Site Updates

New features or changes on Michael’s Piece of the Web

03
Dec
2007

Peddlers Village Christmas Festival

Peddler's VillageYou’ve seen my photos from Peddler’s Village taken during the summer. (If not, view them here.)  Their annual Christmas Festival was this past weekend, so Kelly and I went back to see what it’s like in winter. It’s a whole different experience. The sub-freezing temperature was made bearable by marshmallow roasting over an open fire, hot cider cooked over a fire, carolers and even a little parade to welcome Santa Claus. Add thousands of Christmas lights and you have a great start to the Christmas season!

Click here to view my pictures from the festival.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
24
Nov
2007

Now with tagging goodness

In version 2.3 WordPress addedtagging to their blogging software. I finally have updated my custom template to support this new feature. So now you can search my blog by tag. I’ve been slowly going back through old posts and tagging them. You can see the tag clod right there oever on the left side of this page. 🙂

Posted by Michael in Site Updates, Technology
12
Nov
2007

Covered bridges are so cool

Bogert's BridgeAfter many planned but postponed trips to Lehigh County, PA to go on a self-guided tour of the area’s covered bridges I finally made it there a few weeks ago. I tried to time it so the leaves would be changing but excessive heat this year didn’t do much to help that.

However, it was a really relaxing day and the photos came out great. I thnk I’m now going to start planning to go see more of the many covered bridges throughout Pennsylvania.

The photos came out great! Check them out now!

Posted by Michael in Interesting Links, Photography, Site Updates
12
Nov
2007

A fall day on the AC boardwalk

DunesMost people might think the summer is the best time to go down the shore. I much prefer to go in the fall or winter. The crowds are smaller; the weather is so much nicer and much less smog. I just added some photos from Atlantic City that turned out great because it was such a clear day.Check them out right here.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
12
Nov
2007

Big Photo Update

Pumpkin and MumI just added a bunch of new photos to the photos sectoin of the site. The first group is from July and is just a few snaps of flowers in the yard and a baby bunny rabbit in the yard.

The next contains photos from a Camden County Board of Freeholders meeting during which the man who saved my father’s life when he was choking at a diner was honored for his heroism. View those here.

Another small new album contains a few photos of a squirrel that I thought came out kind of nice. I’ll fill you in on the other bigger additions in separate posts. In the mean time check out all of my photos.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
10
Oct
2007

100,000 Spammers

My little website reached another milestone today. I received my one-hundred thousandth piece of comment spam.

Spam is a problem on the Internet. I’ll give you a minute while you recover from that shocking revelation. If you think spam in your inbox is annoying, you should try dealing with comment spam on a blog. I get thousands of them per day. It is debilitating because you can’t possibly find any real message in the pile of crap. Thanks to Akismet spam filtering software, it’s more of an amusement than an annoyance.

What I wonder is why they bother. This blog isn’t exactly the most popular on the web and no comments get posted without moderation. So of the 100,256 comments that have been caught so far, ZERO have been seen by any human being. Oh well, if it gives them something to do instead of e-mailing me viagra ads and bank scams, then maybe it’s a good thing.

And in case you’re wondering, 44 more pieces of spam were caught in the time it took me to write this. 🙂

Posted by Michael in Randomness, Site Updates, Technology
18
Sep
2007

Batsto Photos

Batsto Grist MillIf you’ve never heard of Batsto, it’s an historic village in New Jersey. It’s an old 18th/19th century bog iron and glass industrial center. I’ve been there many times through the years and took some photos on a recent trip.

Check them out here.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
17
Sep
2007

Lots of Fluffy photos

FluffyI’ve updated the album featuring our cat Fluffy. It includes photos from his entire life including photos that were taken before digital cameras were around. We lost him recently and I figured this was a fitting tribute to his memory.

View them here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
27
Aug
2007

and then there were 6

Just when I thought the Gatti family tree was up to date Debbie’s branch of the tree has sprouted yet another new leaf. OK, maybe I’m taking the tree metaphor a bit far! Please welcome Micah John Bowling to the family. He was born August 24th to Wendy and Michael Bowling.For those keeping score, that makes 6 members of Generation H of the Gatti tree, all of whom are grandchildren of Debbie and great-grandchildren of Sonny and Dot.

Posted by Michael in Genealogy, Site Updates