Noodlin' around LJ...

Soon after joining this community, I noticed just how much I disliked small print running all the way across a wide screen, so I started to format my posts (more or less) with carriage returns. While the net effect looks okay (if a bit uneven) on high-res monitors, I found out the hard way (using lynx) that if the browser's going to be formatting your stuff, it's best to embed something into the HTML that'll help do the job.

So, I went into the modification area (see the FAQ) and added a particular width to the table cells that hold the text of posts such as these. Maybe I'll go back someday and change the pixel value to a percentage, who knows? The point is, if I do so, the HTML that's fed to my browser will take care of the format.

One caveat, though: I had been using the ` ' construction to indent lines by main force, and I abandonded that in favor of small tables with the following syntax:

<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="5"><TR><TD>
[content here]
</TD></TR></TABLE>

It turns out that, if this code contains a typo, the page it appears on will likely not load.

I went through this just now, and for a wild moment, I thought that, perhaps, I'd successfully flushed a bunch of postings into the well-known bit-bucket, but a glance at the source of what did arrive showed that I'd typed `,/TABLE>' at the end of the table, instead of `</TABLE>'.

Armadillos on my doorstep...

Being a born-and-bred city-slicker, I am always impressed by the appearance of any life form in my vicinity that isn't a pigeon. Although I grew up watching shows such as Wild Kingdom on television, I rarely got a chance to see animals up close and personal, aside from a few visits to a zoo (and those encounters were not up close, and certainly not personal).

A couple of weeks ago, a small raccoon fell out of a tree in the back yard, directly in front of the dogs. Sasha, the retriever, thought it was a grand thing and bounced happily from side to side, a respectful distance from the small, black-and-dark-grey creature that had appeared out of nowhere and which was starting to make ominous noises that clearly signaled annoyance and displeasure. This display did not sit well with Ming Toy, our Peke, who apparently took offense at this ungrateful display and seemed intent on tearing the creature apart.

For my part, I had my hands full with a platter of ribs fresh off the barbecue, and was trying desperately to keep an eye on the ribs and one of my feet between Ming and the raccoon. I was told later that, truly, it was a Kodak moment as viewed from the living room window. At any rate, the tale ended well, with the raccoon beating a strategic retreat over the back fence and into the thicket of undergrowth on our neighbor's property. Ming patrolled the perimeter for the rest of the day, as any self-respecting Pekinese would, to protect our little homestead from any further raccoon incursions.

The raccoon's appearance led me to believe that I had found an explanation for the freshly burrowed holes around the house in the mornings, but that theory was shot this morning when I surprised a rather large, genuine armadillo at work under the hibiscus bush next to the front door as I left to audit another interpreter early this morning.

Or rather, we surprised each other.

I wonder what other wildlife lives in the area?

Cheers...