Archive for September, 2007
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
Since this blog is named Gaulard.com Blog and my brother Jeff is still a Gaulard, he deserves some real estate on these pages.
He went out to Colorado last week for some business and during that visit, he was lucky enough to go ATV riding up in the Rocky Mountains. I saw the photos and I felt like I needed to go riding too. That didn’t happen, but I still have the photos, so I decided to post them here. Maybe one day I will visit the same person my brother visited and we will all go riding.
Jeff writes…
I was out in Denver for work and stayed the weekend. One of the managers lives out there and he has a bunch of ATVs. We drove to the mountains to a little town called Buena Vista, CO. We rode a little on Friday and all day Saturday. We rode 70 miles thru the Rockies an thru 3 passes in the Rockies. We rode to Tin Cup, St. Elmo and others. We had perfect weather and only very minor incidents. Attached are a couple pics of the trip.
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Posted in Travels | No Comments »
Monday, September 10th, 2007
I was talking to my mother last night, when I asked her if she liked my idea on how to learn Spanish. I’m not sure anyone has really liked my idea. They will see the light one day.
Anyway, I was telling her about Rosetta Stone’s method of learning…the way they use words and pictures. Then she said, “Oh, isn’t the Rosetta Stone interesting?” She started talking about this stone with ancient languages written on it. I had no idea what the heck she was talking about. She explained that yes, there was a real Rosetta Stone. I thought this was pretty clever, the way the company used this as their name. Clever indeed.
Here is a sentence or two from Wikipedia…
The Rosetta Stone is a Ptolemaic era stele written with the same text in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and demotic) and in classical Greek.
You can read all about it here.
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Posted in Education | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
After visiting High Falls, NY last weekend, I thought I should really find out what I had just done. I hate visiting places and seeing a bunch of history I know nothing about. When I looked last weekend online, I really didn’t find anything. I must admit that my search lasted about thirty seconds.
Well, I found a great website that has a clear history of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The site is run by the D & H Canal Historical Society in High Falls, NY.
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Posted in Education, Travels | No Comments »
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
Just a little update to the “Rose Bushes and Crabapple Trees” post. The types of crabapple trees I got (and just planted yesterday) are Hopa Crabapple and Robinson Flowering Crabapple. I think they are both pretty good. I am happy to see that they are fast growing.
Also, the rose bushes I picked up are “Knock Out Roses.” I am happy to read that they are drought tolerant and disease resistant. This is a good thing. The nice part of purchasing bushes, trees and shrubs these days is that the growers have developed them is such a way, that they resist a lot of bad things out there in nature. Here, read what people are saying about them.
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Posted in Gardening, Landscaping, Trees & Shrubs | No Comments »
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
I just might be the last known web dude on the planet to notice this, but the Microsoft Live Search link command is officially offline. Boy do I feel like a loser.
I was checking some backlinks today and read a little note on MarketLeap’s website that said…
*Important Announcement!
MSN has recently discontinued reporting results for the operator 'link:'. As such, our Link Popularity tool is no longer able to report MSN results. More information regarding their decision is available on the MSN blog.
Well, wouldn’t ya know, I strolled over to MSN’s blog and took a look at the “We are flattered, but…” post. Mind you, this post was written in March. Where the hell have I been?
So basically, here is a key line of the post…
We have been seeing broad use of these features by legitimate users but unfortunately also what appears to be mass automated usage for data mining.
Hmmm, Yahoo! and Google and other search engines still offer advanced query syntax, such as “link:, linkdomain: and inurl:,” or some variation thereof.
Now, MSN can do anything they want and I am not somebody who is going to complain about Windows and Microsoft and all that. I sincerely hope I am beyond that, not that I was ever into it. I am just saying, “look around.” Many people who use that advanced query syntax are acedemics, webmasters and programmers. Those are the exact people you want on your side. How much $$$ has Google made off of AdWords? Gee, who was Google’s first target market for AdWords and AdSense? Man, it doesn’t take a genious to figure out that they are the ones you should be catering to and that they can be very vocal on the internet. I gotta say, it takes a bold person to take away one of the very tools that a very important market uses quite often. Oh well, I suppose I will just have to get used to Google’s and Yahoo!’s tools that they continue to offer.
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Posted in Internet, Technology, Websites | 3 Comments »
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
I used to think that everything died off towards the end of the Summer, and it still may, but I am rather impressed by what I am seeing right now.
First of all, I can’t even believe the end of summer is here. I really need to find some way to make my life pass more slowly. When I was a kid, summer used to take years to pass by. This year, I remember sitting here writing a post about when the trees bloom in the Northeast. That’s pretty wierd, considering it feels like that just happened a few weeks ago. Perhaps I need a nice lazy farm-like piece of property to slow things down. I will have to put that on my list.
So I wanted to show you the gift that keeps on giving. I picked up a bunch of rose bushes this year for $1 a piece. Well, last year I did the same thing, the only thing is, I only bought two bushes. Well, they just keep impressing me. The reason they impress me so much is because once the rose bush blooms, it keeps blooming all season long. It seems like every time it rains or I water it, new growth spurts up. Here, take a look…
This is going on my list of favorite flowers. Also, back in the Spring, I butchered the butterfly bush pretty good. It was just sitting there like a bunch of sticks coming out of the ground. Laura didn’t like that because she wants the thing to grow ten feet tall. I would have to say it came back rather nicely this season.
We have two other flowers that we can’t quite identify. I think one of them might be a Black Eyed Susan of some sort, if there are different sorts, that is. The other one, I have no idea. All I know is that it is starting to bloom in early September. Suggestions are welcome.
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Posted in Gardening, Spring, Summer | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 6th, 2007
I had this epiphany last night. I think it came from a commercial for Rosetta Stone that I heard on the radio.
Rosetta Stone teaches different languages by using pictures of things along with exposing the student to different words. They link the two together for an interesting combination.
Well, the idea that I had was for the student to read a book, such as a novel. The first page would be totally in English, just to get the person going. Then, the second page would have a Spanish word thrown in there, but in a way that’s obvious to its meaning. The third page would have a Spanish word and something like “Yo” instead of “I.” This would go on and on and by the last pages of the book, the student would be reading complete Spanish.
Well, what do you think? I think this is a stellar idea.
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Posted in Education | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 6th, 2007
I have been getting hammered lately with blog comment spam, apparently sent by auto dealers in China. The messages are very short and mostly include, “cool,” “interesting,” “really” and more like that. The URL plugged into the website field is usually something auto”esk” with the extension being “.cn.”
What is going on with Akismet? I deleted a bunch yesterday and woke up to thirteen this morning. Perhaps these spammers found a hole to get through.
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Posted in Blogs, Websites | No Comments »
Thursday, September 6th, 2007
A few weeks ago, I told Laura that I was finished buying trees and shrubs. Well, I told her I only needed a few more.
Yesterday, I reminded Paul that Home Depot gave me a great deal on rose bushes last Autumn. I got them for $1 a piece. So, with that in mind, we went to the Home Depot yesterday to see if there were any more great deals.
Upon arriving, I haggled with the woman there and she told me that if I get ten or more rose bushes, she can give them to me for $1 each. Well, I decided to get ten and Paul picked up two yellow rose bushes. I also grabbed three crabapple trees.
Here they are. All I need to do is plant them, maybe this weekend.
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Posted in Gardening, Landscaping, Trees & Shrubs | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
On Sunday, Laura and I decided to hop in the car for a drive. We crossed over the ridge and jumped on Rt.209 heading North. We drove through a few back roads in the Stone Ridge, NY area, which was nice. I told Laura that I wanted to visit High Falls, NY, because we had driven through there before and I liked the area. It is tucked in the ridge, near some pretty historic things like the Depuy Canal House and the Old Stone Aqueduct.
Since I am a walking blog, I decided to take some photos…
This is one of those old signs that I love so much. Obviously, I like to take pictures of these things. This one desribes the “Old Depuy House.”
This is the Old Depuy House itself.
After walking around a little bit, we passed another old sign, the “Old Stone Aqueduct” one.
And this is the Old Stone Aqueduct, or part of it anyway. I am pretty organized aren’t I? I am not sure of the story behind this water system and the web didn’t offer too much. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
We decided to eat because we were hungry. Laura knew of a Sushi place in the Depuy House because she had seen signs while passing by.
Here is the entrance to the restaurant. It was downstairs in the old wine cellar.
I secretly took some pictures from our table. This is what I love about the area…hidden little treasures like this as well as all the history. It’s not as historic as Europe, but I think it will do.
After we ate and left the restaurant, we walked around a bit. There was some sort of a yard sale going on with a bunch of tables. We strolled through. I kept thinking of my parents. They would’ve enjoyed it because they love browsing through these types of things. I also grabbed a few more pictures.
On the way out, we decided to take a road that is less traveled. We drove from High Falls to the entrance of the Mohonk Mountain House and then down to New Paltz. Above is a photo of the Catskill Mountains that I grabbed while driving up the hill.
I would say it was a pretty good day. Anything to get us out exploring the area when the sun is shining is a good day.
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Posted in Hiking, Summer, Travels | 4 Comments »
