When I mow the lawn, the toad needs to find a new hiding place because I need my shoes.
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Two hands
I took this photo with my Google Nexus S while feeding Marshall.
His hand had rested on mine while he was eating.
The photo was taken a few days after my father told a story about a memory he has of me doing something similar.
It’s moments like this that remind me it’s worth it, and to slow down and enjoy it. All the wiser parents I run into every day tell me it all flies by too fast.
The photo was posted on 
Father’s Day and Marshall’s first month
Yesterday, Marshall celebrated his first full month in the outside world and Kim posted a photo to commemorate the occasion on Facebook.
Here’s the photo I took of him on June 18 after he had gone to sleep for the night (3~ hours).
Which means I have finished the Meet Marshall album, which marks his first month. I might upload more photos from other people (Kim) to it at a later date, but for the most part, what is in there is what I have from his first month. Except for the videos which I have taken but haven’t posted yet.
The new commenting system
On Friday, in a whirl-wind week of WordPress updates and announcements, a new commenting system was released as part of the WordPress.com Jetpack plugin update.
The new commenting system, which I have enabled on this site, continues to allow users of this website to leave a comment by simply adding their name, their e-mail address (which stays confidential) and an optional web address to a simple form at the bottom of the page.
As it always has been, if you have a Gravatar and sign in to leave a comment this way, the photo you uploaded to Gravatar will display.
For example, see this comment here: https://brandonmoeller.com/blog/2012/06/09/recent-pickings/#comment-885
The new commenting system also allows you to comment on the posts by signing in with your Facebook, Twitter or WordPress.com accounts. If you’re like me, you’re likely already signed into one of these accounts, so clicking the icons for the service you wish to sign in as is somewhat seamless, once you agree to install the new wordpress.com facebook app on your profile.
As of this writing, two of my friends apparently have already done this for other wordpress.com sites.
Lemme know what you think about the new commenting system below in, you guessed it, the comments section. Especially if you can’t tell much of a difference.
The birth announcement
We recently mailed friends and family a birth announcement announcing Marshall‘s arrival.
Here are the adjusted photos we used in the announcement, which was printed by Shutterfly and designed by Kim and I. I adjusted the photos using Adobe Photoshop. I’m really pleased with how they came out.
Facebook + WordPress
Facebook has announced the launch of a new WordPress plugin that it has developed to integrate its most-popular social network with the most-used, self-hosted publishing platform.
This sounds really cool. For years, we’ve relied on workarounds coded by the community.
It’s good to hear that the Facebook developers have finally stepped up and done it themselves. More stability, I hope! And with luck, this plugin will progress as Facebook does.
This solution will likely replace a few others that I currently use, including some of the functionality of Otto42’s Simple Facebook Connect plugin. However, Otto’s work is still vital to this website – as I likely will keep the integration of his Connect to Facebook feature to allow visitors to comment here using their Facebook profile.
One annoyance observed right-off-the-bat: When you save a draft; your “Facebook status on your timeline” and “Mention Facebook friends” data is lost. Luckily, Firefox remembers my form data.
UPDATE: 3:45 p.m. – The Simple Facebook Connect plugin conflicts with the new Facebook plugin. Duh. Deactivating it ended a three-hour-long headache of trying to get the new plugin’s “Facebook Social Publisher” and “Facebook Author Message” function to work. Which is very cool, by the way.
UPDATE: 11:37 p.m. – I found this post where Simple Facebook Connect plugin author Otto42 reports that he’ll likely eventually drop support for his awesome and years-ahead-of-its-time plugin, in favor of supporting the official Facebook plugin. Otto42 is a frequent contributor to WordPress and I’m interested to see what this new plugin will do in terms of freeing up his time to focus on other matters.
Recent pickings
Having a garden is hard work. So is caring for a newborn. These days I barely have time to pick the harvest, but it’s even harder finding the time to prepare it and eat it.
Still, what’s the point of growing it if you can’t flaunt it on the Internets?
