Quincy's World

Good morning, folks. The lack of posting hasn’t meant lack of activity here at our household. I have done some behind-the-scenes work today on the website. I also added his monthly pictures and updated the Timeline as best as I could recall.

I’m hoping to have some more audio at some point since Quincy is talking all the time now. The major hurdle to that is when he sees my little recorder – he then just wants to grab it and play with that. So, that’s all for now. We’re enjoying our below-zero weather today and contemplating whether or not to go out and do stuff.

I’m experimenting with adding some new features to the site, but will make a post if anything big happens in the future regarding the site and such.

Episode II is finished and a big favorite here with Quincy. He very clearly can say “Darth Vader” when he flashes on the screen for about 5 seconds. Work on Episode III has commenced – the last one in that format – who’s to say what we’ll do after he is three.

Here are the 29 month old candid shots.

Time is flying by us it seems. Next month Quincy will hit two and a half years of age. Yowza. We are very pleased with the image quality from our new camera, especially with closeups (as you can see this month). I am still working with the RAW software to produce the best images I can, but it is a steep learning curve – plus I don’t have unlimited time at my disposal. Anyway, enjoy 29 months.

This past December was one of the snowiest for the Bangor region. Last year, we hardly had any real snow that required shoveling. This year, Steve has already used the new snowblower more times than he can remember. As you can see from the pictures, we have had a lot of snow and little melting. It is getting to the point of “crazy tall”.

Quincy didn’t like walking in the pre-blowed areas, but once daddy had a path for him, it was his job to help with the snow removal.

Take a look at the snow in the picture gallery.

Since I do all my web stuff from my own computer, I never really know how things come across on other computers. Sure, I check all the major things to make sure they work, but there always seems to be something that falls thru the cracks. I have two such items to address so that you, the reader, can see the site as I intend it to be seen. If you don’t care, then stop reading now, but if you don’t mind jumping thru a couple hoops, then read on…….

I found out by using Gramma’s computer that she didn’t have the font installed that I use for Quincy’s site. Instead, IE defaulted to one of the other fonts in my list for the site. The 1st choice font for Quincy’s Playground is called Maiandra GD. If you have MS Office 2000 or later, then you should have that font installed. It also comes with other commercial software packages.

To find out if you have that font (for Windows) just go into the control panel and select the ‘fonts’ icon. The fonts will all be listed that are installed on your system. If you do not see it, then you can download it right here. To install – just move the font from the download location into the fonts folder – which is located (on typical installs) at c:\windows\fonts\ and that’s it for the font.

I also found out on this same computer that the fonts still didn’t look quite right. Well, there was an easy fix for that – one you may be using, but maybe not. Windows XP has a function called Cleartype. To see if this is already enabled: on the desktop right-click and choose properties. Now, click on the ‘Appearance’ tab and on that screen click the ‘Effects’ button. The second box down says ‘Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:’ You choices are standard and cleartype – choose cleartype and make sure you have a checkmark too.

Well done! That should now make your fonts look a lot nicer and give you the view of Quincy’s Playground like I wanted you to have. Should you have any issues, please drop me an e-mail.