AN OPEN LETTER TO GOOGLE in Regards to Blogger, Picasa, BlogThis! and localhost.

Dear Google Tech Support Professional:

When I try to post an image to Blogger from Picasa using BlogThis! it says the photo is a 'localhost' image and doesn't show on the page.

I have searched the newsgroups for a solution to this issue...

I have deleted and reinstalled PicasaI have deleted every cookie, temporary Internet file, I cleaned my apartment, I mowed the lawn.

I have signed out of everything. Google, Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, Blogger, Yahoo, Verizon. I cancelled all my credit cards and got new numbers. I legally changed my name. I closed my bank accounts after withdrawing all my cash. then I signed all back in and changed everything back. After rebooting, mind you. Nothing.

I did not change my graphics card, any power cables, ISP, USB ports, external hard drives or the station on the radio on my desk.

Please, in the name of all that is Holy, I BEG of you, find it in your heart NOT to suggest I do any of these things again. If you have taken the time to read this letter, you must have a soul. I will make donations to a charity of your choice. I will name children after you.

ANYTHING!!!

But please please please tell me how to fix this without yanking my chain. If it is broken forever and a discontinued service that Google has changed it's mind about providing but just doesn't feel like making it public, let me know.

I won't tell anyone. I swear.

It'll be just you and me.

We'll know.

No one else.

Desperately,

jkirlin, your lowly and humble photographic servant.

Update: Oooo..there was a solution.

KIRLIN

Submitted to Photosharks: Mother

How Margot Got Her Warts On

The people I work with tend to fall into 2 categories: Those who tolerate me and those who REALLY wish I could find some way to make a living taking photos (or anything else).

And then there's Margot the Kindergarten Teacher. Margot would sooner strike me down than have me get a photo of her but practically begs for photos of...well...the more 'interesting' artwork of her students.

Her class found this little frog (TOOOOOAAAAAD!) and she agreed to let me take a photo of it before she returned it to it's natural environment (i.e. flattened in the road)

Well, your lowly and humble photographic servant is a lot of things but a toad toucher I ain't. (No offense Toady Joe)

Margot kept screaming 'YOU ARE ONLY GETTING PICTURES OF HIS BAAAACK!' So I suggested if she had a better way than sticking a lens down inside his little plastic jug, then BE MY GUEST.
With the grace of a toad lovin' game show hostess, she reaches in and grabs the presumably now flattened toad giving us the only decent image I have of said toad and said Margot.

"You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system!" - Grand Moff Tarkin

You post your obligatory dandelion puffball shots how YOU want, and I'll post mine how *I* want.

Going

Going...

Going...

Gone...
Damned Chain Link Fence.

3 bstout

Moon Trail II

Submitted to Shutterday: Moon

Robin Eggs

Not just for breakfast anymore.

What Makes kkirlin Blogworthy Most?

A) A powerful offense?

B) a lightning quick defense?

C) Rousing team spirit?

D) Mugging for the camera from shortstop.

As always, eyes on your own paper.

Go Cubs

An early favorite that everybody who sees it is COMPLETELY ambivalent about but I love it like a mother loves her slow child.

Posted with great pride and affection to Macroday: Red.

Talk

My friend Paul, making his The Thing of the Moment debut talking to...ummm...just talking.

Which reminds, me. I need to call him.

Posted for SeeItSunday: Talk

CSI: The Woods

The horror, the horror.

Oh, You Europeans Have It So Good

What with your free health care, US saving you from one World War after another, and your Government subsidized youth hockey programs.

Thaaaat's right. That's what I said.

Here is the US, you can't get in or out of a WalMart without some youth shaking a coffee can in your face and begging you to help support ________ youth hockey. There are over 17,500 youth hockey teams in Maine alone. All of them bearing coffee cans.

This is where you Euros come in.

No one wants your money even though 1 Euro is now worth about 37 US Dollar thanks to George W Bush. So I had my European friends send me some throw away money which I carry in my LEFT pocket and when the coffee cans come running, I sadly reach in and explain how I'd love to give if only I had more than a few Euros, a kopek, and a handful of Ukrainian subway tokens.

I can barely keep from breaking into song and dance as I make my way back to my car with my $1.37 in change safely stashed in my RIGHT pocket.

Thank you, Europe.

love,

jkirlin, American cheapskate.

The Captain Henry Lee/Swan's Island Ferry - Frenchboro Run.

See? I paid for my ticket. No graft here, Gentle Viewers. The Thing of the Moment - Certified 100% Graft Free. You can count on it. Until the first bit of graft is offered anyway. (Well bitten thumbnail strategically hidden by request)

300 years ago the islands were settled by people who did not check with the agent on the advisability of taking their cars over on a 'day' trip. The cars have long rusted away but their names live on in the island cemetaries and in the families still living there.

A fellow ferry and Canon Powershot S2 enthusiast. (Ok, she was sort of ambivalent about both)

The Lido Deck.

Attention Gentle Viewers Tom W and SPK: If you haven't done this, and like anything else cool in Maine you probably have, but it's ONLY 8 BUCKS!! The same sort of trip would cost you 50 out of Bar Harbor. AND I AM TALKING DEER ON THE FREAKING BEACH, BROS! You won't see deer on those stupid Porcupine Islands.

Far more photos than you could ever want of the Captain Henry Lee/Swan's Island Ferry Frenchboro run can be seen here.

jkirlin, blind photographer

On my recent outing to Frenchboro on the Swan's Island Ferry, I THOUGHT I was subject of a little game crewmembers play on unsuspecting photographers wherein one crew member casually says something like: "Look, there are 2 deer on the beach, get a picture!" then I looked out and try to see the island they are referring to let alone the beach and let alone anything on it.

Then a second crewmember casually came out and added, "and there's a bald eagle sitting on a rock, get a picture of THAT." So I looked to see where their faces were pointing, stuck my camera over there and snapped away. I ccouldn't see anything. These shots are taken with a 35mm equivelent of 432mm lens.

I THINK the rest of the conversation behind me went something like this: "And there's a fly on the deer's ear", "And the fly's got mites." So I just I pretended that I actually SAW what they were talking about and decided to let them get one over on the photographer...

Deer centered, eagle in lower right,

Eagle centered, deer in upper right.

I'll be damned, they were right.

People at Work®: The Crew of the Captain Henry Lee, The Swans Island Ferry

The Captain Henry Lee

The Captain. No, not THAT one. Captain Al Dinsmore. My 'In'.

Lee. No, not THAT one. AB Lee Dennett

AB Aaron Sheridon

Engineer Joe Rodrigue (Who claims he wasn't hiding from me.)

These photos represent the next installment of The Thing of the Moment's People at Work Series. The Captain Henry Lee runs between Mount Desert Island and Swans Island and Frenchboro.

The rest of the images (and more than you could possibly want) can be seen here.

The entire People at Work series is here.

Happy Mother's Day

Kids. What can ya do?
Submitted by guest photographer: tmt.

The Stereolithographic Rook

Stereolithography is the making of a 3D model using lasers and....ummmm.... why am I explaining this? Am I Wikipedia? No. But Wikipedia is. You can read about it here. This rook was made using that process. Please note the very cool interior spiral staircase which comes out though an opening in the top of the rook. If your rook is solid, I pwn you. (And I just learned what pwn means)

All of this gleefully submitted to Macroday: Game

I Make It.

Found doodled onto a postcard. The rest of the post card witheld as it contains a DEAD ON charicature of your lowly and humble photographic servant. It looks more like me than my own driver's license.

Shutterday: Strangers

Confessions of a Jealous, Anal Retentive, Arachnophobe

My dear close personal friend SPK shamed me recently by taking macro shots of a spider that not only COULD I not take, I wouldn't WANT to. You can see the horrible bastards here. They are ghastly and I'm terribly proud of him. Being one to recognize when a gauntlet has been thrown down, however I decided to face my fears and take my OWN spider shots to jealously compete with him. He wins. But now that we have the jealous and aracnophobic parts detailed. Wherein lies the anal retentiveness?

Just look at that chromatic aberration on the spider's left foreleg in the second shot. I hang my head in shame.

(Update: You know, now that I look at his spider again and notice that MINE is on a WEB and EATING what was possibly once a PERSON and his appears to be in a relatively sterile environment like his KITCHEN COUNTER (Ok, not so sterile of en environment at MY house, but still) I can't help but notice on HIS a TAG that reads "Four Foot Spider Model - Made in China") J'accuse!