I must confess. I am a volatile person. If things don’t go my way, I could explode. Sometimes. Lately, I have let things go I wouldn’t in another life. When I first came down here, I was depressed, angry, but most of all, I was disappointed. All that we went through, left me doubting God and questioning my faith. I was in pain. My soul was broken, my heart was bleeding. I thought that this place was going to be my grave, in many ways. To live up the mountains, isolated, so far from the city, is only for those born to endure it. I hated the idea of spending the rest of my days dying of boredom and anguish

I was acting up, like a brat child, throwing tantrums left and right. Ungrateful, offensive, just plain selfish. Another side of me. Sometimes I would just pretend I was ok, so people wouldn’t bother me with stupid question and opinions. My ears were closed, and so was my heart

I’ve been always known for my temper, but this time, I had to make an extra effort to prevent mayor damage. I couldn’t care less for my family’s help. I saw evil and double intentions in everything they did. I felt like I was living on the pity of others. Feeling sorry for myself was the order of the day. My God, I was terrible!

Things have changed a little. I still cry every now and then. Not as much as I used to, but I do. The memories still alive, just subdue by the hope of tomorrow. Things are not exactly the way I like, but I feel much better now. Hope in God’s Word and faith in His promises have given me the strength I need to move on

From being selfish, I became more caring. From being depressed, I became content. From being angry, I became collected and at peace with myself. I see life with another eyes. It is too short to dwell. I have learned, I have grown, and now I must move on. To become stale is not an option. I’m looking forward with faith, hope and resolution

Don’t get me wrong. The timer is still counting.  Only my attitude will determine the outcome. Will I let it ring knowing the consequences of that action?, or will I take a step back, be still for a minute and start all over again

We’ll see

I just took these pictures as the sun was setting behind the mountain. Once again, nature as it’s best

Today, we took a trip through the island toward the south. We took the scenic (panoramic) route from east to west, going through small towns and villages, going way up the mountain and coming back down to the ocean. It’s like living in two worlds. One, breezy, cool and silent. The other, loud, hot and crowded. Different people, different attitudes. Humble up the mountain, arrogant down in the city. Amusing! I guess stress changes people and living a simple live is more rewarding. Anyway, that was my take on people today as we traveled this 100×35 speck of an island

First, we stopped at the Mirador in Orocovis which is an overlook 2000 feet above sea level with a magnificent view of  the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Caribbean Sea to the south. I took the picture below. It was a little hazy but beautiful still

Then we went to the “Charco de Doña Juana“, an irresistible waterfall by route 149, right there by the road. There is no parking but it doesn’t matter. It is worth it! Look at that picture! The water is freezing but is a good shock to the system. It revives the soul!!

Last in our journey was the city of Peñuelas, a little town up the coast to buy their famous crackers which are sold all over the world. It’s a small town, but beautiful and clean

Coming home, we took the southern route, this time cheating by taking the highway through the central mountain range. Long drive but wonderful. We will do it again soon

More pictures @ the album

For some reason, I knew it. Deep down, I said to myself, “don’t choose that name because is too common. Well, without being melodramatic, I must said it didn’t take me by surprise. What’s all the mystery?  My blog. That is. I Googled my blog name and it came back with around 300,000 results with that name or similar or using either word from it. The most notorious (and infamous), a porn blog . Ha! I am flabbergasted! Out of all the possibilities, a porn site, and a hard core one nonetheless. Yikes!

I laughed and cringed at the same time when I saw the description in the search results. I visited just out of morbid curiosity but was out of there faster than I could blink, repelled and disgusted. For that reason, I am going to change the name of this blog. I don’t agree with that behavior and therefore don’t want to be related in any way. If people choose that lifestyle, it is their choice and their right. I choose to live differently. End of story

I will think about a new name thoroughly. One that it’s personal to me and unique. Keep posted!

For some reason Firefox does not display full feeds for WordPress blogs so let’s hack into the system and “force” Firefox to display the entire feed, including images. Now, we are messing up with the system core, so I suggest you save another copy of this file with another name in your computer. Once finished, upload it and change the name back to its original. If for some reason, does not work for you, upload the original file without changes (I use Cute FTP because I can have both local and remote sites open, edit any file and download and upload as I please)

This tweak  is good for RSS 2.0 Feeds (default wordpress format)

1. Open file

wp-includes/feed-rss2.php

2. Find following lines

<?php if (get_option('rss_use_excerpt')) : ?>
<description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
<?php else : ?>
<description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>

3. Now comment out last line. You can remove it too but commenting is a safe option. So it will look like…

<?php if (get_option('rss_use_excerpt')) : ?>
          <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
<?php else : ?>
          <!- -
           <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
          - ->

4. Save. You are done

If you use feedburner, ping it here to clear the cache

Thanks to DW for the tut. He offers other hacks for more feeds, go here to see them

Very easy. Instead of opening your footer every year to change the current year, do the following:

Open your theme’s footer.php and add this code, changing the year your blog was born (mine was in 2005):

<div id="footer">
<p id="footertext">
&copy; <?php bloginfo('name'); ?> 2005 - <?php echo date("Y"); ?></p></div>

Done!

–> Be aware of your footer’s configuration. It could be different than mine

If you would like to spice your rss feed with a little personality, you can add an image with your logo to it. It’s very simple:

Open you theme’s function.php and add the below code @ the bottom, changing the path to your image and adding the description of your blog. Check mine here

<?php
function add_my_rss_image()
{
echo '<image><title>', bloginfo_rss('name'), '</title>';
echo '<url>', bloginfo_rss('stylesheet_directory'), 'images/nameoflogo.png</url>';
echo '<link>', bloginfo_rss('url'), '</link>';
echo '<width>200</width><height>75</height>';
echo '<description>your blog description</description></image>';
}

add_action('rss2_head','add_my_rss_image');
add_action('rss_head','add_my_rss_image');
add_action('commentsrss2_head','add_my_rss_image');
?>

Thanks to Wordlog for the tut