Flu shots at work tonight.  Yay.

I don’t enter them as often as I would like, but I did get this guy tracked at Where’s George.

Today was my Dad’s 80th birthday.  Superman’s got nothing on him. Mickey Mouse either. (Mickey was also ‘born’ 80 years ago today.

We had a small family gathering of about 22 for a nice Sunday dinner.  Only problem is we were in a darkish room with glossy black walls.  Made photos tough.  Oh well, no matter.  You still look great Dad!

Taken for the Daddyshack Photo Scavenger Hunt.  The item I was looking for was “hybrid”

My son, using this club, wound up second overall in a closest to the pin competition at our church’s annual golf outing.  Doing so earned him the created only the fly MVK (Most Valuable Kid) award and a gift certificate to the pro shop.

This was a really tough shot to get.  The lighting was really hard.  Flash was too harsh, no flash the writing on the bottom of the club was hard to make out.  I took abotu 30 shots and this was the only one that was even close to suitable.

How can I be so stinking sure that I am now fully adequate?

Easy,  I haven’t seen so much as a peep in my inbox about enlarging what the good Lord gave me through the promise of (what I am sure is rock solid) modern medical science.  Not a single email these last few days promising to add inches to my unit or girth to my junk.

What’s more, it seems there is nary a soul out there who thinks I still need help in getting said anatomy to work properly either. No offers of cheap Viagra, Cialis and the like. I do hope the pharmaceutical companies will weather the decline in business.

While I am pleased with my newly confirmed virility and general studliness, all I have to say is it’s a good thing I won’t need to spend all my money on the myriad assortment of surefire cure-alls wonder drugs.  Why?  It seems I’m gonna need to tighten the proverbial belt.  Here comes the bad news…

No news that times are tough in this economic climate, and there’s no government bail out for the little guys yet.  However, it seemed I was always able to rely on some astonishing good luck when it came to making ends meet.  Sadly though, it seems my luck has run out.  And frankly I am concerned.

I haven’t gotten any good news emails alerting me that I had won the Irish, English, or any other foreign lottery in days. Nothing, nada, squat.   And if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the pants, nor have I received any of those pleasant, albeit broken English riddled, email messages from nice, not to mention unquestionably trustworthy, Nigerians wanting to make me a boat load of loot by just helping them move some money around to help some deposed prince either.

What gives?

What gives is that it seems there was a major breakthrough this week in the battle against spam.  A web hosting company notorious for being the originating point for spam was shut down.  Four months of work has led to the demise of McColo Corp.  According to some estimates San Jose based McColo was responsible for the delivery of up to 75% of all spam prior to being silenced. This is evidenced by the fancy looking chart from the article…

I don’t usually pay much attention to the spam folder on my gmail account unless I am expecting an email that hasn’t arrived yet.  Maybe then I will give it a peek to make sure the wanted email didn’t fall into the black hole.  Throw it a life preserver and pull it out if it’s in there. But after I learned of the demise of McColo, I checked my spam folder and boy did I indeed see a decided drop in volume heading into the spam folder.  Where I would once see dozens a day, I saw just a handful of nuisance messages.  And for the record, not a single one seemed concerned with the size of my bits and pieces.

Oh well, there you have it.  You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of spam.

There are some people who will point out to you that I have featured feet and/or shoes with an uncanny level of frequently along the project.  I can’t say that I ever made a conscious decision to do so, but I can’t deny the truth  behind the observation either.

Well, today it was a conscious decision, and you have Kristine at Random and Odd to thank/blame.  This week’s SPF (Stuff Portrait Friday) theme was favorite shoes.

Oh, and for what it’s worth…. Shots of shoes/feet/socks make up just over 4% of the Project 365 days so far. Today’s shot is most reminiscent of Days 77 & 150.

I make no apologies.

Old School

Our mantle has a couple seasonal items and above is a Kenneth Harris print featuring the Pasteur & Galt Apothecary Shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg.

The mantle shot idea was stolen from Mishi, who executed it much better than I.

Boston.com started a new amateur photography community, called RAW, this past summer.  I have fully enjoyed it.  One of the things they have done is run a monthly contest based on a theme each month.  The theme for October was “Get Close”.  I submitted a photo and it has made the cut and is now one of 50 finalists.  The rest is up to you!

Head on over to the contest voting page at RAW and find my submission.  Where it will appear on the voting machine is randomized I think, so you may have to scroll down to find it.  Drag it to the voting boxes at the top of the voting machine if you deem it worthy.  Pick two other deserving photos to complete the ballot and then click the “cast vote” button at the bottom of the voting machine.

Here’s the official rules/how to from Boston.com…

Ready to vote? Remember our only rule: DON’T STUFF THE BALLOT BOX. Let the real winners emerge from a consensus of the people.
> Cursor over each photo to get a medium version; click on it for a large image.
> Click the X in the upper right corner to reduce it again.
> To vote, click and drag a photo into a box at the top.
> If you change your mind, click the X in the corner and it will disappear, or just drag another photo on top of it.
> Click the “Cast vote” button under the photos
We’ll close voting in 7 days: Midnight Tuesday the 18th, and announce the winners by Thursday the 20th.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate your support.  Oh, and if you could find it in your heart to tell a friend or two about this post I’d be most grateful.  I am not trying to stuff the ballot box, but hell, I’m not gonna site by idly and just hope I win.

-Pat

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Thanks again!
-Pat