I’m wondering/working about/on this.

I seem to be subscribed to my blog in Feedly, but the last post didn’t show up. Everything seems to have stopped back in December….ok, there is only one post since then, but I need to find out why it’s not getting picked up.

Ergo, this quick post to see if Feedly will see it now.

[Update]

No go with the atom feed, so I pasted the rss feed into Feedly. The last 2 posts have been picked up, so all appears to be well.

Yay.

A couple of weeks ago I was out at Boundary Bay looking for some Snowy owls. As the skies started to clear just a bit, a double rainbow showed up. I grabbed a quick shot with my phone.

These days I’m using an offline blog editor called MarsEdit to compose my posts. It has a nice little Flickr account browser built in that inserts photos into the posts quite nicely.

When I’m not using MarsEdit, I try to use the url the Flickr suggests for the photo, but I keep having trouble with the code not linking back to Flickr properly from my website. Hmmm, what to do.

I was browsing around and found a great little tip on a blog called adidap for grabbing Flickr links. They suggest heading over to the photo on Flickr and selecting it, then right clicking for View Source. In the code for the photo placement there is a flic.kr short link code right there. Neat trick for tweeting, but what about blogging?

Here’s one result from my collection on Flickr: http://flic.kr/p/dpLMY2

The main problem here, I guess, is that just inserting the link in the SquareSpace editor doesn’t result in the photo showing up on this blog. If I use the insert image function, all I get is a question mark in a blue box. I guess it’s not resolving the short url for some reason, even though the short link works fine directly in the browser.

Guess this will take a bit more work to figure that out.

Yay for MarsEdit. It certainly makes life easier.

In an effort to get some cardio exercise this summer, I picked up a new bike. I suggested to the sales folks that buying a bike would probably be like buying a boat – a deep hole to keep throwing money into, and I was right. The bike, helmet, racks, packs, clothes, etc. starts to add up, and it’s a challenge to say Enough! some times.

By the middle of October, I’d managed to build up to 30 km per week. I know that’s nothing for most riders. I hear numbers out there like 50, 60, or even 100km per day! But for me that 30 km was quite an accomplishment.

However, when the monsoons came soon after, the distance fell to 0 km per week. That lead to another expense – a trainer for the bike, so I can ride a bit inside.

I’m optimistic, we’ll see how it goes.

I just have to comment on this, so <rant on>

While some books just *deserve* paper and wouldn’t be the same without it, I do like ebooks for most of my reading. Compared to hard cover books, they don’t take up a ton of room, they’re light and generally a little cheaper, and I suspect they are better for the environment too.

That said, I do have an issue with the way some publishers are pricing them.

This graphic is the pricing on 2 books I recently bought from Amazon. For both, Amazon notes that the ebook pricing is set by the publisher; $13.49 is by Penguin and $16.12 is by Random House Digital. Both ebook prices include taxes, where the price for the physical versions don’t.

What gets me is that they want the same price or more for an ebook as they do for a physical copy. An ebook is just electrons packaged in DRM, has no real reproduction or delivery costs, and is really just licensed to me. They can take it back in a heartbeat too, as we’ve seen back in 2009  when a publisher made Amazon pull purchased George Orwell books from thousands of Kindles.

A physical version has all of it’s associated costs for paper, shipping, storage, etc., and I can share it with friends or make some extra cash back by selling it used.

It makes no sense that the physical hard cover book costs the same as an ebook. None. And I understand that the US Dept of Justice has questions about that too.

I think that me and other folks that read ebooks are being used.

Publishers are not doing themselves or their authors any favours either. Sure, I bought the books this time, but you know what? My respect for these two publishers has disappeared. I feel like they are gouging their readers and that I’m helping prolong their misery in a dying industry. From now on, I’ll stick with independents publishers, or at least those publishers that respect their readers.

The authors in question supposedly represent a new, progressive version of online entrepreneur – but they’re stooping to using old media companies and hosing their fans at the same time. Interesting contrast between word and action, eh?

Author Joe Konrath discusses how these media companies treat their writers shabbily too. A different, but interesting viewpoint is here by Mark Coker of Smashwords.

I expect that if the old guard publishers keep treating their writers and readers they way they are, the push back will only increase, and publishers will end up like the dinosaurs. Er, well, more like dinosaurs than they already do.

<end rant>

Don’t you just love this time of year?

The bloggers are doing their annual reviews and publishing their goals for the coming year. Tweeters are passing along inspirational quotes to start 2012 off on a positive note. All the top ‘x’ things and lists are showing up and they probably will for another week or so.

All in all, everyone seems to be on a positive note on January 1, and that often last through at least the first few weeks of the year.

At Green Timbers Park this morning, it seemed that everyone was going out of their way to be friendly with everyone else. Pretty much everyone on the trails had a smile and a Happy New Year for those they passed. People were actually catching fish in the little lake in the park, and I watched a grebe do the same. (BTW, the fisherman released his catch; the grebe didn’t. Both were happy 😉

It would take some concerted effort, but I bet we could keep that friendly, optimistic spirit up and going for the whole of 2012 if we really tried. What do ya think. Shall we give it a try?

I found this figurine in a display at the Saanich Fair in Saanichton BC a couple of years ago. It was so cute, I just had to take a shot close up. Have I mentioned that I’m fond of cute?

Anyway, a few days ago, my very creative friend Wendy Bancroft of It’s About Us Productions, posted a couple of links on her Facebook page. They were for two episodes of a short story about “Marcel the shell with shoes on”.

The videos are here and here.

The films are Directed by a fellow named Dean Fleischer-Camp, and if you are a sucker for ‘cute’, they are well worth the watch.

When I saw this photo today, I started hearing Marcel talking again. What can I say….it’s all sooo creative and I wish I had more of that gene.

Being that the new year is just about here, it’s about time to assess what went right and what went wrong last year. With a little luck, I can use that info to develop a plan into 2012.

A couple of things I know I want to address are:
– An answer to ‘why’ for this blog. Aside from pretty pictures, why would you come back?
– A plan on where to take Donsca

A year-end review is pretty common. Do you take part in the ritual, or do you handle your planning in some other way? Inquiring minds want to know.

A friend and I were out last weekend on a photoshoot. We started at Peace Arch Park and moved up through Surrey to the Port Mann area.

Off in Birdland (108th Ave and 152 St.) we found Robin Park, right next to the construction of the new Port Mann bridge.

According to reports, the bridge is a bit more than half way done. We should see it open about this time next year, if we’re lucky. I use the term ‘lucky’ loosely. Right now the bridge is planned as a toll bridge.

Anyway…we won’t get into tolling right now.

We took some shots of the construction from Robin Park and then moved downhill to the banks of the Fraser River. Unfortunately, with all the cloud that day, looking up at the construction was not all that appealing in terms of photos. Perhaps on a sunny day.

So, there you have it. Another milestone in transportation.

Mayor Watts and the new Surrey Councillors will be sworn in in at the City Centre Library at 7pm on December 5, 2011 – that’s this coming Monday and the public is invited.

We can also watch it online via a link on this page: http://surrey.ca/city-government/10274.aspx

There has been a lot of innovation by city council over the last few years. Council meetings are streamed, most councillors use social media like Twitter and the Surrey First association has a Facebook page. If you are online at all, there is no reason not to be informed about what most of them are up to.

That’s a good thing, I think.