Tropizm Family Website

Hey.

A quick (not really) note on why I haven’t posted anything here in over three years, and what my plans are for this site.  I will write it somewhat chronologically, as that is how my brain likes it.  And I like to keep my brain happy.  This is somewhat long, so you can just skip to the bottom if you don’t care about the details.  Or just continue on to whatever site you were looking for when you stumbled across this.

I originally took a break from writing here because I am a very private person by nature.  So writing what I am doing, or have done, was uncomfortable for me.  I also didn’t know if anyone really cared about this besides my family and close friends.  But since most of what I wrote was directed towards them, it didn’t matter much.  But even then, I was never really easy with saying “hey, look at what I’m doing”.  There is enough Internet noise out there, and I didn’t want to add to the ruckus just for the sake of it.

After a couple months of not posting anything, I felt that my next post would have to be something “big”.  I figured cool things have happened that I didn’t write about, so I wanted my next post to be awesome.  I had previously written several posts that were the “what I did on my summer vacation” consolidation stories and I was getting tired of them.  I would (and still) come up with something that I felt would be an interesting read, but I was in this mindset that it had to be “super-duper cool” to justify an actual posting.  In other words, this was a really good excuse for not posting anything.  So I used it.

After a while, it just became habit to not post here anymore.  I wrote a few things on Google+, and more things on Twitter.  The ease of posting with Twitter made me feel like the site was no longer for me.  I liked being able to just shoot off a quick comment, or post a picture with my phone.  Actually logging into a website and typing was cumbersome and not very convenient.

Next thing I knew, a year had past, then two.  It became easier for me to ignore the site and just never do anything with it.  So I made no new posts, no new updates, and no new anything.  When I saw that most of the links were broken and needed fixing, I decided to just scrap the whole site.  But I didn’t.

Fast forward to about a year ago. 

I was helping a friend of mine design and build a new site.  I didn’t do any coding, but I was helping him out with ideas, formatting, and I owned one of the first sets of eyes to see his creation.  It is www.bonsaioftheweek.com.  Check it out, he did a really good job. 

After an email discussion with another friend (well, Internet friend), I really wanted to dig back into updating my site for realzies.  His site is www.gonzoplanet.com and it is just.plain.awesome. 

What I saw these two guys do really started to get me excited.  They both used WordPress like me, but a newer version that allowed for all the cool stuff they were doing.  I really started to get that creative itch again.  I haven’t had that in a really long time.  I actually WANTED to make something again, and I liked that feeling.

I said, “Hey me, lets redo this site”.  So I started the process of updating my website. 

What has been changed so far? Well, nothing significant yet.  Life got in the way and I never started the REAL process.  I had ideas, researched newer modules and plug-ins for WordPress, and downloaded them.  What I didn’t have, was a lot of time.  So the site just sat there like an old rusty Studebaker in the north forty. 

So now what? 

Well, I still plan on updating the site.  But I have made the decision that even though I don’t like the site in its current state, I can write.  So I will write. 

What will I write about?  I don’t know.  I have several ideas.  But I have decided that writing is writing and the site is the site.  I will write when inspired, and post them accordingly.   I feel like I need to write more than work on a site, so I am not using the site as an excuse anymore.

Over the past couple of years, I wrote a few things for other sites.  I will post some of them here at some time.  Nothing major, but stuff I wrote and liked so hopefully you will too.  And why not share them with my friends and family here?  Besides, most of the stuff I wrote has never been posted, and have basically disappeared.  So if I don’t post them here they will never see the light of day.  Some of the stuff will never see the light of day anyways, because it sucked.  I plan on showing you the non-sucky stuff.  At least, I hope its non-sucky.

I will post some random items.  This is what I usually write about anyways, nothing in particular.

I have really been into video games the past few years.  Or more accurately, BACK into video games.  For the first time in many years, I have a PC that can play some of the newer games, and most of the older games that I was never able to play due to having an outdated PC.  I still have an older PC, but with some RAM and a nice video card I can finally play games I missed out on.  I also have my Xbox 360 and Wii, and thanks to Amazon sales, I purchased several games that I have missed when they were new.  So I may give my two cents on those.

Movies too, I like movies.

I am not really planning any particular overall theme.  I plan on posting game stuff, other writings, random things my brain comes up with, recipes (hey, you gotta eat), and whatever else my brain tells my fingers to type.  I probably will stay away from family stuff.  I am still a private person, and what happens in my home is none of the Internet’s business.   If family updates are your main reason for stopping by, you may be disappointed.  But who knows?  I know I don’t.

That’s about it.  I hope you enjoyed your visit.  If you hate my site, I’m glad you stopped by, and goodbye.  If you like it, thank you.  Please come again.  I hope I can keep this fun and interesting for the both of us.

Over the next couple months I will devote actual time to updating the site.  I will add a few band-aids for now, but I hope to have everything updated and looking pretty again soon. 

I did remove the broken links, so that is a start.  I take victories where I can get them, even the small ones.

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully I won’t waste too much of your time.

Tropizm

The-guy-who-will-soon-have-a-redesigned-website

So I finally figured out why I couldn’t upload new pictures.  So this morning I uploaded new pictures of Dario’s trip to AZ this summer.  There isn’t many, but a couple from each part of the trip.  A couple of Vegas, Cardinals Camp, and hanging out around the house.

Short but sweet, enjoy.

FYI, Anja’s house was in the path of Hurricane Ike.  Her and Kris are fine, but as of this writing, I don’t know the status of their home.  From all accounts, the area wasn’t hit as bad as feared, so that is a good thing.  But we pray that everything turns out fine.

Tropizm

I was bribed with new pots and pans (thanks David and Cindy) to upload new pictures of the house.  I thought I had some of the kitchen finished but I didn’t.  Faith and I took brand new pictures today, so these are the latest and greatest.

The batteries on the camera died after a few shots, so I took some with my new helicopter.  Now, I need to figure out how to get them out of there so I can post them.

Tropizm

We are only a couple weeks away from the house being finished.  I added a new picture folder called House_2 which I will add new pictures to.  I will be putting all the new stuff in there.  I posted some pictures of the kitchen cabinets which went in last week.  I also added a couple a couple shots of the granite.  It’s not installed yet, but will be by the end of today. 

Another picture gallery I added is one for pictures which won’t necessarily fit into another category, or I only have one or two pictures to put in there.  The ones I added was one from Pastor’s School in February.  It is our friends from Atlanta who have a church who help the homeless in the ghetto of Atlanta.  Check them out at www.atlantaic.organd you can see all the great things God is doing through them in Atlanta.  The other picture is of Dad and his brother and sisters from Grandma Angie’s funeral.  There is also a group picture of most everyone who was there.  The last set is of Ratatootie, Erin’s pet rat we had for a few days after Spot died.  She would carry him around in her shoe.  He was a good little guy.

That’s all for now, check back in a couple weeks and you will see pictures of the house finished.

God is good.

Tropizm

Last weekend Faith and I took some of our friends to the house and started writing scriptures all over the place.  We wanted to make sure His Word was built into the house and is the foundation of everything that goes into it.  We picked some out and our friends picked some out and at least one verse went into each room, and even the garage and storage room.

 If you would like to read them, I added an album specifically for the verses.

I also updated the latest pictures from this past weekend of the house.  Pretty much all of the framing is finished, just a few small things left.  The porch and the driveway have been fixed.  If you are unfamiliar with the issues, the concrete in the garage was wrong.  We made them not only fix the problem, but re-do the middle of the driveway to make it look right.  The porch was changed by the architect from the wood poles and beams to 12 inch stucco columns.  Kind of a noticeable change.  But we had it changed, and it set us back a couple weeks, but its all good.  If you look at the latest pictures in the House photo album you can see how it looks now.  Much gooder.

 Merry Christmas to everyone, God Bless you and your families.

Tropizm

The Yahoo photo album is officially gone.  I got an email from Yahoo stating so.  One surprise though, they transfered all of the albums and photos.  You won’t be able to view them yet, as they are set to private and I will have to set them to public.  I am not going to do this.

I selected Flickr after I was notified the Yahoo album was going away.  I did this because there were plugins I could use with wordpress (the management software I use for my site) that would make it easy for me to put pictures in posts and what not.  The plugin worked fine, and as you may have seen, I have several posts with pictures in them.  You could click a picture and it would take you to the Flickr page and blah, blah, blah.

 But the more I use Flickr, the more I don’t like it.  The Yahoo album was pretty straight forward.  You upload all of you pictures into an album.  You click on an album, and there are all of the pictures.  Click a picture and you get a big picture.  The only think I didn’t like about the Yahoo album was having to rename each picture.  But at least I could order them in such a way that you could start at the first one and scroll through them and you could get the “photo story” of whatever is going on.

With Flickr, I have several issues.  First, the “front page” shows the last few pictures I have uploaded, with the albums on the side.  I cannot change that.  After you click on an album, it is ordered by name.  I don’t like that.  There are a couple other things I don’t like about it, but mostly it is a real pain to manage.

I do like the fact that I could add comments and such, and it works well with my site.  So once again, I searched for an alternative.  The answer was a plugin that is for wordpress and doesnt use any outside albums.  Though it is limited and not nearly as powerful as Yahoo or Flickr, it is easier to use and I have control over most of it.  I could pretty much do anything I want with it if I code it in, so for now, I am leaving it as-is “right out of the box” if you will. 

As a “test” page, I uploaded the latest pictures of the progress of the house.  Click on the “Tropizm Photo Album” on the right to check em out.  At the bottom you will see the pictures I took yesterday.  I am leaving the Flickr link up, and I removed the Yahoo link all together, as it is no longer there.

Let me know what you think.  Yay, boo, or *shrug*.

 Tropizm

I have set up my Flickr account.  I uploaded some pictures of our recent trip to California, and some pictures of the property. 

  Click on Erin’s picture and you can view them all.

 There are some differences I don’t like with Flickr, but I can deal with it.  Being able to add pictures to my posts is pretty cool.  Not to mention the ghetto way of getting to the Yahoo! Album. 

I will leave the Yahoo! link up until they pull the plug on it.  Once the link is removed, then you will not be able to view them again.

Let me know what you think.  Any requests for particular pictures?

Tropizm

I have been notified by Yahoo that the Yahoo! photo album service will no longer be available.  At the end of the month the link on this site will no longer work. 

They have given me the option of several different services to host my pictures.  I have chosen one called Flickr.

I am not going to transfer any of the existing pictures from Yahoo! to Flickr.  If I was to do this it would take too much time and effort.  This means that all of the pictures on there now will not be available for viewing.  If there are any that you want to keep, download them directly from the photo album. 

This is a blessing in disguise.  One of the things I didn’t like about Yahoo! was the inability to write comments about what the picture was.  So I was forced to name the picture something absurd like “me, him, and that guy”.  But with Flickr I can write small descriptions about what the picture is.  That is the biggest reason I made Dario’s pages built into the site and the other pictures elsewhere.

The Yahoo! page will go away at the end of this month.  I have already set up my new account at Flickr, but I haven’t posted any pictures yet.  I am having issues getting the site and Flickr to play nice together.

As soon as everything is set up and working properly, I will let you know and make a new link.

Tropizm

Here is the link to more pictures of Dario playing football.  There is a great shot of him running in a touchdown (proud Daddy moment).  It’s great to see his team do good again this year.  They came in third overall.  This was also Dario’s last game as a “Flaggie”.  Now he is starting to play in the Junior Tackle Team. 

Of course, I pray him and his friends will be safe.  But at the same time, I am glad to know he enjoys the same sport I love and is continuing his career. 

Tropizm (proud Daddy of #32)

I finished updating the site with all the pages.  You may notice a few of them are missing.  I decided for the sake of simplicity to not keep them.  The old site was getting too cumbersome.  It’s now more streamlined.

 As before, you could view Dario’s pictures by clicking on the page links.  For the rest, click the Yahoo album.  I couldn’t get the link to work properly, and an automatic redirect didn’t work either.  So for now, just click the link. 

Let me know if you find any picture/video/link that doesnt work properly.  I tried to test everything, but I may have missed something.

Tropizm