You made it past the rather dramatic hero page or maybe you just ended up on this page to start with and are intrigued as to what this site is all about. EastBayRag is pretty much a playground where I go to undertake little projects. A distraction from the general grind of daily life, scripting in PHP and manipulating data in a Maria database (formerly a MySql db). It provides me something to focus on from time to time that takes all of my attention and becomes my escape. It also gives me a great sense of satisfaction when I create something and it works. In this world of self esteem, I have to say that I never cease to amaze myself!
The Webiste actually started as a small project to create something that I could control that would enable me to share photos with the family and allow them to easily view and download files (without having to order prints). After many late nights and beers it has blossomed into a whole lot more. The photos taken on routes are now geotagged and displayed on Google maps along with lots of other things to explore.
Initially I thought it would be a good idea to include some sort of blog section within the site. That then grew into the thought that I could host blogs for other people so I drafted my buddy “Mr O” from the UK to add content to the blogs, although he's been quiet for a long time (at least here anyway). Next came the idea of allowing other people to interact so the fun stuff section was born with things like a graffiti wall, quiz, caption competition and much more including breaking new ground to figure out how to use javascript to get stuff to move about the screen and do things. All of this serves no purpose what-so-ever, but sometimes you just gotta do things because ....
There's a site map that puts the contents of the site into some kind of order. You can find the site map on the bottom of any page, but you should be good with the navbar at the top to get you to the major areas. So where does it all end? What's the ultimate end game? Well, never let it be said that I'm anything but transparent - if you're interested, take a look at the EastBayRag (EBR) Business Plan.
The remainder of this page provides some highlights from across the site. Have fun! Enjoy! And feel free to contact me.
Showing random photos from the photos section of the site. There's some sense of order to them, but they have been taken from an array of different places .... from NASCAR to bird watching, they're all there.
Each week we host a different vote on this site. It's generally something around a completely meaningless topic and should definitely not be taken seriously. It is, however, a tradition I've kept for the past 18 years.
This week's question: Which passport will I get first?
UK is winning with 60% of the votes submitted to date.
Full vote details including results and analysis of previous votes.
For anyone new to this site, we've been running a countdown timer just here on the main page for over five years. The purpose of the timer was never fully explained, however, many folks knew it was a countdown to my retirement. Initially the timer was set to end on June 30, 2021 at 5:00pm. I'd figured that, at that point, I'd be able to not work again if I was careful. I'd pretty much come to the end of work as all the travel was taking its toll on me, then, low and behold, Covid hit and nobody was meeting in person anymore. This was a godsend and allowed me to extend my retirement date by four years which has left me comfortable. The revised countdown timer hit zero at 5:00pm on June 30, 2025 being the end of the fiscal year I turned 55. if you're interested, you can see a video of the coundown timer reaching zero.
Yes! To coincide with my retirement, my fruit trees decided to bear ... well, fruit. What else would a fruit tree bear? I have quite a few fruit bearing plants/trees. They are all fairly young and some are doing better than others. I have figs, lemons (x2), apricots, kumquats and another tree that I'm not sure what it is, but probably another apricot tree. The kumquat hasn't produced anything. Last year it had one tiny fruit on it. It's in a pot though and I've seen the cat in there quite a lot, so I think it's been subject to cat pee and I don't think it's going to last much longer. My apricot tree only had one apricot last year too, but this year it seems to have flourished. There's still quite a bit of fruit still on the tree after picking this lot:
Here are the current standings in the latest fantasy race game competition.
| Team Name | Total |
|---|---|
| Cynicoal | 1791 |
| Jade | 1774 |
| Megabobbins | 1769 |
| Zaphod's Meow | 1718 |
| dad's duffers | 1627 |
| Roll Over Beethoven | 1473 |
| DeepSeek | 1174 |
Find out everything there is to know about the Race Games.