lines of flight

A few photos from my recent trip to Northern California.

Not that spectacular, I know. I mainly uploaded them to play with the WordPress NextGEN photogallery plugin. I installed this plugin looking for a fast, easy way to get slideshows online, specifically for Mālamalama magazine, which is now built out in WordPress(!!).

However, I find myself really liking the gallery (thumbnail) navigation. The slideshow gives more control to the creator for things like picture order and audio–we like control at the magazine–but the gallery lets users select the pics they particularly like and breeze through the rest, or not.

The other option for this type of photo presentation would be to make a video with the still shots, but that takes a bit more labor and creates issues of how to insert the caption info. But, video can be hosted on a site like youtube, which reaches a wider audience and can be easily embedded by others.

decisions, decisions…

In Alaska I’ve met women like Sarah Palin.

Okay maybe not as high-powered, but women who shoot, who hunt, who drive four-wheelers, snowmachines (aka snowmobiles) and trucks–who drive very well, period–chop wood if they need to, grow things, raise animals and run a household. These are women you want on your side in a pinch, who hold their own among men and can look cute while they’re doing it! I like and respect these women. I know I’ll always be a helplessly liberal urbanite in comparison, but we can actually get along. Especially if there is alcohol involved. heh.

So I wasn’t mad at Sarah Palin. I don’t want her to run things, not one bit (((understatement))). But I felt like we were cool with each other somehow. That is, until she crossed the line and said this to Katie Couric:

I’m not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. No, I’ve worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture.

Hey Sarah Palin, guess what? I’ve almost always had a job, or two, or three, since I was 15 years old! We have something in common? Except my parents encourage my study abroad and I scrimp and save so I can travel more in the future. To be able to travel is a blessing, yes, but it’s also a choice almost every healthy, unincarcerated American can make.

Just like how Palin chose to spend her first semester of college at University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, supposedly cliqued up with some other girls who’d transferred with her. After their first semester, they all transferred to Hawaiʻi Pacific University in Honolulu, before she bounced to Idaho or wherever.

I dont know why she didnt like it here. Maybe she missed winter, or didnt like being a racial minority, or living in a very urban environment (or a small town local one like in Hilo). But just coming here to me showed an inquisitive, if not adventurous, streak. Again, respect. So why you gotta be so scornful, Sarah Palin!??

Amazingly she goes on to say,