AllanThinks

I dedicate my 1000th blog post to the woman I love.

Just Testing

Just testing Typepad's new iPhone/iPod Touch interface.

I don't know how often  I will make use of it, but it is very cool.

It's one more reason to love the iPod Touch. And there are already many reasons to love it.

I don't think I have ever published a blog post on February 29.

Until Now.

Happy Leap Day every one.

Fob

Clicking the image will take you to its Flickr page. You can see a larger version there.

Exposure:  0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/22
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: -4/3 EV
Light Source: Flash

Sorry for the lack of posts. We've been very busy preparing for a gathering of friends here next weekend. There is still much to do.

I try to take a photo or two every day. You can always see the latest on my Flickr photostream. 

For those of you who use RSS Feed readers, my latest photo uploads are fed here.

Mike is in town for the UK-LSU game, so I will be attending the game with him. It's perfect football weather, and despite the fact LSU (the #1 team in the country) is likely to win the game, I plan to enjoy the day.

I hope your weather is just as good, and that you have a great weekend.

This is a first for me.

I received my first ever Internet flame today.

Ali, Jo Ann, and I had returned home after attending the UK-Vandy basketball game. Vandy won the game, which kind of took the shine off of my day.

I sat down at the computer to check my email and a few of my regular haunts. For some reason, I decided to check my Statcounter log (something I rarely do). I noticed six entries in a row, all from the same referrer source.   The URL was from the San Francisco Bay Craigslist.

I was curious why people would be visiting my blog from such a place, so I clicked on the link.

Here is the text of the message in case it has  already been deleted.

please help me (capitola)

---

Reply to: pers-265507811@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-01-20, 12:46PM PST

write these people and help shatter their goofy east coast addiction to themselves and not each other.

Or is that my bnitter west coast attitude?

either way...allan seems like a moron with a camera and camera people suck chuck.,

http://www.allanthinks.com/allanthinks/

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posting ID: 265507811

My jaw dropped when I read this. I've had Internet accounts since 1986 and this is the first time such a thing has happened to me.

I been around long enough to know that the Internet is full of angry, unhappy, and troubled people who take delight in flaming and harassing others. But as I said, I've managed to avoid this sort of thing for 21 years.

In the couple of hours since I discovered this, I've received 34 hits from Craigslist. None of the visitors have left a comment, so I guess none of them took offense to my writing or photography.

So, welcome newcomers! Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find something of interest here, and I hope you continue to read my weblog.

I emailed the poster of the message and politely asked them why they had posted it. I doubt I will receive a reply.

A New Day. A New Decade.

Click image for a much better view.

Today is my birthday. I am 50 years old.

I was planning on taking a goofy self-portrait to mark the beginning of the second half of my life, but I had a better idea.

I decided to change the look of my weblog by creating a new banner. This is a shot of the screen as I was putting the finishing touches on the banner in Photoshop.

My Stenographer is a Crack Ho.

But I think she is in rehab now.

Last month I wrote:

I've had ideas pop into my head, and dictated blog entries to myself in my mind, but when I sit down at the computer, I'm unable to put a complete sentence down, let alone an entire blog entry.

I seem to be doing better at both dictating entries to that stenographer in my head, and transcribing her notes into blog entries.

I guess I should thank Flickr for that. Since the first of the year, Alison and I have been participating in a project there called My 2007 Daily Photo Diary, in which we take a photo each day that we feel represents our day, or its highlight. Although a written explanation of the photo is not required, I have felt compelled to provide commentary on the photos I post.

After a couple of days doing this, I realized I was once again writing with some ease. I've even cross posted a few of my entries there to this blog.

Doing this every day for an entire year, at first seemed daunting. A challenge. But I think it is a challenge I am up to. I'm sure going to give it a shot.

I actually have things to say. I just don't know how to say them.

Click image for a much better view.

So here's a photo to keep you coming back until I develop the discipline to write something every day.

I think this might make me the cream candy king.

	Num	Perc.	Search Term
	3	30.00%	cream candy
	2	20.00%	ky cream candy
	1	10.00%	fat grams, frito-pie
	1	10.00%	how to make cream candy
	1	10.00%	the bonnie bonnie bank of loch lomond
	1	10.00%	pulling candy
	1	10.00%	kentucky cream candy
	10	100.00%

Search strings that have led people to my blog today. It happens every Christmas.

Identity

About a year ago, Ali and I registered domain names for ourselves. AliThinks for her, AllanThinks for me.

The registrar we used offered a decent price, but as it turned out, they didn't offer much in the way of service. Our new domains never seemed to propagate through the Internet like we thought, and never really seemed to stick to our blogs like we had hoped.

We forgot about it for several months. In the spring, I transfered my domain to another registrar that I had heard about from a fellow blogger, but I still couldn't seem to map the new domain to my blog. I thought I was following all I had learned from Typepad and the registrar, but nothing seemed to work.

So, once again, I let it go and forgot all about it.

About six weeks ago, Ali brought the subject up again and we decided to finally do something about it.

She transfered her domain to a new registrar that Typepad had in its recommended list, and I did the same. Once the transfer was confirmed, we again made the changes to the DNS settings recommended by Typepad, and finally everything fell into place. We were finally able to map our new domains to our blogs.

So now you can reach this weblog by typing nothing more than allanthinks.com into your browser location bar. This should make it easier for the couple of people I see in my logs who everyday search Google for AllanThinks.

If you have my blog in your blogroll, feel free to change the link to the new domain of allanthinks.com. Or not.

The old address of allanthinks.typepad.com will still work. But the new address is more succinct, and should make getting here easier for all.