...a tease, a taste of things to come
Warmth, temperatures in the high 50s, a late winter gift. It felt wonderful to be able to walk in warmth, to laugh at the sound of the howling wind, to feel the cold rising from the remaining snow.
Tomorrow the temperature is forecast to be at least 20 degrees cooler, so today was just a fleeting taste of spring. But hey - the vernal equinox is only 3 weeks away!
Somehow I've become addicted to wandering in the southwest. It's so different from my home, and the starkness of the environment can be breathtaking. I knew my early February trip would be a good escape from winter's cold and snow. It was too quick, but that seems to be my normal reaction to my travels. Too quick, but so enjoyable...
You can follow the tale of my southwest ramble in words in my journal or in pictures in my Jumping from white snow to red rocks photo galleries.
Circling Red Rock Canyon:
I had a strong desire to walk in the middle of beauty, so I headed to Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday afternoon. It's hard to believe that I've been living in this area for so many years and I didn't find this gem of a park until last April. I'm so glad I found it!
Today? I was surprised by the ice. I knew there would be remnants of our winter storms. The beach was clear of snow and ice, but the retaining ponds? They were still frozen. I found it interesting that they had frozen in a way that made it look as if waves were rolling across the surface.
Morning, time to head to work...
I was driving through a neighborhood not too far from home, when I saw him. A coyote walked out of the woods and headed down the center of the road. Walking, looking, and then, loping off into the woods again.
What a beautiful way to greet the day!
I was walking through the woods, seeking patterns, looking at running water, at ice... This piece of ice reached out and grabbed me. What do you see?
There are places where I expect to see toys, outside of houses, on a playground, places where young children play. As I walked across the campus of a private high school, this misplaced child's truck made me look twice.
If you've been following the saga of my travel journals, you know that I moved my journals from their previous home to blogger. Blogs usually show the newest post on top, but my travel journals? I really prefer to have the journals set up more like a book, with a table of contents, and posts moving from oldest to newest.
I've just documented the steps to flip a blog on its head, to change it so the posts are ordered from oldest to newest instead of a blog's typical newest-first.
Do you have a blog that needs to be flipped? If you do, you can find my notes at http://denisegoldbergplays.blogspot.com/2009/02/flipping-blog-on-its-head.html.
It was a good day for a long walk. There was blue sky, howling wind, snow crunching beneath my feet as I wandered through the woods.
My travel journals now only have a single home. I posted here on Groundhog's Day that I had created a new home for them (easily accessible by clicking the Travel stories link in this blog sidebar, or by clicking Travel stories from the Gallery entry on the navbar of my site). I have now removed them from their old web location.
I just posted an entry over on the crazyguyonabike forum thread about watermarking pictures to explain to people there who may have been reading my journals why I pulled them from the site. I've decided to also post that response here:
I'd like to offer my thanks to those of you who have written to tell me that you'll miss my journals and my photos (even with a watermark). Both are still easily available, although they will no longer jump out and grab you from the home page or journal list here. You can always find my words and photos by following the Travel stories link in the sidebar of my blog. Here's a direct link if anyone is looking for it now - www.denisegoldberg.com/gallery/4857761_xpeiZ.
I apologize if I pulled a journal out from under your eyes, if you were reading something when I unpublished my journals. If that's the case, and if you can't find it in its new home, please contact me and let me know what it is you are looking for. I'd be happy to send you a direct link.
In answer to anyone asking if there is something going on in my life under the assumption that I must have pulled out because of something else - it couldn't be because of this issue, could it? My life is just fine; I'm perfectly happy. And in fact I did pull my journals because of this issue.
Please note that I am not posting this to restart the discussion; I would just like some of you to understand my decision. If you are not interested in that decision then I'd recommend that you stop reading this post.
Neil's statement that he did not ban the use of watermarks is correct, but he might as well have. While the first post was civilized it did show an extreme lack of understanding (stating the assumption that the only reason someone would use a watermark would be so that they could sell the photos), and it quickly degraded into an out-and-out rant. It should have been a civilied discussion; it was not anything close to that. And I'm not talking about just the comments directed at me; there were comments directed at other individuals who also did not agree with the initial statement. It was very clear to me from this thread that Neil really doesn't want to see photos with watermarks here, and that he wouldn't "allow" journals to link off-site for the photos. And I would agree that it is good to have some photos embedded in the journal (although I will continue my habit of having a sample of photos in my journal, with more available in my photo galleries).
At this point I am not willing to publish my photographs on the web without a watermark on them (as an artist's signature). Yes, I do know it can be easily cropped off. But realize, that is my decision, not Neil's, and not yours. If my watermark distracts you, then I'm sure that you will not visit my photo galleries or the new home of my journals. That's fine - it's your choice, just as watermarking my photos is my choice.
I know that some of you think that I overreacted by pulling my journals from this site. That's your opinion, but no, I didn't overreact. I thought long and hard about it, and I weighed my choices. You already know my decision - I chose to create a new home for my journals. Don't be so quick to judge; you have no idea what you will do yourself until you are faced with a similar situation.
I have absolutely no regrets about the decision that I made.Update a few hours later... just to take it a little further, he just posted a reply to my post calling me a liar. Nice.
And days later... I can no longer access crazyguyonabike or its sister sites from my home computer to read the content published by other authors, although I can access it from my "baby" travel computer using a neighbor's internet connection (at the same moment that I can't access the sites from my usual computer). This implies to me that my IP address is blocked from the sites. I can ping the sites, but I can't get to them from a browser. Given that I have not posted anything other than this explanation, I think that was a more than childish reaction on Neil's part. I understand blocking someone from posting on a site if that person has been posting questionable content (which I really haven't been), but I do not understand blocking read access from reading the site. Again, a very childish and churlish reaction.
I'm home, I'm wandering through my photos, I'm enjoying the sights from my too-short trip.
A tease for your eyes, as I'm still deciding on the photos to use in my galleries...
Ah, time for a quick escape from the snow! I'm off for a few days, days of absorbing the wonder around me, days of walking, days of camera play...
Are you interested in watching over my shoulder? Please join me, Jumping from white snow to red rocks.
The forecast for today called for afternoon snow, so in spite of dry pavement greeting me this morning, I decided to work at home. As it turned out, it really wasn't necessary. Yes, it snowed - in fact it is snowing now - but the accumulation (so far) is minimal. The big plus? It was so nice to be able to take a mid-day break to walk in the daylight.
Remember my post back on January 11th about my placing watermarks on the photos that I included in my bicycling touring and hiking journals? At that point I decided that I would publish all new journals in a new spot, but I was still thinking about leaving the existing journals alone. The more I thought about the forum discussion on watermarks and another discussion the following week that also quickly degraded, I decided to move all of my journals to a new home. (I haven't removed the journals from their old home, but that's probably coming too. Soon.)
I feel like I've been glued to my computer for the past three weeks.
In order to complete the move (relatively) quickly, I decided to tackle it in two steps. The first was to move all of the content to blogger, using the same look as this blog. The second step will be to flip the journals on their heads so that they read like a book. Most of the journals look like a blog right now, with the newest posts on top. A couple have been completely changed, with a table of contents in the sidebar, page to page links at the bottom of each entry, with pages that read from old to new.
Oh, you want to see some examples? For comparison purposes... A return to Death, a journal about my November 2008 wander in Death Valley National Park, has been completely converted to the new format. And A tale of two, from my August trip to New Brunswick is still upside down, reading from new to old.
As I travel, my journals will be in blog format, with the newest posts on top. That probably makes sense for those of you who are following me on the road, since my latest post will always be easily accessible. I will wait until I return home to flip the journal on its head, adding a Table of Contents and photos.
For now, I have chosen to share a single guestbook among all of my journals. I did initially enable comments at a post level, but after someone posted a comment and I had to search through all of the posts in my Boston to Oregon, a cross-country celebration journal to find the comment, I realized that really wouldn't work for me. If I head out on a long trip, I may create a guestbook that is specific to the trip, but for now I think that a single shared guestbook will serve my needs. (Oh, you want to know how to find the guestbook? When you are reading any of my journals, click the entry "Talk to me, I'm listening" in the sidebar of the journal.)
Please join me in my travels, look over my shoulder... If you want to see where I've wandered, use the Travel stories link in the sidebar of my blog (or from the Gallery page in my photo galleries), and then jump into Wandering... assisted by 2 feet or 2 (bicycle) wheels, & a camera!. I've collapsed the biking and hiking galleries into a single chronological list of my travels, with links to both my journal and the photo galleries from my trip. If you prefer my old "Two wheels, pedaling circles, touring" and "Two feet wandering" pages as a jumping off point, links to both are included in the description of this new "map" to my travels.
Please - let me know what you think! If you have suggestions for improvements, or if you find a problem with my new pages (other than the fact that they are still upside down, of course), I'm listening...
