Photo linking again

The last post showed how to enlarge a picture that was uploaded via the Blogger upload image process. When enlarging, the pictures lost detail.
When a Blogger user uploads pictures, a Picasa Web album is automatically created for each blog the user authors. The user can access this Web album by navigating to their Blogger Dashboard and selecting the My Account link. Under My Products, there will be a listing for Picasa Albums.

I'll link those two pictures again, this time using the Picasa Web album link, but adjusting the Width from Auto to 80% because the auto width seems to spill out the sides of my blog layout and I really don't like that. Also, for the vertical pictures, I set the width to 75% so the picture isn't so big:

From Test Blog

From Test Blog

Medium size

From Test Blog

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Directly uploading photos into Blogger

Instead of linking from flickr or the Picasa albums, these two images will be uploaded through the blogger interface.





In the HTML editor, Adjusted the width from 400px / 266px to 100%, deleted the height code

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POTD - City Scapes

St Louis' City Museum is a photographer's dream or nightmare. So many cool textures, structures, artwork, tilework, sculptures and more to photograph. Here are just a small sampling of what I found interesting. I think I have another 2 dozen highly varied photos to sort through yet. If you ever get to St Louis, make sure to visit and bring your camera.

A whole wall of glass bottles adorned the entrance to the Vintage Clothing shop.


Using scrap or salvaged rebar, someone told the welder / artist to "create whatever you want".


Kids climb the metal structure to get to the slide.


Spools of thread that feed the shoelace machine. They design and sell all sorts of flat woven shoe laces, wrist bands, etc on the spot.


Hundreds of these painted ceramic balusters adorn the staircases and covers one of the slides. They spin, too.


In the dark recesses of the back part of the warehouse - staircases that lead you to the 7th floor spiral slide.


Hopefully I'll get to post more pictures over the next several days.

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Testing some more

I want to see how the formatting will look on using this template's color scheme.

Large Print

Italic

BOLD

Quoting:

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

Inserting Links:

Scrapshare
Two Peas

Lists:

1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
2. Proin quis dui sed libero vehicula gravida.
3. Mauris varius sodales quam.
4. Cras vel libero non turpis blandit egestas.
5. Cras semper dignissim leo.

• Vivamus consequat tellus rhoncus eros.
• Nam a nisl ut tortor luctus venenatis.
• Vestibulum cursus condimentum diam.

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POTD - Hungry?

Probably not, but best not to find out. This Amur Tiger will turn 12 months old in April. Yeah, she's only 11 months old now. How scary is that?




She and her 4 siblings reside at the St. Louis Zoo, in a huge, open air enclosure with several vantage points. I used my 300mm lens to capture her licking her chops after some playful exchanges with one of her siblings. Even these huge creatures are cute when they play together.

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POTD - Determination [Emotion]

Brian had just maneuvered himself through the body of a gutted airplane. If he had trouble, think about how I felt. Squished, for sure. And I had on these boots with 2" heels. Not the ideal shoes to be climbing in.

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POTD - Monstrocity [Safety/Risk]

A small portion of the outdoor climbing structure at the City Museum in St. Louis. Nothing like a bunch of mangled metal to make you feel safe as you climb upwards to the gutted plane, 7 stories high.

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testing with picture

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test3

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse turpis. Sed faucibus justo sit amet mi. Suspendisse potenti. Fusce ultricies augue sed elit. Donec pharetra elit. Sed commodo commodo mauris. Curabitur sodales, ipsum at blandit volutpat, ligula velit bibendum augue, eget vulputate felis erat quis lectus. Duis vel lorem. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Vivamus fermentum tristique ligula. Nunc et enim. Etiam scelerisque lectus quis lacus. Nulla ligula tortor, tincidunt at, porttitor non, rhoncus sed, lacus.

In sed elit a dui auctor condimentum. Vivamus justo metus, iaculis at, blandit vitae, ultricies ut, ligula. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Nulla enim tellus, condimentum nec, pretium at, euismod non, mi. Quisque facilisis, massa vitae pretium tristique, ligula eros malesuada velit, ut convallis lorem lacus sed augue. Cras auctor magna nec enim. Integer accumsan, nulla in commodo consectetur, nulla metus vehicula velit, nec feugiat dui purus non libero. Pellentesque ipsum libero, fermentum non, faucibus nec, auctor sed, tortor. Pellentesque quis ante. Pellentesque urna nisi, congue ut, viverra rutrum, dictum tristique, quam. Sed id orci. Suspendisse eget sem at dui sollicitudin porta. Ut rhoncus magna ut risus. Mauris a tellus ac dolor mattis laoreet. Donec turpis felis, euismod vel, eleifend in, varius placerat, magna. Praesent tempor posuere risus. Etiam placerat.

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Lorem Ipsum

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus vitae velit. Nulla vel odio et nibh feugiat consequat. Curabitur lobortis venenatis quam. Mauris at velit sit amet leo adipiscing iaculis. Ut tellus lacus, sagittis sit amet, bibendum non, facilisis rhoncus, ante. Donec eget erat. Nulla elit. Integer egestas. Praesent viverra lectus vel nibh. Nullam at eros. Fusce ut lectus non turpis rhoncus molestie. Sed dictum turpis et dui.

Aenean pharetra enim a justo. Maecenas lacus nibh, venenatis vel, congue vitae, posuere vel, est. Ut malesuada. Morbi dictum. Sed interdum. Fusce in justo pellentesque nisl vestibulum gravida. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla pulvinar massa sed orci. Aliquam purus lorem, sagittis at, tincidunt molestie, ullamcorper et, sapien. Phasellus semper dolor consequat tortor. Sed venenatis laoreet sapien.

In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Morbi egestas. Fusce dui velit, bibendum a, consectetur non, rhoncus in, massa. Aenean leo turpis, sodales in, venenatis eget, dapibus a, lacus. Sed arcu. Quisque molestie sollicitudin justo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean volutpat rutrum purus. Curabitur purus eros, euismod vitae, dignissim eu, suscipit ultrices, orci. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In vehicula. Fusce purus urna, dictum sed, tristique sed, semper vitae, dui. Donec congue adipiscing odio. Nullam sit amet risus. Pellentesque congue, felis eu sollicitudin lobortis, lacus nulla ultrices purus, at convallis nibh sem sed libero.

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test post

this is a test post

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Random Picture Challenge

This week's Random Picture Challenge from 4 little men and girly twins

3rd folder
1st picture with the color BROWN



A picture from August, 2005 - Brian in the jaws of a T-rex at the Children's Museum at Navy Pier, Chicago.

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Broken Window

Because of the extreme cold weather in January, one of our double paned windows cracked. We covered it up with cardboard to prevent more breakage and keep little hands / feet from getting cut. Scott uncovered it today and took it to a local glass shop to have it measured for repair. A perfect opportunity for Two Peas theme of Safety / Risk.



This is my first picture using a texture! It was super simple. I followed one of CoffeeShop Rita's great tutorials.

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81/365 - Preparations

Grandma Nai Nai arrives tonight for a Spring Break visit. This makes up for the 2 days she spent in the Detroit Airport Christmas Eve and Christmas day. In preparation for her visit, we had to move Hannah's stuff out of the spare bedroom. Normally, the bed and floor are littered with cat toys, cat hair, cat beds and more cat hair. But after cleaning up and vacuuming, here's what the room looks like:


The cat toys migrated to Erica's bedroom where they now litter the floor.


Hannah will stay with Erica for the next week. Hopefully both of them will be able to sleep with the added distraction.

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80/365 - Broad Sword

One element that draws Brian to the advanced TaeKwonDo classes is the use of weapons in various forms and routines. This month featured the Broad Sword, which Brian loves.



It's even more impressive in use, swirling around through the air. Hopefully I'll get capture that in the future.

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79/365 - Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The latest book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series arrived for Brian.

I'm sure there's some potty humor, but if it gets him to actively read, I'm OK with a little bit of it.



Erica has been reading it, too. She'll probably finish it tonight.

Edited on Wednesday, March 18 -
Erica and Brian fought last night over this book - they both wanted to read it. Erica finished it on the drive to school this morning and Brian finished the book this afternoon! Normally, one of Brian's homework assignments is to read for 20 minutes each day, which I have to actively enforce. Not this afternoon. That's progress.

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78/365 - New Toy

Scott received an iTouch as a reward for accumulating a gazillion points on his American Express card over the past 5 years. He got the card in order to earn golf gear, but he never accumulated enough points, and they switched award offerings that now include electronics.

The new toy arrived today and generated lots of buzz in the house. We even drove to Wal Mart after dinner to purchase a wireless router in order to take advantage of the wireless internet access. Yeah, we're late to the wireless network stuff, but we're there now.

Erica and Brian compete in TapTap Revenge 2 game.


Erica checks out her email.


Scott finally got to play with it after the kids went to bed.


Hmmm.... it may be time for me to upgrade my 4 year old iPod......

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77/365 - Bracket Decisions

Scott is back from his Basketball weekend with Dave G - since both Illinois and Michigan State crashed and burned last night, the boys simply parted ways this morning.

After the Selection Sunday announcements, Scott found a printable bracket and went to work on his "first pass".



As for my bracket - I'll randomly pick out the teams on-line for our NCAA March Madness pool. Once the tournament starts, I'll post my picks.

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76/365: Discoveries

One of the benefits of living in near a college town - numerous special activities on campus. Jill and I took the boys to the Naturally Illinois Expo, a series of exhibits held at the Natural Resources Building. The boys dug for fossils, experimented with pH, learned about stream erosion and watched cool (literally!) liquid nitrogen demonstrations.

Brian examines his fossil:




Another discovery - the Krannert Art Museum. We only took a quick walk through, but I'm sure I'll go back by myself soon. One exhibit featured ceramic sculpture, including these hanging white teardrops suspended against a white backboard. Quite pretty.


I played around with Levels for an "edgier" treatment:


A nice way to spend an early spring day.

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75/365: After Ten Miles

Friday - time for another self portrait.

I plan to run a half marathon in 4 weeks, so I have been training, increasing my mileage each week. Normally, I run my long distance on Saturday, but since Scott is out of town (in Indy at the Big 10 Basketball Tournament), I decided to take a vacation day today and run the allotted distance while the kids were in school. Ten Miles today.

I purchased a water belt last week after I lugged a 16 oz water bottle around during my run - it was warm and my shorts have small pockets. This low profile water bottle holds 12 oz, and I bought a small 4oz bottle that fits in my pockets.


1 hour and 40 minutes later, I arrived back home. It's not pretty, but here's what I look like after running 10 miles.


Yeah, I used my handy Remote Control for both pictures.

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74/365: New Camera Toy

I ordered a remote control for my camera and it arrived today. I had some fun playing around with it.

Even though it's not much bigger than my thumb, and probably cost $.50 to make, it's a pretty handy gadget, especially when taking pictures of oneself.


Oops, I pre-focused this one, and nothing was in the focus area. So we have remote control bokeh.


The remote, in action!


Erica said I was a complete nerd for getting so excited about my new toy. Hey, what does she know? When it comes time for our yearly family picture, she won't have to watch me use the self-timer and run around. I bet she'll even want to push the button!

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73/365: I Love her Eyes

Erica to allow me to take several pictures of her today. Erica inherited more of her Dad's caucasian features, including light brown / hazel eyes.


I only dodged a smidge around her eyes - we had ample light in the dining room this afternoon.



So I'm biased - I think she has lovely eyes.

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72/365: Sweet Brian

I've been admiring everyone's gorgeous photos of their kids with bright, big eyes with lovely catchlights. I tried my hand at the catchlights thing by having Brian pose for me outside, using the light to create the highlights naturally.

Even with the highlights from the natural light, I tried to dodge more detail out in PSE. Ackkkk.....I think I over did it on his right eye....



I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to convince (bribe) Erica to pose for me.

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71/365: Asparagus for Dinner

I tried my hand at roasted asparagus for tonight's dinner and thought the slender stalks would make a nice picture.



For the roasted asparagus, I tossed with olive oil, a little bit of lemon pepper and season salt. Roasted in a 430 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Sprinkle some Romano cheese on top. Sorry, not finished dish picture, but they were delicious!

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Random Picture Challenge

This week's Random Picture Challenge from 4 little men and girly twins

February 2009
or 1st folder
FIRST picture of something other than your kids!



Kathleen is not my kid, but she is Erica's BFF and is not adverse to my taking her picture. Recently, I can only get a picture of Erica if Kathleen is around.

This picture was taken during the Superbowl - the kids were wearing their 3D glasses for some over-hyped 3D commercial that I don't remember. I do remember thinking the 3D effects were quite lame.

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70/365: Wind Advisory

When the kids were little, they categorized the day's weather in March as a "Lion Day" or a "Lamb Day". Windy days are always the norm here on the prairie, but today we have an official wind advisory with gusts as high as 50 mph. That qualifies today as a "Lion Day".

I tried to capture the wind's effect on these pine boughs in our neighbor's yard.


We are on the lookout for missing roof shingles and torn siding. And there's that yellow sandbox cover that blew into our yard. It's not unusual to see a random trampoline in the area lakes following high winds - that's what we tell the kids when they ask why they can't have a trampoline.

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69/365: Mega Saurus at the Monster Truck Show

I make no claim to the picture - Scott took it at the Monster Truck Show he and Brian attended Saturday night. It was their third Monster Truck Show. I, sadly, have never had the opportunity to see the Monster Trucks first hand. I'm striving to keep it that way.

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68/365 - End of the Work Week

Keeping with the Friday's Self Portrait - I pull into the driveway after my day at the office. The warm weather allows me to drive with the windows down. It's the perfect end of the work week and start of the weekend.

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67/365: House Favorites - Gone Already!

My taste for Girl Scout cookies is not shared by the rest of my family (just means more cookies for me). Peanut Butter Patties hold the top spot among the other members of my family. Which results in a very short shelf life for those cookies:

Now I have to listen the whining - "What do you mean they're all gone? We just got them yesterday!" and "Can you buy more?".

Hmmmm, we already spent $70 on cookies. They'll have to settle for the Thin Mints (Somehow, I don't think they'll complain).

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66/365: Favorite Girl Scout Cookies

My first order of Girl Scout cookies was hand delivered to my office bright and early this morning, around 8:30. I resisted temptation for an hour before I opened up the box of Lemonades, my favorite. I left that box at work, and opened up the 2nd box at home.



Yet another reason to love March!

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