My Nature Walk Website
Yay, I added a new page to my nature walk website for the first time since last fall. Yay, the 2003 warm weather nature hiking season has begun. John and I went to the Metro Toronto Zoo today and here's the page of photos I took during the day: http://members.rogers.com/30307486500/TorontoZoo.htm
Of almost everyone I knew who used the computer on a regular basis I was one of the very last people to start designing and putting up webpages. I found I never had enough motivation to go through the learning curve needed to put up such a page because I didn't feel I really had anything to say that needed to be permanently on the web. Debbie's love of writing inspired her webpages, Jodi's love of music inspired hers, but there was really nothing that I was passionate about that drove me enough to start a webpage. Because of my love of movies, newspapers, TV, music, many people thought it was likely my first venture into cyberspace would be with some kind of media-oriented website, but maybe it was -because- I read and followed so many media websites already that I didn't feel the need to add one of my own to that number. So I went on quite contentedly for a long time an orphan in the cyber world with no place to call my own.
I have always loved nature walking. When I first met John 16 years ago I discovered he really enjoyed nature walking, too. Through the years we explored most of the nature trails in the Toronto area. Being that we didn't have a car we pretty much stuck to trails that began and ended on public transit. Getting a van two years back broadened our horizons considerably. Suddenly we were able to get beyond the city and discover a whole new world of nature walking. In 2001 we went exploring north of the city, but by 2002 we were getting more ambitious and heading out to conservation areas further away. One day in May of 2002 I was sitting in Scanlon Creek Conservation Area looking out over a beautiful green vista and the thought formed full-blown- I want to create a webpage of our nature walks.
Well, John was enthusiastic about the idea, too, and we talked a bunch that day about how I could go about designing such a site. At that time I didn't have a digital camera and I didn't know anything about manipulating photos on the web, so John volunteered to tape our walks on his digital video camera and then send stills to my computer to use in the nature walk reports that I would write. For the first three months of my website that's how we planned it- I would write the text and design the pages, John would take the video and send me stills for the page.
The growing pains for learning to put up my first webpage were considerable. I have no knowledge of HTML and I was working with an inexpensive, older web design program which probably wouldn't have been recommended to me by anyone. John taught me everything I know about webpages and frequently scolded me with phrases like "Directories! Directories! Directories! You have to know where you're putting your files!" when my photos and text wouldn't end up where I thought they were :-/. It was frustrating, but an interesting challenge and then trying to figure out FTP and how to upload my webpage to a server was another whole adventure.
I kept at it and eventually my first little unsophisticated webpage was on the Internet. And I knew it wasn't very artistic, it wasn't very technical, in fact it was pretty darned basic, but it was mine and I was happy with it and I still am even though it hasn't become much more complex since those early days.
You can find my nature walking page here: http://members.rogers.com/30307486500/index.htm
To my surprise, though, most viewers didn't care much about the simplicity of the page, they liked the content and they wrote to tell me about nature walks they'd been on or trips they'd made to the places featured on the site. Fellow walkers around the world have been intrigued to see a little glimpse of Canada through the page and eventually I relaxed and stopped worrying about the sophistication of the page and I focused on what I enjoyed, the walks, the photography, the writing.
The latest step in my cyber learning curve came when I got my first digital camera last October. As much as I enjoyed collaborating with John and having him take all the pictures there was a great independence in being able to take my own photos and then learn to incorporate them into my own webpages. Besides my nature pages I've also put up photo essays from conventions and Tolkien events and my work has been featured on theonering.net and Tolkien OnLine.
By last October I found I was falling behind my nature reports even when we went on walks (which is why I plan on shorter reports and more focus on photos in my nature walk pages this year). Through the winter months the page was dormant even though I continued to walk in the city. Yesterday, though, John and I went out to Edward Gardens, our first warm weather nature walk this year, and I found myself itching to start my walking reports again, even though I didn't take my camera with me. So, I came home, went over to the site, which I hadn't worked on in five months, and got it ready for another summer of hiking reports.
And with today's report of our day at the Metro Toronto Zoo I'm happy to see that my first website is active once again.
Exercise log: I put in three miles of walking at the Zoo today, which puts me 44 miles along on my Rivendell challenge.
Of almost everyone I knew who used the computer on a regular basis I was one of the very last people to start designing and putting up webpages. I found I never had enough motivation to go through the learning curve needed to put up such a page because I didn't feel I really had anything to say that needed to be permanently on the web. Debbie's love of writing inspired her webpages, Jodi's love of music inspired hers, but there was really nothing that I was passionate about that drove me enough to start a webpage. Because of my love of movies, newspapers, TV, music, many people thought it was likely my first venture into cyberspace would be with some kind of media-oriented website, but maybe it was -because- I read and followed so many media websites already that I didn't feel the need to add one of my own to that number. So I went on quite contentedly for a long time an orphan in the cyber world with no place to call my own.
I have always loved nature walking. When I first met John 16 years ago I discovered he really enjoyed nature walking, too. Through the years we explored most of the nature trails in the Toronto area. Being that we didn't have a car we pretty much stuck to trails that began and ended on public transit. Getting a van two years back broadened our horizons considerably. Suddenly we were able to get beyond the city and discover a whole new world of nature walking. In 2001 we went exploring north of the city, but by 2002 we were getting more ambitious and heading out to conservation areas further away. One day in May of 2002 I was sitting in Scanlon Creek Conservation Area looking out over a beautiful green vista and the thought formed full-blown- I want to create a webpage of our nature walks.
Well, John was enthusiastic about the idea, too, and we talked a bunch that day about how I could go about designing such a site. At that time I didn't have a digital camera and I didn't know anything about manipulating photos on the web, so John volunteered to tape our walks on his digital video camera and then send stills to my computer to use in the nature walk reports that I would write. For the first three months of my website that's how we planned it- I would write the text and design the pages, John would take the video and send me stills for the page.
The growing pains for learning to put up my first webpage were considerable. I have no knowledge of HTML and I was working with an inexpensive, older web design program which probably wouldn't have been recommended to me by anyone. John taught me everything I know about webpages and frequently scolded me with phrases like "Directories! Directories! Directories! You have to know where you're putting your files!" when my photos and text wouldn't end up where I thought they were :-/. It was frustrating, but an interesting challenge and then trying to figure out FTP and how to upload my webpage to a server was another whole adventure.
I kept at it and eventually my first little unsophisticated webpage was on the Internet. And I knew it wasn't very artistic, it wasn't very technical, in fact it was pretty darned basic, but it was mine and I was happy with it and I still am even though it hasn't become much more complex since those early days.
You can find my nature walking page here: http://members.rogers.com/30307486500/index.htm
To my surprise, though, most viewers didn't care much about the simplicity of the page, they liked the content and they wrote to tell me about nature walks they'd been on or trips they'd made to the places featured on the site. Fellow walkers around the world have been intrigued to see a little glimpse of Canada through the page and eventually I relaxed and stopped worrying about the sophistication of the page and I focused on what I enjoyed, the walks, the photography, the writing.
The latest step in my cyber learning curve came when I got my first digital camera last October. As much as I enjoyed collaborating with John and having him take all the pictures there was a great independence in being able to take my own photos and then learn to incorporate them into my own webpages. Besides my nature pages I've also put up photo essays from conventions and Tolkien events and my work has been featured on theonering.net and Tolkien OnLine.
By last October I found I was falling behind my nature reports even when we went on walks (which is why I plan on shorter reports and more focus on photos in my nature walk pages this year). Through the winter months the page was dormant even though I continued to walk in the city. Yesterday, though, John and I went out to Edward Gardens, our first warm weather nature walk this year, and I found myself itching to start my walking reports again, even though I didn't take my camera with me. So, I came home, went over to the site, which I hadn't worked on in five months, and got it ready for another summer of hiking reports.
And with today's report of our day at the Metro Toronto Zoo I'm happy to see that my first website is active once again.
Exercise log: I put in three miles of walking at the Zoo today, which puts me 44 miles along on my Rivendell challenge.