Category Archives: Technology

Birdstack

Birds, Technology, , ,

I follow a couple of birding blogs and both mentioned Birdstack in recent posts. I’m trying it out. So far it seems pretty easy to use and entering data is pretty straight forward.

It’s a site where you keep track of your bird observations. It lets you set locations and trips. The widget at the bottom of the left hand sidebar is my recently sighted list. Recent as in since yesterday.

I used to keep a life-list of the birds I’d seen and identified on my own, but that fell to the wayside when the kids were born.

I’ve got a small feeder near the window where I spend much of my day, and want to document who visits the feeder. I might get more feeders for the area — depending on how safe they are and how crowded it ends up looking.

Not related to the feeder, but related to birds — yesterday a huge flock of robins were hanging around the back yard and a couple of cedar waxwings were there too. I’ve gotten where I know their call. I got a photo of two, but it is very blurry.

The Lives of Others

Blogging, People, Technology

So yesterday I happened upon two blogs belonging to people I’ve known who, through divorce, were removed from my life. The first one belongs to the ex-wife of a friend of Dean’s. I was spacing out and reading some woman related Washington Post blogs when I found a guest post by this woman. The content of the blog as well as her name made me realize it was probably her and I followed a link to her personal blog where she discusses topics ranging from her new marriage to martinis. I always wished we were better friends – and not just friends when our husbands got together. Perhaps it was the fact that she is more than a decade my junior is the reason we never became friends. I was sad when she and her husband divorced, but not in the least surprised.

The second blog was found by clicking on the “links” link under a video I uploaded to YouTube about a year ago. It lead me to a blog by a 60-something man who used to live in Elgin but now lives in Northern Wisconsin. The names in the sidebar calendar led me to deduce that he is the ex-husband of one of my mother’s best friends. In fact this man was at my wedding. I called my mom and she confirmed that he moved to Wisconsin.

So, in some ways, this Internet, this huge time sucker and distraction maker can make the world a smaller place.

Of course I’ve known that for years.

Home is where the big green arrow is

Accomplishments, Technology, , ,

It’s a small thing among all the other annoyances in life, but ever since I’ve been using mapping software the marker for my address is about 7 houses away from where we really live. I’ve always wanted to grab that darn pointer and put it where it belonged. Mr. Monk would have been proud of my desire.

I even bought a GPS device that accepted corrections so it drove me exactly to my home, safe and sound. (Can I help it if I get lonely in the car sometimes and like listening to various voices from the British Isles?)

So, imagine my delight when I noticed a new feature on Google Maps tonight — the word “edit” next to the green marker. Further playing around and suddenly, my house was where it belonged and all was right with the world.

Their promo video is pretty good too.