Hail, Hail The Teeth Are Here

Here are 2 pictures I took yesterday I thought you might be interested in.

First, here is the "lovely" weather we have been having this week. Yes, that is hail.


Second, and most important, here is a picture of my 7 month old daughter's first teeth.

Orange Lily

lilly1
Originally uploaded by MadelineB2009

This is one of many photos I took of a beautiful orange lily I bought. I just thought is was so lovely. Click on the picture for a larger view and to see some of the other photos I took.

Hero Man 1

My brother has put a cute video he made up on YouTube. It's best with the volume up.
Hero Man 1. Enjoy!

I Don't Need Sleep To Make a Short Movie

Since I have been sleep deprived I have not been able to focus on my writing so I decided to focus on ways to spiffy up my website and blog. I have a computer background so, believe it or not, I do not find it too difficult to do when I am tired.

The laptop I received for Christmas has Windows Vista and I have been taking advantage of movie making program that comes with it, Windows Movie Maker. Using WMM and a photo editing program I created this short but cute video:




What I would really like to do is create a video with the blue/green screen effect also known as chroma keying. This is the same technique the weather person on the news uses when standing in from of a digital map. I'll be sure to let you know when I have completed something using chroma keying.

Great Online Bibliography Tool

It's been a long time since I had to do a bibliography. In school I learned how to do them for books and magazine but how do you do a bibliography citation for a web site or an interview?

While seaching the Internet for some answers I found this fantastic tool that will create a bibliography for you. EasyBib (http://www.easybib.com/) is a free, online, automatic bibliography & citation maker. You simply select the source for the citation (book, magazine, newspaper, website, interview, e-mail etc.) and the relavent information. When using a book you can simply enter the books ISBN number and it fills the information for you. After clicking the "Create citation" button the it creates the citation in the proper format.

I was doing an article on leopard geckos and was using a book with the ISBN of 0-7938-0258-X (note: the X is a capitle not lower case.) I entered the number and clicked on the "Autocite!" button. It then automatically entered all the information related to the book. Then I clicked the "Create citation" and receieve the result:
Hunziker, Ray. The Guide to Owning a Leopard Gecko. Minneapolis: TFH Publications, 1994.
From there I could add another citation or, if I was finished, I could email it, save it as a Word document or view it online.

Great tool! Try it for yourself at http://www.easybib.com/

Friendly Writer's Forum

Looking for a 'safe' place to ask a writing question? Want to talk about a new book you just read? A publication question?

Paula Yoo, author and screenwriter, has created a friendly forum on her website at
http://paulayoo.com/forum The forum headings include Announcements, Writing 101, Reading 101, Publishing 101, Author / Illustrator News and, of course, Procrastination, anyone?

In this forum there is no such thing as a stupid question and I have found everyone to be kind and helpful.

So grab a cup of coffee and I'll meet you over there.

World Environment Day Today

Today is World Environment Day. So it is only fitting to have a blog about the environment and I was lucky enough to have my sister point out the following.

Betty Zyvatkauskas writes about Pickering’s Alex Robertson Park in her blog Explore Durham. While hiking through the park she speaks with some experts including my sister, Margo, who works as an Assistant Scientist in the Environmental Programs Department at Ontario Power Generation.

Read Betty's Blog at:
Art meets nature in Alex Robertson Park