I've been on the road, having adventures as I normally do.

That's what I call experiencing life--having adventures. It sure seems to perk things up anyway.

My particular recent adventure involved going to California. For those who live there, I sure hope they appreciate the view, because here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area, views are in very short supply. Perhaps it is a case of micro view versus macro view. Here, one can find scenic spots that are very small and contained. There one can see BIG views for miles and miles.

I really appreciate the big view variety as I get to see them so rarely. There were plenty of the smaller variety there as well. It seems like EVERYTHING is scenic in the areas that I wandered to.

I talk to people that I know around here and they talk of moving away, just because they want some massive beauty to feed their souls. I can dig it.

My little view, my most constant view is the scene outside the window here by my computer. Through the mini-blinds I can see my Camry, and three mailboxes, 3 large live oak trees, a fruitless mulberry and parts of three houses across the street. OH, bushes, I can see the bushes in front of the window also. I think they are holly, but I've never seen berries so I'm not sure. The folks across the street have a concrete birdbath, with monkey grass around the base. I never see any birds in it. Sometimes I see squirrels, but they are pretty boring unless they are doing a suicide run under one's moving car.

Wednesday night, I had dinner at Mission Ranch in Carmel. It's owned by Clint Eastwood. We actually thought we saw Clint himself, but it was just a very good lookalike. Then I thought I saw Paul Newman, but I was just hallucinating at that point.

The view was just amazing. The veranda looks out over a long field that goes all the way to the ocean. I saw six hawks flying, actually they seemed bigger than hawks, which is scary for me. There were sheep in the field in a picturesque little flock, and mountains rose and fell as one's point of view shifts. The sun went down as we sat there and it was just a lovely sight. The prime rib was pretty tasty as well, although the folks who ate the scallops said they were pretty grim.

I stayed in Monterey which is more food for the soul. I went to the Monterey Aquarium which is the most amazing one I've ever seen. I like that it is not the least pretentious, it only displays sea life from that area, but it is on such a grand scale and so well done.

More Later...

today, i modified the rss output and the commentcounter macro. rss just got a check if the story title is not null (to avoid it being rendered as string "null"). this is due to the story extension features which allows to leave out the title property completely

the commentcounter macro got an additional "as" parameter. with it one can determine whether the output should be rendered as links, generally (ie. no matter how little comments there are) or as text (no links at all). if param.as is missing, only comment amounts > 0 will be rendered as links. is it now smart enough to fulfill any needs?

addendum: recent changes today in page.skins. stylesheets and javascript codes from now on are being linked to.