Scroll down for Window Views,
Shadow Shots, Camera Critters & Pet Pride
and some Miscellany on my Mind
1. My brother-in-law managed to share three 'snow photos' from their recent visit to Yosemite with help from their oldest son. They've been resized to be smallish files (to cut down on time time required to send them since campground Internet access leaves much to be desired), but you can click to embiggen a bit for better viewing.
My heart is heavy for those who lost loved ones in the catastrophic explosion on the offshore drilling rig that caused an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that appears to have a real potential to become the worst oil spill in history if the continuing leak isn't plugged soon ... surpassing the damage done by the Exxon Valdez tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil into the ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound in 1989. Apparently this leak is pouring out crude oil at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons or 955,000 liters) a day because there was no 'automatic' shut off on the rig ... and it makes me wonder about all the other oil rigs out there.
These Internet photos from earlier oil disasters
break my heart and cause me to question our priorities
Thought for Today
""You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind." Darwin P. Kingsley
2. After a few days without phone contact, my sister called late yesterday afternoon to catch up. They found campgrounds in Death Valley crowded so they weren't able to stay as long as they'd planned. As a result they're currently just south of Flagstaff and plan to stay in a Coast to Coast campground for a few days ... taking day trips to explore the area before heading south. They have no Internet access so can't send any more photos at the moment, but have promised to do so as soon as possible.
3. After hearing about this resource from friends & acquaintances for a long time, I've checked out Goldstar.com ... finally! What a nifty way to save money while getting out to enjoy entertainment opportunities. I've purchased tickets at half-price for a weekend matinee featuring the music of the Eagles (let's hear it for nostalgia folks) and plan to attend with a friend.
4. Although we got a little overnight rain this past week, my yard required deeper watering ... and it's WINDY currently so I'll probably be watering again this weekend. If you missed them, I did share some outdoor flower views in my previous post here at Sacred Ruminations and Ruby Red Amaryllis in my Colorful Outdoor World at Small Reflections. My weekend post at Happily Retired Gal is a Playful Potpourri ... with YardArt, T13, HF SkyWatch, WindowViews, Reflections, and Critters too ;-)
5. This week I've set up an automatic backup for my Dell Inspiron 1720 and my Sony Vaio (using separate Iomega external hard drives) after shifting relevant files from an 'out of date' Western Digital 'MyBook' backup of the old Dell Inspiron 9100 that crashed a while back. You'd think I would have learned the importance of regular back ups years ago from previous computer crash disasters, but sometimes I need multiple opportunities to learn valuable lessons. If either of these computers crashes down the line I won't have to reconstruct and/or recreate the files bit by bit as I've done in the past. If YOU don't back up your files on a regular basis, may I suggest you get yourself an external hard drive and set one up ASAP ... just because.
3. After hearing about this resource from friends & acquaintances for a long time, I've checked out Goldstar.com ... finally! What a nifty way to save money while getting out to enjoy entertainment opportunities. I've purchased tickets at half-price for a weekend matinee featuring the music of the Eagles (let's hear it for nostalgia folks) and plan to attend with a friend.
4. Although we got a little overnight rain this past week, my yard required deeper watering ... and it's WINDY currently so I'll probably be watering again this weekend. If you missed them, I did share some outdoor flower views in my previous post here at Sacred Ruminations and Ruby Red Amaryllis in my Colorful Outdoor World at Small Reflections. My weekend post at Happily Retired Gal is a Playful Potpourri ... with YardArt, T13, HF SkyWatch, WindowViews, Reflections, and Critters too ;-)
5. This week I've set up an automatic backup for my Dell Inspiron 1720 and my Sony Vaio (using separate Iomega external hard drives) after shifting relevant files from an 'out of date' Western Digital 'MyBook' backup of the old Dell Inspiron 9100 that crashed a while back. You'd think I would have learned the importance of regular back ups years ago from previous computer crash disasters, but sometimes I need multiple opportunities to learn valuable lessons. If either of these computers crashes down the line I won't have to reconstruct and/or recreate the files bit by bit as I've done in the past. If YOU don't back up your files on a regular basis, may I suggest you get yourself an external hard drive and set one up ASAP ... just because.
Click images to embiggen for better viewing
and for others participating in Friday's Fave Five
and Just for the JOY of it!
and for others participating in Friday's Fave Five
and Just for the JOY of it!
A few important things on my mind today ...
and 'Gotcha' day too ;-)
and 'Gotcha' day too ;-)
It's my youngest nephew's 28th birthday today (and his older brother's 'gotcha' day) ... so I want to wish them each a delightful day to celebrate. I love you both! My sister & her husband adopted both boys as infants and in a strange turn of events ... each one arrived on the other's birthday. How's THAT for a bit of serendipity?
Lily celebrated her Blogoversary a while back with a wonderful give-away and I won my choice of FIVE lovely cards from her Zazzle online gift shop plus a sheet of personalized postage stamps with my choice of design. I've tried to photograph them to share but downloaded (and cropped) this image from her site. Methinks you'll get a better look by checking out the links. Her work is beautiful ;-)
Click images to embiggen for better viewing and for
others participating in Window Views and Shadow Shots
The original shot of these palm fronds on the roof
taken WEEKS ago ... is a bit crooked
so I straightened it a bit before cropping for
this close up of the 'palm fronds' ...
because yesterday's wind blew them down
into the front yard ... where Molly & Aloha played
Straight from the camera above
with Poster Edges below ...
and cropped for better viewing ...
Click images to embiggen for better viewing and for
others participating in Camera Critters and Pet Pride
Lily celebrated her Blogoversary a while back with a wonderful give-away and I won my choice of FIVE lovely cards from her Zazzle online gift shop plus a sheet of personalized postage stamps with my choice of design. I've tried to photograph them to share but downloaded (and cropped) this image from her site. Methinks you'll get a better look by checking out the links. Her work is beautiful ;-)
Click images to embiggen for better viewing and for
others participating in Window Views and Shadow Shots
The original shot of these palm fronds on the roof
taken WEEKS ago ... is a bit crooked
so I straightened it a bit before cropping for
this close up of the 'palm fronds' ...
because yesterday's wind blew them down
into the front yard ... where Molly & Aloha played
Straight from the camera above
with Poster Edges below ...
and cropped for better viewing ...
Click images to embiggen for better viewing and for
others participating in Camera Critters and Pet Pride
On a sad note ...
My heart is heavy for those who lost loved ones in the catastrophic explosion on the offshore drilling rig that caused an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that appears to have a real potential to become the worst oil spill in history if the continuing leak isn't plugged soon ... surpassing the damage done by the Exxon Valdez tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil into the ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound in 1989. Apparently this leak is pouring out crude oil at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons or 955,000 liters) a day because there was no 'automatic' shut off on the rig ... and it makes me wonder about all the other oil rigs out there.
These Internet photos from earlier oil disasters
break my heart and cause me to question our priorities
Thought for Today
""You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind." Darwin P. Kingsley
14 comments:
Well, so much you posted and so much to comment on...where do I start? After reading about this part of your sister's trip and seeing those pictures, for the life of me I don't know why she or anyone else does this...especially when she can stay in beautiful California with you! Lack of convieniences is not a vacation to me. Yes to the Eagles! I'm not too big on "Hotel California", my fave was "One Of These Nights". Do you per chance like Fleetwood Mac as well? The oil covered bird is just heartbreaking. Are the palm fronds still on your roof? I would imagine you just have to wait till they blow back off. About the external hard drive, I have a question. I just bought one from Dell, and it is huge. It holds over three times more than my computer does. My husband said that if you get one too big, it's harder to work with and find things on. He said it's better to buy them pretty much the size you need and not much bigger. He had heard this long ago, but doesn't know if it's still true. You know so much about these things, I thought you might know
that last photo is really tough to see. it is truly a tremendous tragedy.
When I was recently in Phoenix, my Husband & I attended an Eagles Concert - they are great musicians - they call the tour "The Assisted Living Tour" (jokingly) and want to assure fans that they aren't dead yet! We had a great time since most of the songs (except those on the newest album) are instantly recognizable. Enjoy!
I feel so sad about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the potential disaster that will befall. The fishermen will lose out but the whole ecosystem is affected - dreadful!
The BP oil spill is an outrage and an excellent argument for getting off our dependency on that slimy junk!
Lot of stuff in this post. Oiled birds and lost life are both tragic. I think it will take time to get off of our dependence on oil. Hubby and I generate almost as much electricity as we use with the solar cells on our roof but we do use fossil fuel for transportation.
Speaking of transportation, I hope the snow is gone from the campground when we arrive in Yosemite tomorrow.
There's one good thing about all our wind--it got your palm fronds off your roof :) I enjoyed those photos of Yosemite and I'm glad I'm not in the snow!
Have a great weekend!
That is heatbreaking. The loss of lives from the explosion and now the aftermath of the oil spill. And the tragic part is that it's only these huge spills that we hear about but not all of the smaller scale ones happening constantly. The smaller spills aren't classified as 'newsworthy' I guess, but the damage to the wildlife is something very real and happening all of the time. I don't know what the answer is though. These oil carriers certainly need to be regulated a lot better than what they currently are. It's just so sad...
was so nice to see molly dating aloha!
cheers!
bozo
Pet Pride
Molly looks like she was having SO much fun. The photo of them lying next to each other is so sweet!!!
The oil spill breaks my heart - I can't hardly stand to hear about it.
I can imagine that snow while camping is not the most fun thing. But it made for some great shots!
Oh those poor animals, heartbreaking. I agree with you about our priorities!
And Yosemite with a snowfall must be beautiful.
Such a contrast in one post!
We camped in Yellowstone in June one year and woke up to 6" of snow on our tent, lol. Beautiful shots! I feel so bad for the animals suffering from our spill.
There's so much in this post--but all I can think about now is the oil. Poor animals. Poor us. When will we learn?
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