I
love animating things. I think it is easy to make most
things blink. I did try to make the tail move and blink.
It looked okay, but the simple blinking just seems
better. I'd like to make stars twinkle around it or a
tongue stick out. If I only had more time to play with
this!
We've
had 3 mornings in a row with heavy fog. It has been
funny, sad and eerie walking in this thick stuff. I saw
a deer - they are so shy. Other than accidents, walking
in the fog is a nice change and being surprised by
whatever person suddenly pops out is fun.
Do you have a cell phone camera? If so, you can send
pictures to a Halloween sights public photo blog. Send
them to
halloween.123@tamw.com (I've posted a couple
myself). The photo collection can be viewed at
http://halloween.textamerica.com -- Photos do
not have to be anything critically amazing -- just snap
a picture of whatever you see around you that puts you
in the mood for Halloween (lately, that's been nearly
everything for me).
Here's
what I saw on this morning's walk. Good thing I
had my camera with me. The day before, I saw
this scary ghost. (And I found the picture above
of a cat and Jack O'lantern online and tried my hand at
animating it.)
I
was walking out in very dense fog this morning - the
worst I have seen in a long time. Suddenly, I heard a
man moaning loudly in pain. I walked over to him and
found a cyclist lying on his back on a bridge beside the
road. He had an elderly friend with him. I told them
that I had a cell phone and offered to call for help. I
also said that I was trained in first aid and would be
glad to assist.
His friend told me that his wife had been called and was
on her way and that they would be okay. The man was
continuing to moan loudly - so much pain! His friend
explained that he had likely broken his arm and had a
concussion. It sounded like a good case for an ambulance
where his head could be stabilized; I almost called one
anyway.
Instead, Bob came running close by. He's a triathlete
competitor friend, and Bob kindly came over to help the
man when his wife arrived with her car. They were able
to get the wounded man inside. I will likely never know,
but I hope it all turned out okay. I know it is
dangerous to move someone with a possible neck injury
without bracing them first.
Dense fog can be a nasty thing. It coats everything with
moisture and things can get very slick and dangerous.
It
was truly a spooky morning -- indeed, it is turning out
to be a spooky week all together - first, I walk into a
restaurant that is eerily empty yet the tables are set,
then I nearly brush a black widow spider, next I walk
alone in the middle of the thickest fog I can remember and now this
poor cyclist. I do not want to know what comes next.
I
was visiting my daughter earlier today. As we were
leaving to go to lunch, I blissfully walked out the
front door, shut it and headed to the car.
When my daughter walked out, she hurried over to the car
and asked me to come take a look. Inches from the door
handle sat this black widow spider! I had not even
noticed.
Her neighbor who works for a pest control company came
over with some industrial-strength pesticide and took
care of the matter. Before he did, I got some photos. I
know -- I know -- I am crazy, but it was cool to have
photos.
October 11, 2005 -
Tuesday
Columbus Day
My
husband and I decided to celebrate this famous Italian's
day yesterday by going to an Italian restaurant. We
picked one near home and took off together for lunch.
When we got to the restaurant, we went inside. It was
strangely quiet. Nobody met us, so we walked further
into the place, looking for employees.
A phone started to ring ... and ring ... and ring.
Nobody answered as far as we could tell. We walked over
to the dining rooms. They were all set and ready to go.
The lights were dimmed, but some restaurants do that.
Still, it was eerily quiet. We figured they must be
closed, but had accidentally left their door unlocked,
so we left and ate at the German restaurant next door.
Still wanting to do something Italian, I ordered
their "Italian-Encrusted Grouper." It was very good, but
grouper is not Italian. (I asked an Italian friend about
grouper. She had never heard of it.)
Oh well, I hope you had a good Columbus Day yesterday.
Speaking of cats (from
yesterday) and thanks to a link from
Catnip & Catnaps, I took the test to find out what
cat personality I resemble. (The test is
HERE -- it is drowning in About.com ads, but the
questions can be found in the middle of the page.)
I know I've said this before, but I have to say it
again. Don't believe ANYTHING you get in e-mail without
verifying it yourself with places like Snopes.com
(unless its from me). On second thought, it might LOOK
like its from me, but it could another person faking my
return e-mail address. (very easy to do). And it might
say that it has been verified already (but don't EVER
believe that, either -you have to verify it yourself).
Previously
I posted about making a doll for yourself. You
could save a still image of the doll from that site, but there was no
easy way to save the animated version. It consisted of
several animated GIF overlays all place in one spot on
the page. The site author was kind
enough to let you save all of the individual GIF elements
in a doll you created, though it was impossible to save
your doll as an animated image.
I downloaded a (free for 30 days) screen and video
capture program which worked very well for me at
PixelMetrics. I let it run to capture the
animated doll I created online from the webpage.
It made an AVI file which I then opened in QuickTime
Pro. QuickTime saved the file as individual PNG images.
Next, I opened the images in AdobePhotoshop and made a
single multi-layered image from the captured files, only
using the ones I needed before the image recycled itself
(about 16 files).
I switched to PhotoShop's ImageReady area and created
the animation (very easy once you learn how to do this),
set the delay for each image at .01 and exported an
optimized version as an animated GIF.
Whew - yes it was a lot of work, but I loved learning
about animation - I used to have an old clunky program
for this and discovered that Photoshop does a much
easier and better job.
(P.S. I had to take DIGG off of my front page because
sometimes it caused a big slowdown in page loading. It
is still on my Weather Page where I plan to check it
often.)
I
love animating things. I think it is easy to make most
things blink. I did try to make the tail move and blink.
It looked okay, but the simple blinking just seems
better. I'd like to make stars twinkle around it or a
tongue stick out. If I only had more time to play with
this!
We've
had 3 mornings in a row with heavy fog. It has been
funny, sad and eerie walking in this thick stuff. I saw
a deer - they are so shy. Other than accidents, walking
in the fog is a nice change and being surprised by
whatever person suddenly pops out is fun.
His friend told me that his wife had been called and was
on her way and that they would be okay. The man was
continuing to moan loudly - so much pain! His friend
explained that he had likely broken his arm and had a
concussion. It sounded like a good case for an ambulance
where his head could be stabilized; I almost called one
anyway.
My
husband and I decided to celebrate this famous Italian's
day yesterday by going to an Italian restaurant. We
picked one near home and took off together for lunch.
When we got to the restaurant, we went inside. It was
strangely quiet. Nobody met us, so we walked further
into the place, looking for employees.
My
dad sent me this fake photo of "the world's smallest
cat" which got me looking for real photos of recent
strange events (and the Guinness-certified world's
