I took a bit of a break today after I got some work done. I still haven’t completed any of the cleaning I would have liked to start but I did manage to get two loads of laundry done so that certainly counts for something - doesn’t it?

I wondered outside and saw that the mommy bird wasn’t in the tree and I really wanted to know how many eggs she’d laid, the first snap of them only showed me two but to my surprise when I looked at the new pictures there were three eggs. I’m not sure how long the nest has been there, nor do I know when mommy dropped the eggs but I’ve been doing pretty well on keeping the tree protected from outside influences. The mommy bird and I are getting along pretty well. I leave her alone and she understands I’m not trying to take her eggs. She also witnessed me shooing away a large black bird that had planted himself up there in search for food. So I think she realizes that I’m not going to hurt anything.

I can’t wait until they hatch. Baby bird pictures, hopefully coming soon!

I’m still working on three different templates at once.  My laptop is really lagging because Photoshop hasn’t been closed since Friday afternoon.  Hopefully I’ll be able to put a few final touches on things tonight and get the chance to shut down for the evening.  My laptop IS on the verge of death though.  I’m not sure if I’m going to have to reinstall window or upgrade the RAM at some point, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens.

I have been looking into new laptops.  I really can’t afford to buy one at this very moment but that hasn’t stopped me from looking.  Naturally I’d love to pick up a fully loaded 17″ MacBook Pro but who really has $4200 to kick around on a laptop these days?

I’m staying more in the $800 max range.  I know that may not seem like much but I can get everything I’m looking for and still have the ability to run Mac OS X so naturally that works out well for me.  All I need is an Intel based laptop with at least 2GB of RAM and the rest is history.  I’ll install my Leopard disk after wiping out the very annoying Vista installation and then take it from there.  I’ve found an ACER laptop that’s reasonably priced for what I’m looking for but unfortunately I’ve read reviews that note ACER is the worst Intel laptop to run Mac on - a lot of issues there.

So I guess I’ll see what I can do with an HP. Costco has some really well-priced ones and I can order it online when I’m ready - instead of trucking it all the way up to Dover to pick it up.  I would never be dumb enough to purchase a laptop from Best Buy, with that huge lawsuit against them and my true dislike for the store there would really be no point in it, you know?

As for “Site News”, I’m hoping to convert this domain over to a true photo blog but I have to come up with a better template that will show off the images a lot better, instead of just having them pasted in the entry.  I’ve found a Flickr based plug-in that makes it very simple to do that, this way I don’t have to load up my disk space here but I’ll see over time.  I have other priorities at the moment, getting the bills paid being the main one right now.

I guess I should get back to work.  It’s knocking on 12PM, I want to be done with everything by 1am so I can crash for the night - get up bright and early to start my Monday and take on the rest of the week with a clear head and loads of creativity - something the Photography is really helping me with.  It used to be the beach, but now it’s just getting the camera in my hands and looking for all kinds of great photo opportunities!

I went outside today with a goal. The goal was to get all of the nasty pollen off the house so that those with allergies didn’t have to deal with it so heavily anymore. After I was done cleaning off the banisters, I noticed that the fake tree we have on the porch looked a little different.

Why? A local bird decided to build a nest in it! Not only is it a fully-insulated little nest but there are two very pretty little blue eggs inside of it. I ran inside to get my camera and by the time I’d returned the bird had perched itself on top of the eggs. This was the shot I was able to get. I wish the white flower wasn’t in the way, this bird truly had a sweet face.

I spent some time in Photoshop tonight to make a REAL template for this blog. I wanted the Web 2.0 look without any of the Ajax functions and while it was difficult to do with only my touchpad mouse (on the laptop) I was able to get everything exactly where I wanted it to be. The header only took me about 20 minutes, coding took close to no time at all and I have to say I’m perfectly happy with how everything turned out.

A few changes include:

- The template, naturally.
- New Archives page.
- New Contact page.
- Actual Navigation.
- A few links on the sidebar for my feeds.

I’m considering setting up actual content here, but based on the fact that it’s a blog made specifically for rants and raves, there would really be no point in that. I’ll see what happens down the road, I may even go as far as creating some kind of a photo album on Flickr or even based on the site here with my own self-written script so I can bring in some more elements of my life. I don’t have many pictures of Sean and I, but I’m sure that will change over time. Another thing I was considering was a video blog, but even with my ongoing weight loss, I’m still a bit uneasy about being in front of the camera.