Monthly Archives: September 2012

50 for 50 #36 – Jordan River Trail

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Zodiac waiting to get out of the car

Today we took a walk along the Jordan River. This trail is one of my favorite places. I use to take our pet dog, Shadow there all the time. I even learned to roller blade on that trail a few years ago. I don’t get down there much lately. Since Apex, none of our puppies have had so much energy that a neighborhood walk can’t take care of it. The weather was beautiful this morning and there were lots of runners and bikers on the trail too. I prefer to go during the week when it isn’t so crowded. I’ve walked that trail in all kinds of weather from hot summer days to stormy ones with snow and cold wind. It is a little slice of nature running down the middle of the Salt Lake Valley.

Bill holding Zodiac and Yakira on the retractable leashes ready to hit the trail

When we lived in Provo, Shadow and I often frequented the Provo River trail. It is an awesome trail too. I think I should make more of an effort to get out into nature more. In the past it always helped me deal with the stresses of life. Even though I have a lot of things on my plate these days maybe taking time out to be in nature once a week or even every couple of weeks might rejuvenate me and help me to handle my to do list better. I’ll have to give this some thought. Do you have favorite places that you haven’t been to in a while?

Yakira enjoying the Jordan River Trail

 

Training With a New Guide Dog

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I thought for my second post, in honor of National Service Dog month, I focus on what it is like to go to the school and get a new guide dog. Because the working time of a guide dogs is seven years on average, most guide dog users have several guide dogs in their life time. Each dog is different and the transition from a seasoned dog who knows just what you want to a young inexperienced dog is exciting but challenging too. It is also heart wrenching when I dog must be retired whether it is due to old age, health issues or behavior problems. It some ways the first time is the easiest because it is simpler but it also has the challenges of being a whole new experience.

There is an extensive application process and then once accepted the guide dog user has to wait for an available class date. For some handlers with special needs the wait is more for the right dog to be found and trained than an available spot in a training class. There are about a dozen guide dogs schools in the United States. Because I’m a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind, I don’t know much about how the other schools work but I think they are similar in many ways.

Guide Dogs for the Blind has two and three-week classes. Interesting to note that they are phasing out the three-week classes. It is an intense training with a very low instructor to student ratio. This makes it possible to be flexible in fitting the needs of each team. Dog day is probably the most exciting day of training, where the handler finally gets to meet the dog that has been carefully picked to fit their needs and desires. Soon after they take their first walk together. Over the course of the class there are many ups and downs. The handlers have to learn/relearn the skills of handling their dog and his/her challenges. Here are two blogs from a recent three-week class at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California. It is a really good way to get a glimpse of what it is like to train with a new guide dog. It takes a lot of discipline to faithfully journal the daily experiences of training with a guide dog.

Six Feet Over

Blind Girl Blog

At the end of training is a formal graduation ceremony. This is when the puppy raisers and the handler meet. It is an exciting an emotional time. After the ceremony the guide dog user is then cleared to go out on their own without an instructor. But the training isn’t really finished. It typically takes 6 months to a year for a new guide dog team to be working smoothly and consistently together. When the two of them come together as a team it is an amazing relationship that both enjoy and the bond between the person and the dog is incredible.

Europe 1952 – Master Page and Using a Grid

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When figuring out the way you want to layout the pages of a book I like to use a grid as the structure for the design. Before & After‘s has a two-part video that talks about using a grid in your design. If you want to learn more about grids in your designs it is well worth the 10 minutes or so it will take to watch them. I especially like part 2.

Because of the large size of the pages of this book (about 13″x11″) I wanted to have the text in columns. If a line of text gets too long in relation to the size of the letters it gets harder to read because it is so easy to lose your place on the line. Having columns of text solves this problem. I decided on three columns so I put guides on my master page for three columns. I also put guides horizontally to divide the page in three sections with in the margins. Instead of a small header or footer I chose to put a large title on each page. Part of the reason for this was that my mom, who the book is for, has macular degeneration plus cataracts so she couldn’t see well. Before I finished the project she had cataract surgery which helped her vision a lot. I thought that she would at least be able to read the title on each page and see something of the largest photos even if she couldn’t read all the text. It is important to keep in mind who you expect to read your stories and make decisions that will help them to be drawn into your book.

Basic Master page

If you haven’t used master pages you are missing a great time saver. In InDesign it is a simple as clicking on the master page in the pages pallet. By default there is a blank master page there called A-Master. Also by default this master page is applied to you whole document. When you add anything or edit anything on this page it is added to your entire document. Don’t worry, you can override this by dragging the [None] page in the pages pallet to any pages you don’t want to have the A-Master applied. I created two other master pages, one for the beginning of chapters and another for newspaper articles. I’ll talk about those in more detail in another post.

The advantage that having the three by three grid gave me was that it helped to make it simpler to figure out the layout for each page of the book. I had lots of photos and most of those photos are either one, two or three columns wide. Some are full bleed and a few go across to the facing page. But I still used those grid lines to help me to decide how large those photos were. Here are some examples pages.

The left hand page shows a “three column” photo and the right page is a full bleed.

This page has a bleed on three sides with a small “one column” photo overlapping on the left, while the right had page has two “two column” photos.

Here I have a “four column” full bleed and a couple of “one column” plus. When I was overlapping photos like here I was willing to allow photos to be wider than their column.

So how did I decide what size to make each photo? The first criteria was appeal of the image including the quality of the exposure. Because I wanted the photos to be the focus, if the image justified it I would make it as big as I could. Next I had to take into account how many photos or other memorabilia and the amount of text. Sometimes it is very tricky to get it to all coordinate together. But having the grid makes this easier and unifies the look of the book.

If you have any questions about how to do any of this please let me know. Next week I’ll cover how I handled the many newspaper articles I had for the book.

This Week in 1856 – Nebraska – Mary Taylor

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From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary:

9 September 1856:

We started this morning about 8 o’clock, and traveled through a very hard, sandy uphill and down, road. Halted for dinner about 2 o’clock, but there was no water, just an old mud pit. Started again at 6 o’clock. It thundered and lightninged awfully, and rained at a distance, but, as if to give everyone their share, it rolled over and gave us a good soaking in the rain. It rolled on until it died away at a distance. We were almost worried with mosquitoes. Traveled until 11 o’clock, when we camped at Prairie Creek, which is very good water. We have traveled two days without water, except mud water, and only twice.

From John Jacques:

On the 9th of September, in the afternoon, the company came to a round pit or pond of water. Parched with thirst the cattle rushed pell mell into the pond and stirred up the mud until the water was thick and black, before the people had supplied themselves for their own use. But it was all the water available, and so it was used for cooking purposes, making coffee, tea, bread and porridge or hasty pudding, which when made was quite black, but was eaten and drunk nevertheless.

At 7 p.m. the camp started for Prairie Creek, nine miles, reaching it between 11 and 12 o’clock, but very glad to get to clear running water, after having been without two days.

From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary:

10 September 1856:

Started about 9 o’clock from Prairie Creek. We went about three miles and then crossed it. Traveled until 1 o’clock, when we stopped for dinner one hour. Traveled until 6 o’clock, and camped again at the Prairie, where we found a little wood, which is the first wood that we have seen since Monday morning. We had to cook with buffalo chips.

11 September 1856:

We started about 9 o’clock again this morning, traveled until 1 o’clock and stopped for dinner. Started again, traveled until 6 o’clock and camped again at Prairie Creek.

From John Jacques:

On September 11th, 8 or 9 miles from Lone Tree and Wood River, the company passed the graves of two men and a child belonging to Almon W. Babbitt‘s wagon train, who had been killed on the 25th of August by some Cheyenne Indians, who were on the war path that summer. Two of the teamsters escaped death, and Mrs. Wilson was taken prisoner. Most of the property plundered from the wagons was subsequently recovered by Captain Wharton and the Untied States troops at Fort Kearny. A mile or two east of the graves of the teamsters, a paper was tacked on a board, on which the chief of the Omaha Indians disclaimed participation in the murders. Early in the journey from Florence, the company met two or three hundred Omahas, who passed by quite peaceable.

From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary:

12 September 1856:

Started about 8 o’clock; traveled about 4 miles when we came to Wood River, which we crossed on a small bridge, continued down the side of it and stopped for dinner at 12 o’clock. For ought we knew, but a cripple, a young man who walked with crutches, had been left behind. We sent four men back to search for him which caused us to move none today. About sunset, they brought him into the camp.

13 September 1856:

Started about half past 8 o’clock this morning; traveled until one o’clock when we stopped for dinner, nearly opposite Fort Kearney, where the soldiers are stationed. Started again, and traveled until five o’clock when we camped at the Platte River. A man fell down dead, (William Edwards). The Indians are very hostile about here. They have attacked some of the emigrants who have passed through this season, and rumor says that some have been murdered, but they have kept out of our way, for se have seen none since the sixth, no even so much as one.

From an account of Josiah Rogerson:

September 13 1856:

About 10:30 this morning, we passed Fort Kearny, and as one of the singular deaths occurred on our journey at this time, I will give a brief and truthful narration of the incident. Two bachelors, named Luke Carter, from the Clitheroe Branch, Yorkshire, England, and William Edwards, from Manchester, England, each about 50 to 60 years of age, had pulled a covered cart together from Iowa City to this point. They slept in the same tent, cooked and bunked together; but for several days previous, unpleasant and cross words had passed between them.

Edwards was a tall, loosely built and tender man, physically and carter more stocky and sturdy. He had favored Edwards by letting the latter pull only what he could in the shafts for some time. This morning, he grumbled and complained, still traveling, about being tired, and that he couldn’t go any further. Carter retorted; “Come on, Come on. You’ll be all right again when we get a bit of dinner at noon.” But Edwards kept on begging for him to stop the cart and let him lie down and die. Carter replying, “Well, get out and die then, the cart was instantly stopped. Carter raised the shafts of the cart. Edwards waled from under and to the south of the road a couple of rods, laid his body down on the level prairie, and in ten minutes, he was a corpse.

We waited, (a few carts of us) a few minutes longer till the Captain came up and closed Edwards’s eyes. A light loaded open cart was unloaded. The body was put thereon, covered with a quilt, and the writer pulled him to the noon camp, some five or six miles, where we dug his grave and buried him a short distance west of Fort Kearney.

Just before Edwards closed his eyes and was dying, Albert Jones brought to him a drink of water in a tin panikin and moistened his dying lips.

From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary:

14 September 1856:

We started about 9 o’clock and traveled until 12 o’clock when we camped for the night. Eliza is a little better, but is so weak, that we still have to pull her on the handcart.

15 September 1856:

Started at 8 o’clock and traveled until 2 o’clock, when we stopped for dinner at Buffalo Creek, started again and traveled until 7 o’clock. Saw several droves of buffalo, but could not get no higher to them than three or four miles. Camped at Buffalo Creek.

50 for 50 #35 – Make a Slide Show

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Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug “I Know” slide show

So this week I finally got around to making a slide show. Back in college I took a class on putting together slide shows, but that was the old-fashioned way with multiple slide projectors and fancy dissolve units and a special cassette tape player to record the syncing of the music and the timing of the slide changes. I totally loved that class. The power of images and music together was awesome.

I intended to use Photostory recommended by Stephanie. Remember her “Raising Skyler” video? When I looked at the details of Photostory it didn’t look like to would work for my needs. The slide show I need to put together was going to be show to a group of girls and their parents at our girls camp awards night. And the reviews of Photostory said you couldn’t save it in a high res or burn it to a DVD. The plan was to show it using a DVD player and a television. So I had to pick another program. My research didn’t give me an obvious favorite. But I settled on ProShow Gold. They had a free two-week trial, so I thought I could make the slide shows and then decided if I wanted to buy the software.

I tried it out and it seemed pretty easy. The one problem that I didn’t realize with the trial was that it put a big banner across the bottom of the screen. There was no way I could have that “trial” banner in my finished slide show. I figured this all out the middle of the week and the deadline was Sunday. I didn’t have time to start over with new software. So I went ahead and paid the $69 for the software.

The hardest part of putting the slide shows together was sorting through the photos to find the best ones. I actually did three slide shows. I had selected three songs that focused on three different things to do with camp. One was focused on the beauty of nature with the song “I Know” by Jenny Phillips. The second was another song by Jenny Phillips called “A Light on a Hill”. This song was the inspiration for our camp theme and I wanted it to focus on the girls and how they were an example to others. Both these songs are on her “Arise and Shine Forth” album. The last song “This Little Light of Mine” by The Lower Lights, was our actual theme song at camp. We sang it every day with verses that the girls made up. This show was all about the fun of being at girls camp.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug “A Light on a Hill” slide show

I didn’t have time or the knowledge to really customize each slide show. I just picked out the photos, got them into a rough order and let ProShow do the rest. I let it pick the timing and the transitions. After it synced everything together I went back and adjusted the order of the photos to work with the words better. The software crashed on me multiple times, which was frustration. It did a pretty good job of recovering where I was at but it took a long time to get things back up and running after each crash. By the time I got the last slide show together it was after 5 a.m. Sunday morning. I was exhausted of course.

I got a couple of hours of sleep and then between choir practice and church I worked on figuring out how to get the slide shows onto a DVD. Well that didn’t work. I don’t know why but I could get it to even begin to cut a DVD. So I had to go to plan two. I exported each show as an mov file. This worked fine but it was a very slow process. (My computer isn’t very fast). So by the time I got all three slide shows saved as mov files I needed to go set up for the awards night. There was no more time to experiment in trying to get the slides shows on to a TV. So I just took my laptop and played them on that. Since the screen isn’t big enough to show to a whole room of people we played the slide shows before the meeting started and during the refreshments afterward.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug “This Little Light of Mine” slide show

Now I’m uploading them to the internet so that the girls can download them and have their own copies to enjoy. It was a good learning experience and I can’t wait to do another one. This time with the time to really learn how to control things and not just slap the thing together. ProShow really did a pretty good job but I’d like to see how much more it can do. Hopefully the crashing won’t be too much of a problem because I’d love to put together many more slide shows and I really don’t want to buy another piece of software.

What software have you used for putting together slide shows? I’d love to learn from your experience.

 

Lady Liberty

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As I thought about what I wanted to write about today, my thoughts turned to a layout I did back in 2005. We had lived in Brooklyn, New York for a few months and took the opportunity to go by the Statue of Liberty via the ferry to Staten Island. Some of the photos I took on that trip inspired me and this is the result. It seems proper today being Patriot Day and the 11 anniversary of 9/11.

For almost 120 years she as held up her torch, inviting, imploring the world to be free. Though the sounds of conflict for freedom and democracy still ring through many parts of the world, her message has been heard. Millions of people now live in liberty. May her simple elegance continue to inspire people everywhere to stand up for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, where ever they may live. In her crown are 25 windows. These symbolize the gemstones found on the earth and heaven’s rays shining over the world. The seven seas and continents are represented in the seven rays of her crown. She is for the world not just the United States of America!

“I will try to glorify the Republic and Liberty over there, in the hope that someday I will find it again here.”                                                                      – Sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi

 

Publishing Your Story – Traditional vs. eBook

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I came across and interesting post a few weeks ago on the FamilySearch Blog about traditional publishing vs. eBook publishing and was very interested in James Tanner’s view on this subject with the continued improvements and use of eBooks. You can read the post here.

Publishing Your Genealogy – Traditional vs. eBook

He shared an outline of how books were published in the past that was interesting.

  • Writing
  • Editing
  • Table of Contents and Indexing
  • Inserting Illustrations
  • Formatting for Printing (book layout, fonts)
  • Proof Reading
  • Typesetting
  • Application for ISBN/Copyright
  • Proof Print
  • Printing Pages
  • Binding
  • Distribution and/or Sales

Having only done self-publishing through print on demand I hadn’t ever thought of all these steps in publishing a book. It is wonderful that through modern technology we have other options to print just a few copies of a book or even just one at a very reasonable price. Traditional printing methods were not cost-effective unless you printed a large number of books. And face it, most of the stories we want to share just don’t have that wide of an appeal but that doesn’t make them any less important to us or our family and friends.

James Tanner points out that today all the above steps can now be done by the writer but we can still contract out any of these steps to someone else, including writing the book. I have one issue with his information about print on demand. He wrote:

Today, there are book publishing machines that will publish one book or a hundred. The cost of the first book is very reasonable. The major drawback for those wanting legacy materials is that the binding is limited to softcover perfect (glued) binding.

It might be true that some on-line printers only offer softcover perfect bound books, but I know that Blurb’s softcover books are perfect bound or glued. They also have hardcover books and their website says “our Hardcover books feature library binding.” This got me curious so I dug deeper and found some information to suggest that blurb hardcover books less than 120 pages our stitched from the side but their large hardcover books are glued or perfect bound. This seems to be mostly true. I checked the blurb books that I have here. The 440 page Europe! is not stitched it is glued. While the 9 7×7 books between 40 and 80 pages are all stitched except 1. So that was some interesting research. I’ll have to see if I can find out more.

Here is what James Tanner had to say about eBooks:

With the popularity of eBook readers such as the Kindle and the Apple iPad, publishing a book electronically is more than a fad. If you look at the New York Times Best Sellers List, you may be surprised to find that many of the best selling books are now available only in eBook format. One advantage of publishing a book in eBook format is that it can be updated at any time and distributed in a variety of formats. EBook publishing is exactly like traditional publishing except for the final printing and binding. There is still a need for good writing skills and the book files have to be adapted for a variety of electronic book readers.

Just as with more traditional publishing you can do these steps yourself even to the “printing” on your own computer. One simple option is to publish in a PDF format and distribute that to family and friends. May eReaders can read PDF documents but in my experience their are challenges with the small size of the screen and PDF documents that letter size. The text can be difficult or impossible to read with the entire page on the screen or you have to do lots of scrolling around to read the text.

If the book is just text there are simple enough ways to export it for eBooks using a word processor. But for me the images are at least as important as the words. And I’m not sure how you design for the fluidity of an eReader with images. There is new software that helps with formatting for eBooks so maybe it isn’t as hard as it seems to me. I love the idea of eBooks with embedded media but have yet to see how it works for projects like sharing family stories.

I agree with James Tanners basic assessment:

Whether you publish your book on paper or electronically, you will find that it takes considerable time and effort. Electronic publishing may cut out some of the steps necessary for a paper publication, but the quality and readability of the book has to be adapted for online or eBook reading.

It will be interesting to see how eBooks effect self publishing in the future. I believe that the best way may be to use both mediums so that we reach a broader audience and greater likelihood that our stories will be safe for the future to enjoy. Hopefully there are ways to make this as painless as possible.

National Service Dog Month

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September in National Service Dog Month in the United States. So this month I thought I’d highlight guide dogs in my weekly puppy posts. This week I decided to start with how a little about training guide dogs. Guide Dogs for the Blind did a series of videos  a few years ago by following a trainer through San Fransisco. It shows one dog, Solana and some of what a training session is like.

This first video show the dogs loading up in the morning. It is the longest video and the least interesting in most ways. So if your pressed for time skip this one or if you really like the others come back to this one.

In this video show unloading the dogs from the training van, harnessing up and starting off down the street in San Fransisco.

This video features training on escalators and subway platforms.

In the last video you get to meet Solana’s partner on her graduation day.

Mary – three more illustrations

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I’m past due for an update on how the illustrated children’s book of my great-great-grandmother, Mary Taylor, is coming. Kim has completed 4 illustrations now and I’m happy with how they all look. I decided that I might as well start the actually book document now that I have 4 of the images.

Crossing the Platte River

We are planning to use blurb.com to publish this book. I love the 7×7 format that I’ve used for several other projects and we are using that again for this one. The blurb plug-in for InDesign is great. I put in the book size and the number of pages and it creates my blank document and then a second document for the cover. It is a much nicer system then the old templates. I took my outline for the book, (you can read it here in the original post about this project) and placed it on the pasteboard. The pasteboard is a handy area outside the page in InDesign. It is a great place to gather the items for a page until you know where you want them to go. It really helps me to get things organized without cluttering up the page. Then it was easy to make sure I was putting the illustrations in the right place. Plus I have a reminder there of what the text for that page should cover. It feels good to have the actually document started. I hope it will inspire me to get started on the text soon.

Fog and Icebergs Crossing the Atlantic

I recently finished a book about the Willie and Martin handcart companies called “The Price We Paid” by Andrew Olsen. Several of the missionaries when we were at Martin’s Cove recommended it. I skipped the section on the Willie company but it really gave me a much clearer understanding of the timeline and how everything happened, especially around the rescue. If you are looking to learn more about either of these handcart companies, you should read this book.

Mary’s Baptism

I have a lot of things on my plate now so I’m not sure when I can fit it in but at the same time I hate to put it off too long. I’d really like to have the text mostly written by the time Kim finishes the illustrations. Then I can quickly put the finishing touches on the project and get it printed. I think I’ll talk to Kim and see if we can figure out a timeline. Now that she has a few of the illustrations done, she should have a better feel for how much time she needs to get this project complete. I do best with deadlines, otherwise my projects can stretch out for ever and never get done.

Finished Illustration of Mary’s Childhood

This Week in 1856 – Nebraska – Mary Taylor

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From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary

2 September 1856:

We started about half past 5 o’clock this morning; traveled about four miles when we arrived again at the Platte River. We stopped to breakfast about two hours, started again at 10 o’clock for the Loup Fork Ferry, where we arrived about one thirty, in one part; ferried across the Platte today.

3 September 1856:

We commenced to ferry this morning about 7 o’clock, and finished about sunset.

4 September 1856:

We started about 8 o’clock, and traveled about 9 miles; stopped for dinner again, and traveled 14 miles today. Camped at 4 o’clock, killed a cow and it was divided.

5 September 1856:

We were notified to start at 7 o’clock this morning, but a thunderstorm came with delayed us until half past two o’clock. In the meantime, another cow was killed and divided among us, 1/2 pound each. We started and traveled until 5 o’clock; camped again at the Platte River. We put our tents up and then a rain storm came upon us.

6 September 1856:

Started about 8 o’clock this morning. We met a large party of Indians, men, women and children, with their horses and mules, all loaded with skins, going to Missouri to trade with the Whites. They are the first Indians that we have seen. Camped about 12 o’clock for dinner. Then, we went to the top of the hill and camped for the day.

7 September 1856:

Sunday. Started about half past 8 o’clock. Eleanor has the ague and diarrhea, and si so badly that we had to pull her in the handcart. Eliza, also, is yet so weak, that we had to pull her also, in the handcart, which made it just as much as we could pull. We camped again near the Platte. About 5 o’clock, Franklin D. Richards, D. Spencer, C. Wheelock and others camp up in their carriages. We found a good spring here.

From John Jacques:

On the 7th of September, west of Loup Fork, the company was over taken by Franklin d. Richards, Cyrus H. Wheelock, John Van Cott, George D. Grant, William H. Kimball, Joseph A. Young. C. G. Webb, William C. Dunbar, James McGaw, Dan Jones, John McAllister, Nathaniel H. Felt, and James Ferguson, who left Florence September 3rd, passed Hunt’s Wagon company on the 6th, east of the Loup Fork, and Hodgett’s wagon company on the 7th, ten miles west of Martin’s company.

From Samuel Openshaw’s Diary

8 September 1856:

We started about 8 o’clock this morning, traveled until 1 o’clock and stopped for dinner one hour. Started again and traveled until 10 o’clock at night, on account of not being able to find any water or wood. Traveled about 24 miles and found some water in holes that had been dug in the sand. We pulled Eliza on the handcart all day.