Darren Straight's Blog

I’ve been working pretty hard lately on my garden – I just wish there was some miracle way of stopping weeds and roots from growing back and also to slow time . But hey it’s a challenge right – a one man band doing all he can within reason while still having no transport to get rid of all the cuttings!

8th of September 2009 – Before winter came and took the garden back.

24th of April 2010 – The sun is coming out time to do that garden!

21st of June 2010 – No car anymore, so work has been hard but it’s getting there, shame the rain came and ruined all the work I had done – weirds grow back quick!

27th of June 2010 – Finally shifting that dirt.

6th of July 2010 – More dirt shifting and still no transport makes for a hard life in the garden. Summer holidays soon – will have to clear as much as I can before winters back!

Finally uploaded the BETT 2010 Photos plus some extras of the London aquarium and a random one of a Woolworths store still open on the 16th of January 2010.

Snow this January is pretty bad everywhere around the UK, and I’m sure you’ve seen enough snow to last you a while but here’s some Photos I’ve took of Snow at Darland Banks countryside walk in Chatham, Medway, Kent.

Following up from both my previous posts (post 1 & post 2) about the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express Fan Trip Train Ride 2009, which gave you the chance to travel by steam train from Paddington to Oxford aboard the Hogwarts Express (GWR Hall Class 4-6-0 no 5972 Olton Hall) steam train on Saturday the 18th of July 2009.

I have now had the chance along with my girlfreind (see her post) to travel on this Hogwarts Express Journey, it was really enjoyable and worth going, the atmosphere around people was a great experience.

I have just finished uploading all the photos I took of my journey on the Hogwarts Express (5972 Olton Hall). My photos include both outside and inside photos of the main steam engine train and the carriages, along with some photos of Oxford and a few of London.

I shall soon be adding my Hogwarts Express Videos to this post too, which are definitely worth viewing, even if you didnt go!

Avril Lavignes The Best Damn Tour at the O2 Arena in London was great though these photos are not the best I’ve still uploaded them!

And here’s my Aerial photography of kent 2008 Flickr Photo Album Slideshow.

Slowly uploading a load of photos I have taken over the past year and forgot to upload. So heres the first lost of photos, photos from Reading Festival 2008.

The Library of Congress has published over 3,000 historical photographs from two of its most popular collections on Flickr in “The Commons,” a project aimed at creating a rich database of photos from public collections and civic institutions.Photos from the George Grantham Bain Collection and the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information were chosen for display online due to their popularity on the Library of Congress site, and their freedom from copyright restrictions.

By posting these photos, the Library hopes to not only increase their visibility, but also increase their value through social tagging and community input. The Bain collection has minimal identifying information, and the FSA/OWI collection has only some subject indexing, so comments and tags are encouraged.

The Library is also open to suggestions for which future collections to post, and according to the FAQ, many already have photos of the American Civil War in mind.

You can check the photos out at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress

Just want to shout out to everyone who went to Sallys 18th Birthday Celebration last night in Canterbury it was great fun, was just what I needed.  Thanks for inviting me sally – you rock!

For those of you wanting more pics – check them out here!

A striking image of seaweed shows the complexity of even the simplest organisms.

Seen here is Irish moss—Chondrus crispus—a common Atlantic red alga that is routinely harvested for its carrageenan. The chemical is used as a thickener in many processed foods.

Andrea Ottesen of the University of Maryland’s Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture shared a first place prize in the photography category of the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for the natural light photo.

The awards are given out each year by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science for the imagery that best conveys complex scientific information and concepts.

Read more about National Geographics Best Science Images of 2007 here.