Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

internet

image97 ‘generations’
of
The Versatile Blogger
Award

  1. Purplume’s Blog – May 30, 2010
  2. Housewife Blues and Chihuahua Stories – June 23, 2010
  3. Addicted To Romance – June 8, 2010
  4. Book Mark Your Thoughts – June 8, 2010
  5. Badass Bookie – June 11, 2010
  6. Thoghts Enterred in Phrase – June 14, 2010
  7. The Daily Harrell – June 15, 2010
  8. Renae Mercado – June 16, 2010
  9. Amparo Ortiz – June 17, 2010
  10. YA Literature Lover – June 19, 2010
  11. T.K. Richardson – June 23, 2010
  12. Words from the Woods – June 29, 2010
  13. Patricia Stotley – July 2, 2010
  14. “Dishin’ It Out” – July 7, 2010
  15. Kate Masters – July 12, 2010
  16. Margaret West – July 12, 2010
  17. Walker’s Muse (now “Mass Musings”) – July 12, 2010
  18. Ashley’s Bookshelf – July 17, 2010
  19. Books That Bite – July 22, 2010
  20. Missy’s Reads and Reviews – June 27, 2010
  21. About Books Blog – July 27, 2010 (Passed it on to others in their comments before this post was published)
  22. WV Stitcher – July 3, 2010
  23. Copper Penny Designs – August 3, 2011
  24. StudioJuls – August 5, 2010
  25. EB Bead and Metal Works – August 6, 2010
  26. Copper Diem – August 7, 2010
  27. TyneBoden Necklaces – August 7, 2010
  28. Life of a Twingle Gal – August 8, 2010
  29. The Knit Wit – August 8, 2010
  30. And then there were 4 – August 12, 2010 (Passed it on to others in their comments before this post was published)
  31. Crazy About My BayBah – August 20, 2010
  32. Two Monkeys and a Washtub – September 11, 2010
  33. Mommy Only Has 2 Hands – September 15, 2010
  34. Victoria’s Voice – September 15, 2010
  35. Kim {Mama} – September 17, 2010 (Passed it on to others in their comments before this post was published)
  36. A Grace – full Life – September 16, 2010
  37. Sunshine Praises – September 29, 2010
  38. Mom’s Mustard Seeds – September 29, 2010
  39. A Slice of Smith Life – September 30, 2010
  40. My Heart’s Desire: Health In Him – October 11, 2010
  41. Mommy Time Out – October 13, 2010
  42. The Unexpected Education – April 6, 2011
  43. Karima’s Blogs – April 7, 2011
  44. The Steady hand – April 7, 2011
  45. Indiana Inker – May 20, 2011
  46. Kortney’s Krazy Life – May 30, 2011
  47. The Gentle Flower – June 2, 2011
  48. Lindy Legends and Other Such Nonsense – June, 3, 2011
  49. Lala Musings – June 4, 2011
  50. Motherhood: {truth} – June 5, 2011
  51. Always Just a Mom – June ?, 2011 (open to invited readers only)
  52. Far From Camelot – June 7, 2011
  53. insignificant at best – June 8, 2011
  54. Depression Cookies – August 23, 2011
  55. Punk Rock Psychic – August 26, 2011
  56. Frugal Science – August 26, 2011
  57. the artful blogger – August 31, 2011
  58. psychodynamom – September 16
  59. scatteringmoments – September 17
  60. Aurora Morealist – September 17, 2011
  61. Revelling In the Overflowing Grace of God – September 2o, 2011
  62. Resting in His Grace – (passed on  to others in comments; blogged January 19, 2012)
  63. A Father’s Love – September 21, 2011
  64. Jesus Carries Me – September 21, 2011
  65. Still Growing – October 18, 2011
  66. wordtabulous – October 24, 2011
  67. Kana’s Chronicles – October 25, 2011
  68. sparklebumpsthebookwhore – October 25, 2011
  69. sandylikeabeach – October 25, 2011
  70. traveldestinationbucketlist – October 25, 2011
  71. steve allen photography – October 27, 2011
  72. David Heilman – October 29, 2011
  73. photographyofnia – October 30, 2011
  74. Cats & Co – November 18, 2011
  75. Gabrielle Angel and Autumn Sunshine – November 18, 2011
  76. poeticjourney251 – November 18
  77. PryncesSyndrome – November 29, 2011
  78. LScott Poetry – December 1, 2011
  79. 365daysofcourage – January 3, 2012
  80. Believe Anyway – January 17, 2012
  81. Celeste’s Stories & Writing Adventure – January 30, 2012
  82. kenzie.kay – January 31, 2012
  83. Shannon M. Howell – February 2, 2012
  84. Pete Denton – Writer – March 10, 2012
  85. Vanessa Chapman – March 13, 2012
  86. They call me Betty – March 16, 2012
  87. Raising a Realist – March 17, 2012
  88. iGameMom – March 19, 2012
  89. Peace, Love & Fabulous Things – March 21, 2012
  90. The Shy Lion – March 27, 2012
  91. tea and craft – April 1, 2012
  92. My Grandmotherly Ways – April 3, 2012
  93. Tecrin Tries – April 5, 2012
  94. buttons and beeswax – April 17, 2012
  95. Will Knit for Food – April 27, 2012
  96. Celebrate Life! – April 21, 2012
  97. Exit78  Hot smile

image

Opal at Celebrate Life has given me “The Versatile Blogger” award, which I greatly appreciate.  We’ve been reading each other’s blogs since at least 2008.

Many of these blog awards have a list of requirements that go with them – which really makes them into a sort of ‘award meme’ – and this award has its own set of requirements, which I’ll be treating a tad differently.

One of the requirements is to nominate 15 bloggers that you follow regularly or have recently discovered – a little bit of linky love and sharing with others some blogs that you like.

What I started with, instead, was to trace the lineage of the Versatile Blogger award as it came to me.  I went back 97 ‘generations’ of the award before I came to a blog that had died.  Some of the blogs had been awarded multiple times, but I just followed one path back, making it all the way back to May 30, 2010. I’ve included links to all of the ‘generations’ of the award before me on the right.

The Versatile Blog award has been around a long while in internet time.  The earliest mention I could find of it was from October 2007.  There is a Versatile Blogger Award site, but  its earliest post is from only a few months ago.

Another of the requirements is to tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself:

  1. I don’t do memes or awards.  I’m making a bit of an exception on this one, because it’s fun.  Sometime meme and award requirements are just too much of something I’m not interested.  I also don’t like to make others feel like they are obligated to do something, which is why I won’t be passing this on to anyone else.
  2. Though I was born in the North, I’ve been a legal resident of the South for three quarters of my life. However, I was a legal resident of Texas for tax purposes when I was in the Navy and we lived in California, Connecticut, and Idaho.
  3. I’ve spent about 15 1/2 months under water – 6 deterrent patrols on a nuclear submarine.
  4. I didn’t need to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day – my eyes are green, as are my dad’s, bother brothers, and two of my sisters.  The other sister has blue eyes.
  5. Even though I have a bachelors degree, I’ve never been on the campus of the college I got it from.  The same is true for our son-in-law.  We got our degrees from the same University and they weren’t mail order or online course.  We did our coursework in actual classes, but they were held on military bases.
  6. I am a member of The Order of the Blue Nose (line crossing ceremony for the arctic circle).
  7. I rode a bus unaccompanied to Houston from Nebraska when I was 13 to spend the summer with my mom and step-dad – I lived with my grandparents.  That summer of ‘65, we lived in a very depressed area (slum?) very close to downtown. I rode a Greyhound bus unaccompanied back to Nebraska at the end of the summer.

Sipapu Natural Bridge Trail, Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah, September 30, 2011
Sipapu Natural Bridge Trail, Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah, September 30, 2011

Natural Bridges National Monument overflow camping on nearby BLM land
Natural Bridges National Monument overflow camping on nearby BLM land

Farmers’ Market, Great Falls Montana, September 1, 2007
Farmers’ Market, Great Falls Montana, September 1, 2007

Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, August 22, 2007
Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, August 22, 2007

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image

“Reach” for our facebook fan page has gone over 10,000.

Reach?

What the heck is that?

According to facebook, it’s the number of people who have seen any content associated with our page during a seven day period.

Another way of saying it is that something related to our American Civil War on facebook has been seen by 10,588 during the seven day period from April 2nd through April 8th.  That’s up 282% from the previous week.

There must be something to it.  The number of image likes has been rising and the rate seems to have increased.  Today we went over 4500 and it currently stands at 4505.

Four blogs contribute material to The American Civil War on facebook:

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This week’s faire is from the U.S. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, which contains a wide cross-section of still pictures from  a large number of online collections.  The images for today are  a random selection of vintage portraits.

Keokuk. Keokuk Jr. and his son Charles – c.1868

Moses Keokuk (also known as Watchful Fox), son of the famous Sac and Fox chief Keokuk, and Moses’ son, 14 year old Charles Keokuk, full-length portrait, standing, facing front.Photograph taken during their 1868 visit to Washington, D.C., when they were part of an an unofficial Sac and Fox delegation.

Collection: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand

President A. Lincoln reading the Bible to his son

Photographshows Abraham Lincoln, seated, facing right, reading to his son Tad, standing to the President’s left, facing front.Collection: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand

Published: New York : Published by W. Schaus, 749 Broadway, c1865.

abbraham_lincoln_and_tad_lincoln
convicts A group of hard-labor convicts (common criminals) in Siberia

Photograph: c. 1885
 

Part of: Views of people and places in Siberia from the George Kennan papers

Bill and Ellen Thomas, ex-slaves, Hondo, Texas

Photograph: 1937 May 22.Portraits of African American ex-slaves from the U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives collections.

ex-slaves

Ramallah woman in native costume

Ramallah woman in native costume (Palestine)

Photograph shows a portrait of Fahra Tzahak Fadeh.

Color slide reproduced from black and white negative or print which was handcolored, and then photographed with color film.

 

Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection

General John L Chamberlain

Photograph: Negative was a gift to Library of Congrass by Harris & Ewing, Inc. 1955.

Part of: Harris & Ewing Collection

Wikipedia

John L Chamberlain

j_edgar_hoover

John Edgar Hoover

Photograph: Negative was a gift to Library of Congrass by Harris & Ewing, Inc. 1955.

Part of: Harris & Ewing Collection

Wikipedia

Col. Henry Ashby, 2nd Regt. Tenn. Cavalry

Picture is part of Civil War glass negative collection

Col Henry Ashby 2nd Regt Tenn Cavalry

Lawrence Killey


Lawrence Killey

Artist: Alfred R. Waud.
Drawing – c. 1865
Part of: Morgan collection of Civil War drawings
Inscribed on verso: 3 Jersey Cavalry; Broad yellow band on trousers, yellow braid and large buttons on jacket, false hussar jacket lined with yellow; cap without visor-braided with yellow; very few dress coats [?] on jackets in the Western army; blouse-Army of Potomac more dressy with cap reg. compy [?] marks etc.

His Excel: G: Washington Esq: L.L.D.

Late commander in chief of the armies of the U.S. of America & president of the Convention of 1787 / painted & engrav’d by C.W. Peale.

Engraving, 1787, Charles Wilson Peale

Summary: Print shows George Washington, head-and-shoulders portrait, in uniform, facing slightly right; in oval.

washington

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Ut lapsu grauiore ruant

The internet has a lot of fascinating, interesting, and useful sites.  Here are a few that I’ve found:

  • Free online file converter – Convert media files online from one format into another.
  • The Fantastic in Art & Fiction – Sponsored by Cornell University’s Institute for Digital Collections (CIDC) this image-bank provides a visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art.
  • A History of the World – The British Museum and BBC uses objects to tell a history of the world.
  • Shooting in a Dust Storm – Cameraman Bob Poole was filming elephants with ease — until a giant dust storm rose up and swallowed all the light.

  • Wikiquote –  the free quote compendium that anyone can edit.
  • HHMI’s Virtual Museum – Stroll through exhibits on biological clocks, infectious diseases, cardiology, and neuroscience at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s online museum.
  • List of Colors – a comprehensive list of colors at Wikipedia.
  • Home Gardening – A supplement to the Cornell Gardening resources website.
  • Image Searches – for use with blogs, web pages, etc.  (make sure to check for creative commons license or other conditions – images posted on line are NOT free for the taking just because they’ve been posted.
    • Compfight is an image search engine tailored to efficiently locate images for blogs, comps, inspiration, and research. We make good use of the flickr™ API, but aren’t affiliated with flickr.
    • everystockphoto.com – search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific.
    • Freerange Stock was formed with the goal to provide quality stock photos for commercial and non-commercial use. For free.
    • search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations.

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The following photos are all licensed under creative commons and were found on Flickr searching on the word mountain.

almost may

almost may

by paul (dex)
Attribution Some rights reserved

napali

napali

by paul (dex)
Some rights reserved

Up the winding path

Up the winding path

by Steve-h
AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved

mountain scenery

mountain scenery

by mathias-erhart
AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved

Remember the summer

Remember the summer

by pgpdesign (paul)
Some rights reserved

What Have I Done?

What Have I Done?

by tropicaLiving – Jessy…
Share Alike Some rights reserved

Picture Peak

Picture Peak

by Jeff Pang
Attribution Some rights reserved

Russet

Russet

by Nicholas_T
Attribution Some rights reserved

Ocean Colors

Ocean Colors

by Paulo Brandão
AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved

Khezr Beach, Hormoz Island, Persian Gulf, Iran

Khezr Beach, Hormoz Island, Persian Gulf, Iran

by Hamed Saber
Attribution Some rights reserved

Kearsarge Pinnacles by Moonlight

Kearsarge Pinnacles by Moonlight

by Jeff Pang
Attribution Some rights reserved

Dramatic clouds at sunset

Dramatic clouds at sunset

by Steve-h
Some rights reserved

Davos

Davos

by Astragony
Some rights reserved

The Mountain Exhaled

The Mountain Exhaled

by laszlo-photo
Some rights reserved

Large Format Study N. 22

Large Format Study N. 22

by rachel_thecat
Some rights reserved

Budd Creek Sunset, Tuolumne Meadow, Yosemite National Park

Budd Creek Sunset, Tuolumne Meadow, Yosemite National Park

by SteveD.
Some rights reserved

Texture...

Texture…

by Himalayan Trails
Some rights reserved

Epilogo

Epilogo

by Astragony
Some rights reserved

Blue Mountain View

Blue Mountain View

by nosha
Some rights reserved

miyukiutada

AYP0721425

by miyukiutada
Some rights reserved

so distant

so distant

by Andréia
Some rights reserved

~ Mauritius ~

~ Mauritius ~

by Mohammed Alnaser
Some rights reserved

Cloudy Victoria Peak at Lake Louise

Cloudy Victoria Peak at Lake Louise

by laszlo-photo
Some rights reserved

Denali from McKinley Princess Lodge, right

Denali from McKinley Princess Lodge, right

by Unhindered by Talent
Some rights reserved

CERRO FITZ ROY ( EL CHALTEN )

CERRO FITZ ROY ( EL CHALTEN ) 3.405 MTS

by R I O M A N S O
Some rights reserved

Endless Whiteness

Endless Whiteness [Explored]

by Rising Damp
Some rights reserved

Delaware River Sunrise

Delaware River Sunrise

by Bob Jagendorf
Some rights reserved

Full moon wind

Full moon wind

by SteveB in Denver
Some rights reserved

miyukiutada

CYP0015758

by miyukiutada
Some rights reserved

refuge des bannettes

refuge des bannettes

by girolame
Some rights reserved

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The internet has a lot of fascinating, interesting, and useful sites.  Here are a few that I’ve found:

  1. Discovering Lewis & Clark® – “in pursuit of our mission to make this the most comprehensive and useful Lewis and Clark website on the Internet.”
  2. Hershey’s Kitchens Recipes– the chocolate desert experts.
  3. PublicLibraries.com “strives to promote the use and support of local public libraries in every city across the United States.”
  4. Archaeological Institute of America– “The AIA promotes a vivid and informed public interest in the cultures and civilizations of the past, supports archaeological research, fosters the sound professional practice of archaeology, advocates the preservation of the world’s archaeological heritage, and represents the discipline in the wider world.”
  5. Lindsey Stirling – an American violinist, performance artist, and composer. In 2010 she competed on the fifth season of America’s Got Talent, reaching the quarterfinals. She has a large number of music videos available on her YouTube channel, which has nearly 200,000 subscribers.  Since music videos can be heavily edited, I looked for a video of a live performance and found a performance at Scenra Theatre, in Washington, D.C.
  6. SeedsNow.com – “All our seeds are 100% Non-Genetically Modified (Non-GMO), 100% Heirloom/Non-Hybrid, and 100% Open-Pollinated. This means you can actually save your seed year-after- year!”
  7. Space Adventures – “the only company to have sent private citizens to space..,”
  8. Cultivate – “a new online resource for kitchen inspiration and design.”
  9. Patrick Smith Photography – Landscape views not often seen.
  10. How to Draw – “a collection of tutorials that will teach you everything from perspective basics to shading chrome.”

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