Shasta Photos

I previously mentioned, photography is a hobby of mine, so I've posted some photos on Panoramio.com. Here are some shots of Mount Shasta:

You can see all my posted photos here and in Google Earth.

Another Widget To Test

EDIT: Now that I'm going through ALL of my files, moving into my new machine, I've added some more images to the widget. Enjoy!

Box.net provides free online file hosting (and more), which I use for some items I've posted to my website and blog, has a new little widget for posting files to your blog or website. You need to have Adobe's Flash Player installed, but that's what makes this really neat... [Does anyone still say that?] You can preview images and video, right inside the widget! So, try it out, already!

I'll try to get something more interesting uploaded.

Until then, Happy Holidays!

Test drivin' the technology

As one might notice in my profile, I consider myself an amateur photographer; meaning it's a hobby. While I do have an artistic eye, I have neither the equipment, nor the time, to be a "professional"... heck, I barely hold the amateur status!

Anyway, I'd like to share some photos I feel are worth a gander. At the same time, I'll take this opportunity to try out some Web 2.0 technology I'd hope to use on my business site.

Panoramio.com has a pretty neat little gadget I'm thinking of using for the ASIT site. It allows you to post a Google Map with markers showing the locations of photos you've taken. When you click on a marker, a bubble pops-up with the photo. Click on the photo, and you're taken to a page with photo, a couple maps showing where the photo was taken, and comments posted about said photo. In my opinion, a rather nice little mash-up.

Here it is, with the back-story following:

These were taken on a business trip, from home to Yakima, Washington. One of my clients has a commercial building they were going to be remodeling, and asked my to produce the drawings. As there were no (current) existing plans, I had to make job site measurements to come up with the existing plans.

So this means: road trip! (...another one of my hobbies...'til the gas prices went berserk!) To make a potentially long and uninteresting story short, these are photos I took along the way. Feel free to comment (either here or on the Panoramia site). They're nothing that spectacular, but I felt these places were worthy of, at most, a stop and gander; at the very least, a quick snap out the window.

Speak of snap, another gadget trial you may have noticed are the link previews by Snap.com. Another nice, low-calorie, gadget for one's web site. I'm still test-driving their search engine, so no verdict yet on that; but this... is pretty cool.

• Old and busted...


• New hotness.
  

Happy(?) Election Day!

My absentee ballot has been dropped-off at the local polling place, and I have my stub... I voted. Have you exercised your constitutional right today?

If you haven't, that's your choice, but you cannot use the excuse "I didn't know..." Between all the campaign mail and multiple phone calls each day, how could one miss it? And I'm not even counting television ads! (I don't have TV any more so I don't know if it's any worse than normal.)

With the current state of the country, there was no way I was going to miss this election. This time I voted for more alternate party candidates than I ever have. Outside of Diane Feinstein (D) and Jerry Brown (D), I don't think I voted for any Democratic or Republican candidates (except maybe at the local level since they don't always list affiliations).

Speaking of alternatives, I SO WISH I could vote for the Texas governorship! I want to wish Kinky Freidman good luck. The idea of the lead singer for The Texas Jewboys as the governor of Texas just tickles me to no end.

Another interesting item on the ballot was a local Measure Y, which was a simple question: "Should the United States End the Occupation of Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now?" (Yes or No) It's only an “advisory measure,” but the results should be interesting. The Northern California Coastal residences tend to be "progressive," but this should be rather telling, regardless of party or political affiliation.

BTW, I voted "Yes." While I support the troops (there's ex-military in my family), in my opinion, it was a mistake for the US to go there in the first place, and the 2,837 dead and over 21,000 wounded are the direct responsibility of the current administration.

Alright, enough of the soapbox...

So get out there and vote! There's little more irritating than someone who complains about the government and such, but doesn't vote. Don't be one of those people.