Earlier this month, Rachelle and I visited her brother Philip and his family in Connecticut. As we prepared for our trip, we heard that wintery weather was on its way both to Tennessee and then on up to the New York area. So we decided to leave town as soon after work as we could, and make it as far north as possible that evening to stay ahead of the white stuff. We stopped in northern Virginia without seeing any snow. So far, so good…

The next morning, we awoke to discover a blanket of 2 inches of snow covering the ground and our car. We packed up and headed on, determined to get into Connecticut as early as possible to avoid driving in any more snow than necessary. The interstate was fairly clear of snow and ice—well, the right lane, at least; the passing lane had a slushy mix that made passing other vehicles a risky proposition. After about an hour, we crossed the state line into West Virginia, and must have crossed an invisible boundary, as the sky cleared, the sun appeared and the snow completely disappeared, except for what we brought with us on our vehicle.

We managed to arrive at my brother-in-law’s house well in advance of the storm. So, we hunkered down and waited for the snow to come. And it did come—about sixteen inches of the white stuff fell on my brother-in-law’s neighborhood.

I have posted some photos from our trip to Flickr. You can view them in my photoset on Flickr.

For the past two years I've owned and used a Canon Digital Rebel. Last month, I upgraded to the Digital Rebel XT. It arrived on the 10th. On the 11th, I took the morning off of work to drive up to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I've posted some of the photos I took that morning on Flickr.

You can view all of these photos in my Flickr Archive for January.

Today marks a milestone for me. One year ago, I started Abstract Musings on Blogger. Actually, I posted two entries on October 18th of last year but they were the typical first post kind of blather, so I’ve chosen today to mark my blog’s birthday. Thanks to all the kind people whom I’ve met online, who have visited my humble virtual abode and have been so kind as to link to me. And a special thanks to my wife who has been very supportive of my blogging habit, and constant tinkering of both my blogs and my website. Here’s looking forward to another (hopefully, more productive) year.

To follow-up on the idea of looking forward, I decided a while back to spruce up the design of my blog. So, I joined the legion of people participating in the CSS Reboot Fall 2005 planning to unveil a new standards-based design on November 1st. So, come back then and see my new look.

I have also posted a new entry, Return to Cataloochee, in my Photos blog. My wife and I spent spent an afternoon in Great Smoky Mountains National Park a few weekends ago with the hope of spotting some elk during the rut. We were not disappointed.

Thanks again for stopping by and celebrating my blog birthday with me.

Some very cool storm photos from Trolling in Shallow Water. (Link from Stones Cry Out)

Rachelle, her parents and I spent Saturday afternoon in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I have posted some photographs from our day trip in my photos section. We visited Cataloochee, which is in the North Carolina section of the park, in search of elk. In 2001 and 2002, two separate herds of elk were relocated from Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to Cataloochee in an effort to re-introduce them to the national park. We did manage to see one of the herds. This is not the first time Rachelle and I have seen elk. While we were visiting Yellowstone National Park in September 2003, we saw a male elk and his harem on a trail in the Old Faithful Area. We heard the elk bugle, and as we passed a wooded area between Geyser Hill and the Castle-Grand Area, we could see elk up in the trees. So we stopped and waited on the boardwalk, watching the elk through the trees. The male elk surprised us by walking out of the trees and pausing on the boardwalk for a few moments, about 12 feet away from where we were sitting. I'd like to go back to Cataloochee in the fall to see if we can spot any elk during the rut, and to see the autumn colors. If you are planning a visit to Great Smoky Mountains, I'd suggest a stop in Cataloochee. It's not as accessible as Cades Cove, so it's also not as visited, but in many other respects Cataloochee and Cades Cove are very similar.

Last month, I added Mark Zeman's Flash Photoblog World Map to my Photos section. When I originally put the map up, I used the admin tool which came with the map to add the map locations to a separate database. This required using two separate interfaces for each posting — not an ideal solution. So since then, I've been looking for a way to integrate the map with Movable Type.

One of the initial options I considered was to use an existing field for the extra information required by the map. This was the easiest option available. Unfortunately, it wasn't really an option for me, since I was already using all of the fields for my posts. However, I've decided to explain how to do it, since it isn't all that difficult. You can read the details about the more complex option I decided to use, but if the idea of adding columns to your database, or rummaging around in Perl code doesn't appeal to you, then using an existing field is probably the solution for you.

The object of this post will be to help you implement this solution (using an existing field) for integrating the Flash Photoblog World Map into your MT installation. The main advantage to this approach, besides its simplicity, is that it requires no modification of your MT files or database. All that's (possibly) required is an extra PHP file in the directory with your Flash Map and creating two templates. You'll be using the PHP based version of the Flash Map, so you'll need to have PHP on your server. If you don't have PHP on your server you could try using Brad Choate's Key Values plugin, which will let you store the data in one of your fields as key/value pairs and then extract that data into a MT template tag suitable for use in your MT templates.

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Last month, I added Mark Zeman's Flash Photoblog World Map to my Photos section. When I originally put the map up, I used the admin tool which came with the map to add the map locations to a separate database. This required using two separate interfaces for each posting — not an ideal solution. So since then, I've been looking for a way to integrate the map with Movable Type.

I initially considered two options:

1. Using an existing field for the extra information required by the map. This was the easiest option available. Unfortunately, it wasn't really an option for me, since I was already using all of the fields for my posts. Details on this method are available.
2. Or, I could add the necessary data to the EXIF data of the image. But this was hardly ideal either. I would need to use another program to add the data to the EXIF fields, not much different from using the admin tool to add the data to a database — my original problem.

So, I went looking for another option. In the end, I decided to add some custom fields to the Movable Type entry interface. In the rest of this post, I will detail what modifications I made to my Movable Type installation. But first, most of the credit for this goes to Deane at Gadgetopia for the instructions on adding custom fields to the Movable Type entry interface and Mean Dean at Heal Your Church Web Site for the instructions on using the custom preferences of the entry form to show or hide the new fields.

One last thing before I get started. A warning: this not a simple hack — use it at your own risk. I am not responsible if you attempt to implement this and something goes wrong. I agree with both Deane and Mean Dean, this is not for the faint of heart. If the idea of adding columns to your database, or rummaging around in Perl code doesn't appeal to you, you are probably better off if you don't use this method. You might consider the simpler option of using an existing field.

So far these modifications have worked for me using version 3.15 of Movable Type and MySQL. Also, it goes without saying that doing this will probably create problems when performing any future upgrades to your Movable Type installation.

So with all that said, if you are still interested keep reading for all the gory details.

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Are posted in my Photos section. This is another entry from our September 2001 vacation during which Rachelle and I spent a week visiting National Parks and Monuments in southern Utah and Northern Arizona. Zion was the second National Park on our trip.

Last September, I accompanied my wife on a business trip to Las Vegas. I spent the days, while she was in class, visiting various places in the area around Las Vegas. I have posted my first set of photographs from this trip in my Photos section. These photographs are from a day I spent in Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California.

I've added some photographs from my trip to Bryce Canyon National Park in September 2001. Rachelle and I spent a week visiting National Parks and Monuments in southern Utah and Northern Arizona. Bryce Canyon was our first stop. I plan to continue adding photos of my older trips as well as adding some pictures from my more recent trips.