BSoD!!

When the panic stops, or at least abates, the next thought is:
What do I do first?

The good news, after banging the back of the lap to to jar the hard disk, it did restart.
The noise it is making is the rattle of death.

Time to back up seriously and quickly.  Thankfully I purchased an exterior drive, okay, three exterior drives a while ago.

Unfortunately, I have not been backing up, at all.

You can bet I am now!!
-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Followed

We came down to tropical New York only to wake this morning to snow
covered cars!
 
-- Sent from my mobile device

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

COLD!

Looking at the window thermometer. It says minus 5. Holy Mahlowlee!!!

In Boston they would say that is wicked cold.

In NY sincere profanities would be added.

Bundle up your overcoat, and seven layers beneath!!
-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Once More, the plows break the quiet of the night

At three a.m. on a Sunday Morning the town decides it would be a good time to clear the streets. 

I need to check the law books, but I believe there is something in there about starting construction too early on  a Sunday. 

What makes it difficult to go back to sleep is you know the sander will be by in about an hour.

The snow is still falling, but lighter. 

How faithful do I feel this morning???
-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Created a Trigger for Belltower

To avoid confusion with the other Famous Grazing blogs, we've created a
custom Ping.fm "trigger."

If we understand the instructions, then  this entry should go solely to
Belltowernews.com and its backup blogger site at
Rye Cake.

-30-

Last Try for Posting Photos at Ping.FM

When I attempted to post a photo inside an email to ping.fm so that it would appear in only a Blog entry in Belltowernews, using the "trigger" @bl, it didn't work.

For some reason, it posted only this link:

http://ping.fm/p/2hEZd - photo ping.fm

As well, it posted this link to every service, including Twitter, that we linked to Ping.fm.

It didn't post the picture, I had to go into Blogger.com to manually add it to this entry.

The bottom line for this morning's effort was, not to try to post photos using Ping.fm but restrict its use, for now, to updates. It's VERY good at that.
-30-

Second Attempt at Posting Picture With Ping.fm

This time we'll post a smaller photo with
constraints.
-30-
from
Wikmedia Commons

Or Will this be the Heading?

There is some lack of clarity in the Ping.fm online documentation regarding
blogging via email.  By posting this message solely to
Belltowernews.com that question should be answered for me.

The other question is the embedding of links.  That question will be
answered by the last number of this message.

The final question of the morning is the embedding of pictures:

The original of
this picture was 3008 in width.  I "constrained" it to 300.  In Posterous, the picture would
remain at its default site and center on its own line.  I have set the
picture to be inline to the right. 

In doing all this, I am comparing Posterous with Ping.fm only in the
way email postings are accepted into the blogger.com format.

In other ways, each of the services have their own unique offerings
where having one should not exclude the use of the other. A tools is
best used for the task assigned but can always be used for something
similar, when needed.

-30-

Blood pressure lowered with Lavender by Dinah Shore is now upgraded listening to Driving While Blind by ZZ Top-Can't stop tapping my foot!!!

Recently It's Been From Posterous

Now the next few entries will be coming from Ping.fm.

 With a little exploration you can find so many ways to post information to your blogs, microblogs and social networking sites.

A problem I've not found a way around coming from the Ping.fm Dashboard is no HTML editing. I am sure there is a way around this. If there is, I WILL find it. Or it's back to Liverwriter!!
-30-

Listening to Dinah Shore sing Lavender Blue on iPod Classic is a very nice way to lower your blood pressure. Dilly-dilly..-30-

Hear the sound of the man...Taking Advil!

The interesting thing about teaching is that it is a standing occupation. 

I taught a series of classes over the past sixteen hours.  My hip is killing me.  I didn't notice it until I sat down to read at home and couldn't find.

It was very important these classes were finished today.  There will be tests.  I have another more casual class to teach tomorrow.  Then there is the weekend. 

The Earth has scheduled another layer of ice and snow for Saturday morning.  That's to cover up the four inches of ice formed over the past two days as the weather faltered twixt above and below freezing. 

It is now 18 degrees F.

Now it's time to try a little formatting to see if it will carry over to Posterous.com:

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Spring in Maine

This little fella was taking a break from the frenzy at the bird feeder.

I knew he would be gone in a second but took the photograph on the chance he would sit still a moment longer, long enough for the auto focus on the Nikon D-40 to work. 

It did.

I take a lot of landscapes and candid shots of people I know, but to get something like this once in a rare while makes my day.

With all of the ice and snow surrounding us lately, I thought a shot of Spring in Maine would be welcome.

-30-

Posted via email from For people who used to occupy table one at The Beach Cafe

You hear the trunks of the trees crack with the cold.  The ice has encased all three dimensional objects down to the tiniest detail.

Schools to the north of the Massachusetts Arctic Circle, otherwise known as the -I-90 -- I-495 intersection have closed. 

Below the line there is a "2 hour delay." 

The salt trucks are dumping away up and down the roads, throwing their pellets out, windshields be damned!!

There is a difference twixt a tough skinned New Englander and a suicidal driver.

I think I will take a two hour delay myself this morning.

-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Discovering Blackberry by Default

Over the holidays I came -this- close to be the proud owner of a new iTouch®.  Through forces well beyond my control, it was exchanged for an iPod Classic®  © .

But, he whines, it doesn't have that cool Zippo© Lighter flipping thing, or the light saber or the... wait.  Could it be they were right to give me the iPod Classic® instead?  Will the 120GB's of storage be more important to me that the flipping, oooh shiny, lighter?  Perhaps. 

I'll let you know when I am finished watching the two pilot episodes of LOST, I downloaded from iTunes on Boxing Day.

Let's all wish Steve Jobs well and hope for a speedy recovery.
-30-

(I am also seeing how special characters show up posting a blog entry from posterous.com)

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Blogging From Blackberry

During a quiet moment with my afternoon tea, I will use the Google
Gmail application installed on Blackberry to send a quick blog entry.
 
If all is set correctly, this should be posted not only on the
Posterous blog but also on Belltowernews.com, LiveJournal, Facebook,
Twitter anf through Twitter on Facebook and Jaiku.
 
That can be called a shout.
-30-
 

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Almost Half of Broadway's Shows Closing

Charles Isherwood waxed nostalgic in yesterday's NYT saying that "almost half" of the current on-Broadway shows will be closing.  The one we plan to see over the Dr. Martin Luther King Day weekend wasn't on his list.  Despite the incredibly high prices we try to see one show every two or three months, schedule allowing.

Though regional theaters are closer, this being my opinion only, they're not the same as seeing a play or musical on Broadway. From San Francisco, to Boston and several places in between I've attended first rate road shows but always left with the feeling similar to viewing a good copy of an original painting.  You know what it "looks like" but until you see it in its true environment you haven't had THE experience.

A wonderful example of this is the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware:

If you've only seen images like this, or even framed paintings of one on a school wall or civic auditorium, not until you've been in the same room with it have you any idea of its dimensions.

It is larger than life and simply breathtaking.

And then there is the Mona Lisa.

Most of the copies you see framed are much larger than the original.  As I was standing looking at  it through the Plexiglas, the most common overheard comment was "That's it?! Much smaller than I expected." 

I won't ever start about Plymouth Rock.  Perhaps another blog entry.

The entire point of this is there is nothing like the original, good or bad.


-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Glitch in Instant Satisfaction.

I gave my son my dog-eared copy of J. Campbell's Hero of a 1000 Faces.  It came up in conversation today with a former monk.

I wanted to read a portion of the book to him and thought I could fall back on my new found literary instant satisfaction.

In my coat pocket was an iPod, a Blackberry and a Flip. My Kindle was sitting on the front seat of my car. 

Using the Opera Mini interface on the Blackberry, I went to Amazon thinking I could download it to my Kindle.  I was very disappointed
to find it not available in Kindle form.

Using the Blackberry I was able to start an Audible.com download of the abridged version for my iPod, I would still have to
start up the laptop at home to download it through iTunes.

The lesson here should be not be so addicted to the instant satisfaction provided by the latest technology.

 It should have been.

What I really learned is that I shouldn't leave the briefcase home even if I am just going out for two hours' of RT social interaction.

-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Reading the Posterous Blog

Learned on the 7/29/2009 Posterous Blog that inserting a Zip file containing a number of images will automatically create a gallery of images.
Though we don't have a series of images to post at this moment, It will be added to the useful things we can do with this new toy.

-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Added Belltowernews

We've added Belltowernews.com
to where the posts sent to posterous
will also be posted.

This is a photograph I took while
heading south into Alaska from the
Yukon.  It is the bridge that used to
carry the gold train from the Yukon
gold fields for ore processing in Skagway.

The tracks now run on the other side of
Valley. We just missed an avalanche of
snow that shut down the line for several hours.  It was a magnificent ride.
-30-
image is copyrighted by JDK Communications of New England. Not for reproduction

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

Multiple Posting From Facebook

The entry below regarding the posterous blog was originally posted from inside Facebook.  For some reason it posted five duplicate entries.  

We're going to try and post another from there and see if the same occurs.

-30-

We Created a Posterous Blog a While Ago

Created a Blog at grazing.posterous.com just to see what it had to offer. Couldn't use the editor and gave up. After getting a prodding email from the developer, we went back to find they seems to have lined up the ducks in the proper order.

Now I have a Blog where I can upload YouTube embedded Blog entries via email. It was too simple.

We like simple.

-30-

Another attempt at Blogger entry

Have been trying to get the Blog-It feature linked to Facebook to post a Blog entry here at Belltower News with no success. I am sure it is because I have yet upgraded to the templates added after Google took over.

Tried another tweak. If this doesn't work, blogging will get another blow over the convenience of online social commenting.

-30-

Added later: It worked!!! Sent to Vox and LiveJournal as well.  I am pleased.