Author Archives: witchyrichy

Went with friends to hear Gladlye Play at the Twin Brook Winery near Coatesville, PA. Excellent selection of mostly Irish, Scottish and English music played on a range of instruments including guitar, violin, and hammered dulcimer along with Irish whistles and bodhrans.

KRT Wire | 07/03/2005 | Former senator, Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson dies at age 89

Just back from seven days on the road…the first half of last week was spent at NECC and then I headed to Coatesville, PA, to visit an old teaching buddy. Got in four games of Trivial Pursuit, including a three-hour marathon against two other friends. Just grueling but fun, and we ended up as winners even though, like the first game, we lost a substantial lead and came close to losing. (We DID lose the first game.)

I have lots of things I want to write about so for tonight I’m just going to make the list:

• my Treo
• Taking the train
• Books
• Napolean Dynamite
• Gladye Play with Strings
• Philadelphia
• NECC

I think that’s long enough. Maybe I’ll get started tomorrow. Plus, I want to do a better job tagging this blog and start including technorati tags.

I installed Tiger right before leaving for NECC so haven’t really had a chance to play with it. Stopped by the Apple booth for a quick primer and only got as far as the Spotlight (the blue icon in the upper right hand corner) and the Dashboard. Right now, I’m using the WordPress widget to make this post. I also downloaded several other widgets including DashPoetry, minipatience, and Wikipedia. Very fun!

We camped at Loft Mountain at milepost 79 along the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park this past weekend. We have not been for a long time…we camped there the first night of our Lewis and Clark trip but that was 1997 or so. The campsites were nice and secluded although it was an uphill trek to car and bathroom. Good exercise especially since all the food had to be stored in the car when not in use because of the bear problem. The wildflowers were in bloom: smiling ox-eye daisies with yellow centers, long plumes of goat’s beard waving from the hillsides, and wild blackberries covered by white blossoms that promise tasty fruit later. There was bladder campion, showy skullcap, and white waterleaf with its fringed blossoms hanging below the foliage in small clusters. But it was the mountain laurel (mixed with some wild rhododendron) that was most beautiful, covering hillsides and peeking from tree lines, the white and pink blossoms catching the sun.

As we drove south on Sunday morning, we saw a peacock on the side of the road. He let us back up the car, roll down the window, and take several pictures. We also saw white tailed deer, an adorable chipmunk stuffing its mouth with pieces of dog food, and lots of little brown birds.

After a day of working and packing to go camping, we ran out to Ivy Run for a few hours at sunset. We were well rewarded: Bob caught three beautiful bass right in a row and the bull frogs entertained us the whole time with their long low chorus. There were more than I ever remember. As we walked down the dock, one skittered across the top of the water like a skipping stone then dove. By the time we left, however, they had moved back and we could see at least 7 heads above the water, the ripple moving outward with each croak. A love triangle developed amongst a group close to the dock and included what appeared to be a frog fight between the two males, water splashing as the female looked on. It was over very quickly and they retreated a few feet apart with the female still watching. They were still there when the mosquitoes finally drove us away. A wonderful, relaxing way to end the day.

Summer has arrived in Tidewater so we left home early this morning and were working on the boat by 8 AM. That way, when the sun was overhead at noon and there wasn’t any shade left on either side of the boat, we could go home. We weren’t the first people there. The same couple–retirees I think–were there that had been there on Sunday, working on Coconuts, a lovely sailboat. Are they getting ready for their dream sail? And the same waterman from Sunday was there working on his workboat, and it was obvious from how far he had gotten that he had been there Monday and Tuesday as well. Continue reading →

I really liked the horizontal link bar used in Coffee Cup so I fiddled around to add it to my theme. Thanks for the easy to read code. I haven’t had any formal training in stylesheets and templates so I am learning as I go. It’s a little bit of a thrill when a piece of code does what you want it to do! I also added Theme Switcher to my pages…actually, Coffee Cup and Borderlinechaos had it written in as part of the script.

So, now that I’ve managed to kill another two hours on making this blog, which I don’t think anyone else reads, I should think about more productive work.

Saturday morning, tucked in bed with a cup of coffee, my laptop, and BookTV. They are at the Book Expo in New York City. The show is co-hosted by The American Booksellers Association and their leader just mentioned this campaign against the Patriot Act: Campaign For Reader Privacy

Well, I didn’t resist the urge and spent the afternoon making my own theme. Certainly very simple, not available for distribution. I basically started with WordPress classic but also used Moshu’s Dark Maple code for the masthead. It’s my own picture, taken June 20, 2004, on the Glacier Express between St. Moritz and Zermatt.