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

comments

Thanks for visiting…, and for the comments

September 30, 2009

Note: I’m including links to the most recent posts of the commenters on the days that they left the comments. This is from the CommentLuv plug-in and it didn’t seem to capture all of the most recent posts. though.Canton Lake

Answers to Questions:

———-

Cath Lawson asked, about National Parks – specifically Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite:

Which one do you reckon is best for seeing the most wildlife? The kids are keen to see bears and other critters – from a distance I hope. :)

Also – 12,000 ft is v high. Do you get altitude sickness? Is there anything you can take for it – or anything you can do to make it easier?

We’ve not visited Yosemite, but I understand there is quite a bit of wildlife there.  Overall, we’ve seen more wildlife in Yellowstone than any other park, but some people visit and don’t see many animals.  Bears are actually a very rare sight in any park, though we saw 4 this year back east.

12,000 feet is high and, yes, we did feel it.  However, it wasn’t as bad as one other time as this time for a couple of days we didn’t go above 8 to 9,000 feet.

It looks like Yellowstone and RMNP are doable in one trip – if you have enough time. Have you been to all the US national parks? Which is your favourite, or is it hard to choose?

We have not been to even a quarter of the national parks.  Our favorites, I think are Yellowstone and Grand Teton,  They are very close to each other yet offer very different experiences.  We may make a project out of seeing ALL of the national parks and monuments.

I haven’t seen a coyote before aside from on TV. Do they sound a lot like wolves?

They have more of a yip to their howl, I guess, and do it groups.

On Day Use:

…this is just a parking area for people who are visiting for the day right? It has to be the prettiest car park I ever saw.

Actually, it is parking, and picnicking, playground, fishing, and more.

——–

From Dot:

Do you sell your photos?  I’m thinking you could make this series into a book, with commentary.  Also, I know it’s your blog, but will you ever post photos of Karen’s quilts?

No, I don’t sell my photos, though I am thinking of really concentrating on my photography more and perhaps do some photobooks down the road — more for the memoraries and legacy than money.  Karen does post pictures of her quilts on her blog.

While the number of people who visit my blog is small compared to some, I do have some regular visitors, and some regular commenters. Responding to comments is something that I don’t do as well as I should — and I will work on that! —, so periodically, if I get behind on comment response, I will recognize those who have been nice enough to comment when they visit my blog.

Since we left for our September trip, I received comments from:

{ 7 comments }

Blogging Milestone

July 5, 2009

3127025114 a9917f3415 o

Comments were received from:

Image is from the What the Hay Gallery. What the
Hay is a central Montana hay art contest stretching over 21 miles in Judith Basin County. It features around 50 or more creative hay bale sculptures in fields between the towns of Hobson and Windham.  What the Hay information.
Haw Creek Galleries

|…………………………………………………

I’ve managed to do a post a day for a month now, despite losing power for over a day in the middle of June. I plan to continue for the foreseeable future.

While I don’t plan to do it every month, for this first month’s completion I’ve included links to all of the posts and listed all of those I received comments from up to the  point of publishing this post.  Thanks, everyone!

The person who made the most comments is Melanie with 15.  Melanie is our daughter and has her own blog, From Scratch.

Again, this effort of trying to post every day is to make this a habit, something that I do without procrastinating.  After all, I like blogging, so why not?

Posts:

July:

June:

day 31

{ 13 comments }

What does the number at the bottom of the post mean and how do you “star” a message in gmail automatically?

June 8, 2009

Vintage Light at Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park.

Vintage Light at Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park.

In the comments for my last blog post, Dot and Urban Panther each asked a question.

Dot asked, “What do the numbers mean at the end of your posts?”

The numbers at the end of my posts signify the number of consecutive days that I’ve published a post on this blog.  I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it — just wanted to see how long I could/would do it.  So now, I’ll just go ahead and add the word “day” in front of the number.

Urban Panther asked, “You can automatically star emails in gmail? How do you do that?

  • In gmail, select “settings” at the top of the page.
  • Then select “filter.”
  • At the bottom, select “create new filter.”
  • Enter whatever information that you want to filter on, then select “Next Step.”
  • In this step, you are provided with all of the actions that you can apply to a message.  I “star it” and apply a label, “comments to respond to.”

And there you have it  — without a comment reply to do it.  ;)

Day 4

{ 3 comments }

Mea culpa on replies to blog comments

June 7, 2009

olbrich botanical gardens walk

I’m terrible at replying to blog comments.

It’s not that I don’t intend to do it, because I really do.  I think replying to blog comments is  important unless the number of comments is significant.

I’m just not very good add it.  It’s something I need to work on.

I even have filters set up on my gmail account so that emails notifying me of comments are “starred” — and, for me, “routine” email deletions are only of those that are unstarred.

So now I have a bunch of starred email going back to sometime in May reminding me that there are all of those comments that I need to reply to.

I’m going to do it.

I really am.

But first, I want to just say thanks to those people who have taken the time to read my posts and make comments — and I’m going to list all of those from blog posts that I have not replied to.

The first starred email for an unanswered comment is Virginia!. While I replied to most of the comments, one from Friar snuck in on  May 21st. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn’t post a reply and then I realized that my “window” of 14 days for comments had expired. (I’ve removed the automatic closure of comments for now.)  Others who commented were Vered, Michelle Gartner, Debo Hobo, Leslie, and teeni.

The next post with unanswered comments was totally unanswered.  It is Those Vultures on the Potomac and received comments from Dot, Betsy, Vered, XUP, Jean Browman, rose, teeni, and LisaNewton

For Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho …, again …, maybe …, probably, I receive 9 comments, from Betsy, Dot, Vered, Patricia (2 comments), rummuser, Debo Hobo, Michelle Gartner,and  Jean Browman.

Vered, rummuser, and  Debo Hobo commented on my Wednesday Weigh-In update for May 27.

THAT isn’t news! garnered 7 comments from Bob (no URL), Patricia, Davina, rummuser, Dot, Debo Hobo, and Natural.

That brings me up to after the beginning of the month.

So now I’ve done a little penance:  I’ve given a little link love, I responded to all of the comments mentioned here, and I’ve written a fairly long post for today.

Now, I just need to reply to the rest of the comments that are outstanding and keep at it — unless, by some magic, a post goes viral and I’m overwhelmed by comments…, or I start getting dozens of comments for each and every post…, but that ain’t gonna happen.

3

{ 8 comments }

On Climate – a new blog

February 20, 2009

http://flickr.com/photos/angela7/2126628834/

I’ve been looking at a LOT of material related to climate change.

I’ve learned enough about it that I’m NOT going to simply accept what is being put out by the media and by government.

However, in going down this path I didn’t want to hijack Exit78 and make it into a niche blog on climate change, so I created still another blog.

It’s called On Climate and it’s an Exit78 spin off. I’ll be posting on things that I’ve learned, views that I’ve developed, material that I’ve discovered, and climate related news.  I’ll also be posting links to videos, news, and other climate related pages.

While I may on occasion still mention things related to climate here, it’ll be an exception rather than the rule.

For those that might want to visit On Climate, I’ve added a link.  Right now it’s on the top menu bar, though it may move to another location.

If I get any comments there, I expect that they’ll be a lot more focused and, there may be some who flat out disagree with what I’m posting.  I’ll have to publish a comment policy, of course, and it will probably be very similar to the one that I have here.

On another note, I plan to get back to posting more photos here in the near future.

{ 8 comments }

Overly successful transition to new location

February 11, 2009

Hotel Petit Jean, Petit Jean State Park

Hotel Petit Jean,
Petit Jean State Park

see my Petit Jean page and gallery

I had intended to continue posting from the old location of Exit 78 until the end of February so that those who are subscribed to the feed would all be able to transition to the new location — if they wanted .

To make sure that all links pointed to the new location,  I used a WordPress plug-in to redirect visitors to the right place.

Unfortunately, it works a little too well.  Apparently, I logged out of the WordPress dashboard at the old location and, when I try to log in, it tries redirecting me to the twilight zone to log in, which, of course, doesn’t work.

So, now I can’t post anything to the old location. :(

This is not a problem that I’m going to try to fix.  I was not going to be doing anything more with the old posts as all the ones that I was keeping have been transferred to the new location, along with all of the pictures, comments and links.  I guess if some folks missed my earlier announcements, they won’t know to subscribe to the new, not that I have that many people subscribed at this point anyhow.

{ 3 comments }