Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
As I discussed in a recent post about my 2013 plans, I've started working on my waterfall site again. This was my first large-scale side project, outdating my blog by a few months and including over a hundred waterfalls and 50-odd journal entries. The website included driving directions, photos, and…
Angry no trespassing signs shouted down on me from high in the trees. They were scattered through the woods, not in a solid line, and it was confusing to know where the actual property line was. The only thing that was obvious was that the wide, easy road leading from Keystone Bay was private while…
The noon sun hung high in the sky. I looked west, along the south shore of the Keweenaw, and mentally reviewed my status. All morning had been spent walking alongside Lake Superior, starting up near Horseshoe Harbor and curving around the eastern tip. I was near Keweenaw Point now, the farthest…
Cool air issued out of the hole of the woods like the gentle yawn of a waiting giant. It was surprisingly tough to leave the open air of the shoreline, with Lake Superior's vastness sitting always to one side, and enter the closeness of the forest. I stepped away from the Keweenaw Rocket Range and…
Moonlight trickled down through bare branches and spilled out onto an overgrown track in the woods. It was a full moon that morning, or pretty close to one, and the sun had yet to rise in the eastern sky and brighten my passage. I wasn't too worried. Aside from a few deep mud puddles the road over…
Over the last month or so I've been spending a lot of time working with image manipulation. First I played with resizing with PHP GD, a basic library included in most builds. Then I jumped into the real meat, reading and overwriting the raw EXIF headers, to both clean up some pieces from GD and…
With the advent of responsive design and later discussions adaptive content has come a split in the world of content strategy. In one corner is NPR's COPE, the idea that content should be flexible and flow through many different formats with the standard web page being just one possible outlet. Over…
The trees grew thick and undergrowth tangled along my confused route. I had come a long way from Wolf Lake Road - along clear and exposed rock bluffs, several two-tracks, and through managed hardwoods - and this last stretch on the ridge was the worst so far. There was supposed to be some open views…
Stretching west from the tiny town of Diorite is a jagged line of bluffs, swamps, and sandy flatlands. The bluffs are not terribly tall, rising less than two hundred feet up above the plains below, and promise few clear south-facing outcroppings. Pines cover the sandy sections of the plains near…
Comments are an important part of a blog. Too often blogs are used as a soapbox for one person to state their ideas and opinions out into the open air of the internet without any sort of inline interaction. Comments allow an audience to give feedback, debate the points, or provide their own views…