I know that I’ve posted one too many photos of the gazebo progress, but one more picture taken while the sun sets won’t hurt. This one was taken on Tuesday night just after the construction workers installed the railings and before the rain came today, Wednesday 5/6/2009.
I’ll also use this to mention that I’ve been pleased with the WordPress plug-in called Lightbox2 which creatively displays a larger version of images when available. For example, if you click the above photo, Lightbox will creatively open a new larger image in most browsers while darkening the post behind it. I liked it enough to included the plug-in as a suggestion as ‘top ten list’ for beginning bloggers to the WMUB Help Desk radio/podcast yesterday — here’s the mp3 link. to the program (right-click/save as).
EDIT: A November 21, 2009 follow up photo after the gazebo was complete.
Let me know if you would like a one month NetFlix Trial … a couple weeks longer than the normal promo.
Who wouldn’t like a free month of movies? Forward this email to your friends and family, and they’ll get a FREE month of Netflix. That’s twice as long as our regular free trial!
This limited time offer for your friends and family expires 06/15/2009, so forward this email today.
Short on time tonight, so here a YouTube comedy video from Rhett & Link that promotes an iPhone app called Leaf Trombone World Stage. They are best known for their internet videos and are self-proclaimed “Internetainers”. In addition to their web presence, Rhett & Link are also musicians and filmmakers, and have worked in network television as hosts. They own and operate a video production company called Rhett and LinKreations, LLC.
For more information on Rhett & Link, their bio is a great read.
The second live broadcast of the WMUB Help Desk podcast on ustream.tv. (testing the embed) Hopefully the archive version will be available ‘here’ after the Tuesday morning 5/5 live recording.
There’s an excellent new Volkswagen TDI Truth & Dare consumer blog and video marketing campaign attempting to educate American’s about ‘clean diesel’ cars. Volkswagen seeks to build on diesels reputation for economy, longevity and resale value by putting to rest the connotation that they are also slow, loud and dirty. The great videos associated with this marketing site should keep my diesel friends smiling, at least a couple minutes — they certainly made me smile. I’ll string together the YouTube clips from ‘mydubs‘ below suspecting they may eventually disappear from the tdi.vw.com website.
I’ve noticed increased number of programs proposing to consolidate social networking sites with software or websites. This weekend I thought I would give a couple of them a try, even though I don’t really use too many different social networking platforms.
First, I installed Skimmer by Fallon, and then Seesmic Desktop, both which are Adobe AIR apps. The first one does a pretty good job of accessing several popular services: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Blogger, but I wasn’t comfortable with the interface (probably didn’t give it enough time?). I did use it to update the small avatar photo (above) to Flickr and send to my Blogger account though.
The second, Seesmic Desktop, was pretty interesting in that it reminded me of the TweetDeck app that I use primarily for Twitter and Twitpic, although it looks a bit more powerful. There’s support for multiple Twitter accounts and offers drag and drop and has functional column views as we’ll as making the detachable. I’m reluctant to give up Tweetdeck at the moment, but it does look as if this Adobe AIR app has one upped them? (check out the Seesmic Desktop video below.
I’ve noticed that the neighborhood gazebo project is coming along nicely while checking in with the live ustream.tv feed over lunch. We now have the cupola and the railings are starting to appear. (and the water level in the lake is rising too!)
My wife has dubbed the morning gathering of male only Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), “the men’s club,” as at least six males gather in front of our house. They don’t seem to be doing anything more than “hanging out” on the lawn only a few feet from the front door — I suspect the females are nested somewhere around the lake on their eggs. Hopefully we’ll see the duckling shortly and that they will survive the combination of dogs, cats, racoons, possums, snakes, hawks and turtles that yearly pick them off one by one. For whatever the reason they gather, they are handsome with their attrative plumage.
Biodiesel advocates are smiling in and for Minnesota as the state has increase it mandated 2 percent biodiesel blend (B2) to a 5 percent (B5) blend as of May 1, 2009. This make Minnesota the first state to require all diesel fuel being sold in their state to contain 5% biodiesel — fuel made from grown or recycled vegetable oils ( the mandate will rise to 20 percent by 2015). The aggressive step by this state has made, along with Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico and Massachusetts who also have passed biodiesel requirements, has them legislatively leading the way in helping our country to achieve energy independence and in being more environmentally wise in using our natural resources. I’m looking forward to the day when our entire nation moves from unhealthy, finite petroleum based fuel sources to domestically produced, cleaner, renewable fuels including biodiesel.
Watching and archiving the hot topic and some better information as it relates to H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu is a misleading “pork” hindering name). Hopefully this pandemic will only lightly impact our population due to good planning and early information (see Google map in previous post) I do see over the top hype coming from some in the media, although realize that containing the spread of this infectious strain of flu is achieved by care and concern. The United States Department of Health has an excellent PlanFirst Webcast (below) on HiNi Flu with HHS Secretary Sebelius and DHS Secretary Napolitano; I particularly appreciated the calm advice from Acting Director of CDC, Dr. Richard Besser.
I’ll also use this post as an opportunity to link to a photo from a very talented professional photographer (click above photo for larger version)Catherine Hall as she has an extraordinary eye for people and way of using light for still photography. (she uses the Canon 5D: Mark II — my choice of cameras if price was no object— I need to ask about her lens selection.)
I’ve noticed increased number of programs proposing to consolidate social networking sites with software or websites. This weekend I thought I would give a couple of them a try, even though I don’t really use too many different social networking platforms.
