Last year I ordered a book from Blurb and reviewed it here. I decided I'd do another book for 2008. This time I worked on it throughout the year.

The 2008 book is a compilation of all the pictures that Chris and I took, plus blog posts, and posts from tumblr. I got a little more adventurous and did some of the layouts myself instead of using the layouts provided by blurb. In most cases though, I still used Blurb's layouts.

I chose a 7x7 book because I like square things. I picked an Image-wrapped hardcover book -- an option that wasn't available last year, and upgraded to premium paper (another option that wasn't available last year). The cost of my 154 page book was $47.95. I uploaded the book on January 11th to the Blurb website and was given an estimated ship date of January 19th. On January 20th, I got an email apologizing for the delay in shipment due to some issues putting the book together and a code for $10 off a future order. My book shipped the 22nd and I had it the 23rd (I only paid for standard shipping).

I was stumped on a cover when I saw Lee's poster. Using a piece of software called Posterino, I made the cover (not quite as nice as Lee's).

The paper upgrade was well worth it. The pages are thicker and the paper as a bit more of a satiny texture. The only main complaint I have about the book is the bleeds did not go all the way into the spine of the book leaveing a bit of white showing in the middle of photos that spread across pages or pages with non-white backgrounds (as seen in the images below).

Overall, I'm very happy with the book and am planning on ordering another one next year. I really like the size of the 7x7 book. I think the price is very reasonable and until I have time to scrapbook again, this is a really good alternative. The photos are of decent quality -- even the ones taken with my iPhone.

Usually I just don't write anything and don't tell anyone. This time I'm letting everyone know. Don't expect any writing from me on here for a month or two.

Why? Well I mentioned before I really want to change blogging software and haven't gotten around to it. Now I'm sick of dealing with all the comment spam I've been getting. So I'm turning off comments (I'll try to leave them on on this post) and changing software and doing a mini-facelift. Please come back and see me in a month or so.

In the meantime, you can keep up with what I'm doing by following me on twitter, looking at my pictures on flickr, or follow everything in one place using SocialThing! (which AOL just acquired). Or you could always e-mail me -- I might even write back.

Oh and today is my dad's birthday. Happy 70th Birthday Dad!

This is great news. I was having a conversation related to this the other week with my dad. He's refusing to sign up for yet another account with another service just to comment on blogs. He's not the only one getting sick of signing up for accounts for everything.

OpenID is a portable username and password you can use across multiple sites. If you have an account on AOL/AIM account, livejournal account, or a variety of other services, you have an OpenID. What that means is you can use this to log onto other sites. More and more sites are implementing OpenID which is great for those of us sick of registering for so many usernames and passwords for so many different sites.

On the Blogger Blog they have a post describing how to enable OpenID Commenting and how to post comments so I'm not going to repeat that here. But this is my personal plea to everyone I know using blogger for their blog (that's a lot of you), please, please, please go and update your setting and change who can comment on your blog to "Registered Users - includes OpenID."

I'm joining the crowd a little bit late and turning this blog Pink for October.

Why pink? And why October? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Websites are turning pink for the month to call attention to and get people talking about the issue.

What can you do?

• Turn your website or blog pink for the month. Or add a badge.
• Make a donation towards supporting breast cancer research
• Learn about and/or help spread the word about breast cancer and how it affects thousands of women each year.
• Find other unique ways to get involved. (Right now posting a picture on Flickr can get a dollar donation to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.)

I got tagged by Kerry in blog tag. What is it? I have to tell you 8 things that you don't know about me - and then I tag 8 different bloggers and they do the same!!

8 Random things you may not know about me

1. My first computer was a hand me down TRS-80 when I was like 8 or 9.
2. I broke my ankle playing softball and my finger playing soccer growing up -- both required screws to put me back together.
3. My first "design gig" was doing band programs in 6th grade. (Thanks dad.)
4. I got through an engineering program using macs before macs were cool. (68040 processors anyone?)
5. My dogs have been in training for over five years and don't know how to shake or rollover (they do however know right and left).
6. I have worked with my husband (who recently told me he isn't mentioned here enough) at four different companies.
7. My first cell phone plan was $14.99/month for 15 minutes. I still talk on the phone like it costs me $1/minute. I'm trying to get over that.
8. I have many irrational fears including public speaking, falling downstairs, and fish.

Now I'm tagging my dad, my mom (yup, you need to update your blog), Kate, Megan, Laura, Tony, Bill, and Jeff. Your turn.

I'm changing blogging platforms again. I'm now running the beta version of Movable Type 4.

I found a lot of good documentation online for installing Movable Type on Dreamhost. In particular, I used:

• David Yin's Install MovableType 4 on Dreamhost blog entry.
• Installing Movable Type on Dreamhost from supriyadisw.net

Since I've now installed the beta for Movable Type 4 twice, I've used both these posts and was able to install the software effortlessly.

The next part was trying to get all of my old blog entries moved from the old WordPress Blog to the new Movable Type Instance. This was a bit trickier. There are ton of articles on how to go from Movable Type to WordPress, but not so many going the other direction.

I found an entry on Code Monkey Ramblings on Moving from WordPress to Movable Type part I which worked flawlessly. Fortunately I didn't need the recovery instructions.

To expand on how to get the old entries into the new MT4 installation, here is what I did:

1. I followed the Code Monkey Ramblings instructions down through putting the save file into the import directory.
2. I selected Tools from the footer navigation in the movable type control panel.
3. I then clicked on the Import link from the left column.
4. Under importing from, I selected Another System (Movable Type Format).
5. I left all other options alone and clicked Import Entries.
6. The importer worked it's magic and everything was imported sucessfully.

The one issue I ran into was that the archives were not working properly (the pages did not exist when clicked on). I solved that by republishing all the entries even though the system said they had been published. Under Manage -> Entries You can publish entries 20 at a time.

The entire process took me maybe an hour.

I feel like I've been behind on posting since I switched over to the new blogging software. I think I'm finally caught up. What that means, I don't exactly know.

I think all the features are working over here with the exception of the feeds. I'm going to try and re-establish the feeds that were present in the old blog so hopefully people who are using feed readers won't have to change anything. I'll let you know how it goes. I've never played with feeds before so I've got some learning to do.

On another note, anyone should be able to leave comments now whether you're logged in or not. You'll have to enter your e-mail address, but that won't be shown anywhere (that way there's a chance you're a human posting and not some bot). So if you're reading this, try it out and leave me a comment. I like comments, even though I don't get a lot of them.

I think we're back! I managed to get all the old blogger posts moved over. Not sure why I had such difficulty the first time as yesterday it went quite smoothly. I even went through and added tags to all the old posts. I think I may need to get the feeds set up still? And let me know of if you find something that's broken.

This morning we woke up to a lot of fog. Great way to end the year. I don't think we'll be seeing any snow before next year.

I guess an update from the last month would be good...

1. Remember the 12 Week Challenge I did last summer? I'm starting another one 1/8.
2. My Christmas Present besides being awesome. Will come in handy for the challenge.
3. Cisco turned 5 on Christmas Eve. We've had him twice as long as we had Dakota.
4. Life's been busy.
5. We're looking forward to a quite evening in for New Year's Eve.

Well, it's starting to look like the old blog again. Still have some more formatting to take care of and need to get all the old posts over here. Sorry about taking so long to get this back together.

The time has come to leave blogger behind and move somewhere else. Blogger was great for starting this thing, but I've been having lots of issues with posting lately and I think I'm ready for some advanced features. Please bear with me as I get figure out this WordPress thing and hopefully move the archives from blogger over.

Yesterday I was looking at DCSportsChick's blog and she mentioned it was her one year blogging anniversary/birthday. (Happy Bloggiversary DCSC!) It dawned on me that I had started doing this about a year ago too. And while DCSC managed to mention her one year of blogging on the actual date, mine is coming 5 days late.

In honor of one year, here's a few lists I've compiled about this blog:

10 random things about blogging

1. I'm still not a good writer. Probably never will be.
2. From DCSC (she's getting a lot of shout outs from me today):

   On a side note, did anyone read the article about bloggers? I wonder if this dude even knows what a blog IS.

   "The average blogger is a 14-year-old girl writing about her cat," said Alexander Halavais, an assistant professor of interactive communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

   No, stupid, that's a MySpace page. Did this guy do any research or read any blogs besides his daughter's? Way to go!

   Hmmm double the age, add a little, and substitute dogs for cat and that could be me
3. I'm not obsessed with my blog. I've read a lot of people's blogs where they've had to "take a break" from blogging because they had become obsessed with it. Every once in a while I think oh I haven't updated my blog in a while, but I don't do anything about it unless I have something to say. Sorry loyal followers, I may go weeks without an update.
4. I've changed the look of this blog three times. First it was some standard template, then it was the blue thing (yeah, not sure where I was going with that), and the eyes have been around since January. Time for an update?
5. This blog has moved addresses once. It used to be at ekota.blogspot.com (which is not a link because now it redirects you to some article on car insurance -- who knew people were cyber-squatting on blog URLs).
6. I recently removed the blogger toolbar from the top of this blog (did anyone notice?)
7. Not everyone updates their blog regularly which is fine. Some people seem to forget they have blogs (hint, hint to some of my friends with blogs).
8. I have 3 other blogs besides this one. None of them are as interesting or updated as often as this one (and this one isn't all that entertaining). No I'm not going to share the URLs with you.
9. There is a fine line between sharing your life with family and friends and having too much personal information on the internet.
10. I LOVE comments! I never get enough comments. I'm like a little kid on Christmas when I see an increase in the number of comments. I know people are looking as some days I have almost 30 people or more look at this blog (and they can't all be me checking for comments, can they?)

10 Highlights from this past year

1. Our Patio! It was the whole reason this blog was started. We still love the patio, it needs to get used more than it does.
2. Three weddings and a funeral. This year we witnessed the union of three wonderful couples and mourned the loss of one great man.
3. Our first cruise. Yeah, we're hooked. We can't wait to go again.
4. My new car. There is only a rare occasion where we miss the space of the SUV. Having to make two trips to the nursery to get the plants and supplies we bought, or our upcoming trip to Maine, or hauling things that are dirty. The XC90 was a tad more comfortable for long rides and there was a bit more space. But even for agility trials, I kinda miss it, but not really
5. Agility updates! Cisco got two novice titles and we brought home ribbons from both dogs.
6. We shared some of the agony of buying a new home.
7. Some steps were taken in moving forward with Ekota Design.
8. I shared my "she's no Martha Stewart" baking skills.
9. Our trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I will freely admit the only reason this made the list is because I'm an attnetion whore and wanted to call attention to the pictures I took again. And incase you haven't seen enough, all 146 pictures can be seen on Flickr.
10. I began the 12 week challenge.

10 things I hope to blog about next year

1. More home improvement projects. We've been in our house for over a year now and most of the walls are still white and most of our pictures are still on the floor in the living room.
2. Going to a National's Game. We're coming down the home stretch of the second season there has been baseball in DC and I've yet to go to game. Maybe it's some sort of silent protest that the stadium isn't being built in Northern Virginia. Nah.
3. Cisco competing in Excellent. First he has to get his two Open titles of which we have one leg towards our jumpers title. And let's not forget about Berkley getting a title.
4. Visiting Washington, DC. We live so close to DC and we've yet to go to the Spy Museum, the american indian museum, the WWII Memorial, etc.
5. An Alaskan Cruise. hint, hint
6. More successes and progress of Ekota Design.
7. The birth of my friend Kathy's baby girl (coming up soon).
8. A mini trip. I'd love to get away for a long weekend. There is some talk of skiing over new years, but if that falls through, we have to plan a short getaway.
9. More weddings!
10. Me doing a 5K. Yup, you read that right. Me of all people doing a 5K. Notice I didn't say running. Ideally I'd like to run, but I'll be happy just having the courage to sign up for and making it through a 5K.

Not a lot of updates recently. My excuse is that I haven't had anything to take pictures of lately and I prefer picture posts to written posts. This might have something to do that my writing skills come no where close to those of the fabulous MzMannerz or DC Sport Chick.

We did a bit of landscaping last weekend. I guess I could take pictures of that. We still need to mulch this weekend, so maybe I'll take pictures after that.

Chris is planning on renting a ladder and handing the new chandilier in our entry way. It's only been sitting on the floor for 4 or 5 months.

Lots of my free time has been taken up by the 12 week challenge. Especially this week. Berkley hasn't been sleeping well so in turn I haven't been sleeping well and I haven't been getting up in time to exercise in the morning, so I've been having to do it after work.

The exercising after work is going to have to change here soon 'cause I have quite a few possible side things about to happen. That's exciting, but I'm going to be short on time in the all come through.

This blog will be moving over the weekend. You will be able to find it either at

• www.ekota.net/blog or
• blog.ekota.net

I haven't decided. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know.

I didn't like the direction that the blue themed thing was heading in. So we'll go with the eyes theme for a while. This one plays nicely across browsers and platforms. Enjoy. There are still a few tweaks I want to make, but I'm liking this better.

And then we leave on our cruise! I'm so excited!

Last weekend we managed to up our outside light quota significantly mostly with lights we found in the basement. At some point I'll have to get a new picture up. My cousin John suggested a spotlight with wreaths in the windows -- which I think is on the list for next year (along with a polar bear or two if they can be found). A lot of houses in our neighborhood have done the wreaths this year and I think it looks really nice. John, I don't think I responded to your e-mail. Sorry about that, I think it's this baaaad case of vacationitis and finishing up the calendar!

Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, I started another blog. Like one wasn't enough. The second one is really just a place to post pictures of some of my work until I get around to designing a real website for myself.