The Living Age, December 11, 1897; The Living Age Company, Boston

by Charles M. Skinner

Skinner published collections of myths, legends and folklore found inside the United States and across the world. – Wikipedia

People who go through the Yellowstone country nowaday know little of what that trip meant before the time of the railroad. Four of us made the journey: the Parson, Old Silurian, the Unsalted, and the Tramp; in other words, a city clergyman, a professor of geology, a young collegian, and myself. There was but an apology for a road, and we had to get down and pull logs out of the way to get through. At one point we had no road but a river-bed, and followed it through a cañon. At night we camped wherever there was tent room, and the frost nipped our toes through our blankets. “Toot,” our factotum, and “Al,” his brother, keeper, also, of the Coyote saloon in Bozeman, were famous hunters, fishermen, and cooks, steady drivers, astonishing drinkers, and they liked to use bad language and relate unseemly narratives in order to see the clergyman and the professor wince. They claimed to have committed many sins, but they never worried over them. It was different with a “rustler” we met out there.

Continued at Haw Creek Destinations.

Photo: The Natural Bridge, Yellowstone National Park – by F. Jay Haynes

Scribner’s Monthly – An Illustrated Magazine for the People; December 1871; Scribner & Co.; New York

 THE second expedition to the Yellowstone recently returned from that region with stories even more marvelous than those brought by the Langford party of 1870. It has been said, in the West, that every man who goes up there loses his reputation for veracity. But we suppose the most incredulous will be compelled to ….

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The rest of this short article can be found on the new site I’ve been working on using the new Thesis 2.0 blogging and CMS framework.

I’m still tweaking and figuring it out.  There is still a long ways to go before I can start incorporating it on the other sites.

The new site – actually a sub-site of Haw Creek – probably won’t have a blog associated with it, even though I’m using “blogging” software to build it.  Instead, it will have static pages with information about places we like. 

I intentionally went without the “traditional” header that goes across the top off so many pages and blogs.  Instead, I want each page’s headline – its topic – to be at the top…, for now.

Instead of the header, I created a new little logo that I put at the top on the left.  I actually used PowerPoint to make the graphic and then saved it as a image file.

I can see where I could use a variation of this logo for the other Haw Creek pages, too. 

I’m actually building the site’s “skin” – it’s look and feel.  I began this one with everything totally blank and with absolutely no formatting what-so-ever.  The neat thing about the new Thesis 2.0 is that I was able to do it without writing any HTML or CSS – and that I was able to get to this point without tweaking someone else’s theme.

Don’t get me wrong.  This wasn’t as easy as I would have liked it to be.  I spent a lot of time trying to make the columns work right and, then, after I had them working for over two days, I changed something and they were all messed up again.  Fortunately, I’m past that point for this particular project – or, at least, I should be.

Now, it’s beddy-bye time as I have to get up early for work.

I’m going to take a break from regular posting here for a while.

I’m not going to quit blogging.  I enjoy it too much.

In fact, my hiatus from blogging is related to blogging, especially blog design.

Almost 3 years ago, I started using the Thesis blog “theme,”  by DIY Themes, which is now in use for all of our active blogs.  I have been very pleased with what I’ve been able to do with it, yet have been looking forward to the much anticipated release of Thesis 2.0.

Thesis 2.0 was released almost 6 weeks ago – and I’ve been hugely disappointed for much of the time since then.

It is totally different from earlier releases and I was initially able to do almost nothing with it – and supporting documentation on how to work with it was totally nonexistent.

After a couple of days of trying to figure something out by myself or via the Thesis support forum, I finally gave up almost totally, except for checking the forum occasionally to see if there was anything new.

Needless to say, I was pretty frustrated.

A few days ago I started looking at it again.  There are now several unofficial Thesis 2.0 resources and I’ve learned a lot viewing and studying a couple of them.  In fact, I learned enough to start building a new blog template – almost from scratch!

It’s not much right now – just the blog header and a sample navigation menu – but it’s a start to learning how to use something that may be a real “game-changer” in blog design.

I can now see that Thesis 2.0 is a blog design framework that opens up blog – and web page – design to new possibilities.  However, users have to know more about how web pages work to use it.  They don’t have to write the actual HTML or CSS, but they need to understand the structure of both to a degree.

And rather than try to keep posting material on a semi-regular basis, I’m taking some time to learn how to use and apply Thesis 2.o.

I’ll still be posting, but, for the immediate future, it will not be 3 or 4 times a week.

I’m not going away, just doing some self-study learning.

This grainy photography from the early 20th century provides an interesting look at a market in a Jewish community in New York. The image below shows the same street about 110 years later. (Time Shutter)

I think the term, “New Jewish Market,” was probably relative at the time.  It was likely new as compared to other markets of the time.

Copyright 1900 by Detroit Photographic Co.

Library of Congress image.

Manitou Springs, Colorado, September 10, 2011.                              Random travel images 027.

Creator: Abdullah frères

One albumen print, circa 1860-1870, of a seated Turkish woman, by Abdullah Bros. of Istanbul.

Vichen, Hovsep and Kevork Abdullah were a family of Ottoman Armenian photographers, known by their French name Abdullah frères, who operated a studio in Istanbul from 1858 to 1900. In 1863 they became official royal photographers to the Ottoman Sultan.

Smithsonian Institution image.

(Faces out of time 17)

Random travel images 026.                 Canton Lake, Oklahoma, September 5, 2011

Two Japanese women, full-length studio portrait with backdrop, facing slightly right, standing with large parasol and holding hands.

Photographer probably Baron Raimund von Stillfried.

Illus. in: Views & costumes of Japan by Stillfried & Andersen. Yokohama : Stillfried & Andersen, [ca. 1877, p. 4]

Library of Congress image.

(Faces out of time 16)

Random travel images 025.            Colorado, September 10, 2011