Prickly pear cacti, growing in moss clumps on rock near St. Cloud. I ran into a large patch of these off the side of a major highway, where I stopped for lunch. What a surprise! I wonder how long this patch has been here, and who else knows of it?
I tend to have a hard time planning. I enjoy it, especially when bicycle touring is what the planning resolves around.
It only becomes a problem when I'm planning too far in advance. I go into great detail, until the event being planned for seems further and further from reality. It breaks up into too many pieces, each individual project considered in obsessive detail, but forgotten as I move on to the next. By the time I'd learned the difference between GSM and CDMA technology, and found a plan + phone that would work for me, I'd half forgotten which concessionaire companies to avoid when I look for seasonal work. My actual route planning has dropped by wayside since I working on this blog.
Sometimes this all seems to be so much that I lose my perspective on rather or not I actually still want to do this, or if I'm just in love with the planning. Working on my campground map reminds me that I do. Every placemark is somewhere I want to see, eventually, and I feel the missing excitement again.
That being said, the map page is now online.
Once I get a nicer camera, I'll probably have to stop doing things like this.
A more believable version of this image is posted elsewhere. This is truer to how I perceived it at the time - a crumbling old thing, weirdly colored by slimy stones, minerals, and moss.
I just so happened to be placemarking truck stops in Texas when the Google maps guy decided to put on his Christmas hat. D'aww.
Over the last four days, I've spent an inordinate amount of time at this. My previous blog at wordpress was extremely simple, but ugly. So, I went all out with this one. I cranked a fancy, but (sort of?)subdued background out of photoshop, splashed color all over the header, post-boxes, sidebar... but it didn't quite look quite when all my work was (maybe?)done.
So, I removed my fourteenth iteration of the swanky header, and the fifth version of my third awesome background. It's sad but true, I must admit that it looks better this way. I can console myself with having gained some working knowledge of CSS during the whole ordeal, despite that fact that most of my formatting is now defunct.
On the upside, I'll have a better chance of being able to preview my posts while on tour.
There are two things that will always convince me to stop for a picture. Cats of any sort, and cows posing with junked vehicles or farm machinery. Here is a prime example of the latter.
Soon, I'll be re-posting my previous tour entries. When I do, I'll do it properly and try to improve upon the writing somewhat. The paragraphs will still likely be broken up in ways that make no sense, but they should be easier to read.
Whenever I decide to go back and re-edit those posts, I'll need to devote the time to do it properly. For now I'm putting it off in favour of running three years worth of pictures through Adobe Lightroom. After a day it's spoiled me, and I realize how washed out and in need of tampering all of my photos are. As I learn more, I'll likely see the pictures I am posting now as being too shadowy and grainy, but for now I like them.
Again, with more class.
This is me tooling around with image options. I'd like the embedded Picasa slideshow a lot more if it didn't come up with the picture covered by the play-button graphic. Other options present a better effect, but none I can see spending time on the road configuring. This is especially the case with Adobe Lightroom galleries - not an option on the netbook I'll be taking around.
Trying to find a layout that will work for me without looking too cut and paste is frustrating work. Blogger is proving to be much more cooperative than Wordpress, but still has some annoying limitations. So far as I can tell, I can't edit the layout in individual pages - I'm stuck with it looking the same as the blog pages. Have I mentioned I detest the word 'blog'? Ung.
Maybe eventually I'll learn enough CSS editing skills to get around this, but I have bigger things to focus on now.
In the meantime, enjoy some workshop cats. Unlike the word 'blog' and Picasa slideshows, cats and Lightroom are a joy.
This is me tooling around with image options. I'd like the embedded Picasa slideshow a lot more if it didn't come up with the picture covered by the play-button graphic. Other options present a better effect, but none I can see spending time on the road configuring. This is especially the case with Adobe Lightroom galleries - not an option on the netbook I'll be taking around.
Trying to find a layout that will work for me without looking too cut and paste is frustrating work. Blogger is proving to be much more cooperative than Wordpress, but still has some annoying limitations. So far as I can tell, I can't edit the layout in individual pages - I'm stuck with it looking the same as the blog pages. Have I mentioned I detest the word 'blog'? Ung.
Maybe eventually I'll learn enough CSS editing skills to get around this, but I have bigger things to focus on now.
In the meantime, enjoy some workshop cats. Unlike the word 'blog' and Picasa slideshows, cats and Lightroom are a joy.
