First. I have updated the About page to reflect some [fairly insignificant] changes in how I create and edit posts. So, if you’re at all interested in the nuts and bolts behind the site, check out the About page.

Second. I have completely re-done the Photographs page. It was previously just a thrown-together gallery of flickr embeds. They were fine and all, but kind of a pain in the ass to update/add to/manage. Now they are better organized into galleries and all I have to do is upload new photos to a gallery and boom, the gallery is updated. Super cool.

The galleries are really cool, too. They are true HTML5 photo galleries. When you click on the first (or really any) photo in a gallery a lightbox pops up and you can click the arrows to go through the photos. It works really well. And it’s a nice showcase for my photos.

Third. This one is actually still a bit of a work in progress. I’ve started a page on the site that aggregates some of my ‘favorites’ from around the internet. I’ve got a bunch of ifttt triggers set up that send my favorites from YouTube, flickr, and Vimeo, as well as anything I pin on Pinterest, to a tumblr called AFD Faves. And, being a tumblr blog I can use a bookmarklet in Safari (and Mobile Safari) to send photos, videos, etc. from other sites to AFD Faves, too. That part works great.

The work-in-progress part comes in getting those posts over to the AFineDram.com/faves cleanly. As of right now I can only get the previous ten ‘faves’ to post there and the titles are a little wonky. And I’m working on a way to get tweets I favorite to embed there automatically… But it’s there, so if you want to see my last ten faves across the internet check it out.

And if you would like to see the tumblr to see all of the faves I’ve saved, go to AFDFaves.tumblr.com.

So there you have it. Some behind-the-scenes updates to the site. Maybe I’ll work on some real posts now…

Some thoughts:

1. Sure. He’s a politician and this is what politicians do but, damn, he’s cool.

2. This is seriously the nerdiest kid they could possibly find.

3. The Secret Service didn’t like it? Nah. They were probably trying that bad boy out before POTUS ever walked in the room.

(via Bit Bucket)

I finished The Hunger Games late last night. I have to say that it is one of the best books I have read in a good long time. From the first page to the last the story was engaging and downright exciting. And the characters, most especially the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, feel so completely human. During Katniss’s moments of introspection I found myself thinking, ‘Yes! That’s exactly what I would be thinking!’ Of course, I’ve never been in a fight-for-my-life-on-live-television situation, so I cannot say for sure.

Bottom line, The Hunger Games is a fantastic read and I really can’t recommend it enough. I cannot wait for the film version this March and I’ll be getting the second and third books in the series very soon.

Tonight I’ll be starting Gore Vidal’s Lincoln. I have read some other Vidal novels, Creation and Julian (which was quite good). Vidal has gotten a little kooky in recent years but Lincoln was written in 1984, so it should be safe. Abraham Lincoln is such an important, and yet enigmatic, persona in the history of America. I look forward to getting a personal (if fictional) look at the man.

Note: Attentive readers will note that I didn’t have a ‘finished’ post for A Confederacy of Dunces. Well, that’s because I didn’t finish it. Maybe I’ll write more about it later but the short story is that I just got bored with it about 3/4 of the way through. I just didn’t want to waste any more time on a book I wasn’t enjoying.

Some context: I don’t read the newspaper. I read articles online, usually saved to my all-time favorite app, Instapaper. I get nearly 100% of my news from the Internet. I don’t print my photos – I post them. I don’t write in a journal – I blog. I am full-on immersed in a digital lifestyle from news to tv shows to movies to music.

The thing is, though, I just don’t care for eBooks. And it certainly isn’t from a lack of trying. Looking back through the archive on my iPad’s Kindle app I have nine books that I have read all the way through, about ten more in various stages of not-yet-finished and one that I’m actively reading, Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens.

Its just that neither the Kindle app or iBooks really suit me as a way to read a book. I really enjoy the feel of a paperback book in my hands. I like that the weight of the book tells me how much work it is going to be to get through. I love the immediate tactile feedback that the thickness of each side of the book gives about how far along I am toward the end of that particular literary journey.

These are experiences that apps and eReaders just cannot duplicate. For sure, I think these technologies are great. Anything that makes reading more accessible is a big positive in my book. But, as a matter of personal preference I would rather have the old-fashioned paper version of a book in my hands.

Note: This post originally written with pen on paper.

(via kottke.org)

They thinned out Beatrix’s file at daycare last week. We got some of the progress cards from her first year there. That really took us back. It is a bit overwhelming to see how much she’s grown up in just three short years.

The road to our cottage…

The party started on the 30th…

You can guess who was handing out the tequila…

New Year’s Eve at Lake Anna.

Didn’t get many photos that night…

‘Bye, bye, lake!’