.carolinecblaker.

Oil Paintings, Latex Paintings, Data Art.

Rants and Raves -

A casual blog reporting on the life and times of Caroline C. Blaker

  • The Planet Earth: Amazon’s Earth Day gift

    The Planet Earth BBC Series is on sale at Amazon today, Earth Day, only. Here is why I'm going to buy this: The footage covers surface of the earth, pole to pole, covering both the obvious and secret species. The narrator is a succinctly spoken British man, lending the series an aire of sophistication and drama. There's an American narrator version - this is not it. The coverage of the animals is at some of their most emotionally dramatic moments - migration, mating, famine, and fear. The program uses aerial shots and close-ups interchangeably to convey the space of movement and emotions of the scene's participants in an extraordinary perspective. Its on Blu-Ray, so the resolution is as close to real-life as possible. In fact, you might actually believe it IS real. You know, for a second or maybe 10. In other news, a Roadrunner found itself in our back yard this morning, drinking the doggie water and looking for lizards. As much as we like our lizards, we were so happy to see this am...

  • A web-based developer makeover

    It feels oddly empty and voided: my schedule that is. I have a couple of projects to look forward to, but like any other new job or career situation, this one is taking its sweet time loading up on things to do. I have officially taken the plunge into freelance and have a little too much time on my hands. Wait, no scratch that. I have all the time on my hands that I used to want before I quit my job. Aha! As I’m looking around at my online presence, I see no shortage of tidying, organizing, and clarifying that needs to happen before I start to see a lot of work. Not that I don’t deserve it - I do, but the website focus is changing from “Here I am” to somewhere between that and “Let me work for you!” I have a couple of major things going for me - I’m on a site platform that I love, Expressionengine. Its all a developer could ever want, and can be made into what the client needs in every situation. (I’m not only the hair club president, but I’m also a client.) I also have a de...

  • A word on moving on

    I’m moved to post today not because I have any crazy news or life changing events to announce, but because for the first time ever, since moving to Albuquerque, the world is silent in all of its commotion and unyielding in its grounding, and my observation is how grateful I am to be a part of it, and for what help I’ve had to build the things that I have around me. I am grateful for so many things; from nature to my family, to the skills I have, to the skills others have, and for my incredible future that is now undeniably independent, lucrative, and everything else I could ask for it to be. Perhaps I wasn’t clear before, but I actually DO have very important news to share. I have declared my independence as a freelance web developer and am now taking projects on a bid-by-bid basis. I have dropped my 9-5 completely in favor of taking my own projects and working more closely with my clients to help them get what they want out of their websites. There are many reasons for this chang...

  • Caroline v. the Cockroach

    Round 1: Its a familiar scene, well, to me at least. I’m walking through the door to our little master bathroom and *ahem.. settling down to rest. Not unlike many homes in Albuquerque, the commode isn’t far from most other things in our bathroom - and the sink, as a non-exception to this rule, is right next to my head. In any case, I’m minding my own business when i look over towards the sink and in the right-hand-side spill hole appear two very long, very orange-brown insect-like projectiles- like feelers. They’re moving gently around and when I move or turn on the faucent (one thing happened--) they vanished. I promptly flooded the sink in an attempt to wash it back down from wherever it came, whatever it was. Didn’t see it again. Round 2: Same scenario - I’m settling down, and look to my right to notice two very insect-like feelers appearing in the right-hand-side spill hole appear the same lively feelers. This time, I approach them with my hand, before making any noise, and...

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