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iris quest continued

our lady of crate and barrow
our lady of crate and barrel

Took the FX01 on my forced march this morning. Weather and iris left much to be desired.

About a week ago I realized that I was a digital pack rat. An old woman with too much stuff. Digital Stuff. Well, after a week, my inbox is still empty, and the Hawaii photos from 2001 have been culled and cataloged.  Next week, I plan to finish up 2001. Moving right along.

Carlton is watching  horse racing. I was always sort of neutral about horse racing, but after last year – when they put Eight Belles down on the track after she came in second. And after Barbaro in 06.  So, I am here in the living room, with Carlton watching horse racing on TV. And, I am listening to my “Final Exit” Play List – loud. I hope no horses have to die today so American white women can wear big  hats. Black women can wear big hats every Sunday morning.  And British woman can wear big hats when ever the Queen comes to visit. But, American white women sacrifice horses to justify  wearing  big hats.

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no iris today

blast from mid-20th century
blast from mid-20th century

Took some iris pictures today. But, I am temporarily bored with iris. Found this memento of cold war era on a church wall.  In the early 21st century we consider making Faraday cages out of oatmeal boxes and tin foil. Sure they will work as well as the church basement would have.

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Iris Quest Day 4

Captured with the FX01 on the way home from hospital
Captured with the FX01 on the way home from hospital

It was grey and damp today – so, the big camera stayed on the shelf. I took a slightly different route home and was rewarded with this fine iris.

Making real progress cataloging and deleting photographs from Hawaii 2001. When I worked for the curator at Harpers Ferry Park – we had to archive stuff that belonged to Henry McDonald. He was the President of Storer College in the 1930’s and that man never threw anything away. And he was very frugal – using the back of calenders, old letters, etc for  note paper. And, he saved newspaper clippings. I called him Henry Ain’t Got No Trashcan McDonald. I may be morphing into a digital version of old Dr McDonald.

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Iris Quest – day 3

On the way to the hospital this AM
On the way to the hospital this AM

Today’s entry in the quest for a good iris – well, it doesn’t make the cut. Will have to try harder tomorrow. Taken with the FX01 on the way to “work”.

On the way home walking down the street where I live – I snapped off a picture of the lunch time crowd.

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phonesI loved the image this guy made – with his Bose noise cancelling earphones. Either the recession has not hit this gentleman – or he has had the ‘fones for a while.

WordPress – been using it for 2 weeks now. Really like it. All the tedious stuff is taken care of as if by magic.

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Iris Quest Day 2

Today's Iris - Across From Hospital
Today’s Iris – Across From Hospital

It rained over night. That added a little interest to this morning’s quest for an ideal iris. This one was just across the street from the hospital and was photographed with my little old Panasonic FX01 PS camera.

Not your Mother’s coupons.

ginkyIn these hard economic times,  folk are discovering “grocery” coupons. Unually the coupons are for things like hair color, pet food and yellow mustard. But, times seem to be changing in coupon land.

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Iris Quest

Iris from Sunday's Forced March
Iris from Sunday's Forced March

Iris season is about over this spring. And, I have problems taking good pictures of iris – so, for the remainder of iris season – I will be on a quest for a good iris picture. Taken with Panasonic L1 with the kit lens.

Read a wonderful little article – it said that people who walked 90 minutes a day at 4 miles per hour had less stress than people who only walked 15 minutes per day. The article attributed the less stress to the additional walking. Methinks, some of the less stress should be attributed to having 90 minutes per day to spend walking. My Forced Marching is limited to 30 minutes a day. If I have a spare 60 minutes – I’ll spend it chilling thank you.

Still working on my Digital Clutter Issue.  250 images from Hawaii 2001 have been deleted.

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sort and OUT sunday

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Yesterday evening, I realized that I was a 21st century version of the Little Old Lady who lives in a cluttered house filled with old stuff. Old clothes that are out of style and don’t fit, stuff from forgotten hobbies, canning jars, plastic containers, greeting cards,  newspaper clippings, every issue of National Geographic since 1962. My clutter is just digital. Heck, I even have digital versions of attic, basement and even public storage lockers.

So, before breakfast this morning – I deleted 250 vintage emails.

Breakfast… it was left over salad. I like salad. Anytime.

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Hello, my name is Peg and I am a digital packrat.

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gecko in Hulihe'e Palace kitchen - 2001

Computer work time today was devoted to backing up the computer. Backed up the Photo Archives and iTunes.  And the Ubuntu homefolder. In Vista-Time I used an offsite backup service. But, about the time the HP Vista Whore Machine went into intensive care – my backup service had a massive failure and lost all my data. For this I was paying money???

My best of intention is to spend 60 minutes each evening culling and cataloguing  photos and generally trying to get my digital files battered into order. Just because I can save everything doesn’t mean I should.

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Friday

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from my walk to work today

I went out and took more pictures. For at least five years I have been trying to DO SOMETHING with all my pictures. So why did I take my camera off the shelf and carry it around today? I will devote one hour this evening to cataloging and deleting photographs from 2001.

So, no more blogging. Gentlewoman, start deleting. You are not  Georgia O’Keefe, Margaret Burke-White or Anne Leibowitz.  No one but you cares about your pictures.

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Looking Back 5 years

I was looking back in the old archives and came upon a picture of my closet. Strangely enough, I had just taken a picture of my closet to check the flash. What difference 5 years makes.

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Before and Waaaay After

This really is more than an example of a closet needing a good culling. I wanted to be sure that WordPress did not stick images out in the database part of the blog. It doesn’t.

I am very fond of the new database driven blog. Actually, the massive hardware/software melt down that started in mid-January might have been a blessing. I have some new best friends:

  1. WordPress
  2. Ubuntu
  3. KeePassX (for the Ubuntu side) and KeePass (for XP)
  4. FireFtp – a really fine Firefox plugin.
  5. FireBug – another fire Firefox plugin.
  6. FoxMarks – it might not be limited to Firefox
  7. OpenOffice – an old friend that I still use over MS Office
  8. “New” five year old Dell Optiplex

KeePass and KeePassX can share a database. It isn’t as easy/automatic as Roboform. But, I have all my passwords and answers to those stupid “What was your 2nd husband’s grandmother’s sister’s dog’s name?” challenge questions stashed in the KeePass database.

Foxmarks keeps my browser bookmarks in sync.

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Back to sorting photos

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hello humans, you are stepping on the fish

Back to sorting out photos. I must have been having trouble with my underwater camera settings in 2001, because most of the photos were seriously overexposed. The above water photos were fine. Just way too many of them. This image belongs in the trash. It isn’t focused or exposed anywhere near correctly. But, I just liked the silly humans… Standing around – missing the show just around their toes.

Got an unexpected day off today. That is the good news. The bad news is – the nurse that I work for is sick. Hopefully she gets well soon and I stay well.

Took advantage of the day off to figure out WordPress Tags and Categories – after a nudge from the favorite daughter.

Also made a 30 minute playlist of suspect Oldies – that will be my powerwalking timer. Its Raining Men and Hey Mickey are not what I would want to be caught listening too – but, if they were good enough for aerobics classes 20 years ago, I should be able to use them to keep my walker going. Also, Sugar Sugar by the Archies and Rocket 88 by Ike Turner. (Since he is dead -Ike is now allowed on the iPod.) Plus some other questionable – but perky tunes.

Still haven’t a clue about my Blog’s melt down the other day. Except for that unfortunate event – WordPress is proving satisfactory.

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OK

About this time yesterday, the blog went south. I couldn’t view it, edit it, or do anything. Maybe it was my host. Maybe it was my database. Maybe it was just bad karma. But, after 24 hours … it seems to be working again. I don’t really think I did anything to fix anything.

Think I’ll be figuring out how to back this up next. Because I have a long history of being able to mess up all things computer. Here it is: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups#Backing_Up_Your_WordPress_Site
All backed up now.