Paris 2004    

Here are a few pictures from the two gigs in images I shot while in Paris. If you only want to see the pictures, click on any button at left or Thumbnail below, and you'll be there. Many pages have a More Info button - click it and you'll find more details about the photo - some interesting stuff there. Most of the pics are just random shots of things that interested me as opposed to mainstream photos. Then again, a few are old standards that I couldn't resist. Anyway, enjoy what works for you.

Images and History

When I started tossing my Paris photos on this site they were just pictures. As I started doing a little digging, I found that every little building, park, road, bridge and river had a many centuries long and very deep and rich history behind it. I quickly gave up trying to fully understand the stories behind any one of the pictures, and put that challenge on my long term to do list (maybe requiring a few trips back to Paris to fill in the blanks - I hope...) My short term compromise was to try to get a brief understanding of the background underlying the images I've posted. I've done a bit of that and will continue to do more for each, and that summary info can be found by clicking on the More Info text at the end of each picture header. I'm trying to find a happy medium here; a one sentence blurb is not much use at all, but I spent two hours reading about La Conciergerie, and only pulled in a thimble full of the ocean of information on that one building alone - palace, fortress, prison for Marie-Antoinette, torture, bribery... Anyway, enough of that. The little mini summaries have some interesting info in them, and I think you may find them worth browsing, but if you just want to blow through the pictures, feel free.

Pictures aside, it was a great trip. A few of my favorites were Cafe Deux Magots and it's Left Bank home, the D'Orsay Museum (both recommended by a brilliant and wise gentleman, the progeny of an excellent gene pool), the Pere Lachaise, and just strolling around an amazing town. The Metro is great and the mix of passengers quite interesting, in a good way (the previously mentioned sage gent had wisely counseled me to get Museum and Metro passes on day one, which allow you to bypass all lines at the venues, some an hour long, and walk straight in - It saved hours overall). The only thumbs down I'd give during the entire visit was the Pompidou Museum and the trip there and back - definitely a waste of time unless you're into staring at a 10 foot can of Campbells Soup (Warhol) and a twenty foot square painting which consisted of an all white canvas with a blue dot in the center, and no explanation... The couch(?) in the picture at right was just sitting there under that picture(?) and it was just there, in it's own room with a 30 foot span of nothing surrounding it (at the D'Orsay in a room that size they had nineteen amazing van Gogh's, and in another room that size, the same volume of Monet's). Better be a pretty comfortable couch, but it doesn't look like it. Oh yeah, I mustn't forget the pantyhose nailed to the ceiling with the feet filled with colored dirt so they stretched 20 feet and dangled just above the floor. C'mon now.. Gimme a break.. Go to the D'Orsay or the Louvre, Rodin, Picasso, anywhere but the Pompidou. The bizarre and ungainly design of the exterior was only outdone by the jaw dropping hideousness of the interior. Maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea (soup?)...

Wallpaper and Art Images

While the wallpapers that are linked below are not directly related to the recent trip to Paris, I've left the links there for several reasons. My readings on artists like Vincent van Gogh and William Bouguereau were the initial catalyst that got me started thinking about going to France and to Paris in particular. I got a kick out of walking through the Tuileries where, it's said, Monet first developed his unique style of painting being inspired by the gardens and the way the varied plants reflected their shimmering colors. Jeez.. I'm starting to sound like an art critic... To make it short and sweet, a lot of great stuff came out of that city, and I wanted to see what made it so inspiring. I think I now have a tiny bit of an understanding of why the city has the effect that it does.

Jennifer Aniston Free Wallpaper - By Demand
Return To Top

OK, OK...  I can explain.. Really!  These Jennifer Aniston Wallpapers are here at the request of a freaked out Mom. Here's the story... While at a computer store recently, I came across a pack of 12ish boys crowded around the store's monster machine - 22" flat panel LCD and a blazing processor, just the system I came to look at - and I listened to endless chatter about how to find some cool Jennifer Aniston wallpapers or pictures. A lady, the mother of the boy running the machine, and the gang's chauffer for the day, stood watching. I heard the words Google and Images, and knowing the store was hooked live to the Web via broadband, looked at Mom to see if any alarms were going off in her head... nothing, not a clue. I folded my arms and waited for the inevitable. Asking her if the store had any controls turned on, she simply tilted her head and looked puzzled. I said "You know, Parental Controls"... She had the same puzzled look and simply said "controls?"  About this time, the inevitable happened. The pilot of the machine found the right button, and they hit the Motherload - Judging from the boy's panicked glance at his mother, he got more than he wanted right then. Within seconds, pop-ups with every form of raunchy picture had appeared on the screen and every time the mouse handler would close one window while looking over his shoulder in panic, two or three worse ones would appear. In under 30 seconds the screen was totally covered with images, some so bad they surprised even me, the machine was frozen, the kids were squealing with a mixture of delight and fear, and the Lady was screaming for a sales person - none to be found. Panic ruled the room. I walked over to the machine, pulled the power cord out of the monitor and the pictures and panic both disappeared instantly. The kids vanished like ghosts, and the lady looked bewildered and embarrassed. I must give her credit for not walking out in an huff, taking time to find out what happened and how to deal with it. After she calmed down, I used Google to show her that Aniston is on over 1.2 million web sites -  33,000 with images, and clicking on four random links, 3 out of 4 led to hard core raunch sites. She was shocked that her kid knew how to find that stuff since they don't even have a computer. I told her that if any kid in his circle of friends has an unsupervised computer, then that's what kids do... he was just too good at it for it to be an accident....  Whew... WAY too much info. To bullet the rest of what happened, she turned out to be quite nice and was mad at herself for being so clueless (her word), I told her not to get angry at the boy, he's just a normal curious kid, explained Parental Controls and how to use them, advised her to make sure controls are in place on any computer he uses, and said I'd find some harmless Wallpapers (we actually spotted several right there at Gateway that she was comfortable with, the above included) and I'd post them here to keep the gang off of those pop-up infested raunch sites - annoying for adults and just plain wrong for youngsters..... Click Here for more Wallpapers.  Most wallpapers images are of Artwork, Astronomy, Photography, etc. 

It should be mentioned that Jennifer Aniston seems like a classy lady, and, from what I've read, she's not at all happy that her harmless pictures are so often used by a bad element to lure web-surfers of all ages into not-so-harmless realms. But that's the reality of it. The world seems to love Aniston and people are going to take advantage. So, for what it's worth, maybe a few photos here will prevent some of the curious from getting sucked into the vortex of pop-up land, and they'll still get to see their favorite lady.  Update: I got a note from the lady above (and a few others) saying thanks and that it's working. My favorite note came from what I can only assume is a kid who hasn't read the above, and I quote, in fact copy,  "dude, tight pics. you got any nakeder pics of Jennifer Aniston or Pamela Anderson or the Anderson video?"       Oh well, ya can't win 'em all.......

Feedback

A secondary benefit is that I'm testing a new server system and related admin features. Also, some pesky Gremlins in the old server became unbearable. So if anything ain't workin' right, click the E-Mail button and let me know what's not working so I can whip this puppy into line.

By the way, several people have sent me notes saying they want to set up their own sites for various reasons, from general links to promos to the basic photo album, but they haven't because they think it's a huge undertaking.... If you're comfortable with computers, and ya got some pictures, products, or just stuff you want to share, worry not...  With a $89 copy of Microsoft FrontPage, a downloaded $15 starter template (links only, I get nothing), and a day or two laid up with a busted toe (in my case) or whatever, it's pretty easy to put together the core of a little site like this - then just toss on new info when people ask, hit 'Publish' and that's it. You don't have to be some whiz-bang master of technology. As with anything new, you'll fumble around a bit at first, but then it becomes pretty straightforward. 

So - What's this new stuff?

The Links in the box above and the paragraph below are for items that people have asked me to find for them. They've asked because they've been unable to find the info themselves, or in some cases, when they've tried, they've ended up in pop-up or porn hell, or worst of all, both. I've done my best to track down useful and PG rated sites, but just keep in mind, they're not under my control and could change their format at any time. The following is a list of the text extracts of the links listed above, quite frankly not for human consumption, so skip this one paragraph. It's simply included so that those search engines that don't like to read hyperlinks can find this stuff. Enjoy, and I hope it's useful... Let me know if not.

The sites added above are as follows in text format - Starbucks Nutritional Facts, DaVinci Code Fact and Fiction, Tungsten Noise Display, Map Quest, All Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Language Translator, Emergency Readiness Guide, Salary Wizard, Paris Hilton Fan Gallery, Dogpile Popup Blocker, Cowboy Bebop Wallpapers, Windows iTunes Artwork, Finding Nemo Graphics, Artist Painter Herranz, Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital Drivers, News Papers in New York, Michigan Ave. Apartments in Chicago, Element Magnesium Interesting Facts, Volcano Terms Glossary, Facts About Element Potassium, Interesting Facts About The Element Silver. Map of Agean Sea, which people miss because it's properly spelled Aegean Sea, and Dennis Leary Quotes are missed because his name is spelled Denis Leary. Newbie searchers type www.leonardo da vinci.com and get nowhere, and John Steinbeck Facts is just an unusual search string (for my favorite author). The sites added above are as follows in text format - Starbucks Nutritional Facts, DaVinci Code Fact and Fiction, Tungsten Noise Display, Map Quest, All Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Language Translator, Emergency Readiness Guide, Salary Wizard, Paris Hilton Fan Gallery, Dogpile Popup Blocker, Cowboy Bebop Wallpapers, Windows iTunes Artwork, Finding Nemo Graphics, Artist Painter Herranz, Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital Drivers, News Papers in New York, Michigan Ave. Apartments in Chicago, Element Magnesium Interesting Facts, Volcano Terms Glossary, Facts About Element Potassium, Interesting Facts About The Element Silver. Map of Agean Sea, which people miss because it's properly spelled Aegean Sea, and Dennis Leary Quotes are missed because his name is spelled Denis Leary. Newbie searchers type www.leonardo da vinci.com and get nowhere, and John Steinbeck Facts is just an unusual search string (for my favorite author). The sites added above are as follows in text format - Starbucks Nutritional Facts, DaVinci Code Fact and Fiction, Tungsten Noise Display, Map Quest, All Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Language Translator, Emergency Readiness Guide, Salary Wizard, Paris Hilton Fan Gallery, Dogpile Popup Blocker, Cowboy Bebop Wallpapers, Windows iTunes Artwork, Finding Nemo Graphics, Artist Painter Herranz, Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital Drivers, News Papers in New York, Michigan Ave. Apartments in Chicago, Element Magnesium Interesting Facts, Volcano Terms Glossary, Facts About Element Potassium, Interesting Facts About The Element Silver. Map of Agean Sea, which people miss because it's properly spelled Aegean Sea, and Dennis Leary Quotes are missed because his name is spelled Denis Leary. Newbie searchers type www.leonardo da vinci.com and get nowhere, and John Steinbeck Facts is just an unusual search string (for my favorite author).

6677 at 5-15-04

All rights reserved.     .