Archive for September, 2005

  • Sign the Petition for Decent Pay in the Gulf Coast - September 29th, 2005

    • I thought you might be interested in this Working Families e-Activist Network petition to protect workers wages in the Gulf Coast region.
    In his first act after the storm, Bush issued an executive order taking wage protections away from construction workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast.
    The Bush administration also is using the disaster to [...]

  • More Picasa Kudos - September 29th, 2005

    • I’ve been extolling the virtues of Google’s Picasa software for some time now. Here’s another good and interesting feature. I’ve mentioned that Picasa includes a not-half-bad image editor, with some pretty nice features. What I hadn’t realized until recently is that changes made in Picasa are non-destructive, leaving the original file untouched for use in [...]

  • What is it With Me and Tires? - September 27th, 2005

    • Yesterday was a pretty convoluted day. Work in the morning for Mr. Z, the train guy, the aforementioned luncheon faisco, and then on to the afternoon. For a while, I putzed around in the basement, and loaded the van with all the goodies I had to return to a couple of friends/associates/colleagues (the rented recording [...]

  • Crab Shanty = Crap Shanty - September 27th, 2005

    • Yesterday, I went to a luncheon at the Crab Shanty in Ellicott City, MD. The Crab Shanty is, allegedly, one of the better seafood restaurants in town. I will not be going back.
    As we went as a group, and had limited time because of working schedules, we pre-ordered our food last week. Still, nothing had [...]

  • POSTPONED — Mango Project Demo Recording - September 24th, 2005

    • Geren will be recording and engineering a demo CD for The Mango Project.
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  • Google and Page Ranking - September 24th, 2005

    • I found this interesting article on how Google ranks pages. The cat’s out of the bag, folks!
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  • Going to The Moon: Orphans Preferred - September 22nd, 2005

    • Yes, it’s true. NASA plans to go back to the moon, and beyond to Mars, with a target set for sometime in 2018. ABC News’ Michael Malone shares his insights …
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  • Keeping the Peace? - September 19th, 2005

    • via the web
    /random/keepingthepeace.jpg
    This is the result of a high-speed police chase that got out of hand. The car (Honda) hit by the cruiser was not the suspects’ car. Fortunately, nobody died, although two of the three occupants of the car received numerous cuts and bruises requiring stitches, and one has a back and neck injuries. [...]

  • Illustrator Alternative - September 19th, 2005

    • via e-mail
    Looking for an alternative to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw? Then try Inkscape, an open source alternative that’s freely available for Windows, Linux and MacOS-X.
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  • Plans for the day … - September 18th, 2005

    • As usual, there’s just too darned much to do around here.
    Today’s plans include: Church, breakfast and grocery shopping, followed by cleaning up the basement. I also want to work on getting my On30Guy web site converted over to WordPress/Gallery2, work on the On30XChange web site, work some on pictures from our trip to the Ren [...]

  • ‘A Picture’s Worth’ Returns - September 17th, 2005

    • via e-mail
    I received the following e-mail today from David Chin, site owner of A Pictures Worth:
    Dear Geren,
    Hello! It’s David Chin from ‘A Picture’s Worth’ (at http://1000words.net) and I hope that you have been well.
    I have been overwhelmed by the e-mails of support that I continue to receive since the site gradually stopped showing new [...]

  • A Trip to the Faire - 2005 - September 17th, 2005

    • Once again, Geren and Donna will be visiting the Maryland Renaissance Festival on Scottish Weekend. This year, we’ll be going on Sunday Saturday. Come look for us. We’ll be sportin’ our cameras, as usual.
    If you come the the Festival, and you see us there, be sure to say hello! We’ll do a picture, and post [...]

  • Over-reliance on Computers - September 16th, 2005

    • The fact of the matter is that, as a society, we’ve become far to reliant upon computers to handle our daily business.

  • DIVINE - September 16th, 2005

    • /geren/MT_2004/PICT0969.jpg
    Today’s Photo Friday theme is “Divine.”
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  • See George Flop - September 15th, 2005

    • via Will
    Very funny, this.
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  • What? Nothing Since Saturday? - September 13th, 2005

    • Yeah, I know. We’ve not posted anything since Saturday! Sometimes, it just works out that way. I did post updates to a few entries, but updated entries don’t bubble to the top of the page … yet. I’m trying to figure out how to get WordPress to do a sort that is first by date [...]

  • Picasa — Pretty Darned Impressive - September 10th, 2005

    • I’ve been using Google’s Picasa image management software for a few weeks now, and I find more and more to like about it all the time.
    Tonight, for fun, I decided to try playing a bit with the built-in image editing functions on a portrait I shot of Donna. I made the image at Brookside Gardens [...]

  • Yet Another Idiot - September 10th, 2005

    • Today’s I-Files “Award” goes to a blond white female, driving a Silver Chrysler Concord with a Maryland tag, LLA 685. Tailgating, lane dives and speeding to get around me, she still wound up behind me several miles later, and on a different road.
    Go home, moron. And stay there — before you hurt yourself, or, more [...]

  • Stereopool at Rams Head Roadhouse - September 10th, 2005

    • UPDATED September 11, 2005
    Stereopool played the Rams Head Roadhouse, last night. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it out. We simply ran out of day — and steam. By the time we left Steve’s little soiree, and got home, it was already 9PM! About all I had energy for was to download the memory cards, take a [...]

  • CMPG Public Photo Outing - September 10th, 2005

    • The Central Maryland Photographers’ Guild will be holding a public outing to Brookside Gardens. For details see the CMPG site.
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  • Steve’s Open House - September 10th, 2005

    • Steve, a.k.a. The Maryland Railbaron is holding his final open house on Sept. 10, from 9-4. We’ll be there, although not until the afternoon, as we have another engagement in the morning.
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  • Donate for Katrina Relief - September 10th, 2005

    • You may notice the little America Red Cross donation “bug” in the upper right of each page of this site (if you have javascript enabled). Clicking on it will take you to the American Red Cross web site, where you can make a donation for the relief effort in the Gulf Coast region.
    Post Revisions:There are [...]

  • Little Adjustments - September 8th, 2005

    • I’ve been slogging along throuhg all the posts with images, moving the images and links into Gallery2 galleries, and getting all the links to work. I think that I’ve gotten all of mine moved over. Tomorrow, I’ll attack Donna’s.
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  • A Few Glitches … - September 7th, 2005

    • Something hit my computer tonight. I’m not sure what. The thing got freaky and I had to reboot. The first time around, I got the very frightening and annoying “Primary HD Failure,” followed by the equally frightening and annoying “NTLDR Not Found” error, and, of course, the boot failed. No, I wasn’t poking around at [...]

  • Header Graphic - September 7th, 2005

    • /geren/DelMarVa/Chincateague Sunset 1.jpg
    For those interested, here’s the full version of the photograph that I took the header graphic from. I made this photograph a few years ago, before I had a digital camera, using my old Canon Rebel S-II, and a Canon 35-80mm zoom, on Ilford XP2 chromogenic black-and-white film. No exposure information was recorded, [...]

  • Remember Montana? - September 7th, 2005

    • /geren/MT_2004
    Remember last year, when we went to visit Donna’s parents in Montana? We put up a few pictures then, but not many. And, since the site’s been completely redesigned twice since then, any pictures we had up have long since come down. So, I’ve uploaded a new gallery space with a few of my images [...]

  • Web Mastering 101 — Why You Should Keep Your Images Local - September 6th, 2005

    • via Rob
    Here’s an excellent reason why you should never, ever hotlink to images on someone else’s site. (Note - may no longer be funny once website owner clues in.)
    I love it! Looks like something I would do to someone who torqued me off — except I might not be as kind! Almost as good as [...]

  • Geren Directs County Council Meeting TV Coverage - September 6th, 2005

    • Geren will direct live coverage of the Howard County Council meeting on Howard County GTV (Cable channel 70, in Howard County).
    UPDATED
    Well, the live shot went off, though not without a couple of hitches. I’ll have to fix them in post tomorrow morning. A couple of the titles got mixed up, and went over air at [...]

  • Images with Borders - September 6th, 2005

    • You may notice that some images have borders around them now, and many do not. Images that have borders are linked either to a gallery or image within a gallery. In any case, clicking on an image with a border will allow you to access and view related images. Neat, uh, huh?
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  • Monday in the Park with Donna - September 6th, 2005

    • Yesterday, Donna and I decided to get out of the house and take some pictures. I had some NYI assignments to complete, and we thought that it would be a good time to do it. We ended up at the Avalon Area of the Patapsco State Park.
    /geren/patapsco050905/Donna on Bridge.jpg
    Donna, with camera, on the trail
    The day [...]

  • Round and Round and Round They Go - September 5th, 2005

    • I learned something new about my camera (the Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2) today. It seems that if you rotate an image in-camera when previewing them, it will flag the image as being a vertical so that you don’t have to rotate the image when you copy it to the PC. So, providing I have the time [...]

  • Mental Midgets of Mayhem - September 3rd, 2005

    • Two more for The I-Files. Today’s mentions go to …
    … A male African-American driver of a silver Chevrolet Monte Carlo with Maryland “Communications Workers Association” specialty tag 0092. This fellow felt the need, on US29 South, just past US40 to come up behind me at some incredible speed. I was moving at a clip somewhat [...]

  • Republishing RSS Feeds - September 3rd, 2005

    • A new version of Fetch-RSS has been released. Fetch-RSS is a plug-in for WordPress that would allow me to republish the RSS feed from another blog or web site. Depending on the feed, that could be headlines, excerpts or whole pages. Sounds pretty cool, huh?
    But, why would I want to do this?
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  • The I-Files - September 2nd, 2005

    • This entry begins a new series here at gerenm.net. These entries will be reserved to bring you acts particularly idiotic, inconsiderate, injurious, and/or illegal, all committed by our beloved fellow human-beings (who are not necessarily human-thinkings.) Our inaugural entries include traffic violators and (gee, what a surprise?) gas station owners…

    9/01/2005

    This person is presented [...]

  • Oops, Lost the Talkr … - September 2nd, 2005

    • I just realized that when I change the site templates, I lost (meaning I screwed up and forgot to add) all the talkr podcast links. Was anybody listening? Or, should I just kill the feed?
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  • As Seen on TV! - September 2nd, 2005

    • Some of you may have seen mention on CNN of someone who’s blogging from “Ground Zero” in New Orleans. I’ve finally gotten a link to his site:
    http://mgno.com/
    On another note, the fellow I mentioned previously, “Bober,” is fine. I spoke with a mutual friend this evening who received e-mail from him. Apparently, he and his fiance [...]

  • Funny Because it’s True? - September 2nd, 2005

    • Donna sent me this link today….
    http://toccionline.kizash.com/films/1001/178/index.php
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  • Testing, testing … - September 2nd, 2005

    • At the request of one of the developer’s I’m going to be breaking the galleries over night tonight. They’ll be back on line sometime either early tomorrow morning, or tomorrow evening.
    [Note: I chose to break only one of the galleries that I know is at issue, instead of the whole shootin' match. So, for the [...]

  • ORDER:Shifting Sands - September 2nd, 2005

    • /geren/DelMarVa/Shifting Sands.jpg
    The endless breeze brings about perfect order in these rivulets of sand on the beaches of Assateague Island.
    Today’s Photo Friday theme is “Order.”
    More images of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia are here.
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  • FAVORITE:Chaos - September 1st, 2005

    • Today’s Thursday Challenge is “Favorite,” meaning, choose your favorite image over the past year. So far, the most exciting image I’ve created, as far as I am concerned, is the picture I used for Photo Friday last week. So, here it is again …
    /geren/oceancity/Fishing Pier and Surf 8×8.jpg

    To see more Ocean City, MD images, visit [...]

  • Got it Goin’ On, Now, Baby! - September 1st, 2005

    • Okay, there was something pretty whacked out in a template somewhere, and it plain wasn’t going to work here. I’ve gotten a new batch of templates for the gallery that look okay (still some tweaking required), and I’m busy uploading the new photo albums. So far, nothing has exploded. I say, enjoy!
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  • Something’ Still Broke - September 1st, 2005

    • Damn! I’ve run into a problem. For some reason, I’m getting nasty errors in galleries that contain more than 20 images, because the gallery index spans more than one page. Not sure yet what’s going on, and I’ve got to leave for TV-land in a few minutes. Bah!
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  • Galleries … an Update - September 1st, 2005

    • Thanks to some great help from Brian and “Ozgreg” at the WPG2 support forum, Gallery2 RC2 is now fully integrated into Blather de la Semaine. As it turns out, I probably could have retained the previous theme templates, but, that’s okay. Maybe, if I get the urge, I’ll switch back sometime down the road.
    Of course, [...]

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