The Waitress and Two Books I hate

We went to Telluride last night to catch the late afternoon show of "Into the Wild", ate barbecue at Fat Alley's and listened in to other people's conversations. Then we ambled over to the movie theatre, realized the running time was more than two hours and knew we'd hate the movie, having read the book and the reviews. So we came home and ran "The Waitress". It's a clunky, goofy movie, but I thought the concept of theme pies was incredibly poetic and sensual.

Our free dvd from Fox got all snaggy right near the end, so we never quite caught the ending, but enough to know where it was all going.

The two books I hate:

• A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Dance to the Music of Time) (Actually 3 novels in one by Anthony Powell) Set in the 20's, unoriginal writing with phrases piled on top of phrases, and pompous classical references, what's this writer got going, compared to so many women writers from the same period. Yet he's recommended so highly. Halfway through the second novel, I'm tossing it.

• Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential) This horrid 900 page code book saddens me. I love Flash. I love coding for Flash. They've thrown out the old language, (though old timers are allowed to still use it), and have put in this new strict code language which is very hard to comprehend and so far I've seen no use for it that's fun or entertaining. It really has been written to be used for computer programmers only. I know that there are new features in the latest version of Flash which would probably lend themselves to interesting experiments, but I doubt I'll be able to explore them. If I were in jail maybe I could get through this, but no plans of that at present.
  

And I don't like Hillary Clinton either, so there! But that line about asbestos pants does make one's imagination run on.

The photo is of the cute new shirt I got from Rod's, and a water color I haven't finished.

Fooling with the Shrink

I spoke to my mother today. After her physical she had an appointment with the resident psychiatrist. She said before she went she had an inspiration to check exactly what day it was.

She went for her appointment, and they were talking, when suddenly he said, "What day is it today?" and she blurted out "Tuesday, November 13, 2007." She said he nearly fell out of his chair.

Then she told me, "I think he liked me. He wants to see me again."

INSOMNIA!

I dread picking up my mother's patterns of sleeping. Since we've been in Colorado I've rarely slept well. You should see the stars. I think it's related to Dinah and the separation required.

If I wake up too bolt alert, (especially after doing code experiments), I try old style go to sleep methods, like counting sheep etc. Thus the picture, from a Sesame St. song.

Sometimes I trudge into weird dream territory, like imagining sloppy frozen desserts trade named "DreamWeaver Ice Cream", with tiny figures from the past waving to me frantically as the Big Spoon stirs them around. Am I responsible for them?

And suddenly it's 4:50 am and surely a good time to get started with things!

Montrose Co- what a town!

When am I getting that camera hat? I tried to get a full view shot of this poor shopper at City Market today, but he kept looking at me so I had to pretend the camera was a cel phone, a behavior that used to drive Dinah particularly nuts, because it is a bit nutty. "Oh, hi. What are you doing? Waiting to take a picture?"

His cart was full of nothing but Stouffers frozen foods, many, many many red boxes, and his pyramid silhouette looked as if he'd swallowed the meals trays and all. Talk about lonely fat guy menus, poor fellow. But I guess he likes the way they taste. He was definitely in the 300 pounder club. Only Stouffers in the cart.

Then we went to the post office to mail a goody box to Dinah: warm clothes, dark chocolate, jelly beans, trail mix, bagels, lip gloss, postits, Cheesits. I also had a 3 pack of my dvds that some nice person had purchased this week. I thought I did the smart thing by going up to the kiosk to mail my packages since the post Veteran's Day line was so long. But as I rolled through the automated menu, I knew I had to cover every trace of id that showed my box had once held a case of wine. Otherwise I'd go on the do not call list or the do not fly list or something inappropriate. (It's illegal to use those boxes.)

I decorated that box with so many Priority Mail stickers there was a pile of waxy peel backs left when I was done. I got my postage, put the box in the drop down box feeder along with the dvds which I'd forgotten to stamp..(only remembered that part later.)

While Jon stood with Molly outside the p.o., a woman came up to him and said, "What a nice dog. I have a dog at home, a black Lab." "That's wonderful," Jon said.

"Yes," she told him, "my husband always wanted a black Lab and I found a place on the Internet where you can get them, stuffed." (as in TAXIDERMY!)

She went on: "He didn't seem all that amused by it."

She looked like a totally modern grandmother normal.

I have another story about a similar scary modern grandmother normal, but it's so creepy I will wait till another day.

Colorado Friend Count

Since we've been here Molly has made three friends: Cameron the Malamute, an old Husky who comes up in the morning and pees in her face, and this voyeur Lab who comes over after dark and looks in the window.

Jon has made two friends: the new president of the homeowners and the guy at the Ridgway dump.

Me? Only digital friends. Hope this isn't the trend for the rest of my life! What a crank I am.

Barbed Wire won't hold her back!

Molly's agility lessons pay off in real life. Not easy to jump through barbed wire fences. Jon and I have to wiggle worm under.

Animation in Blogger Header

I figured out how to make an animated header in Blogger.
I put it on a separate Blogger page, here.

I didn't like those big Amazon slideshows on my main page anyway, but I spent a lot of time reading those books and writing minireviews, so I decided to do a funonmarslikes blog. May or may not keep updating it, but I was pleasantly surprised that I could get the animation into the header, as it wasn't easy.

Also Whinsey has some new animation over at her blog.
Time for a hike. The woman taking care of our animals at home called to say one of the exotic Australian doves had flown away. .. We've had a pair for ten years. Maybe it will return-- white doves do, but these doves have stranger personalities.

Some Recent Hikes

How to Put a Favicon in Your Blog

Linda found this great site for creating favicons, the teenser pictures that appear in your address bar. I'd made one a long time ago, but since the image is only 16 x 16, it's hard to get just what you want. It's also important, if you don't use a site like favicon.cc, that you make sure the file type is .ico.

Anyway, once you've made your favicon and named it favicon.ico-- which the site does for you, upload it to your own site. I'm going to upload the one I just made right now. I have a different one for Whinsey.

Then, in blogger do this: (thanks to blogu) (I couldn't get the code into blogger, so had to use a jpg-- if you go to my link previous you can copy and paste it directly.)

To get the favicon on your blogger, you need a code to add to your template, and this is it:

Replace "http://myfavicon.com/favicon.ico" with the URL of where your webspace stored your ico file, & paste the code between the head tags of your blog. The favicon will now appear in most browsers address bar and bookmarks. (Not sure about the rhyme or reasoning here, but some do...some don't.) Added bonus! If you use Mozilla Firefox (why wouldn'tUpdate: Favicons only appear in IE if the site is in your bookmarks. If the site is not bookmarked, I have discovered a little trick. Left click on the 'e' in the address bar and jiggle it a few times. The favicon will show up!

To get to that part of your blog click on customize>template>edit html

The closing head tag will be near the bottom of all the text. If you aren't sure what you are doing, first choose the option at the top of the page to save your current template.

Taking a big chance.

I saved the xml file for my old blog layout in case this is a disaster, but any time you change your template all the widgets are lost. I'll see how many I can get back. Looks as if my categories may have gotten lost too. Bummer. This will look kind of weird for awhile but hopefully it will get adjusted so things fit.

I learned most of what I needed from elque. I hope the puzzle pieces hold together and the arms don't end up under the feet, etc. If you get a weird view on your computer, let me know.

Great Day

The weather was so nice I suggested we take our favorite hike along the canals at Woods Lake.

We picked up a sandwich at Mary's in Placerville which we split, checked that there was no mail, sent off two dvds-- one to MALVO SWEDEN, Kurt Wallendar country, the headed down the very empty road to Sawpit, found our turn.

Along the seven mile drive to the lake we saw:

A BEAR!!!

We've been coming here for more than 25 years! In that time I've seen one bear and Jon's seen one bear. But to see one together... Later he kept saying,
"it seems like a fantasy."

It was about to cross the road, from out of the shadows with the stream behind him, then changed its mind and went back towards the creek.

We were beside ourselves from then on. I've been bear obsessive for many years. A BEAR! THAT WAS A BEAR! DID YOU SEE THAT? IT WAS A BEAR!

calm down.

We went on our usual hike, had lunch at the trail spot we prefer-- never saw another person though it was L.A. weather... then decided because all was so perfect we'd take the longer walk around the lake hike, the one we'd only taken once twenty years ago and couldn't remember why we never took it again...

to be continued...

working on blog design

currently in code fog, breaking the blogger rectangle design. Hope to post new view soon. But first a hike around Woods Lake-- the weather here is outstanding and peculiarly warm. Thanks for all your kind comments on my fine business sense.

Namowal, I found I still had the original image. Here it is:

I have no business sense- none.

This isn't news, but I was deeply depressed today after my sheep herding trainer told me she didn't want to use the flash site I'd designed for her, which was quite fancy and light, and would prefer to put up her semi hysterical old html site which was in such disrepair that she practically begged me to help her out when I took it on.

She told me the site I designed, all in Flash, wouldn't play on her Blackberry and it wasn't serious enough, etc. I made a crap Dreamweaver single page for her today, and posted it, because I felt sorry for her as she struggles to put her old html site back together, but probably will never take a lesson from her again.

(By the way, if you're ever looking for long ago web sites, an amazing site is the waybackmachine.
They never seem to have everything from your long ago site, but they have a lot.)

When you charge low prices you get the lowly worm treatment. At age 58 you'd think I would have learned this, but no. At least I didn't do it on spec...

The work I did I should have charged $1500 for. I quoted $500. insane. I accepted $250.

Then there's the String Devils, a site I thought looked really cool, oh never mind, it will just keep me awake again tonight. Innovative web design is no career unless you really absorb and love the metallic look where everything looks like toasters.

I've never had business sense, even though I'm generally sensible. I always feel sorry for the people paying me- eek- enough.

nicole!

nicole!
Originally uploaded by Big Chicken

Dinah posted this picture of Nicole the Goat at college. Looks as if she's lost a few pounds. Today we saw our first pictures of U.C. Davis. There was not a person in any photo, just goats, horses, and views of the dorm room. But I loved seeing them.

I think Nicole is trying to blow me a kiss. It's true, isn't it?

I found a piece of tail!

Fearless friends of the Forest... I went back to find the tail I'd left hanging from a tree. (see previous post). Molly spotted the cutoff to the hill, and Jon decided to sit on a rock while I scrambled up a mountain side looking for it, then stumbled back down, disappointed, only to find it almost where he was sitting on the rock, still hanging in the tree. I stuffed it in my pack.

What kind of tail is this? (Looks like a furry turkey neck!) It's at least 20" long with bones still inside, circumference same for entire length, fur mottled as in this sample picture, lighter on underside. (I need a better camera, or steadier hands.)



Aside from the bones within the tail, there were no bones anywhere around the fur or tail scattered on pine needles. I think it might be a baby mountain lion, maybe brought down by a pack of coyotes? But the fur was relatively long, and as I said before, very soft.

I hung it from a high branch outside the kitchen window, knowing Molly would be obsessed with it if it were inside the house.

And what's a picture of a piece of tail without a picture of bear poop? I have no idea why this photo is so strange, but I was mighty nervous while taking it.



and finally, friends, an exploding puffball mushroom, gigantic, about the size of an ostrich egg:

Cruikshank's Lambshanks

Got up at first light to start dinner in the red crock pot. I found an appealing recipe here for crock pot lamb shanks. I've never cooked them before. So confident of success was I that I took a picture of the ingredients before I even started cooking.

I turned on the pot to low, and admired the multiple ingredients through the glass. Looked a few hours later and was surprised that there seemed to be no change in them at all...

It wasn't plugged in. (Hello, Linda?)

So today we're trying for the dinner again, and I've checked several times to make sure it's still plugged in.

Late yesterday we went for a shorter hike, exploring a steep mountainside. We found fresh bear p@@p on the edge of a cave hole we were peeking in. I admit it. I got scared. Then a little farther we found a large amount of beautiful fur with no bones at all. It was multi-colored and very soft. Then we found a long tail. I brought some of the fur back, but not the tail, which I hung in a tree. But today I think I'm going back to get that tail, because I can't figure what it could be. A mountain lion kitten is the closest I can come.

I BUILT A BLOGGER BARN!

Whinsey has her own blogger barn.

I still have some work to do on it, but I'm pleased I got it this far. Making the transition from the test blog to the real blog was NO FUN! Too many widgets! May have to pair a few down.

Playing with Blogger

I'm on a roll now with Blogger... I think!

First of all, you need to know that you can add as many blogs to your account as you wish, and delete them with a quick push of the button as well. You can even set them so no one can see them but you. You just need to come up with a unique enough name that's still available, and even that doesn't seem to be difficult.

Here's a site that has an excellent tutorial on customizing templates, and what the template code means. Don't be put off by all the ads on each page. It's very clear and thoughtful writing, and in addition the templates are very customizable and free. It has links to tutorials on more css stuff, like adding images behind text or on top. His writing isn't arrogant, which is unusual for code specialists.

If you grab a template and attempt to upload it to your test site, and get an error message, I learned a work around that solved my problem. (Although you folks on Mac, can't help you if it doesn't work.) I use Firefox. If you clear the cache (Tools> Clear Private Data> Cache) then try to upload again, it will probably work. If that fails, use Internet Explorer to upload.

The template code is much simpler than it appears at first, once you see the breakdown. It's just a bunch of css really, and is easy to switch out values. But in the tutorial he makes it clear where to be careful in switching things. (On sizing of the whole blog.)

Anyway, I have my sample blog set- waiting to hear from S. before posting it- but it looks quite nice with three columns so not the usual wasted space.

Blogu has many nice add-ons and info too, but what I'm referring you to above goes to the heart of Blogger design.

Splendor in the Grass- and other things

Alas, Molly's boyfriend belongs to a workman whose work down the road may be about done. We named him Cameron, after Dinah's boyfriend, since we didn't know his name. They spent hours rolling around in the grass. He's a gorgeous boy.

I loved the movie "Splendor in the Grass" when I was a teenager-- just seemed so hot and tragic and moving. Later in life I met Warren Beatty-- Jon was working with him-- he sent me roses on my 40th birthday-- somewhere I have the little card-- always wondered if Jon set him up to send them, but it was a thrill. Later that day we went to the racetrack. (not with Warren!)

I finished Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping." Beautiful writing about an incredibly chilly dysfunctional and distant small family. I far prefer what I'm reading now, "Life by Land and Sea" by Prentice Mulford, an autobiography weaving around San Francisco in 1800's. Great writing with a light touch but not too comical. Before that reread Death Valley in '49 by William Lewis Manly, which is wonderful, and I notice through google you can download it for free from project gutenberg.

I'm not an autobiography fiend. Both of these books are well written and fascinating, if you are interested in the period.

Everything's Ducky!

We've been seeing almost no wildlife on our long walks, but today near the bottom of the hill, Molly found this yellow plush duck missing an arm. (I'd seen a retriever carrying it on the road last week.)

Indian Summer here. I'm playing with blogger code, which makes me a little nervous. Had something worked out perfectly, then made an unknown change that threw it all out of shape again.