My View of Life on the Dock
Hey Joe,
These guys were steaming around the outer harbor a few weeks ago dropping moorings. They were pretty busy all afternoon, and were hitting spots between Rocky Neck and the breakwater. I’ve never seen this rig before, have you?
Thanks,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Hey Joe,
Just as the sailing program 420s got to the outer harbor today, the wind started blowing really hard from the South/South West. What would have been a nice evening sailing, suddenly turned into capsize practice! I think they had four boats turned over at one time, with at least two that were completely turtled. The kids righted those boats pretty quickly considering the conditions, and it looked like everybody got out of there in one piece. Sometimes the fun of sailing is the time you spend in the drink…
Enjoy,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Capsized!
Hey Joe,
I was passing Our Lady of Good Voyage Church on Friday and saw the door open, so I thought I would have a look inside. I haven’t been in there for quite some time, and as soon as I walked through the door there was the strong residual odor of frankincense, which instantly made it feel comfortable and familiar. I have vivid memories of how the altar boys would swing the incense burner (the thurible or censer) as they walked down the aisle. On the last steps out they would make it do a full loop over their heads, and Father Alves would smile [with consternation].
I had forgotten about the rich fishing ties that the church had to the community until I saw the décor inside again. Notice the model ships on the wall between the stations of the cross and along the choir balcony. I think the swag under the boats on the balcony is actually fishing net!
Enjoy!
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Download the Podcast Directly Here 
Bonus Podcast- Host Joey Ciaramitaro Talks To Bill O’Connor About Things To Do With Children On the North Shore. If you are one of the many parents looking for something to do with your child during February vacation Bill offers up dozens of suggestions in this podcast we did spur of the moment. I’ll be taping our podcast Thursday with my regular co-host Kenny.
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Bill writes-
Joe,
Here’s a complete icon set in two flavors – yellow gradient background we’ll call ‘Sunrise’, and blue gradient background we’ll call ‘Daybreak’. Both icon sets are with lettering or without, and are rendered in the following sizes 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, and 72×72. 72×72 is ipad sized.
You can bundle a set into one icon file (favicon.ico) that will allow systems and browsers to determine the best fit – instead of the one-size-fits-all approach. I would suggest an icon bundle of one color where you use smaller icons with no text (16×16 & 32×32) and the rest of the larger icons in the bundle would have the GMG lettering. Sort of a best of both world scenario.
Thanks,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Bill has been going above and beyond in helping to create the perfect favicon set for us.
OK now I’m going to start talking a little technical-
In case you don’t know why there are the different sizes provided in the set of favicons Bill sent, it is because the different sizes are recognized by browsers for placement on your device.
For example- the smallest ones are used in your browsers’ addresss bar up above or if you bookmark GMG in your Bookmarks Toolbar, the smallest favicon goes there. If you add GMG’s bookmark to your iPhone, iPod Touch or Android Phone’s home screen, then the medium sized favicon is recognized automatically and placed as a button on your mobile device. If you save a bookmark to GMG on your iPad’s home screen it will save the larger image as the button you would press to go directly to our blog. So for the smaller ones where you are never going to be able to read the text because they are so tiny you can put the seagull without the text but on the favicon which would display larger and the text would be legible, you can add the GMG lettering below the seagull. The way this is accomplished is by creating a file which contains each version of the different size you would like into one .ico file. From wikipedia-
The ICO file format is an image file format for icons in Microsoft Windows. .ICO files contain one or more small images at multiple sizes and color depths.
I’m pretty sure we can toss out the yellow ones. Even though they look nice, I’m all about branding and having it recognizable and changing our theme to yellow seems treasonous. Right now I like the idea of the larger favicons with the GMG text below the seagull and and the smaller ones without but there are a few things that I think we need to be tweaked for perfection.
In the quest for the perfect set of favicons for GMG look for part III tomorrow where I ask for some tweaking to the set of favicons Bill produced which are shown above.
The adventure continues…
I told you I would put Mr Bill O’Connor’s version of the GMG favicon up against the one I made and would let the viewership decide which one they liked best in a poll but I’m really liking the one I made with the blue and the slightly tilted black and the GMG lettering along the bottom.
I realize that the GMG is not legible when it is up in the address bar but it looks pretty spiffy to me even if our pal Bill considers it a complete hack job.
For those of you that have been with the blog from the beginning you know we’ve had a blue theme all along.
Since Bill was so very kind with his time and effort I owe it to him to toss the favicon he produced for us up for all the world to see and enough of you write in and feel strongly that I should consider it then I will flip flop again and put it up for a vote but I’m thinking that I really did the one I made from Beth Swan’s award winning GMG Logo design.
Oh and another note- a favicon is not something that replaces the official GMG Logo-
A favicon is defined-
Definitions of Favicon on the Web:
The GMG logo up above for comparison’s sake is 366 pixels wide compared to 16×16 pixels for a favicon.
And without further delay here are the two favicons that Bill designed at 32x 32 pixels –
I DO like how there seems to be that light that seems to be shining from behind the seagull though. Perhaps if it was a light blue behind the seagull and with the GMG I ‘d be inclined to make the switch.
Your thoughts?
Hey Joe,
NOAA said it was 8 below with the wind chill when I took this shot this morning, but it felt colder than that! I thought I could feel my eyeballs freezing.
Enjoy,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Y’all should start seeing a new Favicon in your web browser when you click on your GMG bookmark or have it on your screen. Upon prompting from NorthShoreKid’s Bill O’Connor I tweaked one of the logos that Beth Swan made for the blog.
I started with this-
Step 2) Filled In The Background Blue
Step 3) Filled More Background and cropped out the white in bottom right corner
Step 4) Blacked out the small type of GOOD MORNING GLOUCESTER and replaced it with hopefully somewhat legible GMG once it is shrunk down.
Let me know what you think.
In case you didn’t know, a favicon is the little tiny logo that appears in most web browsers’ address bar or when you save it to your bookmarks or in your bookmarks/favorites folders it will be the little logo that accompanies the web address.
I made the one above but Bill made a couple of different ones that I’ll post within the next few days and we will let the readers decide which one they prefer in a poll. Which ever Favicon you guys want is the one we will go with.
Hey Joe,
During the storm on Friday, I caught these ducks snoozing away. The snow would build up on them, and they would eventually shudder to get the snow off. As I was watching some were snoozing so heavily that the snow just slid off on its own after it got ~2 inches deep. The photo is a great testament to the effectiveness of down as an insulator. I shot this photo from about 100 feet away, and was shooting through heavy snowfall, so I was pretty surprised that this photo came out at all.
Enjoy,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Hey Joe,
I saw this on my way through Ipswich the other day and thought it was worth sharing. It’s the Kingsbury Lord house on High Street in Ipswich.
Thanks,
~Bill O’Connor
North Shore Kid
Hey Joe,
Every year in late December/Early January, we have a seal show up in the cove that loves to hang out on top of the moraine boulder that is visible in Wonson Cove at low tide, but covered by water a high tide. I’m can’t be sure if it’s always the same seal, but the behavior is always the same. He will hang around on top of the boulder for hours and leave when the rock is half exposed by the tide. He’ll stick around for a couple of weeks and then he’ll disappear. I’m thinking he’s gorging on urchins, then moving on. When he comes back the following year, the urchins have rebounded. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some photos in the future to use as comparison from year to year.
Anyhow, whether the seals are the same one or not from year to year, we’re calling him Rocky.
Enjoy ~Bill O’Connor
Bill I’m not sure if this is the same seal I took pictures of back in late September-
Here are my photos-
https://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/seal-sunning-itself-at-the-dock/
and video-
Damon Cummings speaks of a certain seal that follows him down the harbor each day he rows in the dory. Could possibly be the same one.
Good Morning Gloucester 