Great Smoky

Books you don't need in a place you can't find.

2013-05-12T21:56:00.002-05:00

Montague Book Mill - Montague, MA

"Books you don't need in a place you can't find"

McAlmon-Hill-Hawkins Reunion

2013-04-06T16:26:00.001-05:00

This lovely lady is the matriarch of My wife's family.
Her name is "Hondey Hill McAlmon"

And Here is the rest of the family.

Houston Dynamo Stadium

2012-10-28T16:12:00.000-05:00

Houston Dynamo Stadium

Simple and Minimal

2012-09-01T01:27:00.001-05:00

The sky and the buildings were just right in downtown Houston yesterday morning.

Taken with my iPhone.

Martin Hunt - "The Old Dog"

2012-08-30T18:55:00.002-05:00

Martin Hunt - "The Old Dog" - an old friend, a Knoxville institution, and a man who has lived his own life his own way.

WDVX Blue Plate Special

2012-08-28T21:48:00.001-05:00

WDVX BluePlate-1
Originally uploaded by wordjunky.

WDVX in Knoxville TN has live music every day at noon. usually fantastic Americana / Bluegrass / Celtic.
http://www.wdvx.com/

RIP Simba 1996(?) - 2012

2012-07-31T23:40:00.003-05:00

Norris Dam - 2003

2012-07-15T15:35:00.001-05:00

In 2003 East Tennessee had a very wet spring. I was there to see this rare occurrence of Norris dam with the spillways fully opened and allowing water to flow over the dam in a more or less controlled manner.

This is what it normally looks like:

Dance With Me

2012-07-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

Omar and Andrea were our dance teachers for about a year. They were great to work with. I took this picture shortly before they left Houston to pursue their dreams. Where ever they are now I wish them the best.

Omar and Andrea

Hiding Hibiscus

2012-06-28T20:42:00.001-05:00

Our front garden has a mass of plumbago and a few hardy hibiscus. They seem to flourish no matter how hard the other flowers try to strangle them out.

Koolkitty Jewelry

2012-06-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

My wife is quite handy with beads and wire. This is one of her creations.

Supermoon 5-5-2012

2012-05-05T22:30:00.001-05:00

supermoon-5054961
Originally uploaded by wordjunky.
I wanted to try out my new lens (Zuiko 50-200mm f2.8-3.5). The "Supermoon" was a perfect way to do it. It looks better on Flickr - they compressed it during the post.

Ellen HS Recital 2005

2012-04-26T23:59:00.001-05:00

Ellen's HSPVA Recital 2005

Ironic Christmas Ornament

2012-03-05T00:32:00.000-06:00

Next year we are hoping to find one of BOB Marley's ghost.

Extra credit if it plays "Bad Boys" when it's near the Scrooge ornament.

Irish Castle

2012-02-28T01:02:00.000-06:00

Christmas Poinsettias

2012-02-25T22:13:00.000-06:00

Christmas Poinsettias

Wordcamp Houston. Matt M. Keynote #wchtx

2010-08-07T17:37:00.001-05:00

The first Wordcamp Houston got off to a great start with Matt Mullenweg - the developer of Wordpress - giving the keynote. Matt is from Houston so his talk was more hometown focused than it would be if he were somewhere else.

The sessions went well too. Several tracks for bloggers, developers, business users, and case studies. Extremely well attended. All the seats were sold out. It was held in the really neat venue of the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Links for 2010-06-07 [del.icio.us]

2010-06-08T00:00:00-07:00

WTF is HTML5 (Infographic)

Testing... Testing... New fonts from Google

2010-05-24T12:16:00.007-05:00

Last week google released 18 fonts along with instructions on how to embed them into web pages and get free from the "usual suspects" of Times Roman, Arial, Verdana, and (God no!) Comic Sans.

A number of Web designers -- if not all readers -- are excited that newer browsers support downloadable fonts so sites can use more than the handful that it's safe to assume are installed already on people's computers.

For every eyeball-searing grunge font and blood-pressure-raising instance of Comic Sans, there's a tasteful use of an artful logo or distinctive text.

But font licensing rules mean a Web designer can't necessarily upload any old font for a site. This is where Google's move, announced at its Google I/O conference, comes in. The company released 18 fonts and also announced an interface that lets Web sites use them.

I took a wild hair and decided to try it. Surprise! It works. The blog title text and the post titles are now displayed in the “IM Fell English SC” font. I may play around a bit more, especially if more fonts show up as available for free. So do not adjust your set, we know what we are doing.

Links for 2010-05-21 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-22T00:00:00-07:00

Google offers free fonts for the Web | Deep Tech - CNET News

Links for 2010-05-18 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-19T00:00:00-07:00

30 Professional And Creative Fonts For Free Download

Links for 2010-05-10 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-11T00:00:00-07:00

WordPress 3.0: The 5 Most Important New Features

Links for 2010-05-06 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-07T00:00:00-07:00

Simple Steel Plate And Punched Text | Text Effects

Links for 2010-05-03 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-04T00:00:00-07:00

Smut is good for you - who knew?

2010-04-27T12:32:00.000-05:00

It's another entry in the "Here, eat this root" meme. Isn't it amazing that stuff we have been trying to eliminate is actually good for us? Any day now I expect to read that cockroaches are the secret to 200year lifespans.

It's now an established scientific fact: Smut is good for you. Corn smut,
that is.
For years, scientists have assumed that huitlacoche -- a gnarly,
gray-black corn fungus long-savored in Mexico -- had nutritional values similar
to those of the corn on which it grew. But test results just published in the
journal Food Chemistry reveal that an infection that U.S. farmers and crop
scientists have spent millions trying to eradicate, is packed with unique
proteins, minerals and other nutritional goodies.
And here's a bonus:
agro-economists have found it can sell for more than the corn it ruins.

Fungus On Corn Makes It Better For You - Health News Story - KPRC Houston

Links for 2010-04-15 [del.icio.us]

2010-04-16T00:00:00-07:00

The Last Supper with scientists | Zataobam

Didn't "War of the Worlds" Start like this?

2010-04-15T10:47:00.000-05:00

Video of the Wisconsin Meteor from last night (4-14-2010)

Switch to LED lights or we kill the Easter Bunny

2010-04-09T10:26:00.000-05:00

Oh, the humanity!

New format - IE6... Bu-Bye!

2010-04-05T10:07:00.002-05:00

I used the new still-in-beta Blogger theme tool to update the blog a few days ago. Did I save my old format? Hell No! Did I have issues? Hell Yes! Many of the clever tweaks and add ons I have added over the years went, well, away. Several of the ones that stayed morphed into a mess. I have done some cleanup and, as usual with my learner blog, I will be doing more as I am able.

But mostly: Oh, uh, er, um, oops. It seems that while it looks just great in all the real browsers (IE7+, FF Chrome, etc.) IE6 has been left behind.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. IE6 is a good browser for sites built using 2003 tools and tech, but if you why this site looks weird, its because the web has moved on and you haven't. Time to get a life. And a grownup browser. I prefer Firefox 3.6.x, but Chrome, Safari, Opera, and (sigh) even IE7 or 8 all are so much better than the old, increasingly unreliable IE6 that it does not make any sense NOT to rethink your choice of how you experience the web.

All of that said, however, I am actually pleased with the new look and feel. Some of the things I had added were to provid functions that did not exist in Blogger previously, but have since been incorporated in an even better way. Other things, like rounded corners, made my head spin to try and follow the set up instructions so I did without. But here they are, and nicely done, too. And I really like the background image effects. I can't wait to dig in to the code and see how all this works.

"The Soul of New Orleans"

2010-02-05T19:26:00.002-06:00

This video was sent to me by a fraternity brother who lives in New Orleans. It is a wonderfully uplifting piece connecting the rebirth of the city with the rise of the Saints. They may not win on Sunday, but they damn sure won't lose!

Houston - The most air conditioned city in the world.

2010-01-08T14:36:00.000-06:00

...but normally we mean inside the buildings.

What happened to all that global warming folks are making such a fuss about?

Getting ready for New Year's festivities?

2009-12-31T11:25:00.001-06:00

Somebody was expecting fireworks, I bet.

A woman called police on Monday and said a man was forcing his way into her apartment in the 5300 block of Elm Street.

When officers went inside, they found something that made them concerned enough to call the bomb squad.

They found an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. It can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.

Yes, we have video:

Rocket Launcher Found In Apartment - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston