Rumours of my Death...

[autographedcat]

I've been hermiting lately. Lots of reasons, and things I just don't much feel like talking much about, so instead, I think I'll talk about last weekend.

Thursday, we managed to recover kitanzi's car from the dealership, where they were repairing the flood damage caused by Ivan two weeks earlier. Total damage to the car was about $2600, all but $200 thankfully covered by insurance. But the car seems no worse for wear after all that, so I guess we got lucky.

kitanzi's mom came to visit us for a brief time before she gets ready to pack up and move to Arizona. She's taking a permanent job working at the Grand Canyon, which just sounds to me like one of the cooler places in the world you can possibly pick to live, aside from that whole desert thing. :)

We all spent most of Friday night after she arrived talking and catching up and watching the recap of the presidential debates on The Daily Show. Saturday morning, we trooped over to the Alpharetta Public Library's monthly book sale, where we managed to escape with only $21 worth of books this time (a paltry amount for us, to be honest!), and then came home and basically lazed about all day. For dinner, i fried up a mess of catfish and we watched one of my favourite movies, The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain, which Kit's mom hadn't ever seen.

Sunday, we went for lunch at Jason's Deli, and then trekked down to ZooAtlanta to look at all the cute critters. I took my camera along and got some really nice shots. (plaid_dragon: note especially some really good otter photos!)

We got back from six hours of the zoo foot-sore and good-tired, so we kicked back with some dinner, and watched Chicago on DVD, since Kit's mom hadn't seen that either. A good time seemed to be had by all.

By the time I got up for work on Monday morning, she'd already left on her way back to Little Rock, but it was nice to have her visiting. I have a cool mother-in-law.:)

The rest of the week has been eh. But I might feel like a human being again by OVFF.

Comments

[chatworthy.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. The Canyon is pretty cool. And the canyon rims are up around 7000 feet elevation or more, so the weather's not that hot either.

I spent nine months working up there in 1989. I could see going back sometime - it'd be better than being a greeter at Wal-Mart.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. The Canyon is pretty cool. And the canyon rims are up around 7000 feet elevation or more, so the weather's not that hot either.

I hadn't actually considered that. I guess it would mitigate the temperature, and of course it's not nearly as humid out there either.

Or so I'm told. I've never actually travelled west of the Mississippi River so far in my life, though I expect I'll correct that sooner or later in the next few years.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain! That's such a charming movie.

Hope you're feeling more "up" by OVFF. *big hugs* I'm sending good thoughts your way!

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain! That's such a charming movie.

Yeah, I've always been fond of it, ever since I saw it in the theatre back when it first came out. It just makes me feel good.

Hope you're feeling more "up" by OVFF. *big hugs* I'm sending good thoughts your way!

Thanks. *hug* If I'm not more "up" by then, then a con will be just what I need, so it all works out. *tighthugs*

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

That looks like one deeply pissed off otter...

Whooo's Pissed Off?

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

"Thursday, we managed to recover kitanzi's car from the dealership"

Meaning Thursday, 9/30? That seems like the itsy-bitsy Mitsubishi was in there for quite a while, which must
have complicated life a bit. Glad it's back and happy, and relatively inexpensively.

"some really nice shots"

Nice owl pics. There's definitely an owl on my totem pole, although I have no use for birds in general.

"really good otter photos"

Hee hee hee. My goodness but it do look pissed off, don't it! :)

Ann O.

Re: Whooo's Pissed Off?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Meaning Thursday, 9/30? That seems like the itsy-bitsy Mitsubishi was in there for quite a while, which must have complicated life a bit. Glad it's back and happy, and relatively inexpensively.

Yep, it was out of service for exactly two weeks, but thanks help from telynor before she left the country and then the generosity of thatcrazycajun and Mary M., we didn't have too much trouble getting around it. It helps that both of us work within 3 miles of home.

Nice owl pics. There's definitely an owl on my totem pole, although I have no use for birds in general.

Thanks, I was happy with those too. What we didn't get pics of, since kitanzi didn't snap any, was me going up as a volunteer from the audience and flying a small parrot back and forth between me and the trainer.

I do like birds, although I've never kept one as a pet myself.

Hee hee hee. My goodness but it do look pissed off, don't it! :)

It has this sort of "Are you people still here" look about it, don't it?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I think he looks very presidential. :)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what I said?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Hee!!

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting the pics. Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooozoozoozoozoozoo!

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

If you wanna go sometime, let us know. We can take in one adult guest for free with us when we go.

Missed you last night. Hope you'll be back to play Nez soon.

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

I thought we were off again this week. --usually y'all call when someone's late?

[mokatiki.livejournal.com]

yay! i like to pics(espesialy the tiger and kangaroos
pitty you didn't see the Zebras :(

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Zebras were hiding somewhere when we went by. Of course, we got to see the bongo, which is rarer than rare, so that was pretty cool.

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

*hugs* -H...

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The zoo looks cool.

The only problem with otter pics is that otters cry out for video to show their best assets. They're so cuuuute! when they play! :-D

Getting Better Stuff seeded into the wind and clouds heading your way :-)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

The zoo looks cool.

It really is. ZooAtlanta does a great job, I think, and we've been members for a couple of years now.

The only problem with otter pics is that otters cry out for video to show their best assets. They're so cuuuute! when they play! :-D

Oh, they do, and I should have thought about grabbing some video with my camera, since it can do that, but I didn't think of it, and I was too busy snapping stills of him while he was out and easily photographs.

Getting Better Stuff seeded into the wind and clouds heading your way :-)

Thanks! *hug*

[persis.livejournal.com]

Oooohhhh, great pics, Rob. :-) I will have to show them to Wee Talis when she gets up in the morning. And we'll have to add the Zoo to our next trip South.

*Big hugs* to you both.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Definately do that. kitanzi and I have a family membership to ZooAtlanta, which means we can bring in an adult guest and up to four kids with us every time we go for free. :)

[persis.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. Remember, you are part of our family by marriage. :-)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

And I both honor and treasure that. *hug* :)

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

Lots of hugs and warm thoughts. I know about being a hermit, but in the end it's nicer when you come back out of your shell and are greeted by friends. Really ;-)
Looking forward to seeing you and Kit in three weeks!

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

We're looking forward to seeing you too!! It's been far far too long since we've seen you! *hug*

[gingicat]

*hugs*

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Thanks.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

"But I might feel like a human being again by OVFF"

Can I get a clarification here? Is this as in

1) I feel like steak tonight

OR

2) this feels like silk

If something is worth misconstruing it is worth misconstruing well.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

*grin* Mostly in the sense of "I might actually be fit company for other people by OVFF", though it is certainly also possible that I might both desire a human being by then or indeed resemble one to a tactile examination. We will simply have to see.

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Darn ... I won't be at OVFF so I can't volunteer to touch-test, assuming it is option 2.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Well, repeated testing over a period of time is necessary to certify the results of the first trial as reproduceable, so I expect we can set up another testing session in February. ;)

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing. I'm curious about your arrangements for the site (i.e., what software are you using, how much does it cost, and how much time does it take to go from a pile of raw pictures off the camera to a pile of pictures on the web site (not upload time, but time actually telling the computer what to do)? It takes me a whole evening to get a dozen pics from raw on the camera into an LJ post, which is why I post pictures so rarely.

Mebbe we can photo-geek at OVFF.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

The software I'm using for the webpage is Gallery, which is a free open source project. All of the various pieces required to run it are also free, though it may be a bit much to get set up on a normal ISP hosting arrangement. I have the advantage of owning my own server that I can install whatever I want.

Since gallery does pretty much all the work, it doesn't take long at all. After uploading those photos (which I do straight off the camera's memory card using a USB card reader on my PC), I create a new folder, point Gallery at the directory I uploaded the photos to, and say "Go" and it does everything. I seem to recall it took a bit of poking and prodding at it to get it all set up in the first place, but now it's just fire and forget. I LOVE this software.

The homepage for Gallery is http://gallery.sourceforge.net/

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

So you actually serve the photos off of your own machine that you have convenient physical access to? That does make it a lot easier, but wouldn't work for me where I live. Or does the Gallery software have a local client and a server component that talk to each other sensibly?

I don't have the bandwidth to put my full size images on the server even if I had a server with the storage space to hold it all; a significant piece of what I need would be software that would take a directory full of full-size images and resample them all so they were sensible size (in pixels and in bytes). Since I crop many of my pictures before I post them, the resampling has to be slightly more sophisticated than just "resize all images to 600x400".