Neddy's Palaver

This is my very first panorama photograph ever! I was not sure which size focal length to use, as my images were recorded as 5mm focal length. 5mm was not one of the choices for the Canon software, so I used the shortest available - 24mm. Then I went to Picnik and made a poster from it.

My neighbor Jeff was my inspiration. He posted one of his creations of the Lincoln Memorial at Facebook. Of course, Jeff is a professional photographer for the AP, so it was quite a photo. I hope this photograph will be inspiration for my Red Hats ladies, as I shot it from the very same hotel that they are planning on staying in next Spring when we all descend with our Red Hats on Salt Lake City to do some genealogy. :)

The image, Salt Lake City Skyline Poster, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

Vanquished, Vanished

Come, come, come …
Let us ponder the America of our memories:
We sang like the birds of the field; we sang of freedom;
When we sought opportunity, we found it awaiting us.
America was a dream, a vision of seekers;
America was a dream that lasted ten score and thirty years.
The dream that was America encountered the anarchy of liberty;
And was felled by the anarchy of immorality.
We beg forgiveness of our founders, our fathers;
We weep for the blood they shed for us.
The America that was their dream is now our master.
Freemen no longer, we are serfs to toil land that is not ours.
We live the lives of the slaves of old, lives of quiet desperation;
We beat our breasts in despair knowing we sold our posterity into bondage.
We still pray, but not to God; We still sing, but not of freedom.
We tell tales to our children and they laugh,
For, as we recollect our remembrances,
Our children hear fairy tales of long, long ago.
We talk to those who sacrificed for freedom,
And they ask: “Did we win or did we lose?
Was God with us or were we against God, in those days?
Was freedom worth the blood we spilt?
Or was freedom but a mysterious nothing,
A mere longing of our souls?”
We will soon go away too, we who have the memories.
When we are gone, will seekers ever dream that dream again?

Hope Springs Eternal

Yesterday, Captain Cliff and I put up another Bluebird house. I never stop hoping for the return of my Bluebird of Happiness.

I’ve only seen about a dozen bluebirds in my entire life. At my old house, a long time ago, I often saw a flying blue streak at the bottom of the ravine which I knew had be a bluebird as there is nothing else in nature that brilliantly blue. But, as for seeing a Bluebird up-close and personal, I think the third time I actually saw one was the very day that I moved into this house. I peered from my new kitchen window and one was sitting on the deck rail. He sat there a long time and then, away he flew, as if to signal “mission accomplished.” I never saw him again. Then about two or three years ago, about this time of year I spotted one again on the deck rail. When I looked more closely, there I discovered at least a dozen on the deck and in the trees. Yes, we were infested with Bluebirds. Then, they all flew off - never to be seen again. Almost every year since, I have put up a new Bluebird house, but they’ never come to stay.

The Smithsonian wants it, but Aretha Franklin is not keen about reliquishing her hat with the big wool bow sparkling with genuine Svarovski crystals. At latest count there are more than twenty-five Fan Groups for her hat at Facebook and probably as many at Flickr. The hat’s Detroit designer has more than 3,000 requests for silk replicas at $180 each. The original in wool would cost upwards of $500, and it is unknown how many have ordered that version. And … Even I have finally got my own official “Aretha Franklin Inauguration Hat.” Mine is the original - all wool Svarovski. Now I can die happy. My only regret is that it was not available in fire engine red.
Flickr Slide Show of Aretha Chapeaux

(The Weekly Standard)

The image, Edna-Aretha, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

I uploaded a few photographs from the last meeting of my DAR chapter to the Daughters of the American Revolution Group at Facebook, and “suddenly” found that my Regent Pamela and I had become the “Faces of DAR at Facebook.” Kinda funny?

The image, Faces of DAR on Facebook, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

My father and grandfather patented this masonry hammer in 1935, while they were living in Baltimore, Maryland. I just came upon Google’s Patent Search and looked up their names, Arthur J. Richardson and Edward J. Richardson. Voila - their patent popped up immediately: HAMMER - Richardson et al.

An interesting bit of trivia is that I see my father was using only the initial “J” for his middle names. His full name on his birth record was “Edward Arthur James Richardson.” I am posting it under “technology,” although that does seem a bit odd for a hammer in today’s computer world. But … it was something new, wasn’t it? A new technology for masonry? Those ever-inventive Richardsons! What will they think up next? See Richardson Grandsons.

The image, Richardson Hammer, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s FLICKR account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

OVER 10,000 Apple Apps and Counting!
Did you know, that in the first 142 days since Apple first started accepting new iPhone/iPod Touch Apps, there have been over 10,000 Apps added to the iTunes App Store?

My grandson told me that he has downloaded five pages of Apps onto his new iPod Touch. My Touch holds twice as much as his and I have only five Apps in toto: Facebook, Crazy Candle (came in handy for a candle-less birthday), Stanza (love it for reading ebooks), Twitterific and DataCase. Actually I have only four, as DataCase, the most expensive of all of them, didn’t work, so I deleted it.

So, thanks to Grandson’s enthusiasm, I went to the Apple Apps Store and downloaded many of the recommended ones at this link: “Top 15 iPhone Apps of 2008,” except for the games, plus a few others I found. Games bore me. I only downloaded the “FREE” Apps, as I know from experience that the Apps that charge oftentimes do not work, and there is little if any chance of getting a refund. Then I went to bed and before falling off to sleep I tried figuring out what I had done. Imagine this - I now have 160,000 recipes on my iPod, the complete works of Shakespeare plus some that scholars are not sure he wrote, Pandora radio, Urbanspoons restaurants, and two more lights, in case I need to see where I’m going at night. Now I need to find time to sync these to my new iPhone.

I am here to report that the favorite of all that I downloaded has got to be Pandora. It works perfectly. I now have my own custom made radio on this little device. It is like the old “Bluegrass Country” at WAMU has come back to life. WAMU kicked “Bluegrass Country” over to HD radio and the Internet, so they could have more “BORING, BORING” talk on WAMU. I’ve not listened to them since. Who needs them anyway? I’ve got an iPod Touch with all my favorite music on it. But I do miss Ray Davis.

The Shakespeare App is incredible, except it is not easy to read. I am used to reading books on my iPod Touch with STANZA, and I feel certain that I can download Shakespeare’s plays from STANZA for reading. But this Shakespeare App is nice for impressing my friends with my “new found” erudition. See, I carry ALL of the Bard’s works in my purse. If there are any quotations that they cannot remember, I can find them all right here on my iPod.

One of the lights was really not worth the price - FREE. I am going to delete that as I cannot figure what it is suppose to do, except click off and on. I like the Flashlight, as it could come in handy at the theater or when trying to find something at the bottom of my black bag (my purse). I’ve not tried the WordPress App yet.

Most of these Apps need WiFI to work, which in the past would have been a problem for me, as the iPod Touch is not always connected. That is probably why I had not downloaded so many Apps to it. Like the Google Maps are great, but I don’t usually need them at home where I have computers and Internet. I need them when I’m away from home - like on the streets of DC where they don’t work on the iPod Touch. Now my iPod Touch stays home and I go abroad with my new iPhone, where I will always be 100% connected to the real world - the Internet.

I am thinking about the DVD I ordered myself the other day and wondering if I am going to get what I expect. I have no idea if I got my order right. I have been wanting the “Transatlantic Sessions 3″ folk music recording from Scotland, but it has been so difficult to figure it out. Is it a CD, a DVD, and which volume do I want? The Album Covers all look the same. I think I want Volume 2, but what I ordered has only one DVD. I ordered it at Amazon and it lists nothing about the tracks that are on it.

I have had so much difficulty, as I could not find a DVD recording that would play on American DVD players. Finally this week, I found one labeled “NTSC.” However, it is also labeled Video-DVD. If “Video-DVD” means that new-fangled DVD that has video on one side and CD on the other, that will be a problem for my Bose Theater system, as it does not recognize those, and goes bezerk. I guess I will play it on my laptop first to see what it is exactly.

Would not most music afficianadoes say that “Transatlantic Sessions 3,” “Transatlantic Sessions 3, Volume 1″ and “Transatlantic Sessions 3, Volume 2″ are really weird names for folk music albums? Who would have thunk that’s what they are? Maybe they aren’t after all, and I am about to find that out. I will really be disappointed. Then I will have to download RealPlayer onto my computer so I can listen to the album on the Internet here: RTÉ Television.

You can see a wonderful performance here in this video of “Saint Anne’s Reel,” at the bottom of the page, and know why I am wanting this album: Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas.

This will be my Christmas present from Captain Cliff even though he does not know it. Last year he gave me a DVD of Pavarotti singing at the Cathedral in Montreal. It was a very difficult album of music to find it, so I had to do it myself, as Captain Cliff would not have had the patience.

I already ordered the wrong CD of Irish music this week. I wanted the album with “Grace” on it, and the search engine took me to “Amazing Grace,” and I got confused. There were no audio clips, so how could I be sure? Perhaps I will like the wrong album that I ordered. Anyway, I found that the Irish Tenor album I want is out of production and has to be purchased “used,” and for triple bucks.

Here is my collection of YouTube Videos of: Transatlantic Sessions 3. See … you could spend the rest of your life right here at this post listening to my music, if you were crazy too.

How To Post Music at Facebook

I have been tinkering with posting music at Facebook. The following scheme seems to work nicely for MP3 files.

To get an MP3 file of your own music you must first upload it to your own FTP space. If you do not know how to do that, you can find an MP3 file already uploaded somewhere on the Internet with its own URL. To post a song, you must have an URL of the song. Here is a legal one to use from librivox.org of the Christian hymn “Nearer My God To Thee”. (Right-click on this link and choose “Copy Shortcut” and go to your Facebook account).

The next step is to paste the song’s MP3 URL, that you got when you clicked “Copy Shortcut,” under “Share Link” and then click “preview” on the Facebook screen, or “enter” on your keyboard. Next write something in the blank box, if you want, such as “Nearer My God To Thee.” Then click “Post.” VOILA! Automatically, you should see your song posted as an actual music box, with a music note graphic and play button. COOL, eh? This is a screenshot of my Facebook page where I posted “I Heard the Bells” from Jon Sayles website of free guitar music:

Your goal then is to try and find another MP3 URL of music that you really like. Here is an entire collection of free MP3s from The Owen Family. You may find more legal Christmas MP3 files at librivox.org: http://librivox.org/christmas-carol-collection-2006/. Again, remember to right-click on the MP3 link and choose “copy shortcut.”

The easiest way I have found to post music at Facebook is to use my Twitter account and my Seeqpod account. I post the Seeqpod URL of a song to Twitter. I have Twitter set to automatically post to Facebook, so my song comes through as a link, which when clicked takes one to Seeqpod where the song plays.

You can also go to Seeqpod and get one of their links, under “embed.” These files at Seeqpod are not MP3 URLs. Here is one I already found for Yankee Doodle Dandy: http://www.seeqpod.com/search/?plid=7ba92255c5 . Copy and paste this link just as instructed above. Because it is not an MP3 URL, it will not make a music box, but be an ordinary link. You can add in the comments: “Click link for Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

The poem “Ingratitude,” by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), is a lesson from the ages. It should be a part of the education of every child to learn to be grateful. Unfortunately, in America, few parents read Shakespeare and it seems that few parents understand the importance of teaching graciousness to their children. In fact, it is obvious that many American parents actually teach their children “ingratitude” as a “refined” vice. Perhaps for this reason Shakespeare’s poem “Ingratitude” was included in Mary E. Burt’s 1904 anthology entitled “Poems Every Child Should Know,” (#16). Does your child know any of the included poems, such as this one from Shakespeare?

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou are not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen

Because thou are not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

Thou dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot;

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

~~William Shakespeare (1564-1616)