**MOVING**

Click. The Good News Blogger Format, 2009-2010

I am moving on up in the blogging world to CLICK. THE GOOD NEWS!

Please update your feed reader to http://www.clickthegoodnews.com/feed/

As of Saturday August 6, 2010, I've posted 1,144 posts on the old Blogger format & invested literally thousands of hours over the past 3 years. I stopped to think about how much I really enjoyed blogging, forcing myself to finish my photos & get them online, not getting too far behind in life (well, except the past 4 months!), capturing the day to day normalcy that is our life, reminiscing about each of our big trips overseas, documenting all the funny & adorable things the dogs do, and so much more. I decided to make the major investment that will allow me to grow & for all these memories to be properly backed up and accessible for the future.

Click. The Good News Original Blogger Format, 2007

I love that I have it all here in one place. I consider this a new hybrid between keeping a diary and making a scrapbook. Doing all the transfer & site maintenance to get to my new location, I spent quite a bit of time going through the blog & straightening things up. Seeing how my blogging has evolved over the last 3 year is both surprising and encouraging. I've learned so much about photography, picked up a few coding tips, immersed myself in so many other wonderful blogs that I read & have really begun to value how much this blog means to me.

With over 107,000+ views on the old Blogger web page, I hope that many of you follow me over to Wordpress. I've officially got a domain name & some fun new features.

Wordpress Back End" height="347" width="700">

I've got a lot to learn about WordPress & how to use all the functionality that comes with a real fancy blog format. I can't wait to see how blogging changes over the next 3 years.

Things I'm looking forward to changing

-Neater layout & organization

-Important things just 1 click away at the drop down menu's up top

-Photo upgrades- border, watermark, galleries, easier uploading

-New banner (still to come) & background

-Easier & safer long-term back up options

-Optional privacy for future posts

CLICK. THE GOOD NEWS!

See ya on the flip side~

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Finally! Been working on this a few months & I'm excited to move ahead even if everything isn't finished yet.

2009 by the Numbers

As a blogging engineer, I am obligated to review the year in numbers. I had so much fun in 2007 & 2008, but I couldn't wait to see how this year stacked up to previous years.

According to my Lightroom count, I took 11,093 photos in 2009- which is surprisingly similar to the 11K in 2008. I have really neglected my camera this year, but the over 2500 photos of Mia and our 2,632 photos from our Africa trip helped everything average out for the year.



As for the blog- another successful year! 316 total posts, including 59 with Ms. Mia in the last half of the year & 46 posts covering our Africa trip to South Africa, Dubai, & Mauritius. I had a few more visitor and page views than last year.



On the running front- I think I made quite a bit of progress this year. The Garmin software wasn't too happy about switching over to my Mac, but I was able to do some manipulating of the data & I think I ran 1,251,397 meters, which equals 778 miles! That's 140 miles more than last year (640 miles), so I'm not sure if I believe that's correct.



It was a slower year at work and there were a few months that I had practically no travel, but I still made Platinum elite last year with 80 segments & 80,920 elite qualification miles on Continental airlines. I now have a little over 600,000 lifetime flight miles- working on a million!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We're taking Mia to her first Canine Good Citizen class tonight- I'm a bit worried about Ms. Wildthing!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Years to everybody out in blog world! I was so excited to finish with my Chicago posts that I didn't get around to starting on my Christmas review. I'll start the year off right tomorrow by getting all those posts uploaded & starting on my recap/preview posts for the beginning of January.

Hope everybody has an awesome & safe evening- we're off the the Rockets game with family!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Tomorrow is 2010! I'm pretty sad to see 2009- it's been an amazing year.

2 Year Blogiversary

I started out with my first post 2 years ago today! It was a pitiful, picture-less start, but I've since added about a billion photos to this blog in over 850 separate posts. As of yesterday morning, according to statcounter, I'd had over 55,000 page views since I started tracking things & I've got about 50-70 unique visitors each day. My GAP Adventure review is still a very popular page, but my Houston Wine bar page is quickly catching up. Travel is still the most popular category, along with the highlights of my married life. Zoe has over 100 posts now and I'm collecting quite a few Houston posts.



Currently- I'm a bit photo'ed & blogged out! All those photos from our Africa trip are killing me & I've been a bit busy at work. I'm sure the addition of a new puppy will get me back in the photography swing of things. I love, love, love having a blog & being able to keep an online journal of my life. It's a great place for me to store & share my photos, plus it affords me a place to share my thoughts or add some description to all of our memories.



I have also loved the community of blogging- I've become a total blog addict in the last few years thanks to Google Reader. It is great to stay connected to friends around the country, to keep on top of the personal finance world and to see so many other friends loving on their dogs. I'm currently subscribed to 286 blog feeds- everything from news & politics, to photography & photographers, to Vizslas and funny entertainment blogs. I'm still a news-junkie and love all the updates & love keeping up with friends around the country.



As a way to say thank you to all my blog readers, I'm having a special anniversary contest. I'd love to know more about who reads the blog & connect with other bloggers. To celebrate the occasion, I'm giving away a $25 Amazon.com giftcard. Leave a comment, introduce yourself if you are a lurker or tell me what you'd like to see more of on the blog. Contest ends Friday at 5M central time & I'll randomly select a winner for some fun online shopping this weekend.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Going to dinner with some friends & their babies tonight.

Blogging Vizslas

I *LOVE* following other Vizslas on the inter-tubes, especially through blogs that are updated periodically. I wanted to make a complete list of all my blogging vizsla friends as a resource for other V-owners to connect and enjoy this wonderful breed. This is another great time to plus Google Reader- it helps me stay in touch. If anybody wants the OPML file to import all these at one time, just leave a comment with an email where I can send the file.

If I have any information incorrect or I've missed anybody, please leave me a comment and I will update this page as I find new Vizsla friends.

UPDATED: July 30, 2010

A New Story Begins Rosie in Michigan

Adventures with Agnes Agnes

Arnie & Troon Arnie & Troon in the UK

Being Gabalicious! Gabby in ??

Blaze the Vizsla Blaze in Calgary

Bouncing Fireball Bounce in ???

Bouncing Marty Ko & Nyah in Las Vegas

Bruce the Vizsla Bruce in Mississippi

Charlie Morph Charlie in England?

Cheddar is Better Cheddar recovering from a leg amputation in Florida

Darcy Wilson Darcy in the UK

Dennis's Diary of Destruction Dennis & Tucker have some hilarious adventures in California!

Dexter & Ditto's Blog Dexter & Ditto

Diamond Dog Blog Diamond in Redwood City, CA (a Guess Who pup)

Diary of Field Trial Girl Potter in Louisville, KY

Diesel Dog Diesel in UK

EnviroPups Polo & Rudy in North Carolina

Fergus the Vizsla Fergus in England

Forest King Vizslas Rogue & Kyler in Massachusetts

Gaffers Gazette JJ in Canada

Ginger Magic Ruby & Sophie in Scotland

Hamish in Hackney Hamish McKahn in London

It's a Vizsla Thing Captain in San Francisco

Life & Times of McCoy Mccoy (a Legal Eagle Pup) in New Jersey

Life with Csilla & Zsigmond Csilla & Zsigmond in California

Makin & Tess Makin & Tess in Massachusetts

Miss Laila Laila of Balitmore

Maggie D0g- A Vizsla's Blog Maggie in DC

My Vizsla Tess Tess in Indiana

Piscese's 219 Weblog Lyric in Connecticut

Pretty Piper Piper in Minnesota

Radar Radar in Dorset, England

Random Apricot Morph in the UK

Red Bird Dog Bailey & Chloe in California

Red Dawn Vizslas Sasa, Sara, Grady, Dixy & Duna in San Francisco

Red Girls in Scotland Saffie & Hattie in Scotland

Red Waggers Turbie & Remo in California

Rez the Vizsla Zala & Rez in Scotland

Savy Dog Blog (now see Diamond Dog Blog)

Sophie in Louisville, KY ( Mia's littermate :)

The Covington Family Ella in Colorado

The Life of a Hungarian Vizsla Zigana in the UK

The Good Dog Blog Bodi in ?

The Regal Vizsla Jozsi & Momo

Toby- Life with a Vizsla Toby in the UK

Treasures Tale's Princess Treasure in Michigan

Two Dogs & a Husband Abby & Roxy

Understanding Vizslas Rosco, Daisy, and LuLu in Indianapolis, Indiana

Urban Mutt Brisztow Jones in New York City

Varazs Vizslas Miska in Canada

Vigo Dog Vigo in the UK

Vizsla livin', Vizsla Lovin' Cookie & Sila in Connecticut

Wags, Wiggles, & Giggles Rio & Delilah in Michigan

Whiskey the Dog Whiskey in San Francisco

Winne the Wirehaird Vizsla Winnie in Virginia

World According to Rufus Rufus in the UK

Willowynd Ranch Vizslas in California


INACTIVE
A Vizsla's Blog- Jake
Buster B. Brown - Buster
Jonas- A Vizsla Blog Jonas
Tru Vizslas Gracie


LITTER NEWS
The Legal Eagles
Born April 30, 2008
Rozie x Justice

Dream Team Pups
Born July 1, 2008
Briseis (of Red Diamond Vizslas) x Owe'n (of Tivoliz Vizslas)

Three's Company Pups
Born May 25, 2008
Siren (of Tivoliz Vizslas) x Rowdy

Thyme's "Last Call" Litter
Born September 2, 2008
Thyme (of Red River Vizslas) x Remy

Oh My Stars Litter
Born January 25, 2009
Csilla (of Tamaron Vizslas) x Dallas (of Tamaron Vizslas)
C
Guess Who Litter
Born February 26, 2009
Q (of HRQ Vizslas) x Spenser (of Zenith Vizslas)

Kissables itter
Born February 23, 2010
Brisztow x ??

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'll have a new litter announcement to add soon ;)

Blog Updates

So I've had the same generic background and blog style with Blogger since I started my blog nearly 2 years ago. It wasn't a big deal to me, since I read most blogs exclusively through Google Reader. The only time I actually visit the original blog is to leave comments. I wanted a little customization, so the blog looked like MINE, and I wanted to go bigger with my photos.


So if you are reading this through a feed reader, this is what my blog now looks like if you'd like to come leave me a message. I also wanted it to be bigger so I'd have a much larger space for photos. I also wanted to do a wee bit with the background and jazz it up a little.

Previously, my photos had been about 500 px wide because of the Blogger blog format. Now I can go up to 750 px. I wanted to post a few and see how they turn out. This fabulous photo from our Colorado trip in 2007 is 640 pixels.

And this huge puppy is 1024 pixels....I have no idea how this will look once published, but I'm curious...." HOW BIG CAN I GO?" I'm thinking part of it will be cut off, but I am just doing a trial.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Last week is officially over- it was one of the worst weeks in a LONG time....good-bye!

Bad, Bad Blogger

Zoe is so embarrassed that I've been such a bad blogger lately! I've been swamped at work with a huge new project (which is great!) and traveling a bit (photos from Florida coming soon) and just plain busy with errands and chores. I did some catching up and relaxing this weekend, so hopefully regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I needed this weekend to chill out and catch up!

2008 By the Numbers

As part of my look back at 2008, I like to crunch some numbers. Especially since I did this for 2007, I can see how my numbers compare. Although it's been pretty brutal to watch the numbers on the stock market, these numbers are more inspiring.

I'll start with my blog, and I made 382 unique posts last year!
I am up to a total of 39,360 views (as of 1/6) with 21,617 unique visitors in 2008
By far, the most popular page to view is my review of our GAP Adventures trip Brazil & Argentina. I'm still getting lots of hits from around the world & I hope make some improvements/upgrades in the next few months.



I had a few funny things happen with my Garmin- including changing computers and sharing with my husband for a few weeks when we got ours mixed up. By my calculations, that comes out to 641 miles of running in 2008. I really can't believe that it's within a few miles of last year's total. Maybe my goal for this year will be to hit 700 miles, which is about 13 miles a week. I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem- except for the weeks of vacation I'm planning on taking!


I took a total of 11,098 photographs last year- 8,816 photos with my Nikon dSLR and 954 photos with my other camera. About 1,200 of those photos were actually my scans & not pictures I took myself (well, at least this decade!) About 2K of my photos were with my 18-50 macro lens, which I love at f/2.8 and about 6,500 were with my awesome 18-200 all around zoom lens.

I'm starting to really notice a decline in photo quality with my Olympus & there are several "black pixels". It might be about time to get a new one and add this one to my collection of retired cameras after serving me for 2.5 years. I'm thinking about this little guy to take with us to DC.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm finally starting to get the hang of things on my Mac & I'm loving it!

2008 Review

Oh what a great year! I can't believe how much stuff we packed in & how different our life is this December than it was last December. I'm a big fan of summaries & I love to reminisce, thus the blog! So, here's my 2008 year in review.

January

I ran and finished the Houston Marathon in mid-January.

Visited Denver & kicked off our tour of the cities wine bars.

After some poor planning, I also started studying for my engineering license exam.

February

Probably my favorite month of last year because we were officially on vacation for more than half of it in Brazil & Argentina! I spent at least a month blogging all the fantastic picture from Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, Parati & Rio de Janerio.

Shortly after returning from our trip, Zoe had to have surgery to remove some mast cell tumors & she's been having skin problems ever since. It appears she has developed some type of food allergy.

March

March was serious crunch time for studying, but we did mange to get to the famous Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo where we saw Rascal Flatts. I met my blogging friend Amanda from New York, giving her a horrible Houston tour, but still hitting the wine bar & some great Mexican food.

April

We started our garden in earnest in our bathroom in early April, much did we have to learn our first growing season. Even though we lost most of it during Hurricane Ike, we were still picking some tomatoes in December.

After a nerve wracking PE Exam , H & I flew up to Detroit so I could present a paper I co-authored. We had lots of fun at Motown, the Henry Ford Museum, checking out the abandoned buildings & the baseball park.

We celebrated my birthday & H's birthday with a joint crawfish boil.

May

We took a road trip to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest as one of the things on our 101 List.

For Memorial Day, we visited my best friend Stephanie outside of Tampa. We caught a Tampa Bay baseball game, hang out on Siesta Key beach, had a mini-pub crawl, visited downtown Sarasota, visited MOAT, and .

We also met our new Vizsla friend Ruby, and had a play date at the park.

June

We celebrated Father's Day & Gram's birthday.

We visited the University of Houston campus, H's alma mater, before watching an exciting Dynamo game.

July

We visited some friends in Austin for the 4th.

Remodeled my office from pink to turquoise with new floors & furniture.

We took our long anticipated trip to a local vineyard, Messina Hof, where we harvested and stomped some grapes. We visited the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & I also spent an evening at the Museum with gorgeous rocks and incredible jewelry.

August

I received my SCUBA certification to do some diving, and have been waiting ever since to go somewhere worth diving!

For Labor Day weekend, I met my best friend Stephanie in Colorado Springs to drink wine, ride trains, hike insane trails, and worship in the Garden of the Gods.

September

Due to Hurricane Ike, I missed my photography workshop in Banff.

H & my step-dad did mange to visit New York & Boston to watch some baseball.
My sister Haley celebrated her 13th Birthday with friends and family.

October

I had some fun travel for work, including downtown Denver & the capitol and Joshua Tree National Park.

We added to our small art collection at the Bayou City Art Festival.

November

We partied on election night as Obama became the President-elect.

I did some more mile-high photography on the way to LA and Boston.

I convinced H that it would be good marathon training to run a 15 mile trail run, and I was wrong. His knee still hurts, so I'll be running the Houston marathon solo again in January.

I planned a super-fun trip to San Francisco that just wasn't to be.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving Feast with our friends & family.

We took the boys out for a day on the farm, including slides & rides.

We bought a new car for H!

December

We cut down our first Christmas Tree & watched my brother wrestle on the varsity team.

Round 1 (with family), Round 2, Round 3 & Round 4 of Christmas! Plus we had a blowout party downtown to ring in the New Year.

I really do think that 2008 might go down as the best year of my life so far! We've had so many blessings & opportunities this past year that I can barely believe how much fun we've had together.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We're starting work on our sprinkler system today.

Christmas Giveaways

Among the many blogs I read, I read several on personal finance. One of my favorites, Christian Personal Finance, is having an awesome giveaway with some super prizes. So check out the blog here to see how you can win one of these great prizes!

Prizes include: 8GB iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, a few other goodies several books including one of my favorite christian authors of all time, C.S. Lewis "The Great Divorce" audio CD.

I'm making the big switch to Mac, so I'd love to win a iPod Nano!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Last day of work & then a 5 day weekend!

Blog Action Day: Poverty

In honor of 2008 Blog Action Day, I'm devoting my blog to raising awareness about poverty. It's not a fun or easy subject to write about, but I hope you spend just a few minutes reflecting on this very serious global issue. By definition, a person in poverty does NOT have adequate food, shelter, water and other basic necessities. In the United States, the definition also includes "things others take for granted." If I really had to be honest and list all the things I took for granted everyday, it would be a very long list.

In America, we certainly know poor people and perhaps even some people that we'd classify as living in poverty. However, it's once you travel outside of the United States that you more fully understand the depths and horror of poverty. It wasn't until I visited Ecuador and the slums of Rio that I saw with my own eyes people living in abject poverty. These statistics are sobering and heartbreaking at the same time:

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US$ (PPP) 1 per day,
and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day, estimating that "in 2001, 1.1
billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on
less than $2 a day."[3]

I don't think I need to spend a great deal of time convincing my readers that poverty is bad and it's a huge problem. The question that then faces each of us, is "Now what?". I believe there are two things that the average American can and should do regarding worldwide poverty. The first thing I suggest is that, we as a society, should make sure that eradicating poverty is remains a mainstream idea and goal, always in our conscious & collective thoughts. The second suggestion I have is to find some small way to become directly involved, which of course means financial support.

In our nice houses, with full pantries and plasma TV's, it is easy to forget the millions of people dying every year from malnourishment. With the financial crises of this year, it's difficult to count our blessings and be reminded of how privileged we are to live in this country. I personally like to use travel as a first-hand reminder of how difficult life can be in other countries. I also find reading books about the struggles and triumphs of those in other countries is a great way to keep my heart sensitive to the plight of those trapped in poverty.

My second major suggestion is to get involved. This is especially easy to do if you are a Christian, as there are numerous missionary groups you can support. You can either travel or send money to various poverty-stricken areas of the world. Other groups which fight poverty through education, such as the Central Asia Institute founded by the author of Three Cups of Tea, are other great places where even $10 a month can make a difference. Some other great organizations that I think do an excellent job include, Doctors Without Borders (providing medical care in war zones) and World Hunger. You can also volunteer or donate in your local area at a food shelter or tutoring under-privileged children. A final way for you to be involved is to let your politicians know that you support foreign aid programs to fight poverty, eradicate disease and promote education.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I think awareness and education are the best first steps to fighting poverty.