fun with the blog

i just switched the blog over the the new blogger beta platform to take advantage of a few cool new features, most notably labels and the drop-down archives. as it turns out, since i publish to an ftp (so the blog appears at andersonbowen.com and not blogspot.com and so i can add some features like the lightbox photo viewer) neither labels nor the archives function the same as if i were to publish to the blogspot server. and now the archives aren't even publishing to the correct url at all.

so. i've got most of it working, but know that the blog will be under construction somewhat over the next few days as i get things figured out.

stoked about labels, though. way better than our earlier patchwork system. and lightbox works, so we're 90% there, i think.

and i'll keep plugging this: don't forget to check out my (almost) photo a day page!

new photos

if you frequent the blogosphere, you'll have no doubt noticed that unlike many/most blogs out there, we don't have photos with the text of our blog entries. the reasons are that 1) we like the look of just having text 2) there are plenty of photos elsewhere on our site and 3) even if we wanted photos with the text, the system is buggy and i haven't figured out how to make it happen. so the times that we have had an image to go along with what we are talking about, we've just linked to the individual image on its own page. it's clunky and not so visually appealing.

but now i have found a great new plugin that keeps the blog page clean and texty and gives a stylish way to view images without visually seperating from the blog. i think it's dope. to see individual images, scroll down to the "food" and "white ants" links in paige's mugole eats enswa post.
101phil
it also does slide shows. here are a number of images from my first few days back on the continent. most are from monday's there-and-back-again (which reminds me, i think i will start reading the hobbit next) trip to mihv's ssembabule field site. i have my long lens now so i can start taking proper bird photos. at least if they come close. *mouse over the image and click to advance to the next photo*

skype!

so i'm back in the states now for a couple months playing ultimate with sub zero. jumping right in, five days after i got back i was out in santa cruz for the labor day tornament where we lost to seattle sockeye in semis. i've been bouncing around a little, but now i'm settled in and even got the cat back from CY and TY, who were generously taking care of him. thanks!

a coffee shop with free wireless is right across the street from my apt, and this morning i finally installed skype, which is a free program that allows you to make phone calls online. it's 100% free to talk to other computer skype users online, and costs something like 2.1 cents a minute to call land land lines or mobiles. not so bad.
101phil
so i fired it up and called paige, and the sound quality was perfect and it really couldn't have been easier. the pace of technology in the last ten years has been ridiculous. wasn't too long ago that i was psyched to get long distance for under 25 cents a minute. the world is getting so small and accessable.

must be doing something right...

today is the first time i've ever checked out the site statistics for andersonbowen.com. picked a good day to start. yesterday i posted here about some site updates, and paige sent a mass email with her updated contact information. if you're reading this and didn't get that email, how did you ever stumble across this site? anyway, yesterday we had 6,800 page views. dear god. and it's cool to know that i'm not padding the statistics - our connection is too slow to do any surfing. i just view what's on my hard drive.

so thanks for checking in! as your reward i have updated the look of my photo albums and added three new galleries for you viewing pleasure. just go here or click photo galleries on the right. i've also added to my photo information page. i'm particularly proud of my new little icons.

for the photo galleries, i've taken some canned albums that live in the automate menu of photoshop cs and cs2. then i go into the directory and mess around with the code in golive to get the look i want. i like the current one. grey background, white borders, drop shadow, little icons at the bottom.

if the new stuff isn't up when you check, that's because our connection is so slow. it's 11:20pm here, 3:20pm central. i'll start the upload on the new content now and when i check in the morning it'll be mostly finished with some errors. our internet connection is a wireless connection from mtn, same company as our cell coverage. it's just an antenna that plugs into the usb, and gives us something like 1kbs. yeah. that 50k image? it's a minute. sunday morning is the best time for internetting here, no one is on the phone. afternoons? forget about it. the current plan is just a stop gap. i hope.

today i ran sprints at the soccer field just up the road at the business school. it's a nice field. i did the michelle akers workout that paige brought to syzygy from riot. it's a keeper.

12 x 20 yard :20 sec rest
10 x 40 yard :30 sec rest
8 x 60 yard :45 sec rest
5 x 80 yard 1:15 rest
3 x 100 yard 1:30 rest

we work harder. 101phil 101ultimate

site/blog progress update

there is worthwhile stuff to report every day (plenty!), but i've been spending most of my time putting together the web site and getting the blog up and running. once the foundation of the site is complete and i have time to type, you can look for daily updates. well, daily is optimistic but we're still in the early stages of life in africa and every experience is new, so it makes for good blogging.
check out my catalog of personal belongings now and expect to see more photo galleries from the last 2-3 years as i work on cataloging my images. we'll have plenty of info and photos from the wedding and we'll trick out the about us and africa pages with lots of stuff as well.
thanks for checking in and thanks for being patient for news from us. (although at the time of this writing i think only 4-5 people know this site exists :) we'll get the word out shortly. 101phil

photo printing

we brought a portable printer with us to Africa. canon pixma ip90. it’s the size of a small but thick laptop and has a couple of sweet features.

one, like i said, it’s small. it easily fits into my little computer backpack with the laptop and a bunch of other flat stuff.

two, it prints fantastic photos, which was my necessary feature. i like the canon photo paper plus semi gloss. not such a fan of the gloss. the plus paper is $5 for 50 4x6 sheets which is a ton cheaper than the pro paper and looks just fine to me. and i’m picky.

three, and this is the kicker, we got the battery for the printer so it works when the power is off or we can bring it to the field where there is no electricity and take and print photos for the villagers. i can also connect my camera straight to the printer which I would never do here at home, but i probably don’t want to bring my laptop to the field and I can still take and print photos immediately.

the bureaucracy here loves to have a passport-sized photo with every form you fill out. there are a lot of forms to fill out here. so the printer has already paid off in the time saved from going to the photo shop to get a passport photo taken. 101phil 101africa