Today I finally took a moment to change the header image for this Blog. I am looking at it on a 22″ screen and have checked it on IE and FF. It still retains the look I am going for when the browser is resized. I tend to forget that when I view this blog on my screen I am not seeing what everyone else is seeing. I keep making the screen smaller to see what it looks like on a different resolution. Does anyone know of a plug in for FF that would allow me to change my browser to an alternate resolution to check my design?

Today’s Photo as well as the new header image came about because Christine asked me for a 150 X 100 ad to place on her blog. She is really nice and offered me the ad space. How cool is that. Christine is also on track to win a Best My Guest for PostieCon contest. She’ll win a trip to PostieCon if she is chosen. And she should be chosen, her entry was the best one out of all submissions.

I am working on branding my content. I have 4 separate blogs (The BenSpark, BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Wired Kayaker and Flatwater Tech), each with their own focus. When things come up that are interesting on one of the other blogs I will link to that post. And sometimes I link a post from those blogs to this one. I set up a Spring Widget that I am adding to each blog that has content from each of my blogs as well as feeds from my Buzznet pictures and my Flickr PhotoStream and Twitter for good measure. The Spring Widget looks like this:

What I did was take all of my individual RSS feeds from each blog (The BenSpark, BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Wired Kayaker and Flatwater Tech) and then my Buzznet Photo-A-Day 2007 Feed, my Flickr PhotoStream Feed and my Twitter Feed. I added each one of those to a BumpZee community and took that feed and pulled it into FeedBurner and created a feed through FeedBurner and I was also able to take that feed and make the Spring Widget.

This project was not entirely smooth. My Flickr feed did not come over correctly so I apologize for what comes up. I will get this fixed.

Getting back to the new image header for this blog. I had done a Photo-A-Day back in February 2006 using the triple mirror to take the picture. That was in interesting image, scared a few folks too. I had been thinking about what I should do for a header, I had a few ideas. This was the one I came up with first. Then I took another image and made my new Avatar with today’s Photo-a-Day. I updated all of the places where I have an avatar and they all seem to be fine except for MyBlogLog, when I do there the image is updated but when I visit someone else’s blog then I see my old image.

I am focusing more on my photography as of late and because of that I joined a few Photo related Memes and Blogrolls. You can see the new Blogroll button at the top of the page. On that page I have three blogrolls, The Do Follow blogroll, The Fabulous PhotoBlogs Blogroll and the PhotoHunters Blogroll. You will see me participating in some Photo Related Meme’s like the LensDay Meme and the Photo Hunters Meme. Be on the lookout for posts that have a

image or a

then you will know that I am posting a photo for a meme.

Today I got some mentions around the web. Yep, some folks took a moment to point out me or my blog. First was Ashley with PPP who posted on MySpace about my introducing him to the great podcast that is GeekBrief.tv and Cali mentioned the Blogger’s Choice Awards on Brief 158. Another mention of the BCA’s was from Whitney Matheson. I nominated her for Best Pop Culture Blog of the Year. I was also mentioned by Christine and my new Ad is in place on her blog The Passionate Ailurophile. I made the image

and she wrote the copy.

“Home of the “Photo-A-Day”, which is now in its third year. Drew travels frequently for work, and is always taking pictures of things he sees while on the road. There is always a story behind each photo, which makes for good reading. Check it out today!”

Last but not least I got a plug from PaperSurfer on his blog. We’ve both been making new widgets for FuelMyBlog competition and he made a really nice one in response to the ones I made.

Speaking of FMB. I finally added BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo to FMB. Used the new avatar for it too. Don’t forget you can vote for each of my blogs at FMB each day. And please sign up your own blog and join the FMB forum. Here are some of the widgets in the competition. click each one to vote for each of my blogs.

Fuel The BenSpark Design by Papersurfer	Fuel Flatwater Tech Design by Christine
Fuel Benspark 2: Electric Boogaloo Design by northernbritishcolumbiaartifacts	Fuel The Wired Kayaker Design by Kastal Grapevine

Well that seems to be it for today. I have to strip wallpaper tonight. Better get crackin’.

Update- not even two minutes after this was finally posted.

I got another plug today in the form of a wonderful mention on Bill Blunt: The Man who Tells It Like It is. And I have to thank both Bill Blunt and Thomas J Hamburger Jnr of Harry McFry Investigates for such a nice post and a huge plug for my attempt to get paid to blog for a year. Sirs you are gentlemen and scholars of the highest caliber.