Fort Worden State Park - Feb 19th, 2011 [news]
This was a fun daytrip that we took, and will end up taking a weekend trip up to see it all with more time.
For this trip, I talked Kevin into heading up to Fort Worden to see what all the "hype" was about. I've lived on the Olympic penninsula for a long while now and had never been up to the park.
Sadly, I don't have any fancy camera's personally so I only managed to snake some pictures off my cell phone. However, more pictures are coming as there were 3 other cameras there (DSLR's).
It was a blast of a trip. Went up with Kevin and his son Mykel, and as a pleasant surprise Jenn and her troupe joined us for the adventure.
(More photos to come!!)
zenFBSuite 1.4.0.2 [6701] released! [news]
After taking a brief respite to the land of no internet (dear God save me!!) I've returned. The first thing I came back to of course was the zenFBSuite.
For the last few releases you may have noticed bits of code (if you looked) that seemed to do nothing. It's true, they apparently did nothing!
Actually what I was working on was incorporating a way to have email notifications when someone posts a comment.
At first, the functionality worked, then it disappeared and ceased to function.
I believe it's a conflict of jQuery's, but even when attempting to use the noConflict approach I was unable to get it to function properly.
Sadly, I decided it was a lost cause for now and have removed it. So here's the snippet from the changelog:
v1.4.0.2-6701
- Code cleanup.
- Removal of test code for email notification. Will re-add if I get it functioning.
- More centralization of options and code into the zenFBcommon portion of the plugin.
Site Design / Structure / ZenFBSuite Changes... [news]
Site Design/Structure Changes
Hello boys and girls, your friendly neighborhood artist/geek here!
So many of you have noticed the change in design to the site, it's kind of hard to miss. And plenty of you have noticed the change in structure to the albums and directories for my media excursions.
There's more on the way! Thanks to my brother I've managed to get my hands on a nice little video camera. What does this mean? Well besides the photography, digital, and audio work, I'll be adding some video work to my repetoire. Why is it not here yet? Well, right now I'm working on the logistics of the content delivery.
I'd love to be able to host my videos here on my own site, but one of the logistical challenges is having to make sure I get "whitelisted" for Facebook. In all honesty that shouldn't be a problem as I'm doing nothing that breaks any of their terms etc. However, if for some reason my request to have my domain whitelisted is denied, then I'll have to rely upon something else such as YouTube.
The whole point in having my work on line is to be able to share it, and Facebook is the main key to social networking at this point so the ability to share the media properly hinges upon that.
So keep an eye on the horizon for an additional structure addition.
zenFBSuite
With a bit of free time recently I've been working on some code upgrades for the zenFBSuite of plugins. The initial update release I did earlier this month was rushed and I want to finish off the last few changes that I intended on.
One of them is email notification when someone posts a comment, but that portion is still buggy at the moment.
I've also centralized some of the options and required javascript/html info into a common option interface.
Upcoming changes... [news]
Alright boys and/or girls.
As you can see I've done pretty much a complete overhaul of the gallery layout and design. With these changes coming to a close, I'm going to be changing the structure of the gallery as I attempt to re-add some of the multimedia projects that I've been a part of, as well as adding some video etc.
Look for those changes coming soon. As usual if you have any ideas or suggestions feel free to comment and let me know!
-M
My Christmas Wish... [news]
My Christmas Wish...
It's been quite a while since I've made a Christmas wish.. years in fact. Many of them. Most years, the thought just never crossed my mind. Some might say that I've been too preoccupied, too stuck, too selfish, or any of the other thoughts that have crossed my mind about why I haven't.
As any of my friends or family know already, the holidays are hard for me usually. At some point I feel depression beacuse the ghosts of the past always rear their head and leave me spinning. This year, for some reason, has been extremely difficult. I usually am able to just motor right on through the depression and break out if it in no time at all, filled with holiday cheer.
A couple weeks ago I felt it, and haven't really been able to shake it since. I'm not sure what is different this year, but I've begun to grasp what I think could be the reason. This year, more than any, I've realized that I miss the innocence of the holidays.
I miss the holiday traditions, I miss the magic of the holidays. As a kid I used to dread getting dressed in our nice clothes and going to my Grandma & Grandpa Brown's on Christmas Eve, then doing the same thing Christmas day and going to Grandma & Grandpa Walton.
Family, holidays, big dinners, everyone laughing, and even the usual holiday dramatic arguments that would spring up... I miss it all.
This year, I started feeling like I was letting someone down, and to be honest, I'm not sure who or how. Part of me feels like it's just a facet of the holiday downers, but part of me thinks that I really am. I worry that one day I'll wake up and realize it in a bright flash of light and then it'll be too late to fix.
My wish, my Christmas wish, is to recapture the innocence of the holidays. For me it was never about the presents. It's about my family and friends, it's about restoring old traditions and creating new traditions. It's about making sure that the holiday spirit entrances the youth. I want my kids when or if I have any, to say Happy Thanksgiving and mean it being thankful for something. I want them to say Merry Christmas without worrying about offending anyone.
I want to start small and do a bunch of little things for other people, and then maybe in turn they will do small things for others, and maybe we can begin to restore some of the simple spirit of the holidays.
I want to go caroling with friends and family and spread a little cheer from door to door.
I want to ring in the New Year with family and friends, and have a nice hot bowl of black-eyed peas.
The silliest thing just popped into my head... when I was little we used to have this thing that we'd plug in with the tree lights. It would sit wrapped at the bottom of the tree, a little silver ball that looked like an ornament, but when plugged in it would let out the sounds of a small bird chirping.
I miss that for some reason...
To my family and friends, I hope that Christmas finds you well. I love you all.
-M
