Diggin' those free pics! (MToaS 25)

When my lovely Gabi and I first returned from our Peace Corps service in Togo, West Africa... and this was 1993, mind you... we couldn't wait to go to the grocery store. Especially Gabi. She'd been having dreams of Doritos, don't you know. Three years we'd been in Togo, often eating in little roadside buvets drinking warm beer and eating fried bread or cassava that was sometimes scrumptious and sometimes just foul with rancid oil.  Or rice with various sauces ~ again, some amazingly good and some just god-awful.

So we got back and my goodness, we really wanted that good-ol-bad-for-you American junk food.

It's one of my most vivid memories of our return. We drove to Coborns and Gabi went to get some Doritos while I dashed off to find something else. She took a long time, so I started looking for her. I rounded the corner and found her standing in the center of the looong snack aisle, shoulders slouched and jaw slack, a look of being completely overwhelmed on her face. She was nearly crying. All she wanted was one little bag of Doritos and here was an entire aisle of brands, flavors, big bags, small bags, full-fat, low-fat... and good-god there were pretzels too.

I get a similar sort of feeling when I look at widget options.

Creativity is wonderful. I am glad there is so much of it. But, wow, if we could harness the enthusiasm for quizzes and comments and discussion communities found on the web and turn that instead toward diplomacy... why, we might even get peace in the Middle East.

Still, I enjoy the wealth of ideas and the possibilities for customizing your space. It's cool. It made me want to add one more item to the article 20 Usability Tips for Your Blog. The author suggested limiting the focus of your blog. I'd include limiting the number of gizmos and widgets. Have a rotating collection, sure, but too much at one time just overwhelms the senses.

That said, some of these widgets are incredibly useful. I've been using site meter, clustrmap,  as well as Blogger's subscriber widget and search bar for some time. I like all these tools immensely. There's nothing like looking on clustrmap and wondering who in New Zealand has been reading me. 

I added a recent comments widget, but I put it at the bottom of the page. That probably breaks every rule of blog promotion, but it felt better to me all the same. I also added click comments. I have some shy readers, I know, who have said in phone calls or e-mail that they like what they read on my blog but they just don't  feel comfortable leaving comments. Perhaps they're not sure what to say. I like the "thumbs up" feel of click comments, and am hoping that will make these readers (you know who you are) more comfortable giving feedback.

Lastly, thanks Things staff, for the listing of copyright free and Creative Commons licensed photos. It can be hard sometimes to find pics to add to my pages ~ and I do like to include them because I know they improve the look and readability of the blog.

The one tool I want to find (hoping that Blogger supports it) is the "read more" link. I do sometimes write long entries and it would be better to have the blog not look so text-heavy. Any suggestions?

A Quick Trip Around the World

When I was a kid, I loved the story my parents told me of their early dates where they would go for a ride in the country. At each intersection, one would toss a coin. Heads turn left; tails go right. The joy was in shared company and that sense of exploration and discovery.

My sweetie and I do things like that, too. We go out in the farming areas of Central Minnesota, with large fields of corn or other crops, dairy farms, and little towns with a church (great steeples), a bar, and usually a cafe. We go in search of the perfect pie. We've found some really good ones, too.

I get a kick out of Blogger for the way I can explore here too. I know that Time Magazine recently had a story about the ten best blogs, and yes, I was thrilled that one of my favorites, PostSecret, was on their list. But I have a real soft spot for layperson blogs. I love getting these intimate little glimpses of the lives of ordinary people from all over the world. You can try it too. Up above my blog header you will see a little icon that says "next blog." Click on that. Or try some of the cool links below.

Yummy handdyed, handwoven yarn (scroll down for the spinning wheels) from someplace Scandinavian, methinks.

Family fun in another "Scando-hoovian" setting. Seriously. At least scroll down far enough to see the kid and grandfather with their tongues out.

Beauty queens from around the world... I include this as an example of "silly things people blog about..."

Ever been to Portugal? Here's some interesting pictures.

A traveling Australian put up cool pics from the Caribean and Central America

A French artist (gorgeous drawings of everything imaginable)

So, there. You get the idea. Try it!