I think this picture turned out pretty nice. It’s of a spring that feeds a fish pond at Eagle Point Park. You can see the sky reflecting off the surface of the water.

Lots of people go to this park. Here’s a link to the Pbase photo gallery of my day trip:

Eagle Point Park, Dubuque, Iowa

The park was designed and built in the early 1900’s by a man named Oliver Shiras. In 1912 streetcar service was added, with a track, turn-around, and waiting station. In 1920 a bathing beach was constructed. That was closed soon afterwards, however… when the lock & dam went in. In the 1930s it was again renovated, and in 1950 the riverwalk was added. The riverwalk has turned out to be the most popular feature in the park. Now there’s also several pavillions, horse-shoe pits, a wading pool for the kids, and lots of playground equipment. I can see why it’s such a popular park now, as it has always been in the past.

Today reminded me of when the kids were younger, and we’d go out to beaches and parks and other places, bring a lunch, and my camera. Or breakfast if we got out early enough. :???: Families with their kids; celebration parties in the pavillions; couples walking along the river walk; two young men sitting at the far end of the park talking and watching the boats go by. Things smell different though, and the sounds aren’t the same. Where it used to be the aroma of teriyaki on a hibachi and slight salty-seaweed in the air, today it was hot dogs and hamburgers on the Weber kettle. It still smelled good! And instead of waves and beach volleyball, I heard tugboat horns calling and answering each other, and the constant hum of locusts. It’s weird how things can be so different, but for me, both so comforting.

I walked from one end of the park to the other, all along the riverfront sidewalk. :mrgreen: I ventured a bit off the paved path, and even climbed around the rocks of the fish pond. Then I went back to my van, collected my lunch cooler, and sat at a picnic table under the trees and ate. Looking out over the river, listening to kids play, locusts buzz, birds sing, people laughing… I really need to get out more often. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon!

But now it’s time to get back to reality, because I have a pile of clothes that need ironing for the upcoming work week. Bleah!

Posted: August 7th, 2005 under Photographs, News.
Comments: none

I finally got my own pictures to show up on the “relaxation_3column” theme. :cool: I also added a flash “badge” for my flickr.com account to the sidebar, where I’ve uploaded the photo in this post, and some more of my best shots. It’s pretty cool. Maybe I’ll save it for just my best pictures, and post entire galleries on pbase. Actually, I have not added the flickr badge to all the themes yet. I’ll work on that some more tomorrow. For now, you can see the badge in the “blix” theme, and most of the top half of the list of themes.

Going to the store to get some chicken… buh bye

Posted: August 6th, 2005 under Photographs, News.
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I put a

“contact me” email form

plugin in the blog the other day. It’s a sub-page of my “about me” page. The pages links don’t show up on all the themes, so maybe that’s what I’ll figure out this weekend: how to get the pages links on all the themes. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I can also add the “contact me” form to any post I create, just by clicking on the ‘contact form’ button. It’s pretty cool. :cool:

Tonight I put in a

gallery

plugin. It’s ok, I’m mildly impressed. It doesn’t work with all the themes though, because it puts the sidebar on one side or the other, not whatever the default location per theme is. I can set the photo gallery to be left or right sidebar, but not “default.” dangit. So some themes it looks great, others, bleah. :roll: Maybe in time I”ll find a better one. We’ll see. For now, though, it’s listed in the links in the sidebar, and has a few pictures in it. I’ll probably use it for posting individual pics or a few like the Maxwell Street Days photos, but I’ll continue to use Pbase for big galleries. Lazy-gallery is slow to build the thumbnails, etc. But it is sorta cool, too.

I’m babysitting Heather’s birds while they go on vacation. They’re heading down to West Virginia, I do believe. I should ask for a copy of their driving route. She’s spending the nite here tonight, so I’ll have to try to remember to ask.

Moi moi time. (sleepytime!)

Posted: August 2nd, 2005 under Photographs, Other Stuff, News.
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