my website on a 30-inch Cinema HD in 2005

If you read this website via an RSS reader you probably won’t notice anything different except the pictures are larger, but if you click through you’ll see some changes ’round these parts.

Yeah, this is what happens when you have to quarantine yourself for a while. Well, me, anyway. Most people would just watch TV or movies with a box of tissues, but I’m sitting here sneezing and tweaking code with a roll of toilet paper on the desk in front of me.

I’ve edited a wedding and FTP’ed it to a folder for the client, I finished renovating my blog, I’ve tweaked my travel photos blog, and I’ve been archiving files from 2011 to external drives and making more space on my hard drive. I seem to be more productive with a cold than without… only because without a cold I would be well enough to go out and do things.

But I sure don’t want another cold to get this productive again! (The original title was “God A Code? Tweak Some Code” because that’s what a congested person sounds like, but I didn’t think people would get it.)

I found the photo above in my Flickr catalogue from seven (!) years ago, when my website was still on Blogger. (Actually, it’s still there where I left it.) David and I were drooling in visiting the Apple Store in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, on the way home from a day in Philly in March 2005. I wanted to see what my website looked like on a 30-inch cinema display Mac, and was stunned to see how narrow it looked with all that extra screen real estate. Thinking back over all the templates I’ve tweaked, now I wish I’d kept screencaps of all the various incarnations of this website so I could compare them. This blog turns 10 years old in July, so I’m using the Wayback Machine to see if I can collect some for that 10-year anniversary post.

Possibly related posts:

1. Lost in Code I’m beginning to see a pattern here. When I’m feeling...
2. Funky Cold Menorah I also had David send me a pic of his...
3. Tweak, Tweak That’s the sound of me manipulating lines of code as...

seen while walking home on Wellington Street

I actually had a New Year’s Resolution for 2011, just one: to go on a date. My first thought was that I blew it, I don’t remember any dates, but after some thought I would say it was open to interpretation. My second thought is that if *I* am not aware that it’s a date, then it’s not a date…

Moving right along…

On my way to Montreal for New Year’s, I started digitally jotting down a bunch of notes for a Year in Review for 2011, which got me to thinking about things I’ve been doing in 2011 that I want to continue into 2012… which I promptly forgot about until the other day when I read the same over at Chookooloonks, and there Karen links to Erin doing the same. I’m sure there are others.

There are goals and then there are things you want to maintain, the non-goals, but still rather important — after all, they were once goals, and if you drop them, then they end up in the goals list again. We’ve all said it before, with a pang: “I used to do such-and-such…”

Anyway. I resolve to continue in 2012:

1. Walking home at least four days per week. I adhered to that average from June 29 until mid-November when I went to England and it became inconsistent due to travel and then a compromised immune system in mid-December and then more travel. Since last week, I’m back to my walking routine. My newest route is 7kms.
2. Reserving the word ‘awesome’ for when it truly is, which is not every other sentence.
3. Not owning a TV, microwave, coffee pot, or dishwasher. Why not? Because it means I cook instead of nuke, drink less coffee, take a time-out to hand-wash dishes and listen to the news instead of reading it, and if I owned a TV I would watch it mindlessly. It’s also the same reason my futon couch is never in a couch position. My apartment only has beds. I’m much more productive this way.
4. Keeping up the trip average. (At least one overnight stay is the criteria of a trip.) Until last year I maintained an annual trip average of 12-14, and in 2011 I dipped slightly below with 11 trips. (I just counted 15 trips in 2010, so maybe I should adjust that average.) The hardest part was working every single day from September 6 to November 15 without a break and feeling like I was losing my mind, reaching nearly the end of the year with only seven trips, but then I caught up by going on four in six weeks. I know some people think this trip average is crazy, but it was never a conscious goal. These numbers became the average over the course of years and knowing what keeps me happy and motivated and inspired. Travel (the process, not just the destination) plays a huge role in my worldview and perspective on life. I would never give that up completely, not even for a photography business. There are currently 79 photo albums in my travel collection on Flickr.
5. Meeting new folk in new places. Travelling solo means I make conversation with the ordinary citizen on the street, on the bus, waiting in line somewhere, and it’s no big deal. It opens up a cultural exchange, without an agenda.
6. Meeting new folk in my own city. I’ve done pretty well last year to maintain a social life, considering I have two jobs. Still, I meet new people all the time at weddings, events, through volunteering, circles of friends, shooting assistants, other photographers, scouting locations, with clients, patients, musicians, you name it. Sometimes it all becomes a blur, so I review my Toronto collection in Flickr (currently 101 photo sets), to remind myself that yes, I didn’t just work!
7. Keeping my cat healthy and happy. I’m down to one pet now, after a horrible 2011 of losing Beano and having both cats go through the discomfort of veterinary treatments. We were at the clinic far too much last year. Don’t ask me how much I spent. Now that Xena’s on daily heart meds and only has five teeth left, hopefully she (we) will sail through 2012 without seeing the vet.
8. Driving cancer patients for the Canadian Cancer Society. Even though I don’t like waking up early, I’ll do it for patients. They are always very grateful.
9. Keeping up my four websites. Most people don’t have a website, but I have four under my name (actually, there’s a fifth but it’s kind of a portal to the others and I don’t count the Tumblr), and even with major time constraints I have somehow managed to keep them all updated, although one is rather static and informational (ImageLegacy.com), and two are photoblogs (gailatlarge.net and ImageNation). But gailatlarge.com will be 10 years old this year, of which I am most proud because I never thought I would be able to maintain it this long!
   I’m also webmaster for another two websites, one for income and the other for charity. The capitalism and socialism balance each other out nicely, ha. I would link to the former but I have to revamp the site (I just found out today there’s new management). Believe me, even *I* don’t know how I manage to maintain SIX WEBSITES.
10. Maintaining my sanity. It was a bit touch-and-go at times but I managed not to lose it in 2011, let’s keep it that way for 2012.

Possibly related posts:

1. Boxing Day In New York City One of my goals for 2012 is to sleep more...
2. Random Thoughts For Wednesday The last three weekday walking days were on east-west routes...
3. 10 Weeks And Counting I’ve been walking home for almost 11 weeks now, and...

by the numbers

Hey, the blog is nine! Happy Birthday, blog! Like the consummate nerd that I am, I’m posting my blog by the numbers. The biggest year for posts was 2006 — not entirely surprising — and the month with the most posts was September 2008. Why, I’m not entirely sure. I know I did a heckuva lot of travelling in 2008 and shot my first weddings in September and October, but apart from that, how did I find time to write 69 posts in 30 days??

This is post #4,043. Hard to believe I’ve been writing for this long.

I’m also not very articulate at four in the morning, so for now (until I add more text, anyway), let’s have some cake!

need a bigger mouth for all this cake

Possibly related posts:

1. 6-Year Blogiversary Today I officially reached another milestone: the six-year mark for...
2. Ganache Is French For ‘Chocolate Cake With Fewer Syllables’ My title for this photo in Flickr: ganache is French...
3. Some Birthday Greetings From Afar Iris’ Funcky photo! One of the birthday pictorial greetings I...

Eight years and 3,642 posts later, what have I learned from writing on the internet?

1. While employed, don’t write about work.
2. While self-employed, don’t write about clients.
3. When writing late at night (that would be always, for me), revision is probably necessary.
4. Don’t write about the love life. (Getting married was the exception.)
5. Pets like being in the blog. Or rather, readers like pets in the blog.
6. When in doubt, keep it in draft.
7. Keep the ranting to a minimum.
8. There can never be too many photos of well-presented food.
9. The best camera you have is the one you have with you.
10. Every post needs a picture.

Possibly related posts:

1. Happy 5th Birthday, Blog! Today marks five years of writing online. FIVE YEARS! 2002...
2. Why Do I Blog? I just finished Darren Barefoot’s blogging survey for his talk...
3. Happy Birthday Taku! Happy Birthday… urgh! by Smaku I met Taku at my...

I do fancy myself a bit of a DIY person:

Hmmm, there’s a Gail out there that’s giving the rest of us a bad name. Either that or it’s me.

Obviously a Google cry for help, but I contributed nothing towards a solution. I just told some stories about locking myself out of the apartment. (Albeit three times!)

I could’ve sworn I saved more keyword search screen shots than this over the past six weeks or so, but it was all I could find. One of these days I’ll post the latest round of nutty random text messages.

Related posts:

Excuse Me?
What’s Going On In Wisconsin?

Possibly related posts:

1. What’s Going On In Wisconsin? Things got a little hectic after Christmas, so I neglected...
2. Wisconsin Canopy Wisconsin Canopy [photo by Todd Klassy] It’s shots like this...
3. Gail At Large, By The Numbers I thought while I try to get my printer/scanner working...

I was surprised that I’d posted less than last year — it didn’t seem that way. Come to think of it, 2009 was a rollercoaster but I was quite preoccupied with many things that I couldn’t discuss online. Travel-wise I would say 2008 was a bigger flying/driving year than 2009 due to my work situation, so it could also be that many of those posts are mobile phone pics from hither and yon rather than written posts. My most prolific blogging year thus far was 2006, but I moved from Pennsylvania back to Canada and was in a state of flux, recovery, and rebuilding. I did not work most of that year and thus had more time to write.

Of course, I had to make a graph, too. I’m a visual person and it’s part of what I do for a living, a table just wasn’t enough…

With 3,380 posts and counting, I’ve been searching for a better way to display archives without killing my server with database queries. I used to have the Extended Live Archives plugin — built on Ajax, which I loved — to review the posts but the developers have neglected it and gone MIA. My search for a better mousetrap continues. One reason why I want to get the archives list back is because I use the list to help write my Year in Review. My last one was 2007, which I wrote a year ago. 2008 and 2009 were both big years (actually, I can’t remember the last time I had a “not-so-big” year), but with 619 and 534 posts, respectively, there isn’t an easy way to skim the post titles.

Video for today: something a little different this time… fingers breakdancing. It’s a minute long, so bear with me — it’s cute…

Possibly related posts:

1. Where’s Gail?? I’ve been too busy to write about my activities of...
2. Gail At Large [Photography] Is Live! Since June evaporated before my eyes and I’m a quarter...
3. Website Additions Newly fleshed-out ‘About‘ section. Previous incarnation was sparse, and I...

Hey hey, it’s Boxing Day and I have kept to my word and have yet to step foot in a shop. It probably helps that most shops are closed the past day or two, but Boxing Day is Sale Day in Canada, much the same way Black Friday works in the USA: consumer chaos. I don’t think I’ve bought anything on Boxing Day, ever, and I plan to keep it that way.

In other news, I’ve been busy creating things and wrangling code. As always, it’s a work in progress but I’ve set up another photography site using a photo application for the web called Pixelpost. One reason why I wanted to try this is because it’s specifically for showing photos — the code is light, and the templates are created with photos in mind rather than text. Anyhow, take a look:

ImageNation : imagination with images

I didn’t come up with the name “ImageNation” until after I created the first incarnation of the gallery page. I didn’t know what to call it, and I didn’t want to use my name since it’s already the domain. Somehow I came up with this, not with the idea of registering it or anything, but just to give it a name. I like the word imagination and I wanted to base it on image. Tonight I put the name in Google to see what was out there and I see there are lots of sites using the name already, so it’s a good thing I didn’t bother to see if the domain was free. I kept the folder name as “gallery” with the idea of changing the site name if I can up with a better moniker. Kind of like calling a baby-in-utero Junior until it’s born…

I’m still populating the photo gallery, but at least it’s up and running. I’ve also made changes to my other sites, but not major ones just yet.

I’ve also created a home page for gailedwinfielding.com that acts as a portal/listing for the other sites I have: http://gailedwinfielding.com

I used iWeb to build that page, which was my second time to use it, the first time was to build the Santa Comes To Bay Street pages. iWeb comes bundled with iLife which came with my iMac, and my first impression was that it was too basic to be more useful than the other software I’m using for building webpages. I thought I would only use it for the occasional event, but after building three pages I must admit that being able to drag-and-drop and push page elements around rather than mess with CSS files is very useful, indeed. After all, I do that enough with my other sites, so this is a welcome break.

I’ve had a Very Geeky Christmas. Three days at home and I had to have something to show for it!

Possibly related posts:

1. Boxing Day Boxing Day at the playground. ...
2. Painstaking (oh the pain) I’ve been working on fixing my archives for what seems...
3. Lost in Code I’m beginning to see a pattern here. When I’m feeling...

My blog is seven years old today! The above is a cameraphone pic of a cake I shot in New York City, December 20, 2006. It’s very “Gail at Large”, wouldn’t you say?

This blog has benefited me in many ways, not the least of which has been to connect me with many interesting people who I’d never have met otherwise. A recent example of this is from my Ottawa road trip the other weekend when I met up with two well-travelled people through totally different channels: Zhu, a multilingual expat blogger from France, and Lisa, an Ottawa native who was referred to my blog by someone else and works in the aviation industry. Who knew when I started writing in this space that in seven years it would morph from a working university student blogspot-templated rant to a mostly pictorial account of my ever-evolving life filled with cameras, airplanes, cats, code-tweaking, and blurry cameraphone shots of food? Certainly not me!

Speaking of travel, I got a very cute postcard today from my nephew, I’ll scan it after I get home later… which I’m sharing with you because it brought a big smile to my face and if it doesn’t bring one to yours I’ll be a monkey’s uncle (auntie?):

Aww, poor Kermit, he’s probably got heatstroke!

Michael and I had a funny conversation on the phone a couple of days before their road trip. (Bear in mind he’s a little over a month away from turning nine years old.) Here’s a snippet:

Me: “Have all my postcards arrived yet?”
Michael: “We got one from Bra… Brats… Brat-sylvia.”
Me (chuckling): “You mean Bra-ti-sla-va. Do you know where that is?”
Michael: “No. Where is it?”
Me: “Slovakia. Do you know where Austria is?”
Michael: “That’s where Beethoven is from. But I don’t know where Austria is. I’m only in Grade 3, Auntie Gail, Geography is in Grade 5.”

Earlier in July, when I phoned Melissa for her 10th birthday, she told me they got my postcard from Rome.

Me: “Do you know where Rome is?”
Melissa: “I’ve heard of it.”
Me: “Have you heard of the Pope?”
Melissa: “Yes, he lives at church.”

Maddy (nearly eight) was too busy plotting world dominance playing to stop and talk to me. The twins (age five) are talking like crazy and say funny things, but they don’t like to talk on the phone… yet, anyway. Once they do, I’ll be sure to post the gems.

Possibly related posts:

1. Melissa Will Have Her Cake and Eat It, Too!  ...
2. Maddy’s big birthday cake Maddy’s big birthday cake by Allan & Cheryl Whoa, now...
3. Conversations With a 6-Year Old Smart Aleck cameraphone shot of Michael after celebrating his 6th birthday —...

Since June evaporated before my eyes and I’m a quarter of the way through July already, I thought I would finish at least ONE web project for momentum to tackle the next three that have been waiting patiently. My apartment’s not much cleaner than it was on Friday and the laundry’s only half done, but I did manage to create a site to feature my non-wedding photography. I’ve found some bugs and there’s some tweaking to do, but it’s mostly presentable, if a little empty-looking…

http://www.gailatlarge.net

It’s going to take me a while to populate it with my photo albums.

Why a second personal website? Hey, I wrote a post there to answer that very question.

This blog turns seven years old later this month, it’s high time it stopped trying to live a double life of blog and photo website. The clutter of a regular blog, with various media like video, competes with the need for a minimalist approach to displaying photos. It’s like trying to hang a big picture frame on the wall of a busy kitchen: there’s lots of viewing traffic, but not much space. Anyway, I hope you click through once in a while to look at some pictures — there’s more room over there and the photos are at least twice the size!

Possibly related posts:

1. Roo and Attie Gail at Large Attie Gail forgot her camera on Saturday. Phooey, no photos...
2. Work Website Finally Live You might notice on the left panel the links to...
3. Gail’s Balcony is No More… Argh! I wrote a whole post, and accidentally closed down...

Possibly related posts:

1. Satan’s Laundromat Have a look at this! Satan’s Laundromat “This is a...