Photographing Fall's Beginnings

I took my camera outside today and walked along the creek. Fall is not peaking yet, but color is finally coming into the area. It seems like most things have been green or brown with only the barest hint of red so far. I found spots of color, though. Outside photography is at its best in the fall.

To view the photos, click here and then follow each one by clicking on "<-- Newer Photo" just above the image. I started when there was barely any daylight. That first picture in the hyperlink is my favorite one of the group. The second favorite is this one (pictured here) last in the series of about 2 dozen images.

FastOnlineUsers.com

Here's another gem I found on EyeQ's site. It shows how many users are currently at your site. I used one of these-type things years ago, but it started slowing down the site. I had to remove it. This one claims to be "fast." See FastOnlineUsers.com (duh!). It might work. Ta-da! Here's how many people are reading this blog right now --> online. Astounding, isn't it?

YouSendIt.com

Do you have a large file that is too big to send to someone in e-mail? YouSendIt.com is a service where you can upload the file. They keep it for seven days. You send the resulting link for the file to the person who needs to receive it. They can then go to the site and download it. This gets around e-mail size requirements every mail service has.

Of course, those of us with our own web space can do this on our own, but YouSendIt is handy if you don't own any webspace and you want to make it easy for the receiver. Do the site owners read files stored on their service? Maybe, so don't upload anything you don't mind them reading, too. (Thanks to Nailhead.org for this link.)

iMood.com

EyeQ invited me to join iMood.com, a nice little free service. There's a kazillion moods to use, buddy lists and a little web page indicator so you know how I feel at any time. Today, I feel --> . Check back later today or tomorrow for a different mood. As long as this does not slow down page loading enough to notice, I want to keep it. I put this on my main home, at the bottom of my main photo blog and Extras/Weather page. Click on the icon for a message. (If I feel bad, be sure to send presents. Money is good.)

This is fun for those who spend much time online and have several friends. I like it and iMood.com was easy and simple to navigate.I know all of you out there must hang on my every mood. Menopause is not that many years away so my moods might change quickly.

High Resolution

I am running in 1920 by 1440,  75 mhz mode on this NEC FE2111sb monitor. Wow, I love it! It took a little time to get used to the high setting, but the more I use it, the more I appreciate it - such as having the extra space on my taskbar at the bottom of the screen and seeing more of a page without scrolling.

It developed a problem after a few days of use. Seven vertical lines appeared near the middle of the screen. It already had the 2 thin lines that Trinitron-type monitors have. Those are barely noticeable, only a small price to pay for extra clear images, but the seven lines were downright annoying. Fortunately, those extra lines disappeared after a few more days of use. Maybe it was some kind of burn-in.

ClockLink.com

Thanks to Jack, I found this cute clock from ClockLink.com. Different colors and styles are available. It's free. I want to find a home for it on one of my sites inspite of the constant battle between cute and fast-loading.

My experience in reaching to another site is that the other site will eventually have problems and slow down the loading of the whole page for everyone's page that links to it. This happens sooner or later.

Anyway, I love this clock. It is loading fast enough for now. (This is in Central Time.) I like the fade-in effect when the mouse passes over it.

Garbage Can Surprise

Today was garbage day. Our can sat by the street. The garbage truck came. The can was emptied. While this happened, I went out shopping and when I came home I grabbed the mail and the garbage can to haul back to the house - just routine stuff someone does without thinking. I was busy looking at the mail, paying no attention to the garbage can on this warm, sunny day.

Suddenly, my hand tingled. I glanced down. It was covered in ants! So was my arm. In just the few seconds it took to haul the can halfway up the driveway, ants had swarmed over me. We have a lot of fire ants around here -- even in our yard. I've seen some mounds along the sidewalk around the corner, too.

I brushed off the ants and took a good look -- just plain little black ants, fortunately, and no bites. Do ant bites on top of skin covered with poison ivy cancel each other out? I didn't want to learn this firsthand, though. Whew.

It was probably revenge for all the times I messed up ant piles when I was a kid. The ants would swarm over me and my friends, then too. I was only 5 or 6 years old, but I was determined to mess up an ant pile without getting swarmed so I kept trying to do it faster. I was going into the big field across the street to find the largest ant colonies around. I never did succeed in escaping them while leaving a thoroughly messed up mound. Mom probably got tired of hosing me off and throwing me in the bathtub. I can still see the ants floating in the water. The ants won. I never did succeed in my goal. Good thing we didn't have fire ants back then.

Happy Cat

My daughter dropped by today. Our cats have never forgotten her and vie for her attention when she is here. Today, Muddy got her to open the window. He likes to be petted when he sits at this window. I guess it is the perfect life for a cat -- a window to watch the birds, a warm patch of sunlight and your own personal masseuse. He was in cat heaven. It almost looks like he is smiling in this photo. (Click to enlarge.)

Another What Color are You

I am green again in this quiz. It's my husband's favorite color so this is just as well. Actually, he looks pretty good in green clothes since his eyes are green. Although I think I am the opposite of this description.

 

Green You are a very calm and contemplative person. Others are drawn to your peaceful, nurturing nature. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

Turn Them All Off

Love one of today's entries at EnGadget.com -- they show a small keychain remote that turns off ALL the televisions in a house. That's all it does -- just turns off TVs - any kind - a must for every keychain. I hate the TV in the waiting room at our car dealer's place. It's always tuned to a show I can't stand. I suspect nearly everyone else in the waiting room would like it off rather than watch Jerry Springer.