Sunday, June 6, 2010

So Long and Thanks For All The Fish

I was a little more than halfway through my morning run when I realized that I had missed a day. Not that the day was a complete blank. I did lots of things. Not big important things. Just Saturday sort of things.

But Day 178 didn't follow Day 177. Four and a half days shy of the halfway point in my yearlong quest to post at least one photo every day, nothing.

Now I'm calling it a day.

Here are a few sample excuses:

Last week we upgraded our antique 36-inch CRT television for a new Sharp Aquos 46-in LED LCD television. I ran a network cable into the family room and bought a five-port switch at Fry's. The TV and a Sony Blu-Ray player both have 10-100 ethernet network adapters. And both have Netflix streaming built in. In addition, I've added cabling necessary to plug my Macbook Pro laptop into the TV and stream Hulu.
The timing is not coincidental. When we dropped cable TV as a cost-cutting move after my full-time job was cut to half-time in January 2009, we agreed that we'd restore cable service long enough for me to watch the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Next week, Surewest will connect the new TV to their Digital Choice service and next weekend I'll watch USA take on England in the first game.

To complicate the daily photo shoot further, I will have cataract surgery on my right eye on June 30. Five years ago I had cataract surgery on my left eye, so I know from experience that there will be at least a day or two when I won't be able to take photos. Sure, I could bank a few photos to cover the period, but I'm not going to do that.

My decision early in the game to post photos that were taken days, sometimes weeks, earlier sent me down a slippery slope. I slipped from taking a photo a day to uploading a photo a day. Not a minor change. Now I've splashed in the water.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of Douglas Adams' trilogy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before Earth was demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route.


Friday, June 4, 2010

Back to the flowers . . .





Day 177 of 365

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Decorating Google's Search Page

Google added a feature today that allows logged in users to customize the background image on the Google home page. (Here's the blog announcement.) And so I tried out a few of my 365 Day photo project images as backgrounds. Click on the image below to see a slideshow of my favorites.

The Carts Before The Horsing Around




Day 176 of 365

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

New Trains



I saved this photos from a week ago because I knew I'd be on the train to Oakland today.

Raced this morning to get to the Sacramento Amtrak station in time to buy a ticket for the 7 a.m. train to Oakland only to have the train suffer a disabling mechanical malfunction. That left all of the people left behind by that train joining all of the people who regularly take the 7:40 train. Considered myself lucky not to be standing in the aisle when I finally boarded. After we unloaded two trains worth of Davis travelers I was able to grab half of a table for the remainder of the trip.

I'm on my way to a 10:30 a.m. meeting in downtown Oakland. I did this same commute four times a week a year ago. It is possible I'll be doing it again soon. The two-hour trip on Amtrak beats driving any day. I've got all the creature comforts of a regular office. I've got a 120 volt outlet to power my computer. My employer pays for my cellular Internet access. Restrooms are available and I can get coffee and food on the cafe car.

Day 175 of 365

Tuesday, June 1, 2010