No "skilz" required, Jenny!

First, thank you to everyone for letting me know that I'm not the only one to forget to buckle in the child. I'm sure it's common, but that didn't make me feel any less bad about it at the time. And thanks also for all of the very nice comments and emails about the photo montage. *I* certainly think Luke is beautiful and amazing, but I know I'm biased.

I had to laugh at Jenny's comment on the photo montage itself. She said she was impressed with my skilz! LOL Actually, there was absolutely no skill required. Just go to the site, One True Media, upload your photos, and it does the rest, transitions and all. And if you don't like the transition they applied to a particular photo, you can change it. For example, I changed the transition on the photo of Luke with The Hulk statue to pan from bottom to top to enhance that sense of height, instead of zooming in like it was doing originally doing. You can also change how long the pictures show, either all of them at once, or set certain ones to show longer. You get to pick the music (not a huge selection) or upload your own (not sure on the legality of using copyrighted songs to display on my blog, which is why I didn't use something snazzier). You can use up to 3 different songs, though I just repeated the same song 3 times. It handles video as well as still photos. You can even order a high resolution version on DVD (be sure to use high resolution photos if you plan to use that option; I haven't tried it personally, but I really want to).

I know, I sound like a commercial! There is no affiliation, and that's just a straight link up there. No kickbacks or anything. I just really really like the site and its capabilities. Special thanks to Leah for using it previously on her blog, other wise I would never have known about it.

I also added/updated a few of my sidebar elements. I've added a Disney countdown clock (only 56 days!), which is technically too wide for the sidebar, but seems okay. I updated the slide show, but if you watched the 2008 picture review, you've seen every photo in it (used the same source file), though there are twice as many photos in the review as in the slide show. And several weeks ago, I added a Twitter feed and a word cloud (below "The Entertainment" section), just for fun. I don't necessarily agree with all of the words that the word cloud picks out, but it is still interesting to me to watch it change. You may not be so easily amused! LOL Let me know if any of it causes you viewing problems for those who actually visit the blog as opposed to using a news reader. Thanks!

Currently feeling: magical (with the power of the web)