Tag Archives: technology

Site Improvement

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[a young computer genius.]

HI HI HI. Like my new header? I’m super into it. I’m super excited about it. I made it. I drew/painted each graphic separately by hand and then I uploaded them all on Pixlr and then I made a collage. It took awhile. My header before was also handrawn, but the graphic was so small that it looked super pixelated and poor quality. I’m so proud of this header, and I hope it is here to stay!

One of the reasons I didn’t post this last week was my frustration with customizing my blog. I had little motivation to post in an outlet I wasn’t excited about. I just wasn’t into my blog layout, header, design, font, etc. Everything about it seemed wrong, and I don’t know enough about web development (html and css) to change that.

So I spent the last week educating myself. I’m still pretty much a nube, but at least I know how to make a webpage that says. “Hi World, This is Louisa.” No but actually, that’s the only thing the webpage says. In Times New Roman.

 

In an effort to alleviate the boredom that has set in during this last week of summer vacation (I’ll curse myself for saying that come November), I even bought an “HTML for Dummies” book.

But as we all know, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor was my future superblog. Because that’s what it’s going to be, once I better understand markup and stylesheets and do more with my life than sit at home watching reruns of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Bruuuuuuuuce.

There’s also a ton of organization that goes into blogging. Who knew. But all the really intense bloggers out there, so I’ve read, are all incredibly organized with their themes and posts and material and designs and general lives. I’m not saying I’m a disorganized person, but I write very little down. I archive very little. I hate saving old papers and I hate checking things over. I’m realizing there is still so much I need to develop, like my blog purpose, my intended audience, my site design, and my material. I need to get on this, the quality of my blog is at stake!

I have no doubt we’ll all see some upcoming changes. And upcoming updates. I go back to school next Monday, and all that’s left between now and Clinton, New York is a few appointments, 7 hours left of summer employment, a computer software upgrade, and a special appointment on Sunday. On Monday morning, I’m outta here.

Eat yo’ veggies!

Slackin’.

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Really, I don’t think you could call it anything else. I mean, having written only 2 posts in–call it what it is– a month. Shameful! I do partly attribute my absence from the blogosphere to the death of my camera (not to mention the equivalent of 30 pages of written work due in three consecutive weeks), but I think the lack of photos will test my blogging skills now more than ever.

I was thinking, today, about taking a break from the blogging world. Not because I didn’t have anything to post, to wrote about, or to say (but really, aren’t these all synonyms?), but because I didn’t have any way of posting images. And don’t even tell me to ask my friends to take pictures, they’ve all been there and done that (Gordon). And because of this inability to portray what I wanted to say, as well as just writing it, I thought I no longer had any reason to have a blog. How could I showcase restaurants if I couldn’t take pictures of them?

And that’s when I started reflecting on what got me interested in food in the first place: restaurant reviews, specifically in the form of Ruth Reichl’s books. When you read a restaurant review in the newspaper, there aren’t often pictures. Ok, to be fair, the NYT probably (/does) have pictures, but that’s not what people are interested in (only me, since I’m a sucker for good restaurant décor). So what’s to stop me from writing posts, sans photos? Nothing. Well, me. But there’s no reason I should feel bad about that.

I started this blog with a very different idea in mind (here she goes again with these deep heart-to-heart chats), and due to various external factors (like, oh I don’t know, living in Paris without use of a kitchen), the blog has morphed into something totally different. Think, food blog to travel blog. And that’s life. That’s what happens. But I see no reason to fight the inevitable: wordy, wordy posts. I’ll have the same perspective when it comes to all this cheese and bread I’ve been eating– it’s inevitable, and it’s only temporary. So why not enjoy it why it lasts?

As of next Tuesday, I’ll have 6 more weeks in Paris. Can you believe it? Talk about having a mental freak-out about how fast time goes. I’ve already started freaking out about my 40th birthday. If 9 months goes by this fast? (ok, cue the pregnancy jokes.) It’s scary.

So, bear with me as I try to do my best to live life camera-less. Hopefully that will be fixed soon, if a certain mother decides to help a certain daughter out and bring one with her on a certain upcoming visit, but if not, it’s really not that long until I’ll be back in the land of rectangular-pronged power cords.

I do hope, when I get back home, to get back to the original purpose of this blog: exploring recipes and restaurants with a focus on the vegetarian and vegan– with a cup of exercise, 200 grams of French culture, and a pinch or two of the general life update.

But for now, enjoy the words. There’s gonna be a lot of ‘em.

Off for a run. Then off to do some vintage shopping, and the cherry on the cake– A PLAY WITH CATE BLANCHETT. Das’ right. I’ll post updates tomorrow. I’m still recovering from Titanic 3D last night. FILM OF A GENERATION.

Dead Camera

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There’s no clever way to say this, my camera is dead. Said death occurred after I, in a state of fatigue, forgot to properly screw on the top of my water bottle before placing it in my purse, in which my camera so innocently rested, and thus caused the drowning of my poor camera.

 

There will be a lack of picture posts for awhile, as I try to figure out how I’m going to replace this little guy. I really thought I would go the direction of a DSLR, but I’m realizing that I hardly have the funds for that kind of purchase right now. So back to point-and-shoots it is… sigh.

If any of you have recommendations for good point-and-shoots, I’d love to hear them! I currently have a Sony Cyber-shot with 12.1 megapixels. I’d love something similar or one with even a little more photographic capabilities!