Balloons float by our property often…
Floating By
Month: July 2011
Wild Flowers
Here’s some wild flowers that I photographed, and beautified, today.
Hot Tub Dance
I labored over our hot tub last weekend, draining and scrubbing, a kind of monthly, regular, weekend chore. I don’t do chemicals, other then an occasional chlorine shock, so I clean the tub often.
Here’s a video I shot after wrapping up the job. Notice the condition of the deck. Needs work bad :-) And, that little plastic thing on the deck is one of my cleaning tools.
Click ↑ for Video
The Green Chairs
Some trick green chairs have entered our dining space. I like, but the Steph unit ain’t quite getting there yet…
Flickr Code Day
Steph’s off to Jackson Hole, WY to watch the latest Harry Potter movie, with my sister and my niece Catherine. I’m sitting here in my nice quiet office, writing code.
I developed FKScan several months ago, and it’s still one of my favorite apps. It’s role in the computer universe is to grab the most recent photos uploaded to Flickr, twenty at a time, and display them as thumbnails. It will keep doing this until you stop it, or until your computer is just plumb out of resources.
If you see a photo that interest’s you, click on it. Formally, it just went to the Flickr site for the person that uploaded the picture. Now it loads my Photoset Viewer.
All of the photosets for the owner of the photo are displayed, along with a single thumbnail that represents each set. Click on any photoset title and all photos within that set will be shown. Then, click on any thumbnail within that set, to open the photo in my Photo Viewer.
These tools open up the Flickr universe in a very unique and enjoyable way…
Try it out!
Tin Cup 2011
Great event! Many more runners this year and the Driggs City Park was hopping. Had a good time and snapped a few shots:
I’ve isolated the shots of my niece Catherine, here:
SlideShow (Tin Cup 2011)
The Cup Cometh
Teton Valley’s annual summer fund raiser is tomorrow. It’s the 4th annual Tin Cup Challenge consisting of marathon races, a 5k and 10k run, and a gathering in the park where it seems everybody in the valley shows up. It’s a great event and raises lots of money for our struggling non-profits.
Since the runners come right by our subdivision on Ski Hill Road, Steph and I just mosey out there in the morning, with chairs, and take pictures.
Last year my niece and nephew (twins) ran it, but Brian’s in Paris right now, so it’s just Catherine running tomorrow. I thought about running this year but I misplaced my running shoes (20 years ago).
After the runners pass we’ll head into town and enjoy the park. I’m taking lots of pictures, so be sure to drop by for the Saturday evening post.
Vintage Potato Storage
This is old Mormon farming country, and it is Idaho, so the main crop has always been potatoes. When I first came here I was struck by these storage units, new and old, scattered around the area.
I have since learned that Mormon’s don’t like tearing old family stuff down, an endearing quality…
This one is off Hwy 33 between Driggs and Tetonia. I snapped the shot today.
The purpose of the three shots, is for evaluation. The original was taken from a distance, and lacks the quality I’m used to with my former camera. The artsy one is just for fun, but the third shot is done using Gimp2‘s cartoon mode, which adds an interesting texture to my point and shoot camera quality…
Plow Bolt
I learned what a Plow Bolt is today, the hard way. I found a flat tire on one of my inner rear duels this morning, during my vehicle pre-trip. I grabbed a spare out of the stack at our base, just in case the tire didn’t survive the drive to the dealer.
The tire guy came into the lobby shortly after, and handed me the culprit. As you can see in the photos, it was pretty nasty. Thus started my quest to find out what this thing was.
The first person I asked was an old valley guy named Garl. He said it looked like a plow bolt, but he wasn’t sure. The rest of the people I asked during the day, had no idea.
Finally I went to Ace Hardware, looking for the smart hardware guy, he would know! Greer was at lunch but a seasoned looking valley girl took one look at it and said, “That’s a really old smashed up plow bolt”.
She explained that plow bolts are used to attach plowshares, and then led me to the bin and gave me one as a present.
My Sisters House
This is my sisters quaint little place in Alta, WY. (The one with the three garage doors.) It is the base for our small remaining family. Off to the left is probably the best view of the Grand Tetons in the valley. The sight from her living room window is spectacular.
The other building is called the Guest House. It didn’t come with the property when she bought the house. She designed it, and had it built from the ground up. Besides being gorgeous inside, it has the practical value of being the storage place for her RV. That cool giant door was a custom job. I was there when the garage door company installed it, and they said they had never done one bigger.
The guest house has served the family well, but now the kids are scattered, and she rents it out to responsible, short time visitors to the valley.
Old Barn Oil Painting
I ran one of today’s barn photos through a couple of my tools, and created this. Since I took the shot, and I applied the effects, this is an original work of art!
A Tetonia Barn
I’ve been admiring this barn for years now, finally decided to stop and do a photo shoot.
SlideShow (Tetonia Barn)
Lazy Sunday
I think the Temporary Cat is pretty comfortable here.
It is a nice quiet Sunday…
Click ↑ for Video
Social Media
I have a real love/hate relationship with Social Media. On the one hand I think that it’s just for people that don’t know how to create and maintain a website of their own. I have over twenty websites, but all that does is make me a snobbish elitist. Nobody visits those sites anyway…
I’ve been doing this a long time. I was online the day that Facebook debuted, and Twitter, and Flickr, and Google. I developed my first website when Riley was about 6 years old. (He’s now 24). It was a Spice Girls fan page, well before Social Media hit the scene.
I have to admit that I have a Twitter account. I use it to follow tech things I’m interested in. I’ve only made one tweet, and that was to get a $5.00 credit for movies from Amazon.
(Update: I’ve now made two tweets, just got another $5.00 Amazon movie credit :-)
I’m also a total Google fan, my gmail account runs back many years, and I’m constantly turning people onto the cloud.
Facebook has always bugged me, for many well documented reasons, and I keep opting in and out with it. When I’m out, I lose track of what my family members are doing. When I’m in, I’m thinking “What the hell am I doing here”?
Today I discovered a plugin that automatically puts each post I make here on the blog, on Facebook. I had to do it: I built a new Facebook page, and activated the plugin.
It’s very cool! I’ve been posting to my blog daily, and this plugin sends each new one to Facebook. I’m liking this!
Crawl Space
Changing the water filter under the house is my least favorite chore here. It’s even worse then trudging through three feet of snow to hook up a hose to the well, so I can top off a leaky hottub.
So, today was the day. Armed with my large pliers (Steph calls it my Big Tool) , a bucket, a new water filter, and my camera, I headed down into the crawl space.
SlideShow (Crawl Space)
In case you’re wondering why there’s white plastic down there, it’s to keep us alive. Turn’s out the ground here emits a high amount of Radon, which causes lung cancer. There’s a pump under the house, running 24/7, blowing Radon gas out at roof level.