up, you will have access to tools that will allow you to make a website for your team. You can then use that website as a headquarters for your team's fundraising operations.

I haven't decided whether I am going to do the walk or not, but if you're interested in signing up, definitely go for it! I have done a couple of other similar walks in the past, and they have been a lot of fun - even if I didn't finish the complete distance. One thing about the Memory Walks is that they're relatively short - 2-3 miles, or, about the same amount of walking I'm already doing on a daily basis. However, it's not all about the distance - it's all about raising awareness of Alzheimer's and raising funds for the Alzheimer's Association.

Writing Day

You'll have to pardon the brevity of today's post, but it's all in an aim to bring better content to y'all ;)

I've set aside today as a day to just write some blog posts in advance. That way, if I come to a day where I don't know what I want to write about, I can post something that I have already written - it might be a how-to, it might be about something in my world. However, it will be me, and it will not sound like I've just started to write the post an hour before posting it.

However, I'll throw in a bonus - a quick how-to. It's from a list of things that I've been wanting to write up for a long time, and it is a fairly short one. :)

How to 'steal' HTML code

I'm using "steal" very loosely here - it's more like taking a peek at a snippet of code. I know that there have been many, many times when I've seen something, and wondered, "How'd they do that?" Well, all I did was take a peek at the code. The browser you use will determine how easy or hard this is. For all of these examples, I'll use the US blogs blogroll from my sidebar.

Firefox

Firefox is definitely the easiest browser to do this in. When you see a snippet of a page you like, simply select it, right click, and click View Selection Source -



That will bring up a window that has the code from the part of the page you selected. In fact, the text you chose will be selected in the window, along with its code.



Then, you can copy the code and use it :)

Internet Explorer and Opera

Both IE and Opera do not have the same "View Selection Source" option that Firefox does (however I'm guessing that you can probably add it using an add on). For Internet Explorer, you need to simply right click anywhere on the page and click View Source. If right-clicking is not allowed on a page, then you can view the source by going to View -> Source.

This will open up Notepad and load the complete source of the page you were looking at. To find the part of the page you want, open up the search box and type in part of the page text you wanted.


In Opera, it's slightly easier to do this, as they have a source reader built in. To access the source, press Ctrl+F3, or right click and select "Source   Ctrl+F3", or go to View -> Source

You'll have to find the text you were looking for by opening the Find Dialog - Edit -> Find... or Ctrl+F


Now, go forth and 'borrow' some code while I go back to walking and then writing. ;)

We all need good Neighbors

This week's Hump Day Hmm... is all about being a good neighbour. I am quite lucky to live in an area where all of our neighbours are good, apart from the odd bit of noise.

In the past, however, the story was slightly different - we live close to a bar, and before some circumstances changed, we would have issues with their patrons using our driveway to turn around in. We also would hear their music on the weekends quite regularly - I think that they must have been told to close the doors or something so that they weren't providing the whole neighbourhood with a drumbeat. ;)

On the other side of us, we have a group of folks who just like to keep to themselves, including ourselves. One of our neighbours is so good at it that nobody - not even the people living directly across the road from them - knows who they are (they also don't have a name on the mailbox); all we do know is that they put up a teepee from time to time and have a small and quiet gathering there.

Generally, the most noise generated by the neighbours comes from them running small engines - lawnmowers, dirtbikes and ATVs - the last two in particular can get somewhat annoying when they're run for hours at a time. However, we take it in stride and don't let it bother us too much. The same goes for the fireworks that get done around the 4th of July; normally, we will go out and enjoy the show. :)

The noisiest neighbour, however, is one that I barely notice because I have lived her all of my life - the trains. They've been running through the same place they always have been for well over 150 years without fail. The biggest change since then (with regard to noise) has been the fact that they stopped using their horns about 4 years ago when they took away the level crossings that they had to signal for.

Interestingly, it was the trains that got me into two of my favourite hobbies - radio monitoring and photography. The radio hobby came as a part of a box that they put in about ten years ago that tells the crews the status of their train - number of axles, if there are any faults, et cetera. With the photography, I wasn't as interested in taking photos of trains until around 2000 when we got a video camera, and then I started to take more photos of trains. They've always been a fascination for me, especially considering that I've seen representatives from all the major railroads go through.

Thinking back to college, I was also fortunate then to have some decent neighbours - they rarely were overbearingly loud - you would have to expect some noise since it was a dorm, and since I was in a quad with 5 people in it my first year, we had enough noise on our own to suffice. Also, where I was living was almost off campus, in fact, across the street could have been considered "off-campus", with a slightly higher sales tax than on campus. The folks that lived over there were just as quiet as the neighbours here, if not more quiet.

As far as any advice I'd have to be a good neighbour, I'd say that if you're holding a party, let the folks around you know, that way they can prepare - they might even let your guests use their land to park on if needed. Also, try to get to know your neighbours - you never know if they might be necessary to help you with a project or in an emergency.

A couple of notes - No, I've never seen the show that the title came from - we don't have it on TV here (not that I'd watch it anyway), and Yes, I know that since I'm an American, I should spell neighbour without the u - just deal with it. ;)

Tuesday Think Tank: All About RSS

This guide isn't intended for just the beginner blogger, or for the advanced blogger. It's intended to grasp some of the issues surrounding one of the most used, yet somewhat misunderstood aspects of a blog - your RSS feed.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It, along with a type of syndication known as Atom, are the most common forms of distribution of content that is updated on a regular basis - such as a blog or news site.

Does my site have RSS?

If you have a blog, you should have an RSS feed already. In fact, if your blog doesn't have a feed, it would be very unusual, and you should check with your blog's administrator or verify your settings to make sure that your RSS feed is up and working. If you're using Blogger, then your site's feed will have an address like this -

http://{blogname}.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

A lesser known feed is the comments feed - that allows your readers to keep track of all the comments posted on your blog. The address for this feed is -

http://{blogname}.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

What can I do with RSS?

The possibilities are pretty much endless with what you can actually do with a feed. One of the most popular things you can do with a feed is have it republished through a service like FeedBurner, where you will get statistics about your subscribers, and what they click on. You will also be able to offer subscriptions by email - either through FeedBurner or through another service called FeedBlitz.

You can also use a service like Yahoo! Pipes to combine multiple feeds into a master feed, designed to give you just the information you desire. I'll admit that I really don't understand how that works in particular, but some of the pre-made feeds they have are pretty interesting.

The most common thing that is done with an RSS feed is having it read in a feed reader, or aggregator. There are a number of readers that you can use, both online and offline. Below, I'll cover the ones that I have personally used.

Google Reader


This is the reader that I use the most often, and I suspect that it's the most used web-based RSS reader out there. Its brilliance comes in that it is simple to use. For example, to add a subscription, all you need to do is click the Add Subscription button; it asks for the address of the site (not the feed) you want, and it comes back with that site's feed, or a set of options if there is more than one feed found on that site. Click Add and you're done.

Another feature that they have an advantage over other readers is that you are able to label items, either individually or by feed. There are some things that are still missing, but it is a "labs" product, and subject to revision. You can also mark items aside for public sharing, which goes on a sort of clip blog, made of your shared items.

Bloglines


This was the first web-based reader I had used, before switching to Google Reader. It is somewhat more complex to use than Google Reader, however, some of the basics are there - to add a subscription, you just click Add, give it the address of the site, and it will tell you all the feeds it finds.

Unlike Google Reader, you will be able to see how many subscribers a feed has - that can be useful in selecting a feed to go with. Also, there is a search function available. However, if you're slow at reading feeds, or have some frequently-updated feeds, it will only pick up 200 items and then stop fetching more until you clear them.

Firefox Live Bookmarks


If you use Firefox, you will have seen this from day one. The "Latest Headlines" list (from the BBC) is an example of a live bookmark. For me, the most common use of live bookmarks is for sites that give you a list of current articles - such as the BBC headlines, or an NWS statewide list of warnings and advisories. However, I find that it's not as efficient for blogs since it doesn't load a site's full feed - just the headlines.

That's not all you can do with feeds in Firefox, however. You can also use it to discover and subscribe to feeds.

Discovering Feeds with Firefox

A somewhat hidden secret about Firefox is that you can use it to subscribe to a site's feed in any of a number of feed readers - the default is Live Bookmarks, but on installation, you can subscribe with Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo!, or the offline reader you may already be using.

How it works is, when you visit a site, Firefox looks for a bit of code that says that this site has an RSS feed - it's in the header information of the page. On my site, the code looks (in part) like this -

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Sephy's Platzish - Atom" href="http://www.sephyroth.net/feeds/posts/default" />

When firefox sees this, your address bar will have an RSS icon added to it; here's what it looks like, with my address in there ;) -


If you click on it, you will be sent to that site's feed address, and you will be able to see the contents of that feed. At the top of the page, it has the option for you to "Subscribe to this feed using [Live Bookmarks | External Program | Bloglines | My Yahoo | Google]" - you can also tell it to stay with your choice to subscribe to other feeds.


If you select Live Bookmarks to subscribe, you will then be asked which bookmark folder you want the feed to be placed in.

Choosing Bloglines will take you to the subscribe screen, where you can choose your options for subscribing.

Picking My Yahoo! brings you to the "Add to My Yahoo!" screen, and gives you a preview of what the feed will look like on your page.

Finally, if you elect Google, you will have the choice to put the feed on your Personalized homepage, or in Google Reader. It's a great feature, one that I use quite often myself.

Mozilla Thunderbird

This is the only quasi-offline browser that I've used recently (I've used others, but I believe that they're no longer in production). I only use this for a couple of feeds, mostly out of habit, but also because it was the main reader that I was using to actually get the feeds until I found out about Google Reader and Bloglines.

One major advantage that Thunderbird has over the other feed readers is that you can set the frequency with which it checks feeds for new items. You also have the option of viewing items in the feed in their original state or on the actual site that it came from.

What can I do to let my readers know about RSS?

The easiest way that you can let readers know about your site's RSS feed is to add a "Subscribe in a Reader" link, and button, to your blog. If you've already set your blog's feed up to be served through FeedBurner, it is a very simple process - if you're on Typepad or Blogger, it's even more simple. :)

If you haven't burnt your feed yet, you should - as I mentioned earlier, burning your feed will allow you to find information about your subscribers. Also (and this probably the biggest reason for doing so), if you decide to change hosts - say from Blogger to WordPress - having your feed burnt means that you won't lose any readers in the migration (unless they've been reading you from day one, but even that shouldn't be an issue if you follow some of the advice from Snos' post).

Burning your feed is very easy to do; I've posted instructions on how to do it previously. Blogger users, you will also find instructions on how to have your site's feed automatically use FeedBurner there as well.

To create your subscribe icon, start from your feed's Dashboard (accessible by clicking on your feed's name when you login), and click on Publicize.


In the Publicize screen, click Chicklet Chooser from the left list - or you can the link in the first bullet (click on "friendly graphic")


Now, you are presented with a list of choices about as long as your arm. For the most part, you will want to take one of the first two icons, as that is, for all intents and purposes, the standard icon for feeds on the web. You can choose any of the other buttons, however, and the code at the bottom will update to reflect your choice.


Here is where it gets really easy if you are using Blogger or TypePad. WordPress and Movable Type users, you'll just have to manually copy the code in the box and paste it into your template.

Users of TypePad and Blogger are able to have FeedBurner add the icon directly to your blog, as a widget. I've not used TypePad except to leave comments, so I apologize to y'all, but I'm sure the instructions from here on are fairly straightforward for you.

With Blogger, what happens is, when you click Go!, a new window or tab will open up and will ask you to log in to your Google Account, if you are not already logged in. If you are concerned about FeedBurner getting your password or username - there is nothing to be worried about as this is all done at Blogger's site.

The next screen you will see asks you to confirm that you want a widget added by an external site. Here, you can (if you have multiple blogs) choose the blog you want it to appear on, give the widget a Title, and verify and/or edit the code that is being added to your blog.


To add the widget to your blog, click Add Widget. It will now appear at the top of your sidebar. You can move it around, or do whatever you would like to it now.

Further Reading
- Converting Visitors Into Subscribers - Are you getting as many subscribers as you could be? The tips in this article can be useful to try to improve your subscriber count.
- Why does my Feedburner Subscriber Count Fluctuate? - One of FeedBurner's VPs answers why you usually don't have the same number of subscribers from day to day.
- 14 Reasons Readers Unsubscribe From Your Blog - Snoskred gives some reasons for why she's been unsubscribing from quite a few feeds lately.

This was the Week that Was, Vol. 9

This week, I have some great posts for y'all, and I've added quite a few blogs about blogging to my Google Reader. It's all a part of the week that was...

Posts I liked -

• Club Troppo's Jacques posts a great insight into depression, from the inside
• Craig Harper has a great piece about Sitting at Life's Train Station - don't just sit there! Take a train to somewhere before your ticket disappears!
• Sydney Daily Photo has a photo of some plane spotters at Kingsford-Smith Airport.
• I don't usually mention sponsored posts, but there's a webhost providing free hosting for a full year - you can find more details at Untwisted Vortex
• From BlogAboutYourBlog, the Top 5 Reasons to get your own domain name

New Blogs I'm reading in Google Reader

• Blog About Your Blog
• More than Scratch the Surface
• Super Blogging
• ProBlogger
• I've Tried That

New blogs this week in the US Blogs community at BumpZEE -

• Unrestricted: My Nascar Rants & Raves
• Jottings From Jersey
• sharonb.net
• Mom Of 3 Girls
• juwanewa
• Midlife Perspective
• Blue Dog Meanders

This week around the blog, there were 161 visitors, down from last week - that's an average of 23 per day; the slowest day was Friday.

Keywords -
how to hack blogger robots.txt - Boy, I wish I knew how to do that, considering that they've messed around with it without notifying us about that, or allowing us to change it.
raiders of the lost ark free movie - Now now, you shouldn't be doing that. Nevertheless, it's out there - but I'm not telling where. ;)
drinking too much coke with meals - How much are you drinking? I would think that 2 cans (24oz, ~700ml) is way too much. I haven't drunk any soda for over a month though, and I'm pretty proud of that. :)

This week, I had some fun with Google's Hot Trends, discussed other forms of discrimination. I also brought up some memories of my trip to Disneyland, and celebrated my blog's first anniversary.

Coming up: tomorrow, Snoskred and I will start a new feature - the Tuesday Think Tank, where we'll explore an aspect of blogging, and ways to improve your blog. Snos will look at things from the perspective of the blogger and the reader, and I'll delve into the technical side of blogging with how-tos and explanations of how things work.

This week, the focus is the RSS feed. I'll have a discussion of what they are, whether you have one, and some of the really neat things you can do with feeds. Also, I'll discuss how you can read other feeds.

Snos will be discussing what she looks for in a feed, and why she's been unsubscribing to many feeds over the last few days.

Other than that, I really don't know what I'm going to post about this week, so you'll just have to stay tuned! ;)

The Week in Walks, etc. Vol 4

Sunday and time to recap the week of walks, and my journey.

Monday, 13th August


A branch that had landed in the middle of the path; I did move it out of the way - well, most of it as it broke apart when I picked it up.

If today is what walking will be like in fall, I'm all for it. It was nice and cool and there was a good breeze today, which made the walk very pleasant. I decided to do a "grand rounds" walk, where I walked the long path, up to the parking lot, then through the soccer fields, and then down part of the same route I used on Thursday back to the "out" path to the road.

Total distance - 6385 steps, 5.10km

Tuesday, 14th August


I think I've shown this flower before, when it was in full bloom; clearly the heat has gotten to it and it's getting ready to go to see.

It had rained (again) overnight, but it had fortunately stopped before I went out to walk, and everything was drying out. There was also a nice breeze that made things a little bit easier, even though I was really tired. I went along the reverse regular route, and did the diversion as well.

Total distance - 5332 steps, 4.26km

Wednesday, 15th August


This is the scene from the shortcut path I take to loop back to the park entrance/exit. You can see the soccer fields in the background on the right.

It rained all day today, and I had other stuff to get done, so I decided to wait the rain out before walking, and by the time I went to walk, pretty much everything had dried out, and since the sun wasn't out and it was after 4pm, I didn't wear my hat. I took the regular route, with the diversion.

Total distance - 4946 steps, 3.95km

Thursday, 16th August


The sun sets over the road, making a great sight for the camera, but not a really good one if you're trying to have any visibility of oncoming traffic. ;)

This was the latest I've walked yet - even later than last Saturday. Of course, walking at 7 pm has its own unique challenge - not getting blinded by the sun. This is something that even the hat can't do much to alleviate, the sun is that low. Of course, you then get further along and there's no sun, which visibility a lot easier. I decided to do the long route, with a more standard return path to the ones I've been doing.

Total distance - 5830 steps, 4.66km

Friday, 17th August


The weed, posing for a picture. Ok, now that really sounds weird. Read on. ;)

The humidity had finally gone away, and it was a really pleasant day - so much so that I chose not to wear bug spray, and survived the walk. I also decided to settle a bit of a score I had with a plant - we have these plants called "creeping charlie" (or "creeping jenny"), which only have a purpose of choking other plants. Well, there was one that was accessible from along the road, and I decided it had to go (just in case you're wondering, this is maybe 100m from the entrance to the park, so I'm assuming this is on public property), so I started to tear it off of the tree. I then made the (seemingly) bizarre decision to drag it around for a while, as if it were a bit of prey. I decided to let it go in a place where it couldn't grow again.

Total Distance - 5498 steps, 4.39km

Saturday, 18th August


Some flowers growing in the shoulder of the road, with a few drops of rain already collected.

The forecast today was for rain, and boy were they right! When I made the decision to go out to walk, the radar said that rain was about 15 miles away. However, by the time I had gotten done with filling my water bottles, and doing some other errands around the house, the rain had just started. As I write this quite a few hours later, it hasn't stopped raining since then. Although I did have the umbrella, it was raining hard enough for it to start bringing a couple of drops through the top of the umbrella and drip on me - a minor inconvenience when compared to being completely soaked. ;) I went along the regular route today.

Total distance - 4890 steps, 3.91km

Sunday, 19th August


A panorama of one of the corners in the park. Size: 1.14MB

Again, it's been raining - I think it stopped for a little while today, but when I went out, it was raining moderately - they're saying that we could have upwards of 5" of rain overnight. The TV forecasts look like a forecast for snow with the amounts they're saying we're gonna get. But like I said, the rain didn't deter me; nor did the wind or the fact that it was just over 15°C (60°F). The interesting thing is that with all the rain, when you're in the forest, it is very loud, that you can barely hear yourself think. I'd share a video, but again, Blogger isn't working, and I have no idea how to contact them to fix the problem like they suggest. I've used the "Blogger is down" option - that got a contact form...let's see how it goes ;)

Total distance - 5451 steps, 4.36km

In other news, I went to volunteer on Thursday, I won't post a whole account of that just yet, I'll save that for a post I'm going to write up for later this week. All I'll say for now is that I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and met some great people. :)

I also managed to get all of my walks written up on the day that I've taken them. I've also been good on not staying up too late, though I haven't been perfect. It's just one more step on my journey.

This week, I'm going to work on making some good habits for myself - particularly in relation to this blog. I have had so many times when I get to, say, 9 pm and haven't posted anything. My goal for this week is to have my posts all finished no later than 4pm. I could go later than that, but then I'm only giving myself the opportunity to faff around and wait until the last minute before posting. I'm also working towards being more organized than I already am - I've somehow managed to get my desktop down to a paltry 7 folders and the recycle bin - no shortcuts to programs, or web links on my desktop.