The Lonesome Road

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Rain on fern, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

The weather has been really confused over the last few days. It’s been running the gamut of temperature and atmospheric conditions.

A couple of days back it was snowy then turned warm. It was beautiful yesterday with clear skies and temperatures in the range of 15 celcius. Today has brough dreary grey skies and rain.

In front of my window, there is this shrub that seems to possess fern like leaves. When I stepped out to see how heavily the rain was falling, I noticed the water droplets on the leaves.

So out came the camera and photos were duly taken. Not too many cos the wind speed was high and I didn’t want water entering the camera.

The photo above is from the top of the shrub.

And a final photo…

Until next time - raindrops keep falling on my head!

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Stages of Bloom, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

I finally finished unpacking stuff in my room and decided to take a break. So I took my camera and went outside to take a few snaps.

These blooms are part of a shrub that grows next to my house. The reason I like this photo is the fact that you can see the flowers in (almost) all stages of blooming.

Also uploaded are a few more snaps of the flowers.

Continuing with my penchant for taking photos of light sources, I present this new one -

I took this one while playing with the manual focus/macro setting on the camera

Click on the link to my photopage if you like what you see

Until next time - may the flowers bloom!

The last few days showed us what we can expect from an american spring. Warm weather, clear skies, and just a hint of the receeding winter in the air.

After 4 months of cold winds, snow and low temperatures, this came (literally) as a breath of fresh air.

The last few days also seemed to bear out the theory that spring was finally here. And I was happy, blithe, joyful…. well you get it.

No more.

Last night showed ominous warnings that things were not as they seemed. There was a chill in the air reminiscent of February and the sky was clouded over. This morning showed us the result of those warning.

I stepped out of the house and was greeted by a barrage of tiny ice particles which somehow found their way between my neck and the jacket and managed to soak me (well, my neck anyway).

By the time I reached college, the ice crystals had given way to a heavy snowfall - beautiful to watch from the bus. Not that much fun when you have to walk through it to reach your building.

So here I sit on my chair, wondering if those days of spring will ever come back - and if I can get back home without being soaked again.

Until next time - don’t trust the weather!

Update at 4 PM Eastern Time:

I wish I had a photo of the weather this morning. Right now it is warm(ish), with clear blue skies with a few fluffy clouds floating around. It almost seems impossible that I went through hell this morning to get to college.

The only thing that makes me believe I am sane is the wind. It’s still cold and manages to steal all the warmth that the sun tries bravely to provide.

Until next time - Never, ever trust the weather!

Regular readers of my post will know that I was having trouble with my Flickr badge and Google video. You can read about all my wild and wacky adventures here.

Now, the thing that irked me the most was the fact that I could see the Flickr badge on other sites and all the people who came to my site could see my badge as well. That got me thinking that the problem may not be Flash related after all. It takes a really wierd set of circumstances to make a software fail only for me on my site.

I wish I could claim that I figured out this solution, but I must confess it was an accident. While I was on my page, I looked up my page source - and this is what I saw (I’ve removed the on the tags as well) :

!-- Kerio Popup Killer - script has been inserted by KPF --

script type="text/javascript"

Would have included the script - but a) too long b) too much side scrolling  

/script

!-- Kerio Popup Killer - end of the script inserted by KPF --

script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.blogger.com/js/cookies.common.js"
/script head

Kerio is the firewall that I use. Really like it as it has a good learning system (pop-ups) that ask whether programs can connect to the net. It has inbuilt HIPS and NIPS systems as well. The best part is that it even brings up a pop up windows to grant pemission when an application launches another. I heard that it’s free for non-commercial use - but when I go to the site, it seems to be $14.95. So, for now, a trial version will do.

Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. So, when I saw this script, the tubelight in my brain turned on. The problem was not Flash - but the firewall! So, this was the original setting:

And this is what I used to see on the page :

And this was what Google video used to display.

So, I sat about and played with the settings. Soon enough, I found that the advertisement blocking and script blocking (which I normally handle via Firefox extensions) made no difference to the badge.

Turn off web filtering - and presto! Flickr is back in all it’s glory as can be seen here :

Also, it turns out that Google video is back as well. Yippee!

So, the moral of the story is - keep looking for solutions, and you may just stumble on them

Until next time - know thy firewall!

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(Blue) Eye Spy, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Hi!

Back after a bit of a break. Shifting houses and not having a net connection at home does tend to disrupt the normal, smooth (?) flow of posts that flow from my keyboard.

But enough about this.

It looks like winter is finally giving up it’s hold upon the land. About time too. Of course, most people I meet tell me that this winter was mild. But that is small consolation for someone who considered 17 degrees celcius as winter.

So, the weather has been great over the last few days. Was great when we moved - so that went off without a hitch. Here’s a small fact that most people who have moved will know.

The amount of stuff you have will exceed the number of containers you can put that stuff in.

It’s simple. We are collectors - every one of us. The amount of stuff/junk that we collect in a few months is staggering. Try moving - it will give an accurate estimate of the amount of stuff you will not need .

Anyway, we are all shifted in and with the weather being nice, I went out to take a few photos.

So, I present to you, the first few flowers of spring. Rest assured I will take more - but these are the symbolic first flowers that (to me) herald the coming of spring.

People who read the previous post will know that I have trouble with flash - and flickr uses flash. Thus I have not been able to organize my photoset. You can see the entire collection (with the new photos in front) here.

Until next time - may there be a spring in your step!