Spicing Up Your Posts with GIFs

Sometimes I like to insert a GIF into my blog posts. 

And it's super simple to do. If you've been putting images in your blog posts, you already know how to do this. 

(This is what you get when I have no good ideas on what to write about. If you have any blogging questions, feel free to ask in the comments. If I know how to do it, I'll write a blog post about it.) 

Step one: find a GIF you like. I usually go to Giphy, but there are oodles of sites you can use. You can even make your own (which I don't know how to do, but I'm sure there are instructions somewhere on the internet). 

Step two: get the URL of the GIF. On Giphy you can just click on the one you want to use and click on "Copy Link". (You can also "Download", but that's a way more labor intensive way to do this.) 

Step three: paste that URL into "Insert Image". 

The "Insert Image" is the little picture icon. Click on the arrow to get the drop down menu.

And choose "By URL". You'll get a dialog box where you can paste the URL you copied from the GIF site.

And then you click on "Insert Image". (If there's an error, the GIF won't show up on the screen. Check that you have the URL copied correctly. If everything is correct, then Blogger is being difficult and you'll need to pick a different GIF.) 

Once the image is inserted, you can fix the size: 

That box should pop up with the image, but if it doesn't, click on the image and it should. The circled icon is for sizing. It'll say "Original", but you can make it small, medium, or large. 

Just be careful that it isn't bigger than the size allotted for your blog post. (You can check that by hitting "Preview" in the upper right hand corner. If it's too big, you can go back and use a smaller size.) 

And that is all there is to it. Generally it takes me longer to find the GIF I want to use than it takes to insert it in the post. 

Do you use GIFs in your posts? Do you have a good idea for a topic I can do on blogging this summer? 

AI Chatbots

I am currently out of town visiting my brother and his family. I wrote all my blog posts for the time I'd be away ahead of time. That's been easy for everything except my "current events" day, or the day I scream into the void about how angry I am about the latest outrage. 

So, for today I'm just posting an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This episode is from May, and it's about AI Chatbots. 

Scary stuff, isn't it? (I'm still around visiting blogs. I'm not out in the wilderness or anything.) 

Vacation Crochet

Last week I made the decision (while writing last Monday's post) to rip out that second side and start over. I got it fully frogged and restarted when it was finally time to leave. And while I did some work on it on the plane, I'm not quite to where it was before I ripped it out. 

(Sorry about the background. I did not pack my off-white fabric that I use for photos.) 

Ta-da! Flat. 

Of course, I ended up ripping it back a bit on the first leg of my flight. And when I arrived. But I've still made some solid progress. 

Now I'm eyeing the first side...

I may rip it back a couple rounds. I'm not sure. I'll see how it goes. 

My sister-in-law is impressed with it thus far. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it sweater-shaped, but that's not at issue at the moment. Getting this oval to lie flat is. But at least I got some good feedback. 

My crochet companions so far have been Shadow...

...who became fascinated with the yarn and leapt on it (and on me). I yelped and jumped. His claws were out, but he didn't scratch me. 

And then there was Delilah...

...who basically just wants attention. 

I haven't gotten pictures of Winter or Calliope (the other cats) or Artemis (the other dog) yet. It's been a timing thing. 

So, sort of progress, but since I'm out of town and not on my usual schedule, I don't know how much I'm actually going to accomplish. But hey, I didn't leave it at home, so it will be more than if I had left the yarn behind. 

The Reluctant Sweater: 

• Questionable Quality
• Planning and Research
• And It Begins
• Watching the Increases
• Second Sock Syndrome
• The Wavy Second Side
• Which Way Now?

The Color Quizzes: What's Blue?

This summer's quizzes have a theme: the colors. Quizly did a series of quizzes with one question. Of the choices, only one is the color of the quiz. Today we're looking at blue. 

What's Blue?

I lucked out with this one and got 20 out of 20. Is blue easier than the other colors? Or were the other choices just more obvious? I knew quite a few of them, but a couple of them were lucky guesses. 

How did you do? Are you an expert on blue? Let me know in the comments. 

13 Busiest US Airports

I am getting on a plane today (or I'm on a plane or I'm getting off a plane, depending on when you read this). I am going to visit my brother and his family in Ohio for several days. (They have internet and I am taking my computer with me. I'll be around the blogosphere, although I may not be checking in daily.) So, in honor of my travel day, I thought it would be fun to find the top 13 U.S. airports. Yes, this is a Thursday 13. 

I got my data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, ranked by passenger enplanements for the year 2025. (I used the spreadsheet which was the third sheet tab at the bottom of the chart.) 

1. Atlanta, GA (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International)
2. Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (Dallas/Fort Worth International)
3. Chicago, IL (Chicago O'Hare International)
4. Denver, CO (Denver International)
5. Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles International)
6. New York, NY (John F. Kennedy International)
7. Orlando, FL (Orlando International)
8. Las Vegas, NV (McCarran International)
9. Miami, FL (Miami International)
10. San Francisco, CA (San Francisco International)
11. Charlotte, NC (Charlotte Douglas International)
12. Seattle, WA (Seattle/Tacoma International)
13. Phoenix, AZ (Phoenix Sky Harbor International)

None of the airports I'll be in are on this list. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I do know that when I went through Denver last year, things did not go so well. 

Eliminating Blogger's Indent

You've noticed it, right? In Blogger blogs, the first line of the first paragraph starts a space over. 

It's a minor thing, but it bugs me. Why does it do that? How can I fix it? 

I don't have an answer to the first question. Not the "why?" anyway. But I do know how it's happening. 

If you open a new blank blog post, you're greeted by a blank template. Before you do anything, switch from "Compose view" to "HTML view". 

click on the image to make it bigger

And you'll notice there's already some code on your page: 

click on the image to make it bigger

It's basically gibberish. It's just some placeholders in between code that means "paragraph". If you look in your toolbar, it'll show "Paragraph" rather than "Normal". "Paragraph" means when you hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard, a gap of a whole line is left after your previous paragraph. 

(If you want to use "Normal", that line isn't left, and you have to hit "Enter" again to get that space.)

If you try to delete that code, in Compose view it'll go back to "Normal". If you hit the back button to delete that space in Compose view, things go wonky. 

So, most bloggers just leave the space in. But you don't have to.

The way to get rid of the space is to begin the post. If you start with writing, start writing. When you hit "Enter" to get a new paragraph, begin writing the new paragraph. 

Only after you have started a second paragraph can you go back to your first word and hit "Backspace" to eliminate that space. 

Yes, I know. It's an annoying extra step. But it's the only thing I've found that works. 

But what if you start with an image? 

If you upload an image using the picture icon in the toolbar, an extra line of space is added to the top of your blog post. 

I have not had luck in hitting backspace before the image to make the extra line go away. (If you have, please leave how you get it to work in the comments.) But I can make that extra space disappear by deleting the first paragraph code (in "HTML view") after I've uploaded the image. 

If you delete everything highlighted in gray, that space goes away. Be very careful to get both "p"s and the carrots on either side. 

When you go back to "Compose view", your post will be back in "Normal". But if you click on the arrow, you can switch it back to "Paragraph", and it'll stick.

Of course, if you haven't noticed this issue and it doesn't bother you, feel free to ignore this post. But things like that irritate me, so I take the time to make sure I don't have that space. 

What about you? Do you eliminate the space? Have you never noticed? Or are you on a different blogging platform and don't have the problem? (Or do you know a better way to fix this?)

The Pros of Bad Leadership

I haven't really been following the news lately. So much bad news. But, there is some good. 

This clip from Rachel Maddow's show last week talks about all the things that are good about having a bad president. Mainly, his incompetence is making it harder for his policies to be implemented. 

I mean... not great. But it's something. Keep pushing back. It's us pushing back that's helping.