AWESOME view at Spencer's Butte

The view was actually better in person, but it's fun to be able to take pictures anyway. I should really get a tripod. I keep saying that so I'm sure it will happen soon. It's hard not to move when you're standing on rocks after hiking up a large mountain. Took a flashlight this time because I anticipated it would be dark on the way down. This was the 3rd time I've been down the butte in the dark and the 1st time I haven't gotten lost. So congratulations to me... and maybe Elenah too ;-)

Zen Garden

If you're interested in CSS (cascading style sheets, not the band) then this is pretty cool: http://www.csszengarden.com/

Sunset today...

yeah for...

• the sun
• cool clouds in the sky
• learning things
• making lists
• long conversations with friends
• being alive
• and lots, lots more

convertible

I took advantage of the nice weather and went on a drive with a friend in the Lotus - with the top off - in November! It had been raining so much I had almost put the hard top on. Good thing I didn't. It's getting cloudier now but I'm glad I took advantage of the warm weather and sun while it was there. Totally fun ;-)

it's nice out?

Last night I went outside around midnight. I went into the back yard to see the sky.  Everything looked so bright I wanted to see where the moon was.  It was pretty much right overhead, very round and very bright.  There was a thin layer of clouds that you could see the wind was moving them along underneath it at a fairly rapid pace. My socks got soaked though just from standing on the patio.  It wasn't raining then but has been quite a bit lately.

This morning I was surprised when I woke up and the sun was out. I could tell though my drapes which usually are pretty good at making it seem like it's always dark out ;-)

So I went out to the living room and opened the front door to pick up the paper and it was ... warm?  Yep!  I'm not kidding.

It may not stay this way but I have two windows open right now letting the fresh air circulate through the house.

The wind is still pushing the clouds across the sky at a speedy pace. If I still had a hammock I might lie in it and watch them, except it would probably be pretty wet. That is how the ground looks.

fashion in the late 80's

...looking through old pictures is fun ;-)

Who took this picture? It looks like they were more concerned with getting the back of the car in the shot in than all the people.

blink

Went to Target this weekend to look for a cable for my hard drive. Really I was just wondering around and didn't expect to find one there. But it was late and the other stores weren't open so I thought I'd just go there. I was walking past the books towards the electronics area when I randomly decided to walk down the book isle and see what they had. Honestly I've never bought a book from Target before. They don't have a very big selection so I wasn't expecting to find anything. But I did: Blink, by Malcom Gladwell. 

I read it this weekend, all of it, half that night and the rest on Sunday, 276 pages total. It's pretty interesting. I want to read it again so I can remember the parts that I thought were interesting, because there were several.

If you want to know what it's about click on the link above.

Installing a secondary SATA hard drive

Installation of my new SATA 400GB hard drive... which became necessary when I tried to copy some files from a CD for a client and got a message telling me that I only had 314MB of disk space left. Oops!

Step 1: Order hard drive (www.newegg.com)

Step 2: Receive hard drive (UPS)

Step 3: Install hard drive (me)

Currently my new "E:" drive is being formatted ;-)

There were a few road blocks on the installation but they were easily overcome.

• The first issue was that I ordered a hard drive and did not order the necessary cable to connect it to the computer.  Honestly I didn't even know I had to.  This is probably the 2nd hard drive I've installed and the other one was a long time ago.  This was a SATA drive so when I opened the computer I realized that it didn't connect with the "normal" cables.  In fact I wasn't even sure if I could hook this hard drive up to my computer.  But upon closer inspection I realized that the CD-ROM drive connected in the same fasion.  So there was an extra power adapter available and I just needed to get a SATA cable.  There were even three available ports on the motherboard for the SATA cable.  So I was ready to go.
  
• Conveniently DELL had included an extra set of those green strips that go on the side of the unit so it can slide into it's new home.  It's nice that they include those or I would have had to order some and wait and that would have been annoying.
• I then hooked up the two cables and closed the box and plugged everything back in.  I restarted the computer and hit F2 for setup while the OS was loading, following these instructions that I googled.  The instructions said: "instruct the system to auto detect your new drive",  Which meant that I scrolled and click on various keys looking for whatever it is that I might need to do to make the computer "recognize" the drive.  There were three differnet options (matching the three available SATA ports).  I turned one on, saved and exited.  It came back and told me there was no drive there.  So I turned that one off and turned on the 2nd one.  No message and the OS loaded so I assumed I picked the right one.
• I checked "My Computer" and the new drive wasn't listed so I googled again to find out what I needed to do next and found these instructions, which were very helpful.  I had to initialize, partition & format the drive.  

This turned out to be a really good learning experience because I really had no idea what to do going in, I just assumed (or hoped) I would be able to figure it out.  I ran into several snags but they were all easily overcome - I just needed to buy a cord and google for some instructions, which turned out to be easy to find and easy to follow. Thanks to Seagate for their helpful support articles.

a dozen peacocks

Today I saw a dozen peacoks hanging out ;-)

is it just me?

Canadian Sign:
The deer looks like a
panicked uncoordinated
teen leaping for his life,
not sure he's going to
make it over whatever
obstacle he's trying to
jump and not sure of
where he's landing.

US Sign:
The deer looks majestic and
powerful in it's leap.

i love to-do lists

I crossed the last thing off my to-do list tonight.  The last two things, which were washing the kitchen floor and putting the laundry away, most likely would not have happened if there were no to-do list.  

Plenty of things just don't happen if you don't make a point of doing them. For me, lists are a good way to make that happen.

Thanks for voting

I went to jiu-jitsu last night and you could hear the election coverage next door at Cosmic Pizza. There were intermitent bursts of loud, very exhuberant cheering. 

On the way home I saw fireworks in the sky, big ones, the illegal kind. People are really excited. I am too. 

If you have drawn any energy or inspiration from this election, do something with it. Nothing gets done from people cheering on the sidelines and then going home. 

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." - Andy Warhol

rainbows anyone?

california girl

little me ;-)

My favorite jacket @ 4yrs old

cade & con

If you ask Con to dance for you, be prepared.  He will be dancing exhuberantly for hours!

smile for the camera

fox hollow

I know, more sky and clouds... I can't help it.