Hobbies

Continuing with the “Make Money Online” series, I want to help you get started with your web empire. As many of you know, I operate a few separate websites geared towards different interests. With web hosting fees continuing to drop all over the internet, it is becoming more affordable for individuals to stake out their claim online and share their opinions or promote their interests for others to see.

I have come across a website that is offering 1 Year Free Website Hosting for anyone interested in starting their own website. This offer expires on September 30, 2010, so you still have time to take advantage of it. If you are interested, make sure you use promotion code VHP25589.

If you want to start a website on kittens or candy, on airplanes or Aristotle, or anything else you can image, you have 12 months of free web hosting service to start up your site and cement your presence online. If you have an existing site, you can also migrate your site over for free. Remember to use the promotion code if you take advantage of this offer.

As you know, I love my trains.  I also love storms.  Here is a video showing what happens when you mix the two together.  From my understanding of this video, this tornado occurred in Illinois back in 2008.  There was no way for the train to avoid the powerful storm as it crossed its path.  The end result is predictable.

While watching the video, look at the upper right- and left-hand corners.  You can see how conditions change real quick by the way the trees suddenly wave out of control.  Very impressive!

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This was the first weekend where I had a chance to work on the lawn.  I went to the store to buy a couple bags of soil and seed and went to work.  The first thing that needed to be done was to clean the section of lawn that was to be treated.  I dethatched the area using a metal garden rake; digging the combs into the soil to remove dead grass and leaves.  Afterwards, I went over the area again with a leaf rake to ensure all the loose debris was removed.

Once the section was prepared, I applied the seeding soil and started working it and spreading it around.  Since the first section needed the most repair, I worked in an inch of fresh seeding soil with the loosened top soil.  This not only added needed soil, but also gave the seeds a lush bed to grow in.

As I worked in each new bag, I finished off the soil by going over the new patch with the leaf rake.  This allowed me to create grooves parallel with the slope of the lawn.  Once all the soil was worked onto the lawn, I started hand-spreading the seed over the lawn.  The seed would fall into the grooves, making it easy for me to cover them up with a thin layer of soil as I dragged the leaf rake lightly over the soil.

Once I was done for the evening (as you can tell from the last two pictures), I turned on the water and let it run for an hour.  This allowed the soil to absorb a lot of water to help stimulate seed germination.  Now all that I need to do is keep watering this patch and begin work on the next section.

One of my favorite ways to relax is to log online and watch viral videos off of YouTube and Google.  There are some great amature videos out there, with some looking like they were made by professional studios.  It impresses me how creative people can be, and to be honest, I wish I had that skill.

Every now-and-then I come across a link that says the video was removed because of copyright and license violations, and it made me start to wonder.  How do you obtain video licensingfor a homemade video? Doing a quick search online, there are in fact services that help you license your material to protect your work (such as mDistribute). In fact, you can even earn money in the process.

So what can I create a video on and publish? I could possibly film how I create some of the elements on my train table, or create an instructional video on how to do origami. But the first thing I need to do is to learn how to do video editing. I should work on that this year!

Here is another beautiful steam train for you.  If the train looks familiar, then I have to guess you’ve seen one of the Harry Potter movies.  This train, operating from Fort William to Mallaig in Scotland. 

As you travel along the rails, you take in the stunning scenery that Scotland has to provide, including views of the Glenfinnan Monument and Loch Shiel as it crosses over the Glenfinnan viaduct.  This 110 year old consists of 21 individual arcs, giving this concrete bridge a spectacular architectural appeal.  The bridge, just like the Jacobite steam train, has also been featured in the Harry Potter series.

For those of you who love model railroads (as do I), then you need to check out this video.  There is an elaborate model railroad layout in Hamburg, Germany that has to be one of the largest and most detailed designs in the world.  Kick back and enjoy this video tour!

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Kyle of Lochalsh is a small village in the Northwest of Scotland.  It is served by the Kyle of Lochalsh Line, connecting the village to the town of Dingwall.  This link will take you to homepage for the village of Lochalsh, where they have a video of a 2-6-0 Steam Locomotive approaching.

Here is a still image of the train.

Steam Train Comes to Kyle of Lochalsh

What better way to start off the website that with a photo? The graphic in my header comes from the National Geographic. According to their website, this photo by Peter Essick shows a South American steam locomotive pulling two passenger cars accross the Patagonia plain. This region covers portions of Argentina and Chile.

Steam locomotive chugging across a Patagonia plain

I talked with some friends of mine this past week who are doing their own model railroading, and one of them told me an interesting technique for making realistic rock faces.  Since he is from West Virginia, most of the exposed rock faces he sees are the angled sedimentary rock layers, especially along the major roads where the construction crews had to dig into the mountain to lay a steady grade.  His trick to reproduce this effect on his train layout was discovered just over his head: ceiling tiles. [click to continue...]