This page lists all of the images that are being used in the banner area of this weblog. I'm using a script to automatically and randomly select one of the images each time a page is loaded (but that may behave differently, depending on browser or caching). They are listed in chronological order, in the order they were added to the rotation pool – not the order they were taken. I'll be updating this page as I have time, to provide more information about each image – when/where/why was it taken? Why did I add it to the rotation pool?
Alcatraz and San Francisco Sunset
Took this during WWDC 2003, when I was doing some tourist stuff with Trevor. This was taken from the end of Pier 39, and shows Alcatraz and the north end of The Bay.
Backyard Panorama
This was taken from the back door of my house. It's an Autostitch panorama of 5 other images. It shows the portion of 12 Mile Coulee that runs behind my house, as well as Evan's stuff in the yard. Taken in the summer of 2005.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate 2
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate 3
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Mountains over Bearspaw
Taken from 12 Mile Coulee Road (about half a kilometer from my house), looking west to the Rocky Mountains.
Bearspaw Pano Oct 2005
Taken from 12 Mile Coulee Road (about half a kilometer from my house), looking west to the Rocky Mountains. An autostitch pano of several shots.
Bow Valley
Taken at Banff Gate, near Canmore.
Downtown Calgary Pano
An autostitch pano of several shots taken from the observation deck of the Calgary Tower.
Circus Bigtops
Taken before entering the 2005 Al Azhar Shrine Circus, held at Canada Olympic Park, in actual circus tents. My dad's a shriner, and is a clown, so he was working the circus.
Cochrane Hill Fence
Taken the day I got my Fujifilm camera, and I wanted to test it out a bit by taking a bunch of sunset shots from the top of the big hill in Cochrane. There's a bit transmission tower on top of the hill, and this was just beside that, looking north along the barbed wire fence. The sunset cast everything in this funky red/orange glow…
SF Coit Transamerica
Taken from the 36th floor lounge of the Grand Hyatt. The sun was reflecting perfectly off of the windows of the TA tower.
DeYoung New Guinea Masks
Taken at the DeYoung Museum's New Guinea collection, during the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in San Francisco, November 2005.
San Francisco De Young pano
Autostitch pano of photos taken from the observation deck of the DeYoung Museum's education tower. Looking north, over Golden Gate park toward the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands. Taken during the first day of the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in November 2005.
Diamondhead Waikiki Pano
After NMC2005, we hiked to the top of Diamondhead. I was carrying a 35 pound boy on my shoulders most of the way up (and down) so got an awesome workout. The view was totally worth it. This is another Autostitch pano of half a dozen other images. We were staying in a condo at the Ilikai – the blotch of blue building at the far west end of Waikiki.
Diamondhead from Waikiki
Taken from the lagoon at the Hilton, next to the Ilikai – looking over Waikiki toward Diamondhead.
Downtown Calgary – 2002
This was taken just hours before Evan was born, from the room he was born in. I wanted to capture what downtown Calgary looked like on that day, so he could look back in a decade or three and see what's changed…
Elbow Falls Pano
Another Autostitch pano, taken in the summer of 2005 at Elbow Falls, just west of Calgary, near Kananaskis Country. This is where we took Evan camping for the first time.
Exploratorium Foyer
Took this shot during a Pachyderm developer's weeklong meeting at Sonoma State University. We had an evening excursion to the Exploratorium in SF. This piece is in the main entrance foyer – a series of pillars carved to form an optical illusion. Not the best photo of it, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Grampa & Grandson
Taken in Oct 2005, at the Al Azhar Shrine Centre in Calgary.
Hanauma Bay
Taken after the NMC 2005 Summer Conference in Honolulu. We hopped on The Bus to go snorkling at Hanauma Bay. Pretty amazing place.
San Francisco Sutro Sunset
Taken on the last day of the Pachyderm year 2 wrapup meetings in San Francisco, November 2005. From the restaurant on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt San Francisco. Looking west, toward Sutro Tower, sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge. I liked how the lights of the city were just becoming visible, and the details of the buildings were still there. And the apocalypse in the west…
iPod Doom
My iPod, playing the iPodLinux port of Doom!
Magen's Bay – 1997
We got married on this spot on Magen's Bay, St. Thomas USVI in 1997. Must. Go back. Now…
U of C Prairie Chicken
This is a landmark on the U of C campus. I've been seeing this damned thing since 1987, so added it as a banner image as a token Image From Calgary 🙂
SF Hyatt Fountain map
Just outside the Grand Hyatt entrance, there is a cool fountain with an amazing relief map of the city. Don't know how old it is, but the details were pretty interesting.
SF Downtown Pano
Autostitch pano, again from the lounge on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt, during a Pachyderm meeting.
SFMOMA from Metreon
Taken during WWDC2005, from the patio of the Metreon. I loved how the reflecting pool caught bits of the Yerba Buena Center, and SFMOMA.
SFMOMA Second Floor Foyer
Taken outside the Koret Visitor Education Center at SFMOMA, during the second day of the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in November 2005. The museum was closed to the public, and this shot just jumped out at me as I was stretching my legs during a break in the meetings.
Solar Challenge 2005
The 2005 Solar Challenge finish line was at the University of Calgary. This photo is a close shot of the solar panels on top of one of the cars.
Stanley Park Pano
Taken from Stanley Park, Vancouver, during the NMC 2004 Summer Conference. We all had a blast hanging around in Vancouver (even if the boy didn't like the drive over the mountains very much)
Sulphur Mountain Pano 2
Another shot taken during the hike at the top of the gondola, overlooking Banff. This one is an Autostitch pano, showing the visitor centre on top of the mountain. I think one of the Bond villains actually lives here in the off season.
Sulphur Mountain Pano
Another Autostitch pano, taken from the top of the Sulpur Mountain gondola, looking down over Banff. Another hike where I had a large boy strapped to my shoulders 🙂
San Francisco Sunset
Taken from the restaurant on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt, overlooking Sutro Tower, towards the Golden Gate Bridge.
U of C Olympic Oval Torch Statue
Taken at the finish line for the Solar Challenge 2005. Shows the Olympic Torch and statue outside the main entrance to the Olympic Oval skating venue on campus.
Sunset over Utah
Taken from the Bombardier CRJ-700 on a flight back home from San Francisco.
Waikiki from Diamondhead
View of Waikiki Beach from the top of Diamondhead.
Waikiki Sunset
Yet another shot from Hawaii. The family was walking along Waikiki on a Saturday afternoon/eveneing, and near the east end (closest to the zoo), they have this food festival and movie right on the beach at sunset. We hung around for that, and I got this great shot of the sunset from the beach end of the pier.
Latitude XML Menu
Taken at Latitude's, in Rohnert Park, during a week long Pachyderm development meeting at Sonoma State University. The menu wasn't actually in XML, but Larry Johnson was using it as a prop to demonstrate some of the principles of XML parsing. He's a geek at heart 🙂
Yerba Buena Gardens Pano
Taken during WWDC2005, from the patio of the Metreon. I loved how the reflecting pool caught bits of the Yerba Buena Center, and SFMOMA. Autostitch pano of 4 other images.
Zoo Lights 2005
Some of the christmas light display at the Calgary Zoo.
Waikiki from Chuck's Grill
An awesome view from the patio of this restaurant. Best view in Waikiki.
Galleria Aquarium
In Honolulu, the Galleria Mall has a giant aquarium on one side of the building. Pretty impressive – especially for a mall.
This page lists all of the images that are being used in the banner area of this weblog. I'm using a script to automatically and randomly select one of the images each time a page is loaded (but that may behave differently, depending on browser or caching). They are listed in chronological order, in the order they were added to the rotation pool – not the order they were taken. I'll be updating this page as I have time, to provide more information about each image – when/where/why was it taken? Why did I add it to the rotation pool?
Alcatraz and San Francisco Sunset
Took this during WWDC 2003, when I was doing some tourist stuff with Trevor. This was taken from the end of Pier 39, and shows Alcatraz and the north end of The Bay.
Backyard Panorama
This was taken from the back door of my house. It's an Autostitch panorama of 5 other images. It shows the portion of 12 Mile Coulee that runs behind my house, as well as Evan's stuff in the yard. Taken in the summer of 2005.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate 2
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Kananaskis – Banff Gate 3
Taken on my Dad's 70th birthday, from their timeshare just outside of Canmore/Banff.
Mountains over Bearspaw
Taken from 12 Mile Coulee Road (about half a kilometer from my house), looking west to the Rocky Mountains.
Bearspaw Pano Oct 2005
Taken from 12 Mile Coulee Road (about half a kilometer from my house), looking west to the Rocky Mountains. An autostitch pano of several shots.
Bow Valley
Taken at Banff Gate, near Canmore.
Downtown Calgary Pano
An autostitch pano of several shots taken from the observation deck of the Calgary Tower.
Circus Bigtops
Taken before entering the 2005 Al Azhar Shrine Circus, held at Canada Olympic Park, in actual circus tents. My dad's a shriner, and is a clown, so he was working the circus.
Cochrane Hill Fence
Taken the day I got my Fujifilm camera, and I wanted to test it out a bit by taking a bunch of sunset shots from the top of the big hill in Cochrane. There's a bit transmission tower on top of the hill, and this was just beside that, looking north along the barbed wire fence. The sunset cast everything in this funky red/orange glow…
SF Coit Transamerica
Taken from the 36th floor lounge of the Grand Hyatt. The sun was reflecting perfectly off of the windows of the TA tower.
DeYoung New Guinea Masks
Taken at the DeYoung Museum's New Guinea collection, during the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in San Francisco, November 2005.
San Francisco De Young pano
Autostitch pano of photos taken from the observation deck of the DeYoung Museum's education tower. Looking north, over Golden Gate park toward the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands. Taken during the first day of the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in November 2005.
Diamondhead Waikiki Pano
After NMC2005, we hiked to the top of Diamondhead. I was carrying a 35 pound boy on my shoulders most of the way up (and down) so got an awesome workout. The view was totally worth it. This is another Autostitch pano of half a dozen other images. We were staying in a condo at the Ilikai – the blotch of blue building at the far west end of Waikiki.
Diamondhead from Waikiki
Taken from the lagoon at the Hilton, next to the Ilikai – looking over Waikiki toward Diamondhead.
Downtown Calgary – 2002
This was taken just hours before Evan was born, from the room he was born in. I wanted to capture what downtown Calgary looked like on that day, so he could look back in a decade or three and see what's changed…
Elbow Falls Pano
Another Autostitch pano, taken in the summer of 2005 at Elbow Falls, just west of Calgary, near Kananaskis Country. This is where we took Evan camping for the first time.
Exploratorium Foyer
Took this shot during a Pachyderm developer's weeklong meeting at Sonoma State University. We had an evening excursion to the Exploratorium in SF. This piece is in the main entrance foyer – a series of pillars carved to form an optical illusion. Not the best photo of it, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Grampa & Grandson
Taken in Oct 2005, at the Al Azhar Shrine Centre in Calgary.
Hanauma Bay
Taken after the NMC 2005 Summer Conference in Honolulu. We hopped on The Bus to go snorkling at Hanauma Bay. Pretty amazing place.
San Francisco Sutro Sunset
Taken on the last day of the Pachyderm year 2 wrapup meetings in San Francisco, November 2005. From the restaurant on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt San Francisco. Looking west, toward Sutro Tower, sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge. I liked how the lights of the city were just becoming visible, and the details of the buildings were still there. And the apocalypse in the west…
iPod Doom
My iPod, playing the iPodLinux port of Doom!
Magen's Bay – 1997
We got married on this spot on Magen's Bay, St. Thomas USVI in 1997. Must. Go back. Now…
U of C Prairie Chicken
This is a landmark on the U of C campus. I've been seeing this damned thing since 1987, so added it as a banner image as a token Image From Calgary 🙂
SF Hyatt Fountain map
Just outside the Grand Hyatt entrance, there is a cool fountain with an amazing relief map of the city. Don't know how old it is, but the details were pretty interesting.
SF Downtown Pano
Autostitch pano, again from the lounge on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt, during a Pachyderm meeting.
SFMOMA from Metreon
Taken during WWDC2005, from the patio of the Metreon. I loved how the reflecting pool caught bits of the Yerba Buena Center, and SFMOMA.
SFMOMA Second Floor Foyer
Taken outside the Koret Visitor Education Center at SFMOMA, during the second day of the Pachyderm Year 2 Wrapup meetings in November 2005. The museum was closed to the public, and this shot just jumped out at me as I was stretching my legs during a break in the meetings.
Solar Challenge 2005
The 2005 Solar Challenge finish line was at the University of Calgary. This photo is a close shot of the solar panels on top of one of the cars.
Stanley Park Pano
Taken from Stanley Park, Vancouver, during the NMC 2004 Summer Conference. We all had a blast hanging around in Vancouver (even if the boy didn't like the drive over the mountains very much)
Sulphur Mountain Pano 2
Another shot taken during the hike at the top of the gondola, overlooking Banff. This one is an Autostitch pano, showing the visitor centre on top of the mountain. I think one of the Bond villains actually lives here in the off season.
Sulphur Mountain Pano
Another Autostitch pano, taken from the top of the Sulpur Mountain gondola, looking down over Banff. Another hike where I had a large boy strapped to my shoulders 🙂
San Francisco Sunset
Taken from the restaurant on the 36th floor of the Grand Hyatt, overlooking Sutro Tower, towards the Golden Gate Bridge.
U of C Olympic Oval Torch Statue
Taken at the finish line for the Solar Challenge 2005. Shows the Olympic Torch and statue outside the main entrance to the Olympic Oval skating venue on campus.
Sunset over Utah
Taken from the Bombardier CRJ-700 on a flight back home from San Francisco.
Waikiki from Diamondhead
View of Waikiki Beach from the top of Diamondhead.
Waikiki Sunset
Yet another shot from Hawaii. The family was walking along Waikiki on a Saturday afternoon/eveneing, and near the east end (closest to the zoo), they have this food festival and movie right on the beach at sunset. We hung around for that, and I got this great shot of the sunset from the beach end of the pier.
Latitude XML Menu
Taken at Latitude's, in Rohnert Park, during a week long Pachyderm development meeting at Sonoma State University. The menu wasn't actually in XML, but Larry Johnson was using it as a prop to demonstrate some of the principles of XML parsing. He's a geek at heart 🙂
Yerba Buena Gardens Pano
Taken during WWDC2005, from the patio of the Metreon. I loved how the reflecting pool caught bits of the Yerba Buena Center, and SFMOMA. Autostitch pano of 4 other images.
Zoo Lights 2005
Some of the christmas light display at the Calgary Zoo.
Waikiki from Chuck's Grill
An awesome view from the patio of this restaurant. Best view in Waikiki.
Galleria Aquarium
In Honolulu, the Galleria Mall has a giant aquarium on one side of the building. Pretty impressive – especially for a mall.
Modules enabled on this copy of Drupal:
The colophon is a list of Drupal modules used to run this site. It’s generated by calling the module_list() method, and iterating over the output, so it’s a live reflection of what’s running right now.
‘;
foreach ($modulelist as $amodule) {
echo ‘
- ‘.$amodule.’
‘;
}
echo ‘
‘
/**
// Get current list of modules
$files = system_listing(‘\.module$’, ‘modules’, ‘name’, 0);
// Extract current files from database.
system_get_files_database($files, ‘module’);
ksort($files);
foreach ($files as $filename => $file) {
if ($file -> status) {
drupal_get_filename(‘module’, $file->name, $file->filename);
drupal_load(‘module’, $file->name);
$file->description = module_invoke($file->name, ‘help’, ‘admin/modules#description’);
echo ‘
‘.$file->name.’: ‘.$file->description.’
‘;
}
}
*/
?>
Modules enabled on this copy of Drupal:
The colophon is a list of Drupal modules used to run this site. It’s generated by calling the module_list() method, and iterating over the output, so it’s a live reflection of what’s running right now.
‘;
foreach ($modulelist as $amodule) {
echo ‘
- ‘.$amodule.’
‘;
}
echo ‘
‘
/**
// Get current list of modules
$files = system_listing(‘\.module$’, ‘modules’, ‘name’, 0);
// Extract current files from database.
system_get_files_database($files, ‘module’);
ksort($files);
foreach ($files as $filename => $file) {
if ($file -> status) {
drupal_get_filename(‘module’, $file->name, $file->filename);
drupal_load(‘module’, $file->name);
$file->description = module_invoke($file->name, ‘help’, ‘admin/modules#description’);
echo ‘
‘.$file->name.’: ‘.$file->description.’
‘;
}
}
*/
?>
I've been spending so much time in Drupal lately that I've been contemplating moving my blog from WordPress to Drupal to take advantage of some of the flexibility in Drupal. I've even gone as far as migrating a copy of this blog, and it's basically working now – it may even look familiar.
But, I'm holding off on throwing the switch (I came within about 5 seconds of a full switchover, but finally decided against it). Why? WordPress is still nicer for individual blogging. Sure, it lacks the super-handy Book structure. And the better Menu and Page management. And a bunch of other cool stuff.
Drupal has far better searching – advanced searching with booleans – and better ways of organizing content (multiple taxonomies, tags, paths, etc…). It has better "website management" and a pretty decent upgrade process.
But, WordPress (for now) has better integration with things like image uploading, Flickr images, podcasting (via PodPress) and a bunch of other little things that tie into the "workflow" of blogging, as opposed to content management. These are all things that I use my blog for now, so it's silly to switch to something that doesn't currently rock at doing these tasks.I'm absolutely confident that I could eventually bend Drupal to do my bidding, but WordPress already does it now, so there's not a Super Compelling Reason To Jump at this particular moment. Also, the migration process isn't the smoothest one on the planet, and appears to be a one-way trip.
Update: I mentioned in one of my comments to this post that I was afraid of using the WordPress DBook plugin, because I didn't want to introduce any non-standard content types. I was completely wrong about what DBook does. It's sole function is to do the heavy lifting to provide better inter-page navigation between WordPress Pages. No new content type, no change to the database at all. Sorry for not checking facts better before posting that comment!
I've been spending so much time in Drupal lately that I've been contemplating moving my blog from WordPress to Drupal to take advantage of some of the flexibility in Drupal. I've even gone as far as migrating a copy of this blog, and it's basically working now – it may even look familiar.
But, I'm holding off on throwing the switch (I came within about 5 seconds of a full switchover, but finally decided against it). Why? WordPress is still nicer for individual blogging. Sure, it lacks the super-handy Book structure. And the better Menu and Page management. And a bunch of other cool stuff.
Drupal has far better searching – advanced searching with booleans – and better ways of organizing content (multiple taxonomies, tags, paths, etc…). It has better "website management" and a pretty decent upgrade process.
But, WordPress (for now) has better integration with things like image uploading, Flickr images, podcasting (via PodPress) and a bunch of other little things that tie into the "workflow" of blogging, as opposed to content management. These are all things that I use my blog for now, so it's silly to switch to something that doesn't currently rock at doing these tasks.I'm absolutely confident that I could eventually bend Drupal to do my bidding, but WordPress already does it now, so there's not a Super Compelling Reason To Jump at this particular moment. Also, the migration process isn't the smoothest one on the planet, and appears to be a one-way trip.
Update: I mentioned in one of my comments to this post that I was afraid of using the WordPress DBook plugin, because I didn't want to introduce any non-standard content types. I was completely wrong about what DBook does. It's sole function is to do the heavy lifting to provide better inter-page navigation between WordPress Pages. No new content type, no change to the database at all. Sorry for not checking facts better before posting that comment!
My various online bits are now living at Dreamhost. It took only a few minutes to install my stuff, copy over the files, and get up and running. It’s taken a bit longer to have DNS changes propagate, but I think that process is pretty much over now. Wordpress seems pretty happy there, and I’ve installed copies of Drupal, Mediawiki and Lace (the cool ajax chat app), as well as a Quicktime streaming server and Jabber server. The last two were autoinstalls, so I just flicked them on to see what they did. Actually, everything but Lace could have been automatically installed, with subdomains and databases created automatically, but I opted to do the manual install because I already have copies of the apps configured.
So far, things seem to be working pretty well. They give an insane amount of disk space (20 GB to use as I need) and monthly bandwidth (1 TB/month, plus an extra 8 GB added each week), as well as SSH and FTP access.
I’m looking forward to playing around with Rails a bit, and have a place to host it.
The Dreamhost support team is also pretty darned responsive. I’ve had to contact them twice (once when their account creation form barfed on the apostrophe in my name, and once when the stats weren’t being displayed). Very helpful, those Dreamhost folks. They also have 2 blogs that they use to communicate about status and other stuff. The off-site dreamhoststatus.com blog is a good way to keep up on pending changes or outtages. And their general blog is just plain entertaining – with a category dedicated to rants! It’s good to see a decade-old hosting company that’s grown rather large still be able to have a sense of humour.
Update: One of the things I’m loving about hosting at Dreamhost is that backups are trivial. I have a script in my hosted account that I can trigger via SSH, and it will rsync my entire home directory (including all files needed to host my domain and any subdomains) to my desktop box on campus for backup. And, because rsync is so cool, it only takes a few seconds, since only changed files are sent. So, I can make sure all of my 300+MB of files are backed up in about 10 seconds. Add a scripted mysqldump into the mix, and all data backups are up to date as well.
My various online bits are now living at Dreamhost. It took only a few minutes to install my stuff, copy over the files, and get up and running. It’s taken a bit longer to have DNS changes propagate, but I think that process is pretty much over now. WordPress seems pretty happy there, and I’ve installed copies of Drupal, Mediawiki and Lace (the cool ajax chat app), as well as a Quicktime streaming server and Jabber server. The last two were autoinstalls, so I just flicked them on to see what they did. Actually, everything but Lace could have been automatically installed, with subdomains and databases created automatically, but I opted to do the manual install because I already have copies of the apps configured.
So far, things seem to be working pretty well. They give an insane amount of disk space (20 GB to use as I need) and monthly bandwidth (1 TB/month, plus an extra 8 GB added each week), as well as SSH and FTP access.
I’m looking forward to playing around with Rails a bit, and have a place to host it.
The Dreamhost support team is also pretty darned responsive. I’ve had to contact them twice (once when their account creation form barfed on the apostrophe in my name, and once when the stats weren’t being displayed). Very helpful, those Dreamhost folks. They also have 2 blogs that they use to communicate about status and other stuff. The off-site dreamhoststatus.com blog is a good way to keep up on pending changes or outtages. And their general blog is just plain entertaining – with a category dedicated to rants! It’s good to see a decade-old hosting company that’s grown rather large still be able to have a sense of humour.
Update: One of the things I’m loving about hosting at Dreamhost is that backups are trivial. I have a script in my hosted account that I can trigger via SSH, and it will rsync my entire home directory (including all files needed to host my domain and any subdomains) to my desktop box on campus for backup. And, because rsync is so cool, it only takes a few seconds, since only changed files are sent. So, I can make sure all of my 300+MB of files are backed up in about 10 seconds. Add a scripted mysqldump into the mix, and all data backups are up to date as well.