Blogging since 2006

15 January 2009, 10:51 am by Giggles
Categories: Education, Life, Science & Tech

It’s been three years since I first started blogging. According to the blog statistics there are 542 posts and 438 comments on here (people weren’t very comment-y that first year, and I’m pretty sure less than half of those comments are me, so that’s a good thing). Akismet has caught (as of the last time I checked) 6,472 spam comments (INSANE!!). And I have 23 categories so far.

That’s a lot of writing stuff here. What started as a simple assignment for a Masters class has certainly moved in a lot of directions.

Thanks for reading it all (or at least letting me feel like you have).

4 Shared thoughts

Already?

13 January 2009, 3:54 pm by Giggles
Categories: Health

In November I made a comprehensive list of all my major injuries since 1996 (E ao que sofre dores). Unfortunately, I think I can already update it for 2009 and we aren’t even two weeks into the year yet.

I woke up on New Year’s Day, of all days, with what turned out to be a mild case of pinkeye in my right eye associated with the cold I also woke up miserable with. Never had pinkeye before. And I’d just barely gotten my left eye cleared up from the blood vessel that had burst in early December.

my eye in December
my eye in December

I was beyond careful though, and while my right eye was red for several days, extra goopy, and I woke up with my eye sealed shut a few times, I never touched my eye unless I could wash my hands right after. So it never passed to my other eye, and as near as I can tell, nobody I know caught it either. I figure I must have picked it up on my flights on the 30th. I’ve been wearing my glasses for over a month now. Good thing I picked out some cute ones last year.

Then on the 8th I decided to get the boxes out of storage so I could take down my Christmas decorations. At some point doing that I must have over-extended my right thumb, or something, because I woke up Friday morning with it hurting to do just about anything. An opposable thumb is a great thing to have, until using it to do anything that requires an opposable thumb hurts. Basically it seems I have a small sprain on my thumb. I’ve been taping it to the rest of my hand at night and that is helping. I bought the tape to tape my ankle with last summer when I strained my ankle. That wasn’t a problem taping my leg, but that’s because I shave my legs. I don’t shave my hand, and taking the tape off hurts! But my thumb is feeling better, so I guess I’ll do it a few more times. Of all the stupid injuries!

But maybe this means the rest of 2009 will be injury free. And with more marathon training on the schedule for the year, that would be great.

4 Shared thoughts

Images on the Internet

12 January 2009, 7:37 am by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech, Venting

An interesting situation developed yesterday. My post about the moon, because there was a link to it on Scientific American, drove a LOT (over 200 hits) of traffic here yesterday. That makes it the highest hit page in a single day ever. Only the main blog page or the main site page could ever compete with it, and never on a single day. It’s amazing to think that such a large number of people saw my photos of the moon. I’m just a humble person who likes to take photos!

There was one interesting hit though, someone who apparently liked the pictures I took (who wouldn’t? they’re amazing! okay, maybe I’m not such a humble photographer). And what this person did brings up a few points about proper internet etiquette when it comes to images, because this person broke several rules.

There was a comment waiting for moderation on my blog quoting a section of someone else’s blog. That was interesting. So I checked out the blog. Imagine my surprise when I see MY photo on their blog. Nobody’d asked if they could use my picture. There was no mention of my name with the picture. And more surprising, the picture was still on my server!

That’s three internet etiquette rules broken.

  1. Not asking permission to use images belonging to someone else.
  2. Not providing written credit for where the image came from.
  3. Using the image on the original server.

So I did what any site manager would do under such a situation, I changed the image. Instead of my beautiful picture of the moon, they now had this image on their site:

They were lucky though. I know of people who have replaced the original image with EXTREMELY offensive images when they’ve discovered things like this. But it was because they were still using the image off my server that I was even able to do that.

So then, this person has the NERVE to expect me to apologize for their theft of my image. I received this message from them (capitalization problems are in the original, this person has issues):

dear miss giggles:

imagine my horror when i looked at the post i put up about the perigee moon to find a message “image used without permission or credit given to photographer, don’t do that, it’s rude!!” where your picture was.

I am going to remove it and you can be sure i will not use any of your images again.

contrary to the information which was posted by you in place of the picture, you were in fact credited – the image was a direct link back to your post. granted i did not ask your permission but i certainly did give credit where credit is due.

an apology from you will be appreciated for making an unfounded, unfair and nasty accusation..

Unfounded? No, I called it like it was. Unfair? No, I’m not the one stealing images. Nasty? No, trust me, it could’ve been much worse.

I will apologize though. I will apologize for the general stupidity of a great deal of humanity, and that includes those who don’t know the proper use of a shift key.

As a side note, the other two images on her blog post are also being stolen off other servers.

Here is an example of how to properly reference photos elsewhere on the internet, and besides, it’s an AMAZING photo!

In the Shadow of Saturn – APOD

10 Shared thoughts

Perigee Moon in Tucson, AZ

11 January 2009, 12:23 am by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech

That means it’s closer to the earth and is just that much larger than normal.

As I was driving home from my Saturday errands I saw the moon, huge, gorgeous moon, sitting down in a low valley between two mountains. I drove home as fast as I could, which put the moon on the other side of the smaller mountain and ran inside to get the boot for my tripod and then ran back outside to catch the moon as it came up over the other side of the mountain from where I first saw it. These pictures don’t do it justice, but I think they turned out real well all the same. I had fun playing with the white balance and the exposure length. I didn’t change any settings for the first picture. The second picture is a white balance adjustment. The others are exposure adjustments.

5 Shared thoughts

One year on

10 January 2009, 12:06 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Life, Work

One year ago today my mom and I pulled in to Tucson with all of my belongings in a Uhaul truck after driving all night, getting slightly lost in Nevada, taking a slight side trip to California for a few minutes. That was quite the trip and not one I’d ever want to repeat any time soon. It has been quite the year too. But it’s been a good year.

But, I got to sleep in my bed last night rather than trying not to sleep in the driver’s seat of a moving truck that is actually moving. When we did get to my apartment and signed the papers and got the keys, my mom and I got inside, we might have grabbed something out of the car, and we both fell asleep on the floor of my living room in the sun from my wonderful south window. My chair is now where I fell asleep. There were probably 8-10 guys that showed up about 5pm and unloaded the truck faster than we could order pizza to feed them with. I can’t even remember if we put my mattress on the frame that night or not. But the heater hadn’t been on for I don’t know how long and was dusty, so at 3am or so the dusty heater set off the smoke alarm and woke us up.

The unpacking took a while, as I wrote about last year (Thoughts on packing – 5 Jan 2008, Winter camping – 7 Jan 2008, Moved – 13 Jan 2008 {the amazingly good-looking gentleman is still very helpful too, and still amazingly good-looking}, Boxed in – 20 Jan 2008, Unpacking list – 22 Jan 2008, I hereby declare… – 25 Jan 2008). We had to get me a bunch of lamps because the only lights in the apartment are in the kitchen. I’m still moving things a bit as I try to figure out how to best use the space I have.42D

It still seems a bit strange to me at times that I actually live here now, that I’m actually a Ph.D. student, that I in a sense now work for a university working with college students instead of elementary students. But that’s about how my life goes (for a more detailed post on my problems with reality, check out my post – Be the Butterfly).

I’ve now lived in Tucson for a year. It took me some time to actually get here, but I made it.

1 Shared thought

Callings

9 January 2009, 12:59 pm by Giggles
Categories: Gospel

I read a post on Segullah today – Calling Out Our Callings. The author of the post talks about how she was so excited to get her current calling as a Relief Society teacher. She talks about other callings she’s had in the past that she was a bit less than enthusiastic about. She ends by asking questions of the readers about their callings. This particular question stood out to me:

And in a religion where patience is a strand of DNA inherited from our forbearers, is utter delight over what you’re asked just frivolous? In the face of all this work is there time to enjoy what we’re doing?

I don’t believe we are a Puritan religion. We are supposed to enjoy life. Men are, that they might have joy. Delight and joy are never frivolous. If you are not finding joy in the work then it might be argued that you are doing the work wrong, not that you don’t have time for the joy of it.

I have had quite the number and variety of callings over the years. I’ve had at least four different callings in the Relief Society. I’ve served in the primary three times (once was in the nursery). I’ve been a Sunday School teacher more than once. I’ve been a ward missionary. I’ve been the ward single adult representative to the stake. I’ve been the ward chorister and the choir chorister. And there’s probably at least one more in there that I’m not remembering.

Of those, some have been absolutely wonderful. Some that should have seemed overwhelming weren’t really that bad. Others that should have been more or less easy almost broke me completely. I’ve begged not to be released from one, and was. And I’ve waited impatiently to be released from one as well.

I’ve also, oddly, had callings that the Lord felt I was capable of, that the bishopric felt I was capable of, that I felt I was capable of, that those people I served with felt I was capable of, but that everyone not involved in the calling for some reason felt that I was incapable of. Just shows how smart some people are. (The calling, in case you were wondering, was Relief Society president. There were those who weren’t in my ward who felt that as a single person I wasn’t capable of having that calling when the majority of sisters in the ward were married. At least one sister in my ward complained about my belly dancing classes, but none of them complained about my social status.)

People often speak of not saying no to a calling. I used to be 100% behind that line of thought as well. But then I realized that there might be times where the whole situation of my life might not be apparent to those issuing the call. The last time I moved and knew I was going to be getting a call, I actually had a list of callings I would’ve turned down when I met with the member of the bishopric. I wasn’t called to one of those, but I wouldn’t have had a problem explaining my reasons and asking them to go back and pray about it again.

At the same time though, I’ve learned from a few callings that there are things we are supposed to learn even from the callings we hate, but the sooner we learn those things, the quicker we can get called to something else.

It should be interesting to see what my next calling is.

2 Shared thoughts

See me run

8 January 2009, 1:42 pm by Giggles
Categories: Exercise, Family, Health, News

Tuesday night my dad called and we are now trying to qualify for Boston 2010. I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about the marathon that is almost magical. I’m going to need new shoes for this attempt.

Over the past few months I’ve seen a few different news articles about marathons that have caught my eye.

I’m currently still looking for the qualifying races I’ll be attempting this year. Watch for more details.

1 Shared thought