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Welcome!
Stay awhile. I write about life as it happens. I invite you to comment, because I know life is happening to you too. I also write about some of the things that hold my attention, such as – all things computer-related, writing, art, particularly digital art. I plan to talk about my efforts to tackle certain tasks in these areas. I might even put up a tutorial or two in the future written for newbies, because so much of what’s out there seems to be written for people who already know one or two things about the web.
Now, about the name of this site…
The name of the site comes from a joke I heard years ago. I don’t know who the author might be.
It goes like this:
A father had two young sons whose personalities were extreme. One was extremely negative, never able to find anything good in anything, and afraid of everything. The other was extremely optimistic, almost to a fault, where he was liable to run into traffic figuring he’d never get run over. The dad desired to find a balance that would make each son have just enough negativity to be aware and watchful, and just enough positivity to never give up or lose hope. So Christmas was coming and he decided to try something new.
He placed wonderful gifts under the tree for the negative son(NS). He placed a sack of horse shit under the tree for the positive son(PS). On Christmas day, as he lay in bed, he heard the boys running to see what they had gotten. He got up to see. The negative son was sitting in the middle of a pile of toys bellowing and crying.
Father: WHY are you crying!! You have everything a kid would want.
NS: I know, said the son. But I won’t be able to enjoy them. I’ll get hurt.
Father: how do you figure that?
NS: well, see this ball here…it’ll roll into the street and I’ll chase it and get hit by a car. This train has sharp edges and I just know I’ll cut myself and bleed all over….(he kept going on and on)
Father: oh…never mind…
Father shakes his head and turns his attention the the PS who has the biggest grin on his face and is holding his gut from laughing so hard. He’s reaching into the sack and slingling horseshit everywhere. His face is smeared with horseshit.
Father: son, why are you so happy? Don’t you know what that is in that sack?
PS: yes father. I know it’s just a bag of horseshit.
(father is puzzled)
Father: so why, why are you grinning like that and digging into the sack like that? Why??
PS: oh father, tee hee, I just know there must be a pony in there.
I.must.keep.searching.for.the.pony.
I have learned a lot these past few months. I actually can look at CSS and tell what’s going on. I can even write it, although I’m still working on the fine tuning. Now Php, that’s a whole other horse. Everyone says it’s easy, and I believe them, but I tell you the syntax, with all those braces and quotation marks — I don’t get it just yet. Miss one and your site will go blank. Still, I’m getting better at reading it though, so that’s comforting.
I have Dreamweaver now. Well, I’ve had it for several months. I actually prefer hand coding because I like to know how things are supposed to work so I use Notepad++ a lot, but Dreamweaver is another good way to learn CSS. I’ll be getting Photoshop and Fireworks soon. I figure between those four, my big CSS book, my occasional flirting with Php, I ought to get better at this stuff soon. I’d like to become one of those coding ninjas. That shouldn’t be too hard to do seeing as I literally spend hours on this internet combing tutorials, practicing with my own web sites, and just basically having no other life outside of web site construction. I can put a bare-bones Wordpress site together in under 10 minutes. I can write an article in 15. I can get some basic styling going in 30. Sweet.
It’s all good. I’m not shame to say I’m an almost nerd. There’s not anything else I’d rather do. I’ve only been like that a couple other times in my life: once while in college – I was determined to finish and finish well, and another time when I was heavily involved in sculpting. That passion lasted 10 years. I actually like having an interest grab hold of me. It gives me direction and purpose.
So…maybe it’ll all turn out to be something good in the end. I’m hoping so.
Ah Spring! Ah, NOT! Man, the cold went away, the sun came out, and so did the critters. All the creeping crawling ones, the scurrying furry ones, the flying, nesting, noisy ones.
Ok, I don’t dislike nature’s creatures. What I do dislike is when they invade my space. I live in a house with a nice backyard. There are nice trees and bushes for little critters to live. But nooo…they want in – in where I live. They want to live in part of my attic. They want to build nests under the eaves. They want to come in, sit down, and share a meal with me. Ain’t happening. Yesterday, I had the exterminator come to get rid of carpenter bees that were boring holes into the wood trim, and wasps that were starting to build their cones, and ants that had mysteriously showed up in my bathroom. There’s a birds nest that needs to go too, or else the chicken snakes will be slithering around trying to get the eggs. It-is-all-too-much.
There’s more… Critter Creep
So far, I’ve managed to keep my head above water since I quit my job in December. It’s amazing what you can do without when you just have a few dollars to work with. I’ve cut back on a few things. I don’t eat out. I cook, and I make sure I have leftovers. I don’t catch a movie every week. Instead, I discovered Red Box. Now if I could just remember to take the movies back the next day.
Going to work has expenses all its own. I’m saving on gas and wardrobe upkeep. I’m in jeans most of the time. I do my own hair; well that’s nothing new really. I don’t make runs to the store nearly as often to pick up a blouse or shoes. I’m making do.
There’s more… My Employment Status
I quit my teaching job in December. I have been on the computer almost night and day since then, studying, practicing, trying to get better at CSS code, graphic arts, and Dreamweaver. I’m making huge progress.
I have my learning style down to a science. I read, watch videos, and practice. Then I do it all over again. I realize that I do best with some of each, especially the hands on. I’m looking forward to the day when I can do more without having to consult a book or video. I want it all to become second nature.
I have decided one thing, though. No more of these late nights on the computer and staying on for hours at a time. I need to go to bed and get some sleep. I knew I was spending too much time awake when I found myself laboring over a simple CSS hover code. I just kept doing the same thing over and over, like in a dream. I stopped, went to bed, got up the next day, and it all made sense then. Besides, spring is coming, and I want to get outside. I can go back to staying in the house when the sweltering heat returns.
Anyway, if there’s anyone out there who’s trying to learn these web languages too and feels like a newbie, hit me up. We can study together and critique each other’s work.
Nighty nite.
This constantly evolving animal cannot be tamed. There are always so many new things to learn, updated coding, and new processes. And then there are the ever looming standards, which means that some of what I learned about HTML years ago is no longer applicable.
Change can be good. I’m not resistant to change. My problem is that I am teaching myself web design these days. There is no cubicle I can lean over to ask for help. I’m on my own, and that sometimes means I have to search for hours to find answers or fixes for simple things. For example, I was working on another site that uses the Swift Theme. Lovely theme. I really like it, but I was having a problem with the magazine layout. How to get it to show? Well, I always start with the search engines. Those may point me to a site that has a similar question being asked, and if I’m lucky, it’s the right question and the right answer. Poof! Problem gone. But I wasn’t lucky with this problem with the magazine layout. Finally I strolled upon the forum for the theme and began searching there. None of the responses were pinpointing my exact problem, so I essentially had to scan through almost every entry until I found a remnant of information. Aha! I need to have more posts typed up than what’s called for in the rotator. Simple enough. I had the posts, but by the time I found the answer, at least two hours had passed.
Lately, I’ve been more tweaking on themes. I am learning php and more css by default. Perhaps if I didn’t have to search so hard for answers, I could actually find time to read the book or do a few tutorials. One day, I suppose, I will know this stuff like the back of my hand. That’s how it happened with HTML. I remember that I struggled with it early on. I’d forget to close tags and then sit there with my head in my hand trying to figure out why my page was messed up. I’d use the wrong syntax and end up with a mess. Then finally, one day, I was typing HTML like it was a letter to an old friend.
I know my learning style. I need the written word, I need videos, and I need hands on tutorials. Soon before I realize it, I am able to do more and more. Now, if the web would just slow down a bit so that I can get ahead of this mighty engine, I might actually become a pro, of sorts.
Was write a post on my recent forays into managing this blog and a couple of other sites. That was before I crashed this site. *poof* it disappeared. It was already after 12am when this happened. I had planned to come in here, write a quick post, and be in bed by 12:30. (I stayed up ’til 5am last night). So, for the past 90 minutes, I’ve been pulling out hair.
So Ohare! (tomorrow is another day). I’ll be back, rested, and ready to write that post. Oh, and it’ll be about all the messes I get myself into fooling around on these websites.
I call it a month, because my official last day of school was right before Christmas Break. Well, there were those few hours I went in on the 4th of January, but that was for me. The staff was having their big ‘back-to-school’ meeting, and I didn’t have to go. Y’ay! Instead, I stayed in my classroom clearing out things I had left over the holiday. Meanwhile, all the teachers had to stay in that meeting ALL DAY! The principal even had lunch catered in so that no one would leave the building. There was no time allowed to spend in their classrooms to get ready for the students. Anybody in education knows the students come back
wired
after the long break. I felt sorry for my now ex-coworkers. They looked beat down whenever I had to pass the library where they were meeting. Oh well.
So. How am I doing? Well, the glow of freedom has not worn off yet. There’s a little nag in the back of my head saying, “whacha’ gon’ do about money?” I ignore it. I am happily residing in the state of Denial – you know that place a few miles from La La Land.
My days are filled with activities I enjoy, which mostly have to do with working on the computer. I’ve gotten faster at setting up Wordpress sites. I gotten really good at doing logos. (speaking of which, I need to do one for this site). I’ve been studying a ton of tutorials. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family. Even they noticed the change in my demeanor — not mean. I’m loving this.
I’m a night owl, so I’ve been staying up ’til 2 and 3am. I don’t sleep in late though. I’m usually up by 8:30. I probably need to reorder my sleeping patterns. I could probably use a little more sleep, but I tell you I don’t feel tired seeing as I am not stressed. I’m actually eating better because I have time to cook properly, and I’m not so exhausted that I avoid cooking. (Pretty good cook too – glad I enjoy my cooking.) I had signed up for a couple of those “meet-ups” that list themselves on the net. I had in mind that I might enjoy mingling with writers and computer nerds. I have yet to get to a meeting, and I’m not feeling any kind of way about that. I’ll go when and if I feel like it.
That’s what this phase of my life is all about. Me.
It’s breaking my heart. I watched a video report from Kati Couric that effectively reduced me to tears. I’d been watching videos and looking at pictures since this catastrophe happened, but there was something about that video that was just heart wrenching.
The suffering is massive – seemingly more than the heart can bare. Those Haitian hearts – what keeps them beating? Strong resolve? Shock? In the days, months, and years to come, layers of misery will press down upon the people. There’s no communication now, but later, when survivors learn of family and friends, places and memories, that were destroyed, what will become of them?
I feel so helpless. I feel like I should be there doing something, but I don’t have what they need, and no way to get there. I’d just be in the way.
God bless the ones who are there to help. God save and bless the Haitian people.
I have spent the better part of the past week going over features and techniques for Wordpress and the theme Thesis. I like Wordpress. I especially like Thesis. I’m putting together a couple of websites, and I started with Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver’s ok, although, honestly, I have not worked through all that it can do. So because I decided I needed to move a little faster, I fell back to the ole’ trustworthy Wordpress platform. I’ve accomplished more in two days than I did in two weeks using Dreamweaver, which poses a dilemma. I don’t want to become dependent on Wordpress. Fortunately, the Thesis theme allows for a lot of customization, so I’ll be diving into code to tweak different things. But that’s for that other site.
There’s more… Just another Wordpress day
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