Fox

Second “X” stories voting reminder . . . and fox

The “X” stories voting block is chugging along and nearing the halfway mark. This is the second reminder and . . .

. . . crap! Is this Super Bowl weekend? Lemme check . . . yup! That means I’m wasting my time posting this. No, wait . . . I’ll work under the assumption that football fans are not big readers during football season (and likely during the rest of the year), so they weren’t going to see this post anyway, what with cheering various criminals and thugs as if they were heroes.

But, for the reading public, no matter how you come to the stories, if you are a reader of our stories and someone who votes, thank you in advance for casting a vote for your favorite of the three. Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge X-Stories” are HERE(link). Votes will be accepted until  Noon (Central Time) on Tuesday, February 16th, 2021.

So, fox . . . .

There’s a fox in our neighborhood that seems interested in approaching people, even when they are walking large dogs. I don’t know if it’s an idiot, young and immature, or all three. Two days ago, it was in my yard. I snapped a few photos (143) and recorded one video.

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Last One; Old Favorites and Another Reminder to Vote

If you haven’t yet done so — and if so inclined — please take a few minutes (about 15-20 minutes) and read the three stories in THIS POST and then, if feeling charitable, please cast your vote for one of them (the survey is after the stories).

Also, if you’re associated with the publishing industry (editor, published author, agent, etc.) and would like to volunteer as a judge to help us confer our Professional Recognition Award, please drop me a line or leave a comment. Thank you.

This is the last appeal, I promise, and here we go with more of my old photos reprocessed with Topaz Sharpen AI, Adjust AI, and Skylum Aurora HDR 2019.

This next photo was an interesting sight to behold . . . these Texas Longhorns were being unloaded from a carrier and released onto a grazing field. I missed capturing the part where they ran through the gate and dispersed onto the field; they seem happy to fatten up for the sake of future hamburgers. 

This guy kept circling above them, probably hoping for one of them to suffer a heart attack or accidentally — and fatally — stab a companion with them long and deadly looking horns . . .

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Again?! Yes; Old Favorites and Another Reminder to Vote

If you haven’t yet done so — and if so inclined — please take a few minutes (about 15-20 minutes) and read the three stories in THIS post and then, if feeling charitable, please cast your vote for one of them (the survey is after the stories).

Also, if you are associated with the publishing industry (editor, published author, agent, etc.) and would like to volunteer as a judge to help us confer our Professional Recognition Award, please drop me a line or leave a comment. Thank you.

I’m sounding like a one-trick pony . . .

But with less hair and no tail.

The thing is, I got to looking at my old photos and got hooked on reprocessing them with Topaz Sharpen AI, Adjust AI, and Skylum Aurora HDR 2019. So, here are a few more . . .

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Ahead of the game 2018 calendars – Final (finally!)

Note: I copied the original post instead of writing everything anew. If you read Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4 or Part 5 or Part 6 Part 7 or Part 8 or Part 9 or Part 10 or Part 11 or Part 12 or Part 13, you can skip most of the writing and just go to the calendars section. Can’t stop now or they win. 

I used to do monthly calendars, but they were a lot of work and few people bothered downloading them. At the beginning of 2016, I switched to doing a yearly calendar . . . which I did not do for 2017.

The calendars I did were neat prism yearly calendar generated using one of the free actions PanosFX offers to subscribers and people who register at his site. It lets someone, let’s say me, create a prism yearly calendar. Like, for instance, these.

20151231_195556-01 20151231_194924-01

Each three-sided calendars can be customized with any set of three photos. You can change the colors (I left them as they are), the language (I left them in English), and choose whether you want the week to start on Sunday or Monday (I left it on Sunday).

Now, the above photos are the ones I had done for 2016. I show them so I can give people an idea of what they look like (I don’t currently have a color printer hence why the old photos), but I’m doing new calendars for 2018. Panos made a few improvements and I decided to dump a bunch of calendars here. If you want to download the action and make your own calendar (you need Photoshop or Elements), click HERE. All you have to do is register and you get any of the free actions (high quality and fun to use).

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Ahead of the game 2018 calendars – Part 11

Note: I copied the original post instead of writing everything anew. If you read Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4 or Part 5 or Part 6 Part 7 or Part 8 or Part 9 or Part 10, you can skip most of the writing and just go to the calendars section. Can’t stop now or they win. 

I used to do monthly calendars, but they were a lot of work and few people bothered downloading them. At the beginning of 2016, I switched to doing a yearly calendar . . . which I did not do for 2017.

The calendars I did were neat prism yearly calendar generated using one of the free actions PanosFX offers to subscribers and people who register at his site. It lets someone, let’s say me, create a prism yearly calendar. Like, for instance, these.

20151231_195556-01 20151231_194924-01

Each three-sided calendars can be customized with any set of three photos. You can change the colors (I left them as they are), the language (I left them in English), and choose whether you want the week to start on Sunday or Monday (I left it on Sunday).

Now, the above photos are the ones I had done for 2016. I show them so I can give people an idea of what they look like (I don’t currently have a color printer hence why the old photos), but I’m doing new calendars for 2018. Panos made a few improvements and I decided to dump a bunch of calendars here. If you want to download the action and make your own calendar (you need Photoshop or Elements), click HERE. All you have to do is register and you get any of the free actions (high quality and fun to use).

Continue reading →