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Tag Archives: photography

The Grand Remodel: Pictures before construction

Wondering what the remodeled portions of the house looked like before they were torn down? Go ahead and check out the gallery, but I’ve included some summary pictures here. The back yard (outdoors) view of the back room that was torn down. This region will be replaced with a Newer, Better addition that’ll include the […]

More photos of nature-y things and house fix-ups from last year

Finally got around to updating the online gallery, which includes: Resident Scrub-jay and lizard, having made themselves comfortable here this past spring and summer. My first uploads of insect pictures, including a green dragonfly and sleepy bees. Even more flowers: more Gilias, more Clarkias, Penstemon and Mimulus, Cistus, and a mondo sunflower. Garage improvements and […]

Farewell to Spring

Fine, three articles in a row on garden plants. And over a month since my last post — I’ve been busy with starting the multifarious, multistep process of starting our big remodeling project, a.k.a., the Replacement of the Ugly Backroom and Kitchen et al. So it goes. Nevertheless, the spring wildflowers are coming to an […]

More wildflowers in the yard

I continue to be amazed by the wildflowers in our garden. I had low hopes, since the last time we tried wildflower mixes — which was, oh, six to eight years ago in the front yard and parking strip — all we got were Calpops. Those are nice of course, but they’re rather short-lived, and […]

March showers bring April flowers

Some say it’s April showers that get the flowers going, but here in sunny, rainfall-challenged California, things pop out about a month (or more) earlier. Even though March had its typical paucity of precipitation, the single hailstorm — complete with rain and wind — had occurred right at the peak of apricot blossoms. (Indeed, I […]

Hot bird action

Unfortunately, the title of this entry is quite literal: Last week a hawk died in our neighborhood. As the poor thing expired, it managed to take out a transformer and blow a power line —rendering our block powerless until dinnertime. It had (the remains of) a squirrel, so one theory was that as the squirrel […]

Bathroom remodel from… a couple years ago

For years we lived with a bathroom that I called the Pink Horror. No ventilation (other than the window and door), a rotten (literally) paint job done by the house seller, and pink tiles. I hate the color pink, and Pepto-Bismo Pink just ain’t gonna be an exception. Before bathroom remodel.

Birds in Winter (and a squirrel)

In autumn and winter the birds arrive from the north to keep us company. This typically means a lot of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows around the yard, but my flagship migrator is the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Or, as Simon and I call them, Yellow-butts. For their 2007 arrival, I first noticed them on the (easily remembered) […]

Hello Zenphoto, Goodbye Gallery2

After less than two years of using Gallery 2, I opted for change and have migrated my online photo gallery to Zenphoto. While powerful and feature-rich, Gallery became too cumbersome to maintain. Zenphoto, however, is easy to install, use and maintain. It looks and feels refreshingly streamlined. Whenever I work on or look at my […]

Seeking online gallery software

I’m looking for a flexible (if not powerful) online gallery package. What are the free, preferably open source choices for online galleries? There are quite a few! Wikipedia has a photo gallery comparison article. However, it’s not comprehensive since it’s a stub which needs cleanup (e.g., lists only basic features, and doesn’t mention other projects […]