I Love Baseball

Anyone who knows me will tell you. I love the slow rhythm, the simplicity of the rules, the fact that any player can be a hero one day and a goat the next. When I lived in NYC, I often went to Yankee stadium for two out of every three home games. Back then, the Yankees stank, so I could buy a ticket to the cheap seats and slip an usher a five and sit right up against the dugout. (Unfortunately, this was before I owned a camera.) My husband is a Braves fan. On the two occasions the Yankees played the Braves in the World Series, we had to watch in separate rooms.

Natural then, that when our son was old enough, we signed him up for teeball. He promptly told his coach he liked soccer better. Coach John accepted the challenge. When Ryley got his first hit from a pitched ball, John picked him up and ran him around the bases. At the end of the season, the team had the opportunity to run out on the field with the minor league Renegades. Each teeballer had his name announced to the crowd, each tipped his cap in reply. Ryley’s love for baseball was born that season. Thanks Coach!

This is my homepage photo for the month of June. Sorry this one’s not for sale.

10 Ways to Dress Up Your Blog

Congratulations, you started a blog. (Maybe I even inspired you to do it!)
Now you’re ready to give it a facelift and think about adding some new
features. The only blog software I’m familiar with is blogger.com, but I’m
sure you can achieve any of these ideas using other software.

1. Templates. You can change your template at any time. So don’t feel
cornered into keeping the layout you chose when you didn’t know what you
were doing. Change the colors and fonts to match your website.
Go to Layout menu/Pick a New Template.

2. Images. People love pictures. If it’s appropriate, select the photo and link it back to your website. (Doing this, however, disables the default function of viewing an enlarged version of the image.)
When you create a new post, click on the little photo in the menu bar. Or, to permanently add a photo, go to layout/add a page element/image.

3. Poll Question. You can pose a question to your readers with multiple choice answers.
Go to layout/add a page element/poll question. Enter the question and the answers in the boxes displayed.

4. Video. A good video can burst onto the internet and get passed around the world giving you lots of site traffic. Post your video on your own site as well as the popular YouTube for maximum effect.
When you create a new post, click on the little filmstrip in the menu bar. Or, to permanently add a video to your page, go to layout/add a page element/video. Or, simply create a text link to your video on YouTube.

5. Link back to your website. A big reason to have a blog at all is to direct traffic back to your website. So, link back to your site when it's appropriate. This may give you ideas for updating or adding content on your site.
When you create a new post, select some text, click on the chain icon in the menu bar and enter the link to address.

6. Change the color of the blogger nav bar. The default blogger nav bar at the very top of the viewing screen is blue. You can change it to be tan, black or gray to better match the look of your blog.
Go to layout view/select the edit button in the blue nav bar area and select the color you prefer.

7. AdSense. You can make money with your blog if you don’t mind mucking it up with ads. I saw a book recently (forgot the name, sorry) that suggests you can make a living this way. I think you’d really have to work at it though.
Go to layout view/add a page element/adsense.

8. Labels. I love this feature. You’ll notice that every post of mine has a category—artist tech tips, my work, etc. This feature creates a Labels menu on the left side of my blog. If a reader is only interested in one area that I write about, they can click on that label (ie artist tech tips) and see every single post I’ve created on the topic. It keeps track of the total number of posts automatically!
Go to layout view/add a page element/labels.

9. Create custom header with link to your website. You can insert an image instead of text on your main header bar.
Go to layout view, select the edit button in the top header bar, in the image window, browse to locate the image.

10. Add a photo to your profile. Go to the Dashboard page. Choose edit profile in the righthand column. Scroll down to Photograph/Photo URL and browse to the location of your photo.

Blog-o-Meter Reading May 27, 2008

Search results for Molly Ahearn:
• Google: #1
• Yahoo: #1
• MSN: #1

Google Page Rank for my site: 2 (out of 10)

Number of page views to this blog: 1738

Number of page views to my site: 1549

Number of email subscribers: 13

Photos from the Archives: Adirondack Splendor

The 6 million-acre Adirondack Park was declared a forever wild area by the New York legislature in 1882. Over the last 30 years, we’ve canoed many of its serene streams, hiked its rocky peaks, and reluctantly fed millions of its black flies. The businesses in the small towns throughout the park remain mostly family-owned giving it an old-timee feel I find irresistible. You see quaint lakeside cottage villages with names like Journey’s End and Offtrack Bedding. Great lodges welcome travelers with tree trunk porch columns, moosehead trophies and snarling black bears standing on their hind legs. Many of the buildings have a rough-hewn siding I call Adirondack because I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

History is Aliiiive

Kudos to Merritt Books for a fun, well organized festival. I love the idea of celebrating books; planting the seed of reading. Our local history panel discussion had a cozy attentive crowd. I enjoyed listening to our moderator, Wray Rominger from Purple Mountain Press, and all the other writers. Carleton Mabee explained how he tries to make his historical characters come to life by imagining their thoughts, feelings and lives. Jim Heron’s terrific sense of humor punctuated his talk about writing the history of Dennings Point. Ed Henry shared the evolution of his writing style—and the northeastern mountain ranges. Several people took the time to speak to me personally about memories of the fair. Thanks to all who came.

Share Photos Quickly and Easily Online with Clients

I wanted to have a better handle on flickr before I wrote about it, but I see now that I’m going to have to do it in pieces. Setting up an account is free and if you don’t need to upload lots of photos at a time, you can be an active member for free. Becoming a member is only about $25/year and it entitles you to unlimited uploads.

A basic and unbelievably handy way to use flickr is to share photos from a shoot with clients (or family and friends). This relieves you of the burden of having a backend to your website for posting images, saving money and programming headaches.
1. Download flickr’s flash uploader software.
2. Drag and drop jpg files in the uploader window area.
3. In the righthand area of the uploader window, hit the Create a Set button and give the group of photos a name—Club Med Bahamas.
4. Decide who you want to be able to see the images—only people you designate, only family, the world.
5. Good idea to give photos that you’re sharing with the world titles, descriptions and tags. This will help the photos turn up in a search.
6. Upload. This takes awhile.
7. View your photos. Sign in to flickr. Navigate to “Organize/Sets & Collections.”
8. You can invite people to see the images by navigating to “You/Your Sets” and then hitting the “Share This” button in the upper righthand corner of the screen. Type in a list of email addresses to issue a guest pass.
9. You can monitor the number of views of your guest passes by navigating to “Contacts/Guest Pass History.” When you issue a guest pass, that person will only see the photos in that set.
10. People can review the photos using the slideshow feature, or one by one. They can also order prints directly from flickr.