My new gardening blog

Hello. I have finally started a blog for my love of gardening. Check it out and subscribe here!

Here I am!

~The links in this post were updated 11/10/2019~

So it's been awhile hasn't it? I wonder if anyone even reads this anymore. I noticed I have started out several entries this way. lol.

I just went through and "touched up" some of the older entries, fixing/replacing links and deleting or unpublishing several that no longer contain the originally posted content...such as slideshows from a site (Fotki) that made me delete hundreds of pictures even though I was still paid up for unlimited storage a couple years ahead (plus they randomly change the urls so linked photos don't work anymore, but that hasn't happened in here. It has happened in my other blogs though).

Speaking of my other blogs, I certainly do have others. Even though I haven't updated this one lately, I have been a little busier with the following:

• Dark Sky Photo Blog is the latest title for my long-running photo blog that started out in 2009 as a Project-365 (as seen in an early post in this blog - note: post disappeared so I disabled the link...spooky stuff happening here. lol), followed by a short-lived p365 in 2010, which soon became simply a photo blog and stayed that way until now. I don't post much in there anymore, but there's still a lot to see there if you've never checked it out. Remember when i mentioned Fotki randomly changes the urls? This is the blog where that will be most noticeable. But right now you'll only find a few blank spaces out of hundreds of photos, so it's still worth a look!
• Saturdays! is my more kicked-back, no pressure, fun blog. But it started out as a Project-52. I thought a p52 would be so much more do-able than the ol' p365, especially when the day of the planned weekly posting is actually the name of the blog, but it turns out it just isn't easy for me to stay on task. This is the one to pay attention to though, as I update it the most often. In some ways it's the replacement for Dark Sky Photo Blog.
• Dark Sky Photography is actually the new official website for my photo endeavors (can't call it a business yet as I just haven't officially made that jump or made any money) and there is a blog there too, obviously the main reason I mention it here. This is a Wordpress site - the only blog listed here that isn't a Blogger blog. Oops, no it isn't...
• Tumblr - guess what the name of this blog is. Yup, Dark Sky Photography, like a broken record. But I will probably be renaming it soon. I started a Tumblr just to try it out and now that i have the Wordpress blog, and all these, I don't actually need this one, but I'm going to keep it anyway, just because I follow some blogs on Tumblr.

So don't get bored waiting for me to update this one. I sometimes go months at a time without posting in here. I don't want to delete it though. Not yet anyway. I thought Saturdays! could take the place of this one, but they're really like apples and oranges in comparison. So this will remain for now.

Enjoy the links above and please let me know you've been here, and there and there and there and there...

Have a great day!

My photos at Fine Art America

Wow! and Happy T-Day!

I've been busy with a lot of things and haven't been reading all the blogs I follow...consequently, I have a LOT of catching up to do. I have a week or more of blog entries to read. Seems like more than that but I just checked. Looks like everyone's been busy though! Wish me luck!

Also, Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

Robbie Robertson Coyote And Hoop Dans (LIVE).avi

Seriously, make sure you watch it full screen and the sound up. Awesome!

Edit 7/21/2013: I've gone through this blog today and this post is among several that the content was no longer valid. I deleted several with defunct Fotki slideshows and found videos on youtube to replace ones I had posted from LiveVideo. This one was from a YouTube user whose account was deleted and while I found a replacement for the video, it ends abruptly at the end. At least it's all there but the applause, etc. 

Smile by Charlie Chaplin - also from my drafts...RIP Michael

This was also from my drafts (7/7/09) but I think I posted it instead to my Project 365 (2009).

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Posted for Michael Jackson

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Smile
tho'
your heart is aching,
Smile
Even though its breaking,
When there are clouds in the sky - You'll get by,
If you
Smile through your fear and sorrow,
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through - For you.
Light up your face with gladness,
Hide ev'ry trace of sadness,
Altho' a tear may be ever so near,
That's the time you must keep on trying,
Smile- What's the use of crying,
You'll find that life is still worthwhile,
If you just smile.

Just found this in my drafts from 6/27/09 - I assume I saved it cuz I had more to say but the moment has passed. lol

Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon and let's not forget Kwai Chang Cain, David Carradine. These and many others are presences in my life, part of the world as I know it. So, whether I was a big fan or not, there's an emptiness when they pass. Some were constant presences, some were influential at one time or another.

Friendships

Some friendships may peter in while others peter out.
But I will always be your friend, peter in or peter out.

Project 365 and Stuff

So yeah, if I fall behind in here, as I so often do, remember my Project 365 blog is updated often ...not always every day as it's supposed to be, but usually every day and at least more often than this one.
It's more positive too. I usually seem to be more than a little negative in here. Maybe because I use it to vent. I'll try to be positive in here more often too. I wonder if that's why people stopped popping in as much...more likely it's because I went so long without updating one time that it fell out of their routines.
I'm really enjoying doing the P 365 blog. It's not as easy to keep up with as it would seem at first but I'm trying. It's a good exercise in a way.
I thought it would be a piece of cake...thought 'I always take at least one picture a day'. Turns out I don't, so I have to get in the habit of consciously planning a picture for the blog, even if the shutter finger doesn't itch.
There's another photo project I learned about recently too. I think it's called One Object 365 or something like that. The idea is to take a picture of your chosen object every day for a year. Sounds cool. Could it get boring? I guess not if you keep your wheels turning and have plenty of ideas for positions, locations, settings, etc. That's the challenge of it I guess. Anyway I won't do that now but I might in the future. Stay tuned.
Today is a holiday...Presidents Day I think...hmmm...all I know for sure is I have the day off. Tomorrow through Friday I am working the day shift because it's school vacation - clean-up week. I don't like the day shift.
Winter is winding down but hanging on for dear life. Let it go, winter...just let it go.
My friend Troy in Kentucky just got his power back on and moved back into his home a few days ago, after a January 27 ice storm that wiped out power to hundreds of thousands (might have gone into the millions, not sure) of residents. People died of hypothermia as well as storm-related accidents. Troy stayed in a hotel part of the time and in a shelter.
Well, I guess I should get going for now. I'll try to post in here more. I should, now that I'm often right next door at 365.darkskywv.com. Please leave comments here and over there so I know I've been visited. It's good for my self esteem. ;)
Happy Spring (coming very soon. lol)

123...

Testing. :-)

Credit Cards, Cell Phones, Trojans, and Parting Gifts from Cats

Hi! Sure has been awhile hasn't it?

Where to begin...well my previous entry was me bitching about money and credit cards and cell phone bills. I'll start there...

Well, long story short the cards are maxed out and the phones were shut off. One card will not be renewed when it expires(d) so I moved it way down in priority. Another one I've fallen way behind in and it seems hopeless but I haven't lost hope yet. The rest I think I can catch up with as soon as things settle down. The cell phones were shut off, so I got me a prepaid with another carrier. Then I sent them an offer of a payment plan. After doing that they contacted me and we worked out a plan to get me caught up with the bill. Part of the deal was to convert our phones to prepaids, so we could keep our numbers until we could get turned back on. Well, of the 4 on the family share plan, one had gotten a prepaid a while back, and one switched to another family member's account. So I had four prepaid cell phones, gave Eric his phone back (so now he has 2 prepaids cuz he did what I did when we were shut off). So how I have three but am letting the one I bought run out, so I'll just have the two for awhile. My car loan is now paid off so having that money available will help, once I get back on track.

OK...boooooring.

Between 8 - 10 years ago one of my cats, Sam, got very sick and to make a long, sad story short he died. I felt bad because I couldn't afford to bring him to the vet but I don't think they really could have helped him. The thing is, I was feeling very bad about it. The next day I was at work...it was a Saturday and I was covering a "bazaar" (like a flea market) at my building. Well, of course, with everything going on I snapped out of my sadness but off and on I would remember and be down again. After the event, everybody was gone and I was getting ready to clean up. I almost stepped on something gold colored mixed in the debris so I picked it up and it was a pin - you know the kind with the back, I can't remember what they're called - it was a pin shaped like a cat, with wings and a halo. An angel cat. I felt like that was a sign and so I felt much better. Someone I told about it suggested it was a sign from Sam, maybe saying goodbye and that everythings cool.

Fast forward to almost a month ago, September 12 actually. The last hold-out from the family pet days, Raffi, at approximately 20 years old, passed away. Well, he was really the coolest cat I've ever known and I think a lot of people felt the same way, and many people liked him regardless if they thought he was the coolest. He earned a lot of love and respect over so many years. So for that reason, I sent out an email, informing select people of his passing and I inserted a picture of him (from his healthier days) in the email. I was sad of course, but felt he had lived a long and happy life.

Well, a couple days later, my friend - who I've only been back in touch with for a couple, maybe 3 years after about 20 years of no contact - and I, were chatting online and she said something like I lost that picture of Raffi, can you send it again?. Well, I knew she was up to something, she's very crafty and actually makes a living with crafts. Besides, she may have liked Raffi, but not enough to fret over a picture of him. lol. Oh yeah, actually she then told me she was going to make a keychain with his picture on it for me. Aww, I thought that was nice. She dropped by a couple days or so later with two keychains and two pins. Wow, they look great! Thank you Darlene. A few days later though, I remembered about Sam's pin. She never knew the story about Sam. I love coincidences...it was a coincidence...right? Makes me wonder...

I spent most of this weekend researching and learning how to eliminate the trojans I was bombarded with. No...get your mind out of the gutter. The computer virus kinda trojans. That sucked. I kept getting false virus alerts, not just on the www but on my computer (offline). So even though they were fake virus alerts, they were telling me the truth. Kind of ironic. It got me to download (but was suspicious enough by then not to install) an antivirus presumably to solve the problem, when the antivirus actually WAS a virus (or more trojans - I'm genaralizing here). I finally found a write-up from someone at AVG's message boards that was very helpful. After running a bazillion scans from a bazillion scanners, it was more than one trojan...several I think. All seems to be well now though. Yaaay! I have to go back to that article and thank the author.

Well, I guess that's enough for now. Peace!

Stimulus Shmimulus

Economic Stimulus my ass. I used mine to pay my credit card down a little because I used my credit card to stimulate the gas company's economy. Now I've run the CC up again buying more gas - oh and paying our cell phone bills. Now I have a cell phone bill that's overdue but I don't have the ability to pay it, so I'm thinking once again of shutting the fucking things off...or rather, letting the company shut them off and me not paying the $15 per line to turn them back on again after paying the bill if I do.
There's your fucking economic stimulus!
As for gas, I have been thinking of getting a motorcycle - but of course, that costs money too. I'll be paying my car loan off soon so I might be able to get financing, but since I'm overextended with credit cards, there's also a chance I might not.
Stupid fucking world we live in. I'm about to give up.

RIP Garfield - a question and warning for aquarium owners

So I'm sitting here at the computer Saturday night and I hear a strange sound and the lights go dim for a second. Since I was editing a video I quickly saved my project, thankful that the power didn't just go out completely and so I had the chance to save it. Then I went to investigate. \
In the hall the first thing I saw was Garfield, my Corydora catfish upside down in the fish tank and there was a slight electrical smell. Then I noticed the filter wasn't running. I unplugged the heater and filter and planned to investigate further in awhile. After doing so I saw the two neons swimming around.
Later, it dawned on me that the filter has no electrical parts in the water so it must be the heater. Looking in the tank I could see a crack in it right down the front. When I went to pull it out of the water it broke right in half.
This cory was the biggest one I'd ever seen, probably close to 3 inches long. I've had him/her a long time. So that's sad, at least for the fact that it didn't end up being old age that killed him.
I don't know why the heater went poof, other than it took in water obviously. I do know that a couple days before that, I had my hands in the water, cleaning the glass and stuff (no, I went nowhere near the heater). That kind of scares me. I don't know if I'll get a heater for a fish tank again, but if I do, I guess I'll just unplug it before I work in the water. I assume this could have been bad...anybody know more about this kind of thing?
Summer is almost here so I guess the water will stay warm enough for the neons while I think about it.
I guess they've been recharged. :)
TTFN

Camera

Well, I backed off a bit from the DSLR (EOS Digital Rebel). Why? Bills bills bills! But that's ok for now. I got a Canon S5IS and am happy with it so far. I was leary of a couple things at first but upon further reading into the manual I got at least one of them figured out and so I guess that will happen here and there until I get it all figured out.
Here are some of the pics I took testing it out. I did do some minor post-processing and of course, resized them. I think I'm going to enjoy this camera.

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Some tree that grows like a weed out back. Very pretty this time of year though. This is one of the few that I let continue to grow.

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Sage

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Birdhouse. Duh. lol

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I had pizza for supper. Buffalo Chicken. Mmmmm.

So there's a few. There will be more but right now I'm just playing around and getting to know my new camera.
I'd be interested in knowing if anyone reads my blogs. I don't think anyone does anymore. Please take a moment and leave a message so I'll know. Thanks. TTFN.

~dswv~

About this book Read this bookHistorical Collections: Being a General Collection of Interesting Facts ... By John Warner Barber

&nbsp;About this book&nbsp;Read this bookHistorical Collections: Being a General Collection of Interesting Facts ...&nbsp;By John Warner Barber: "<a href"

A new picture

Click the pic for my MySpace picture albums.

January Tooth, Toothousand-Eight - Dreaming is Free

Lately I've been obsessing about a new camera. I get all excited thinking about it as if it's absolutely going to happen, but of course it's not written in stone. I feel it's time though. Before I went digital, my film cameras were (are) SLR's and now it's time for me to get back to that, only in digital. I have my eye on a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi, but as I research, that could change too. That's what I'm leaning toward though. It doesn't do video but I'm not sure any of them do. Also I found out the LCD is only for viewing pics you've taken, not for when you're actually taking one. But that's a minor thing I think I could get used to. Those are the only cons I've seen so far. Anybody have one or know someone who does?
Well Happy New Year everyone (like anyone reads these blogs. lol). There will be a lot of positive changes this year. That's my prediction...oh ok, it's my wish. Let's hope it comes true though.
I'm taking a week off from work next week. No special plans yet. I hope for one thing, to get my Hell hole cleaned up and bring it's status at least up to Heck hole. Maybe even better.
Went to the beach this past weekend. It was nice weather for Dec. 29. It gets dark so early these days. I took some pictures but I want to fix them up a little before I upload them. Oops I just looked and I already did upload them. So keep in mind some of them might need some fixing up...unless I already did that too. I don't remember. Now you see why I'm taking a vacation next week. lol. I do remember I deleted a lot of bad ones. Here's the album  (Thanks again Fotki. You really suck! ed; 7/21/2013). Check out all my pics there if you want.
Well, TTFN. Keep on rockin'!

Happy New Year

Free Comments & Graphics

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a great
holiday season, whatever your
holiday may be.

Peace!!
Some Pics!   (Thanks Fotki - You suck! ed; 7/21/2013)