Gary's blog

115 photos at once!

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:38:56 -0400

I've been slacking off. Sometime around October of 2007, I started collecting a backlog of photos on my computer, and managed to NOT get them posted on the website. Keep in mind, I don't just move photos from the camera directly to the website, though. Each "batch" of pictures is weeded through and then post processed a bit before being uploaded. While its not a huge amount of work, it is something that takes time - and involves both Mommy and I.

In the past couple of days, however, I've finally managed to catch up. 115 (or so) photos posted to the photo albums all at once - ranging from Halloween 2007 all the way to August 2008. Sorry for the delay!

Buying a Home

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:32:49 -0400

Denise and I have been shopping around to buy our first house, and the entire process is quite a bit more stressful than I initially expected. We already had one deal fall through as a result of the inspection, and currently are making an offer on another house.

In fact, I've begun to compare the entire process to that of having children...

FedEx? UNRELIABLE!

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:29:51 -0400

Over the past few years, I've spent quite a bit of money on the internet. In 99% of those cases, the items I've ordered have been delivered either by FedEx or UPS. Today, I encountered, yet again, the typical delivery experience with FedEx: unreliable.

In this case, the shipper decided to use FedEx ground, but no signature was required. In addition, it was shipped to my home address. As is normally the case when I get FedEx ground shipments, the package never arrived when FedEx claimed it would. In this case, however, the package was specifically marked as not requiring a signature. Why is this significant? Because the so-called delivery exception this time was "Customer not available or business closed." In truth, I happen to know that FedEx actually didn't attempt delivery.

At the time that the delivery was supposedly attempted, I was sitting about 3 feet from my front door - which was wide open (thanks to the 70 degree weather we are having this evening.) As well, my door bell works great. I checked, and the numbers above my front door showing my street address are clearly visible. Finally, I have two small dogs that bark like mad if anyone (or anything) makes any noise whatsoever within 20 feet of my front door. In other words, there is no possible way that ANYONE attempted delivery at ANY time between 5pm and 6pm - though the FedEx exception report shows a time of 5:47pm.

Some website updates

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 14:15:19 -0500

While at work (the job that pays my salary, that is) I'm unable to edit photographs, upload them to the website, etc. However, if things are slow, I am able to do some minor changes to the code that runs the Forever Young. Today, I managed to add a couple changes (but don't tell my boss.)

First, if a photo appears in multiple albums, this information will now be shown when viewing the photograph. Just something that says "This photo also appears in" that is followed by one or more album links. (If the photo isn't in multiple albums, then nothing shows at all.) This might be useful for someone browsing an album like "Mommy's Picks" or "Newest Photos" that contain photo's which are often in other places.

Wow, I'm getting WAY behind...

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:02:14 -0500

Life, as usual, has been keeping me overly busy. Having two young children is quite the task... Unfortunately, it's kept me from updating the website for a few months. Right now, I still have photos from NOVEMBER that I haven't gone through and posted. That's pretty sad. However, I HOPE to start catching up this weekend...

Before I update any photos, though, I need to do some hardware work on the server that runs the website. The machine has an extra hard drive that used to do nightly backups (and from which weekly backups are made to an external device.) Unfortunately, that drive has been having problems lately, and was causing the server to crash. As a stopgap measure, I've disabled that drive (and the nightly backups) until I can figure out whats going on. My current theory is that there's nothing wrong with the drive itself, but it's not getting enough power. This weekend, I hope to power down the server and replace the power supply in that machine. With two children in the house, thats a major undertaking. Imagine having computer parts spread across the floor with a 2 year old wanting to "help."

Current photo equipment

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:46:22 -0500

As promised, here are some details on the equipment I use to take photographs of Daniel and Laci (and anything else.)

The camera body is a Canon 20D Digital SLR. Previous to this body, I used the Canon 10D.

Usually attached to the top of the camera is a Canon 580EX flash, or an older Canon 550EX flash.

I (currently) have 4 lenses (listed in order of most used to least used)

Canon 24-70 f2.8L
Canon 70-200 f4L
Sigma 55-200 f4-5.6 DC
Sigma 12-24 f4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM

The 24-70 used to be a Sigma 24-70 f2.8 which I was quite happy with. However, the Canon "L" focuses so much faster, which is really useful when trying to take photos of children that don't stay still. As well, its much easier to "tweak" the AF on the Canon lens.

Time? What's that?

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 10:36:06 -0500

It's been over a month since I've had a chance to post anything to the blog, but life has been anything but slow lately. I'm surprised I actually have time to use the bathroom anymore. I haven't made much progress on the website, either. In fact, the old "laci.garyndenise.org" site is still active, though I haven't updated it at all. I need an hour or so to set up the re-direct to this site. I few people have sent me messages asking what camera I use for the photos on here, so I'm probably going to write a couple of blog entries describing the equipment

...and more work done

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 23:59:10 -0400

More improvements and updates to the photo albums... The "Newest Photos" album is back. That album will always show two "pages" of the most recent photo's uploaded to the website. It's also updated every night automatically. In a couple months (if I remember) I'll be changing it to show all the photos that were uploaded in the last 45 days (regardless of if that's 10 or 10,000 photos.) However, I can't do that right now, as all the photos were uploaded to the current albums at the end of September... (so they'd ALL show up as newest photos.)

Finally!

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 00:33:57 -0400

I finally got several hours work into the web site! If you've been checking the new URL recently, you'll notice that the entire theme has changed, and that the photo galleries (albums) also look very different. The overall theme is an attempt at functional as well as something "childish." I'll probably be adding more crayon effects and background semi-transparent images over the next few weeks...

The photo albums are nearly 100% acceptable to me. There are only two things (that I can think of right now) missing. The first is the ability to ove

And the Beat Goes On...

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 09:48:57 -0400

Another day, another feeling of getting nothing accomplished. This has become to story of my "non-professional" life. Getting this website ready should have taken, at most, a few days. That assumes a normal work schedule, and only having a couple hours each evening to work on it, as well as around 8-10 hours over the weekend.

In reality, I'm lucky if I get 4 hours of work done on the website in a week. The problem isn't so much having the time, as having the time without interruptions. In order for me to actually get into the code of the web site and work, I need to spend a good 15-30 minutes "getting up to speed" on things. This might be similar to an actor getting into character, or a runner doing warm-up exercises. For Daniel to not cry for a stretch of more than 1 hour is extremely rare. I'm sure you get the picture...

Why would a BLOG entry need a title!?

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 07:52:53 -0400

I think I need to override something in the web software (drupal) code so that blog nodes don't require titles. I suspect a completely blank title would cause index problems, though. Perhaps I can default the blog title to just be the current date (in long format, ie: September 12th, 2005...)

I'm starting to dread weekends. While they are supposed to be days of rest, I'm finding mine are more and more days of exhaustion. Saturday morning, Denise wanted to run out with Daniel to some baby fair or something. Basically a giant flea-market for baby stuff. That meant that I was babysitting Laci. Normally not a problem, I woke up sick as a dog (and stayed that way all day/night long.) So, barely awake, I watched Laci in the morning, and spent the afternoon and evening in my bed. At night, I moved down to the couch so Denise and Daniel could go upstairs to bed. I've learned that trying to sleep in bed when Daniel is there is a losing proposition.

Sleep Deprivation

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 07:38:54 -0400

It's amazing to me how a person can function (barely) with the smallest amount of sleep. Daniel hasn't been the friendliest child in terms of letting Denise and I sleep at night. Not that I'd expect him to sleep the entire night though quite yet, but it seems that if Denise isn't holding him constantly, he's crying constantly. So, of course she tries to put him down, he wakes up screaming, which keeps everyone else from falling asleep. The result is somewhat predictable: Denise and I are irritable as hell. Oh, what fun!

Last night, after Laci went to bed and I duck-taped Daniel to Denise's chest, I actually managed to get some work done on the web site. I've decided that I'm going to drop the 'gallery' software after all, but Denise and I really don't want to have to re-type all the photo captions, artist names, keywords, etc that are stored for each photograph in the gallery software.

Keeping up the website work...

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 13:41:33 -0400

As you might have seen, I'm moving slowly, but surely, on the development of the new web site. All of Laci's Journal entries have been moved over, and Daniel's as well. The photographs have all been brought over as well (more on this later.)

I whipped up an extension to the software running the web site that will allow Denise and I to specify that a log entry is a significant event that should be noted on the front page. The best way to explain it would be to give an example. On Sept 14, 2003 Laci laughed for the first time. If you come on the web site this coming 14th of Sept, you'll see a "Today in History" type block on the left side that will mention that in 2003 Laci laughed for the first time. Being that there aren't quite that many "first times" compared to a 365 day year, that block popping up might be somewhat significant.

The New Website

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:21:15 -0400

Now that our son is born, Denise and I decided that it would be easier to maintain a single website with loose separation than to have a separate website for each child. This also gives us the chance to record (blog) our own thoughts outside the lives of our children.

At the same time, I've decided to drop the old website software (mambo)in favor of one called "drupal." The primary reason for this change is that I'm finding that the "drupal" software is more flexible in terms of making modifications. As well, the new software allows something that mambo didn't: The ability to have a comment in multiple categories at once. This will be needed when Laci and Daniel do something significant together...

Finally, I'm also updating the software used for the photo galleries. In this case, its the same software (gallery), but a much newer version. Unfortunately, I'll have to re-create many of the modifications I've made to the old version, but I think it'll be worthwhile in the long run.

So, please be patient as I get things going. I'm slowly moving the entries from Laci's Journal over (by hand.) The pictures have all been brought over from the old software, but I haven't really had a chance to look things over and make sure everything came across okay. Aspects of Laci's website that you may have become used to (such as the block showing her current exact age) will gone, but I'm working to re-add them... Slowly but surely.