runner, writer, internet junkie
I’m feeling inspired to blog more about running. Specifically, about being a midpack marathoner. So, starting sometime this week, you’ll see that I have a new blog at, logically, midpackmarathoner.com.
I’ll probably cross-post a little bit early on just to keep the traffic flowing, but looking to the future, this blog will become more about me and what I’m doing with all the running and training stuff over at the new running blog.
Have you heard about SOPA and the PROTECT-IP Act that are currently being debated in the US?
These two pieces of legislation would have serious consequences for the open Internet that we all use and enjoy. It’s very important that we all understand who is threatening the Internet and how. SOPA and PROTECT-IP are just one part of an ongoing series of attacks on this incredible resource.
I know this little post on my blog has little effect. But the actions of one, when multiplied, gain power exponentially.
Sites like Reddit.com have pledged to go dark on January 18th, 2012. My employer is planning to do the same with its Tucows Downloads site on the same day. Other sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google are considering doing the same.
Please do read up on SOPA and PROTECT-IP. You can find more information at BlackoutSOPA.org. Don’t just change your avatar, blog or tweet. Take the time to read and understand the issues – then act accordingly. It’s important.
I did a big update to the theme over the last couple of days to get away from the very clean white look I’ve used for the last little while. The underlying theme is the same – Orman Clark’s very excellent Classica theme, with some bigtime modifications to CSS and a few tweaks to the code as well.
I’ve moved to a darker background with some new CSS3 shadows. The footer is more pronounced, with a dark background and light letters. I think overall the blog stands out a bit more which I like. Also, the removal of the sidebar clutter (tweets, runs) makes things a little neater on the pages. I also went edge-to-edge on the homepage slider and added a grey bar behind the tag line.
As with all themes, the devil is in the details. I’ve been tweaking here and there to make sure the baselines for different text elements lineup and to fix up some minor spacing issues here and there.
Hope you like it.
This is a pre-surgery look at my elbow the day of the accident. Medical imaging is amazing. On my computer I can see this from any angle, with muscle or without. You name it.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s a fly-through I exported. It starts looking from the wrist down – the two bones are the forearm, then it goes around and views the mess where everything was wrecked in the elbow.
I’m running WordPress 3.3 now. The release happened earlier today after a fairly long beta period and three release candidates.
Version 3.3 is a great update, bringing a cleaned up UI in the Dashboard and some real nice improvements like a drag and drop uploader and a Tumblr importer.
Read more at WordPress.org.
I’ve been a Flickr user since the beginning (I’m talking about the Game Neverending days). I had a paid account before they called them pro accounts. I loved Flickr and even after Yahoo! bought them in 2005 it was still the place I put all of my photos to share them with family and friends.
But Flickr hasn’t changed in years and it feels like an ignored product. None of my friends use Flickr anymore and the community is dying. That left me with a decision to make and as I mentioned the other night, I ended up moving all of my Flickr photos to Facebook.
It’s not ideal – Facebook’s albums and photo viewing isn’t the best. But Facebook isn’t primarily about photos as Flickr is. I considered 500px as an alternative (another Canadian photo startup), but I’m no pro photographer and the community feels very much skewed to that demographic.
It came down to this: my friends are on Facebook, so it makes sense for my photos to be there as well.
After I moved my photos, I deleted my Flickr account. Sorry Flickr. It was fun, but you just weren’t working on the relationship the way I needed you to. Something tells me that no one at Yahoo! or Flickr even cares. Sad.
I’ve been a longtime Flickr user but recently I decided to give up on the service and move all my photos to Facebook. I don’t trust that Yahoo! is going to keep Flickr around and I’d rather have my photos where my friends are – that’s Facebook.
I succeeded in getting everything moved over tonight and it only took a couple of hours. I used a web service called flickr2facebook that takes Flickr Sets and moves them into your Facebook account as Albums. The best part is that the move is done from Flickr to Facebook directly, without having to eat up your bandwidth by downloading all the pics first, then uploading them all.
There were a couple of little snags along the way, but it worked out well. For example, Facebook only allows 200 photos per album. So my initial attempt to move a big Flickr set containing about 1,700 photos got stuck after 200 were moved.
The solution to that was to create a bunch of sets for my miscellaneous Flickr photos (those I hadn’t put in sets). I just made Flickr 1, Flickr 2, etc.
One other thing I did was to load up the site in three different browsers so I could run three sessions at the same time to make the process faster.
Click over to flickr2facebook and try it out if you want to get those Flickr photos away from Yahoo! and over to Facebook.
We’ve been doing a little thinking at work about how personal and professional have blended and how things you post online as yourself could be mistaken as views that represent the views of your employer.
A lot of this stems from something going on in an industry that my employer is also involved in. I generally steer clear of talking about anything work-related on any social media sites, including my blog. That is sometimes tough as things like Internet censorship and policy are topics I’m very interested in and would like to comment on.
We don’t have a policy at work per se. But there is an understanding amongst those of us who work there that we all represent the company to a certain extent in everything we do.
Over the five years I’ve been there, I’ve bumped into the edge of this quasi-policy a couple of times. It’s never been anything major – in both cases it was related to being openly critical of a company or person that was connected to a customer. In both cases, it was good to be reminded that the Internet is vast and interconnected.
You might notice the new little disclaimer to the right in the sidebar of the blog. It’s not anything new – my views have always been my views. What is new is that this is the first time I’ve felt that I should have it there.
The specific text, which I adapted slightly, comes from an Apple policy that I think is well done. I won’t post it here, since it belongs to Apple, but it’s fully posted at in this post at 9to5Mac. It doesn’t give me a free pass to say what I want, but I think it is important to have it there to ensure that readers understand that what I put here isn’t always in agreement with what my employer might think.
A couple of days off work is good for the soul. As is some quality running.
That said, it’s back to the grind tomorrow morning at work. And back to physio tomorrow at noon. I’m not looking forward to walking over to On the Mark-it, but I am feeling like I can approach it differently than I did on Thursday. Re-reading some of my earlier posts has been a big help and I’m hoping to get back to where I was with physio on Tuesday last week when I felt strong and in control.
It’s been nine weeks now since the accident and it hasn’t been a good week, to be honest with you.
Things are healing, but the progress on the road back to normal has been slower than I hoped and expected. It’s been a very difficult week because of that. I think it all hit home this week just how bad I hurt my arm and how much of an impact it will have over the next few months and beyond.
Physio was especially difficult on Thursday. I went in feeling down about a variety of things – the pace of recovery, work issues, and some other things. And I learned quickly that physio is nearly fucking impossible when you aren’t in a good place emotionally.
It was pretty much just 30 minutes of brutal survival. The pain was bad, the urge to just get up and leave was overwhelming. By the end of it I was ready to just pack it in and go home. Instead I had to go back to work and do a webinar and wrap up a bunch of stuff before my day off on Friday.
I decided yesterday that I needed to take Monday off as well to try and reset. It’s been a few days of being on the edge emotionally and I need very badly to get in a good place mentally. I don’t want to go to physio on Tuesday without the emotional strength I had in the sessions prior to this week.
That leads me to running.
Yesterday I hit the treadmill at Variety Village and ran a strong 4k. Tomorrow is Sunday and that means a morning run with the Running Room gang. Running is the one place I feel strong these days. I get on the treadmill or lace up the shoes and hit the pavement and I feel like I can be in charge and make good things happen. It’s the one good place to be and I’m really thankful I have it in my life.
Speaking of things in my life, Ginny has been great. As have the kids. On the bad days they understand and support. On the good days we get out and have fun. Their support is an immeasurable help.
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