May 4, 2025

The Fae Are in Your Firewall

Tired of fantasy stories that long for a golden past where witches were burned and power wore a crown? In this essay, I argue that magic hasn’t vanished—it’s evolved. From fungal networks to fiber optics, the Fae didn’t disappear. They just upgraded. Let’s stop mourning the myths of yesterday and start building the enchantment of tomorrow.

April 18, 2025

Purchasing Tech in the 2020s

Once upon a time, you could buy an appliance that just… worked. These days, it wants your WiFi password and a subscription fee. In this sarcastic breakdown of modern consumer tech, we’ll unpack how companies design for data collection, not for you. Spoiler: your smart fork has trust issues.

March 22, 2025

To Ai or Not to Ai

I believe there is a middle ground when it comes to AI. It is possible to see the value it can provide while also being aware of the harms it promotes, such as devaluing human input and the theft that many AI companies engaged in to build their models. I believe we should advocate for ethical use of AI models and seek to provide fair compensation to those who have been harmed by it.

November 1, 2024

Halloween Is Slow Here

Happy Samhain everyone! And Day of the Dead. And Diwali. All the fall holidays! Plus some politics and dont forget to change your clocks on Saturday.

October 31, 2024

Are Birbs Real?

In which I share a moment with my cat and relate some links I found interesting.

July 8, 2024

Gamifying My Novel

After spending a decade writing the novel “Digital Dryad,” I’m considering bringing my writing and web programming skills together to create dynamic games inspired by the vivid world of my novel. Some of my ideas include language learning games that teach you how to converse in “Dryadic” and exciting “choose your own adventure” narratives as well as other ideas. I’m exploring an assortment of game concepts. Gamification of your novel is a wonderful way to expand the reader’s experience in the world of Digital Dryad.

June 12, 2024

Digital Dryad Available for Purchase

Digital Dryad is out now! Pick up your copy today from Amazon. Available in paperback or Kindle ebook format. It’s also available on Kindle Unlimited.

May 30, 2024

Author Copies Arrived

My author copies have arrived. Only two weeks until they will be available for sale on Amazon! And even my cats approve.

May 7, 2024

Man or Bear?

I was wondering why so many YouTubers were upset by a silly meme question. But then I rewatched a Northern Exposure episode, and it makes a lot more sense now.

April 27, 2024

New Marketing Materials

Bookmarks, postcards, and stickers. Oh my!

April 21, 2024

I Hate the Internet Sometimes

Ever been caught off guard by a change in schedule that ruined your plans? Ever felt a surge of unfairness mixed with annoyance and the reluctance to confront it due to the fear of being labelled a complainer?

April 18, 2024

Stop Giving AI Companies an Out

While I agree that the worst effects of AI are ahead of us, I do not agree that the concerns I have about AI are not valid. I got so annoyed at this article in Writers Digest that I had to comment on it.

September 22, 2023

No to Subscriptions

I am exhausted by the trend of companies switching to subscriptions. Why should I be excited to pad their pockets when I can barely afford to feed my cat? Here’s what I said to CleanMyMac when they surveyed me about switching to a subscription-only model.

June 6, 2023

Breaking the Chokehold

A post where I delve into the concept of chokepoint capitalism. I explore how connector companies accumulate immense market power, impacting consumers and small businesses. Drawing on examples like Amazon and personal experiences, I shed light on the detrimental effects, such as limited choices, reduced competition, and potential societal implications that arise from this phenomenon.

April 12, 2023

Join Me on Mastodon

I’ve discovered Mastodon

Okay, that isn’t that thrilling a discovery. Many people are there before me. But if you’re interested, here’s my link. You can follow me. Or not. As you wish.

Invite link: https://indieauthors.social/@htmljenn

Image by F. Muhammad from Pixabay

December 14, 2022

Books to Read

I have a ton of books on my kindle that I either haven’t read or read so long ago that they have lost their ‘read’ status. So rather than spend money I don’t necessarily have, I decided I should try to read what I’ve got.

June 21, 2022

Changing Focus

Deciding to quit is tough for me. I was raised to believe that winners never quit. But in just the last few years I’ve realized that quitting things that aren’t working works for me.

August 28, 2021

Today was a good email day

Sometimes reading email is a chore, and other times, it’s a delight. Today was one of the latter days.

January 13, 2021

I finished Infinity Concerto

My tastes in reading have changed. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, but it was to me.

September 5, 2020

2020 is So Much Fun

I never used to like the phrase “it is what it is.” It seemed like something people would say when they were dismissing my very real anger or frustration. Or something they would say when they were trying to pretend they weren’t feeling anger or frustration themselves.

I know now that the reason I didn’t like the phrase was because I didn’t understand it. I hadn’t truly lived it.

Along came 2020.

March 8, 2020

Panic Hoarding

A friend of mine calls the folks arbitrarily buying up every random thing in the store (e.g. TP and bottled water) “panic hoarders.” Honestly, that is an excellent name for them. I mean, I understand the people frantically buying Purell by the gallon (why, oh why didn’t I buy stock in Purell???), but bottled water? Did Covid-19 get into the plumbing? I guess I will invest in a LifeStraw. That way I can drink from the creek in my backyard. And I’ll use the leaves for TP.

February 12, 2020

Getting my novel ready to shop out - Nervous!!

It’s been a long time coming, but Digital Dryad is nearly ready for me to show it to agents and publishers. I’ve gotten some amazing feedback from my alpha readers and the Barnsian Nobility (my writing group) and it’s turned this story into something I’m proud of.

Of course, that means that if I share it with an agent or publisher, they will likely 1) ignore it/me 2) trash it. At least that’s what I’m afraid will happen.

November 29, 2019

Winner!

I’ve written 50,366 words in November 2019. I’m a little under half way through the novel. It’s been fun, and not really all that stressful.

I had hoped to cross the 50K mark a little earlier in the month, but life got in the way. However, it’s all moot as I’ve proven to myself for the third time now that I can write a good chunk of a novel in 30 days if I just push myself to do it.

November 23, 2019

Killing it in NaNoWriMo

This year I discovered that outlining is my jam. In August, I finished Digital Dryad (currently in editing and alpha readers). I had been working on that novel since around 2009, but I was able to complete the entire second draft–a complete rewrite from scratch–in around 28 days. That novel is currently 79,000 words. I was able to write this draft so quickly because I created a comprehensive outline first.

So I decided in September that I would outline my next novel to prepare for NaNoWriMo instead of pantsing it as I had done nearly every year I’ve participated in NaNo with a novel. I planned and thought about the novel through September and wrote the outline in October. And now, in November, I’m writing it.

April 17, 2019

Note taking by doodling is fun

From WorldCon 2018

I thought it might be fun to show some of my other notes that I’ve taken in Notability. I use an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil, so that makes it easy to draw. I would say the only issue I have with Notability is that I can’t figure out how to export it as an image. So I end up exporting it as a PDF and then converting the PDF into an image. I’m sure that’s because the Notability folks assume I’m going to use the keyboard to get actual text into it (or convert my tortured scribbles into text using the OCR). But it still makes it one step more when all I want to do is shove it into an image to put up on a blog page.

April 16, 2019

Doodling in Writing Group

Today was a busier than usual day. First I nearly got my Elven Druid killed when she insisted on yelling at the top of her lungs in a cavern where a bunch of people had died. We didn’t die, and she is no longer cursed, so I call today’s adventure 100% positive.

Then I went home and let the dogs run around for a while. Padfoot has discovered that being fenced in is not his style, so he spends most of his days attempting to find ways around the many fences we have been erecting, repairing, adjusting, raising, and so on. Yesterday, we learned how he is getting out now, so this weekend the plan is to raise that section of fence another 3-4 feet. But until that escape route is thwarted, he gets to be locked in a kennel or in the house while I’m gone. Storm, the other dog, just watches him as he runs off, then she comes to me and whines as if to say, “Mom, Padfoot’s run away again…”

January 28, 2019

Feeling good

I set a plan to write for an hour today from 10:45am to 11:45am. And I did. 1220 words in my novel are now down on digital “paper.”

Next step on my plan is to make and eat lunch. I wonder what I should have.

January 24, 2019

Today's Achievements

pen and paper

I read an article (recommended by a friend in my writing group) today about 10 ways to stay fired up about my writing goals. It was all the things you expect, but in an order that made it more palatable. In other words, “write every day” was not the first suggestion. Nor was it the last. I loved number 3 (“Accept your messy life and your messy house”).

August 22, 2017

We had fun eclipse viewing

foggy eclipse morning The morning started foggy. I was worried we weren’t going to see the eclipse too well because of the fog. And if the sun was eclipsed, would it be strong enough to burn off the fog? So I tested with the monocle before the eclipse started, and yes, I could see the sun’s full disc on my hand. So that was a relief. I was using Mark’s monocle to shine the sun onto a piece of white paper. Later on I put up a shade around the monocle so that the image would be clearer and easier to see. My friend got into it with a colander, but it was harder to see the eclipse than my method.
When we weren’t watching my monocle viewer, we were watching the NASA channel on my iPad. That made it feel like we were watching the eclipse with tons more people, even though everyone I called was either busy or not answering their phone because they were watching the eclipse. When it got near totality (we were in the around 90% totality zone) Jaryth looked at it and said “the sun looks like a banana.” And it really did! It also looked like the Cheshire Cat at one point. After totality, Jaryth got bored, but I didn’t. I set up a time lapse with my iPhone. At first I was holding the phone and propping the screen up on my leg. I sat like that for several minutes. But then even that was too boring for me, so I created a makeshift studio with my blankets and the tripod and left it running until the eclipse ended. [caption id=“attachment_1462” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] My makeshift time lapse studio - so long as the dog doesn’t t knock it over.[/caption] I had a lot of fun with this eclipse. See you again in 2019 or more likely 2024… J sitting watching the eclipse Did you view the eclipse? How was it? Let me know in the comments below!

August 20, 2017

OOTO eclipse viewing

I’m getting really excited. This time tomorrow I’ll be outside with a pinhole box, a monocle, and a tripod attempting to watch the eclipse. #eclipse2017

This is the closest I’ve ever been to a total eclipse–we’re around 92-94%.

Preparing for eclipse

Mark prepared a pinhole viewer with a box. And set up his monocle on a tripod and showed me where to aim it. I’m all set.

August 18, 2017

Summer!

[caption id=“attachment_1445” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024”] View from my Office[/caption] Summer is hot here, but at least I have flowers.

August 3, 2017

Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day-in and day-out.

Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day-in and day-out. ~ Robert Collier I’m focusing on the little things to repeat so that I can find success. And if I can’t, then at least I can enjoy hummingbirds.

May 30, 2017

Writing Test Questions is Hard

I’ve known this for a while. I first learned it when I was writing a test for my TEFL students. I had to figure out questions that were hard enough to demonstrate that they understood the material, but not so hard that they would be completely demoralized. I also had to make sure the questions were on the material the students legitimately should know, and not just on English language in general. When I started teaching HTML, I created a course, complete with an exam at the end, to demonstrate that students had learned something. The first iteration of the exam was fill in the blank. This made the test easier to write, but a lot harder to grade. So the second version was multiple guess. But multiple guess problems are hard to write because often the questions can be way too easy. For instance, how difficult would this be to guess the correct answer?

May 1, 2017

Why I Write for Myself First

pen

“I give you my word, as a Spaniard.” “No good. I’ve known too many Spaniards.”

This was the exchange Inigo and Wesley said to one another after Inigo had cut the rope and Wesley continued climbing up the Cliffs of Insanity in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Inigo wanted a chance to fight the man in black, and he didn’t want to wait. But Wesley did not want to be betrayed by a Spaniard. I joined Ninja Writers, a group of writers who are going to write a post on Medium every day. I joined thinking that instead of writing on Medium, I would write here on my own site and reap the benefits of writing practice as well as some possible publicity if the other writers deigned to read any of my posts. But then I learned that the group has a rule that you can only publicize Medium posts. So I may be dropping out of the group, or not publicizing anything I write for the challenge. Because I am not going to write for Medium.

March 8, 2017

Glorious walk today at Brightwater

I typically walk at the Brightwater sewage treatment plant several times a week. It’s one of those places where if you don’t live here it sounds strange to consider wanting to go to. But I really love this area. Several years ago, King County (the county south of here) needed a new sewage treatment plant, but because of space considerations and, let’s face it, NIMBY they couldn’t get one built in their county. So they came to Snohomish county and set up an agreement to build one on our land. And one aspect of the agreement was that they would build a park for public use. The back trail This park has lots of features including a small forest—complete with warnings of cougars, small retention ponds, marshland, and groomed trails. Canada geese come here, as well as dog walkers, and Pokémon hunters. There are at least three gyms and ten or fifteen Pokestops, and I caught my first Snorlax here. Geese on a pond Geese grazing I love cattails, and there are lots along the water trails. Cattails at the bottom of the hill Marshland is beautiful I would say Brightwater’s only drawback is that some of the trails are only feet from Highway 9 renamed Woodinville-Snohomish road which makes it loud in places and sometimes smoggy. But generally, Brightwater walking trails are a wonderful place to come walk. If you come and see a woman walking two dogs while playing Pokémon Go, say hi! It might be me. I love this tree

February 19, 2017

Some people dream of success... others stay awake to achieve it

I’m trying to wake up.

December 30, 2016

Are You Happy?

[caption id=“attachment_1331” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] cat a happy cat[/caption] It’s been a while since I’ve written. That seven word sentence says so much more than it seems. I haven’t written in this blog since October. Other sites I write for have languished even longer. This would be fine if I could say I was working on other things. But I can’t even say that. I finished working on my RWD videos in early fall and then the world fell in on me. I can’t even say what, if anything, happened. Mostly because nothing happened. Nothing. Happened.

October 12, 2016

If there is no wind, row.

For a few weeks now, I have been creating a motivational image for myself. Some of them I really like. Most are based off a quote that I find somewhere. Today’s quote was found in my Focus app and is apparently a Latin proverb. Either way, it’s good advice. Or as Dory might say “Just keep swimming…”

September 10, 2016

What did you do today?

We were farming today. With a small tractor, a medium amount of mud, and a lot of manure, err, I mean compost.

February 6, 2016

Mind the Gap

Insurance to cover what they won’t cover

This is fucked up. My insurance company wants me to pay them gap insurance for a gap in the insurance they are selling me.

What is gap insurance you ask?

Gap insurance is insurance that covers you if your car breaks down soon after you buy it. Your car insurance won’t cover your expenses if your brand new car gets totaled immediately after you buy it. You won’t be able to buy the same car again because they won’t give you the amount of money that you spent on the car.

January 7, 2016

New Motto: Don't Be a Jerk

Mark and I got a Christmas box from a relative who can’t be bothered to remember our last name. We’ve been married for 18+ years, and we both changed our name when we married. We combined the letters of both our last names into a new last name because we wanted to represent the blending of our lives in a more tangible way than just merging the linens and sharing the bills.

November 29, 2015

Disagreeing Shows You Care

I was watching this TEDx video: Margaret Heffernan “Dare to Disagree” and it really made me think.

https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree

One of the reasons I suspect I was laid off from About.com was because I had the temerity to disagree with staff. I would point out bugs and flaws in their code or design. I had discussions with both editors and senior executives about how the site could be improved and what I thought was going wrong and right.

September 4, 2015

Lego Store Response Did Not Impress Me

My son and I love Legos. He loves to build them, and I love to help. Plus I love the different scenes you can build and I’m especially impressed with the Hobbit and LoTR sets. We just bought the Smaug set and had a blast putting it together. Now Smaug can fight the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World and we’ll finally know which is more powerful—dragons or dinosaurs. When we bought the Smaug set, we were sent a survey asking us what we thought of the purchase process. So I filled it out. Our local Lego store is in a mall, and is like what I imagine most Lego stores are like—crowded and a lot of fun. So I gave them, primarily, 4 and 5 star ratings. But one of the questions asked what I thought of the store’s online promotions. I had to honestly give that a low rating (1 or 2 stars, I forget now) because the promotions have always been a source of frustration for our family. This low rating got me a reply from the store manager asking me what my specific issue was. I replied:

May 11, 2015

Fun With T-Mobile

Or, How T-Mobile Gave Me Something to Be Mad At, When I Needed to Be Angry

tl;dr Today I was getting frustrated with my (lack of) connectivity in the back of my parents’ house and so I decided to check out T-Mobile’s site to see how much it would cost to turn my iPhone 6 into a mobile hot spot for the month. This was not easy. In fact, I still don’t know how much that would cost for sure. Some people in the forums said $15 a month, but I couldn’t find any way to add it to my account with any official pricing. I also don’t know if it’s a feature I can add on and then take off later when I’m back home and don’t need a mobile hot spot. (“Need” being defined as “I’m really really sad right now, and since I can’t seem to get online with my laptop I’ll go spend money I don’t have using my phone.”) T-Mobile was kind enough to let me do a survey after I finished using their site, so I decided that I would give them the benefit of my years of experience as a web designer and online systems engineer. Lucky them! [caption id=“attachment_1088” align=“alignleft” width=“249”] Form Screen 1[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1087” align=“aligncenter” width=“249”] Form Screen 2[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1086” align=“alignright” width=“249”] Form Screen 3[/caption] As you can see, the feedback form was quite long. There were over 20 questions all told. most were like the above screens with numerical answers where I rated my feelings. I tried to be honest. Then I got to the first “give us more feedback.” And I let them have it.

April 22, 2015

Hypermiling For the Win!

I have been playing with hypermiling (the idea that how we drive affects our gas milage) for a few years now, and I find it very entertaining. I mostly enjoy the reactions I get from people both on and off the road when I’m doing it. But today’s reaction was perhaps the best I’ve ever seen. But before I tell that story, let me explain what I do, and to a certain extent, what hypermiling is. When I drive I try to get the best mileage out of my car as I can. And to do so I have a number of driving habits that are different from other drivers on the road, including:

December 18, 2014

My RWD Book is Out

Yesterday was an epic day for packages. We got Christmas presents from two different family members as well as a box from Amazon for Mark (that is apparently for me for Christmas). Jaryth was beside himself opening the boxes and putting packages under the tree. But the best box, from my perspective, was the heavy box from Pearson. My book has come out! It has been a long time in the making of this book. Some of the problems were my fault, some were caused by other people, some well, who knows why it took so long. I’m just happy it’s here. I had been tracking Amazon.com and watching as the release date moved inexorably out from late September, to October, to early November, to Thanksgiving, to early December, and the last time I looked it was scheduled to be available on December 26th. “What if people wanted to give it as a Christmas present?” I wailed in my head. Of course, the less histrionic part of my brain replied “who would get a responsive web design book for Christmas?” But you never know… So then last Friday, my awesome tech editor, Jon Morin, posted to Facebook that he’d gotten his copy of the book. Jealousy struck! But I stayed calm. In fact, this was a good thing as it meant that the December 26th date might not be right, and it might get out on shelves and on Amazon.com before Christmas. And in fact, Amazon currently says it will be available on December 19th. Hooray! Buy your copy today! It looks amazing. It’s in full color, and I think you’ll find it really useful for learning and doing RWD. And if you do buy a copy, I would really appreciate it if you could write a review on Amazon when you’re done. Let me know what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you want to see more of. All comments are appreciated. I’ll also have code samples and other information on my website HTML5 in 24 Hours

June 6, 2014

People Don't Read

As a professional technical writer for nearly 20 years, I should have this tattooed on my bones, but for some reason it always comes as a complete shock to me. Over the last week or so I’ve been combatting what, in retrospect, was a really stupid move on my part. As you may know, I write about web design and HTML for About.com. And About.com is in the midst of a lengthy birthing process of a redesign. Part of that was the (much appreciated by me) removal of the blogs. They weren’t removing our articles, weren’t stopping me from writing, weren’t even changing how the home page looked all that significantly. (Depending upon who you ask.) But, since I find all things web development interesting, I wrote about it in my newsletter of last week. I mentioned that the blog was going away, but that I was still going to be writing for About.com, just not in a blog tool. This resulted in a minor flood of responses asking me where I was going and if my articles would still be visible on the site and were the URLs changing (and one charming character telling me to f-off and take my dime-store web design skills somewhere else, and a bunch more about my lack of education and total idiocy in as profane a tone as he could come up with.) and so on. So this week, I decided to stem the tide, answer the common questions and generally reassure the people who like me that I wasn’t going anywhere. I wrote my newsletter with the subject: “I am not leaving About.com and other questions answered.” Do you see the problem? Mark pointed out that I should have written “I am staying at About.com and other questions answered.” But the part of me that is very literal balked at that subject, as it seems to imply that at one point I was leaving, and then changed my mind. Because, you see, the problem is that people don’t read. I know there have been studies showing that people are reading more than they used to—after all, teh interwebz requires more reading than TV does. [caption id=“attachment_831” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] This is how I read most of the time[/caption] And what’s really silly about this fact is that I’ve known it a long time. As far back as 1997, I was telling my readers “people don’t read websites, they skim them.” But the fact is that this applies to almost any type of reading, especially reading online.

May 22, 2014

PR folks, don't be stupid

I get a lot of PR requests in email. Most of them I delete, periodically I consider doing a review or article about it, and every once in a while some PR person sends me something so stupid I just have to respond. This week I got a request to review a new “app for Moms.” This is stupid mostly because they sent it to me at my About.com address—where I write about web design and HTML. If you must send me PR pitches, at least spend two minutes determining if I write in your niche. Now, to be fair, I do sometimes write “mommy blogger” type stuff here, but the PR guy didn’t make any indication that he realized that. But this PR person lucked out. I wrote about their product and got it promoted as a guest post on My Happy SAHD Life. Of course, I suspect the PR person won’t feel lucky. It’s not a review, and if it were a review it wouldn’t be a positive one. Read the article here: It’s 2014, Why Don’t PR People Know?

May 20, 2014

What's Up with the USPS?

I know, I know, they need more money, the stamps cost more, they are offering more services, Saturday delivery is going away, no it’s not, yes it is.

But seriously! What is UP with them?

I was very excited when they announced more tracking. It’s great to think that I might get a notice when a package is coming. When I do tracking with UPS and FedEx, I get a listing of where my package is almost up to the minute. I can practically watch the box as it moves from the sender, to the hub, out to a nearby city, then “on a truck for delivery.” That last bit can be the most frustrating as packages can get put on a truck at 5am only a couple miles from my house and then have no update to their tracking until after 9pm when they’ve been delivered to my house. But while I might be chewing my nails down to the quick waiting for my latest batch of Scharffenberger chocolate to arrive, at least I know that the box is out there coming. I have one package that was sent to me “with tracking” via the USPS back on April 26th. This is what has been tracked so far: [caption id=“attachment_816” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Tracking where nothing is tracked[/caption] Okay, I realize that this could mean that the company that sent this to me printed out a mailing label and then dumped all of it in the trash. In other words, the USPS never got anything. And neither did I. So I now have another package that I know has been mailed, because I mailed it. I printed out the mailing label on May 12th but then didn’t get a chance to mail it until today. Here’s the package: [caption id=“attachment_817” align=“aligncenter” width=“225”] tracking a package the package[/caption] And here’s the tracking page: [caption id=“attachment_818” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] trying to track it on USPS.com[/caption] What’s upsetting to me is how it was received at the post office. I walked into our local branch and stood in the line (2 people in front of me). When I got to the front of the line I handed the package to the postal worker and asked for her to scan it and give me a receipt. She replied “you already have one, you just go online and type in the number and it’ll show you the tracking.” Then, and this is the worst part, she takes the package, and tosses it over on another public counter. Then she smiles and asks to help the next person in line. She didn’t scan it, didn’t put it in a box, did nothing with it beyond putting it on a counter. And of course, three hours later as I write this post, it hasn’t been scanned. For all I know it’s still sitting on that counter. What is UP with the USPS? How is this considered “tracking?” When I have a box for FedEx or UPS, I take it to the shipping counter and they scan it into their system right then! Then when it’s moved off the counter and onto a truck it’s scanned again_!_ And so on until it is “on a truck for delivery.” And did you notice the other flaw? On the package it states that it’s being sent “Priority Mail 2-Day” but on the website it says that the postal product is “Priority Mail 1-Day.” Which is it USPS?

March 15, 2014

I joined a writing group and it made me a better reader

A few years ago I learned that my local Barnes and Noble had a monthly writers group come and meet on Mondays to discuss writing. The first month I didn’t bring anything of my own, I just came to see what the group was like. I was immediately sure I would like this group because almost everyone who did read was reading science fiction or fantasy. And I love science fiction and fantasy. I knew I was going to come the next month if only to find out what happened in the stories they were reading. After about three months, I decided to bring in a story of my own. I believe I brought an excerpt from a fantasy story I was working on. I got some great feedback, so the following month I brought a couple of HTML articles I wanted to clean up. Since that time I’ve been attending fairly regularly (except when I’m late for a deadline!) and I always enjoy the interplay, the stories, and the discussion. The group isn’t just science fiction/fantasy either. There are two or three people besides me who bring in non-fiction. There is a really interesting novel set in the 60s and at least two YA or children’s books.

November 13, 2013

Steady steady, just keep up the pace

I’m still having a lot of fun writing my novel. I took the first chapter to my writing group last night. They professed to enjoy it, but that may have been more relief that I wasn’t forcing them to read more HTML documents. But I did have fun reading it to them. What’s funny now is that I’ve kind of lost the thread. I think once I get this novel done, I’m going to work out more of a plot arc in advance. I still have the idea for my plot, but I found myself running through it in just a couple chapters, which is well under 50,000 words. Ooops. I think if I get the video project done in the next few days that will give me a better shot at completing the novel. I can write while guests are here over Thanksgiving and not feel guilty that I’m not paying attention to my son. And if I can get the SCA site live this week (maybe Thursday?) that will be yet another chain off my shackles. I’m technically not caught up to my required amount today, but I still feel good about my chances of winning this year for a couple of reasons:

November 5, 2013

I'm really enjoying myself

Today was slow going, mostly because I have other things in my life, like work… that I need to do. But I still managed to get out four articles (most pretty short) of non-fiction and another 1700 words on my novel. Stats for November 4, 2013: Novel Migraines for Magic: 12,016 words Non-fiction: 6,713 words Too bad I’m not counting all the words towards winning NaNo, I’d be at almost 19K words right now.

November 4, 2013

NaNoWriMo: Day 2 went well, Day 3 was AWESOME

Yesterday was tough. We had a power outage most of the day, and we spent a lot of that time driving around looking for someplace that had power so we could get some lunch and make sure we had enough gas for the generator. The power was out for several miles around us and it took a long time. But I was still able to get my novel up to over 5000 words. The words were just flowing. I was shocked at how fast it was going. The story isn’t moving along like I’d expected, but it sure is fun to write. I only got around 830 words written on my non-fiction project, but I had a lot of fun building the examples and playing with the CSS to write it. But today I really flew. In the morning I worked on my non-fiction, bringing my total there to 5233 words. That was two more articles. I put one live and kept the other back to save for a week or two. I then didn’t get the chance to work on any NaNo until after J went to bed. He was insisting both that my laptop was his laptop, and that I needed to close it so that I could take him to New York City. He has suddenly decided that I need to fly with him on an airplane to NYC. He wants to go there and then call Daddy over FaceTime from there. But eventually he was in bed and I started writing. Three hours, virtually non-stop brought my novel up to 10,242 words! I’m 1/5th done! I’m so excited. This year it really feels like winning is within my reach! Go me!

November 2, 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013 has started and I'm on FIRE!

This year, because I’m stupid, already have way too much to do, and just want to drive myself insane, I’m doing NaNoWriMo. But I’m doing it not once, but twice. My first version is the official version—a novel tentatively titled Magic for Migraines. Here’s my status for that so far: But I’m also doing an unofficial version, attempting to write 50,000 words of non-fiction through the month, as well. I realized that I can write about 1200 words of non-fiction in about an hour, so adding another half hour would give me 1800 words which is more than the daily minimum of 1667 words to win at NaNo. Add to that that this character of Christine has been plaguing my dreams every night. She wants me to tell her story. I figure I have to do it. Status for today, November 1, 2013: Fiction: 2060 words Non-Fiction: 2126 words If you’re doing NaNo this year, lets connect! If you’re not, please hold me accountable. I want to WIN this year. I think I can do it. I’ve already written 4186 words after all!

August 20, 2013

Watching my Baroness Fight

Here are two videos of Her Excellency fighting at the Sergeantry Trials this weekend. It was amazing fun, and anyone who wasn’t there missed out! [video width=“960” height=“540” m4v=“https://capstone.kyrnin.com/~jenn/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Eoin-vs-Sineidin.m4v"][/video] Be sure to watch this next one to the end. [video width=“960” height=“540” m4v=“https://capstone.kyrnin.com/~jenn/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/SineidinvsThePike.m4v"][/video]

July 25, 2013

Can someone explain how minimalist ≠ ugly?

[caption id=“attachment_771” align=“alignleft” width=“150”] This site displayed in a minimalist theme - very different from my last theme - and probably from my next theme. Click to view larger.[/caption] I’ve been trying out a bunch of new themes and frameworks lately, in an effort to determine what would be easiest for both me and my clients to use. In fact, this site is demonstrating that right now. Although I suspect as soon as I get some free time, I’m going to be changing it, probably drastically. Which is why I included the screen shot.

July 10, 2013

I think of you every time I don't leave my clothes on the floor

And then I start to cry… It’s been a rough week, and it’s been a fun week, and the fact that it’s been fun makes me feel guilty and then I start to cry. I feel so bad that I wasn’t here when you first started ailing, and that I didn’t do more when I found you that first night. But I was so worried about getting to the meeting on time (and I was late anyway), that I left you there under the porch and then I feel even worse, and the crying continues. I hate that I ever thought I wished you were gone. I want you back to pee on my sweater and ruin another chair. And it’s hard to type through the tears. I think about what the vet said (or rather what I heard her say as I was crying and holding you) and imagine I hear her reproach as we tell her we can’t bear the thought of another drawn-out death fight. Mali’s death was too much for us. I wonder if I’ll ever run out of tears. I suppose I should be grateful that I’m less of a slob because of you (actually, not really, I just learned where my clothes were safe from your litter box antics). But I’m not. I just remember your face as the vet carried you away and I want to take it all back. I haven’t told anyone you’re dead (well, beyond Brendan, who babysat while you died and the people in the meeting I missed probably guess what happened). I feel so bad, i don’t want to share it. It hurts as much as Mali did, and that was like a knife to the heart for months and months. [caption id=“attachment_767” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Auto Auto[/caption] See more pictures of Auto

June 1, 2013

Playing with Themes

I’ve had this theme for around two years now. And I’ve been working on a new WP theme for a client and it’s gotten me all interested in building themes again. And then I mentioned this to Mark and he said he wants me to build a custom theme for his new site Tech for Anyone. If I were smart I would go about this redesign like I tell all my readers on About.com: cautiously and with care. But knowing me, I’ll probably just start designing sometime later tonight while watching some random show on Netflix. At least right now I’m watching a show about a vet in Africa, rather than British murder mysteries, so any theme I build will probably be more animal focused and less dripping blood and dead bodies.

May 24, 2013

Giving up Caffeine

A few weeks ago I decided (for some crazy reason) to show solidarity to my brother by giving up caffeine. He was giving up a daily mocha fix and I felt I would give up my multiple cans of Diet Coke per day. This decision was incredibly hard. I spent a lot of time taking Advil and wondering why I was doing this. This wasn’t helped by my friends who constantly posted messages to me about the benefits of coffee, how coffee was good for you, and that a little caffeine really wasn’t that bad. Of course, I wasn’t drinking coffee. And no one was sending me messages about the hidden miraculous powers of Diet Coke. In fact, I got told about “that woman in Australia” who died from drinking too much Diet Coke. I think the person who first told me that story was also telling me I was crazy for giving up caffeine and sending me stories about coffee saving a baby from a well and how coffee makes you thinner and makes bathing suits look good on you. Aside: did you know that people can SEE you in your swimming suit, even when you’re under water? I think I’m going to start swimming in mud pits rather than YMCA pools. Well, it’s been four weeks, and except for half a can the first week, I haven’t had any coffee or Diet Coke in that entire time. Go me! The headaches stopped after about one week. The cravings took a lot longer. There are still days where I pass a 7/11 and think “I could just get a small Big Gulp.” Aside: does it make me old if I admit that I remember when a Big Gulp was the large size drink at 7/11? These days, it’s the smallest. That shocked me. But most of the time these days, I can look at a Diet Coke logo and not dream of gulping down all 12 ounces in 15 seconds of pure carbonated bliss. Okay, maybe not most of the time, but perhaps half the time. OK, maybe not half the time, but sometimes! Perhaps I should stop storing the case of Diet Coke on the kitchen counter? [caption id=“attachment_734” align=“aligncenter” width=“320”] The case of Diet Coke is now a stuff pile.[/caption]

May 14, 2013

Big trees = small fences

Our fence was crushed in several places today when one of the big trees next door decided to end its vertical existence. No animals, children, or adults were harmed in the creation of these photos. But there was a lot of adrenaline spewing about. [caption id=“attachment_704” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] fence #1 taken out by the base of the tree[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_706” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] middle of the tree took out the fence on the other side of the pasture[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_705” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The top of the tree takes out the playset[/caption]

May 7, 2013

Adopting dogs has gotten a lot harder

Today I read an excellent article on the state of the pet rescue industry—Who Killed These Dogs? on Dog Star Daily. This article hit many of the points that I have felt about the rescue environment these days. In 2000 when I adopted my family’s first dog, we walked into the local shelter, found a batch of puppies, played with two of them, and then took one home. Shasta was the most amazing dog. [caption id=“attachment_21” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Shasta[/caption] In 2005 when I adopted my family’s second dog, we went online and found a border collie puppy available from a local rescue. We set up an appointment, met the puppy, set up another appointment a day or two later for a home visit (for them to see our house and approve it), and a couple days later we got McKinley. Kinley is another great dog. In 2011 I started looking for another dog. I knew I wanted a larger breed dog, but all the online rescues seemed to have were chihuahua and pug breeds, plus some pit bull mixes. I have a kid, so the dog had to be either young or confirmed child friendly. But the fact that I had a kid under the age of 12 got my applications automatically rejected by several of the rescues I contacted. I found a gorgeous looking Pyr-cross that was listed at a Seattle rescue. But we couldn’t actually meet her, because well, she was listed in Seattle, but she was being fostered in Southern Oregon, and no, I couldn’t drive 10+ hours one-way just to meet a dog (not to take her home, that would require a second trip, after another home visit). [caption id=“attachment_698” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] McKinley, considering herding someone[/caption] I am a writer so I don’t have a lot of money, but nearly all of the rescues I could find were rescuing the “un-savable”. These are the dogs that need $$$$ in vet bills right after you walk out the door with them. Yes, it’s sad, and yes, the rescues are honest about it. But frankly, I can’t afford health care for myself, so rescuing a dog that needs a mortgage payment in vet bills right after we walk out the door (never mind the often huge “adoption” fees…) was not going to happen either. I felt extremely fortunate when in 2012 I walked into a pet store to buy food for our existing pets and happened upon a rescue event with some Aussie/Husky puppies. They had a girl puppy, she was reasonably friendly, bright eyed and seemed healthy and happy. I put down a deposit on her and called my husband and son to come down and see if they liked her. They did, so we bought/adopted her. Was she from a puppy mill? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. Did I buy her from a rescue? Well, they told me that’s what they did, but I wasn’t put on a mailing list nor have the solicited donations from me every week since I brought Storm home, so I suspect that it was really the pet store just calling it a rescue. Do I feel bad that I didn’t instead save one of the million pit bull/chihuahua crosses with heart defects that will kill them in three weeks if they don’t get a daily dose of $50 per pill medicine and an annoying habit of biting anyone that comes near them? No. Okay maybe sometimes, for the cute ones. [caption id=“attachment_595” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] My youngest dog, Stormageddon[/caption] In Washington state, where I live, there are very few (if any) publicly run shelters. But there are at least 10 dog rescue organizations in my rural area. And most of them get their dogs, not from local people having puppies and not knowing what to do with them, but by calling shelters in California and adopting, en masse, every dog that is going to be put down in the next week/month. Then they blanket the internet and the local media with pleas for foster and “forever” families to come forward and take on these animals. These pleas are accompanied by a cute photo of the “death row dogs” and minimal information about them other than “the shelter people really loved her” or “she growls a little at other dogs and really only likes women, but I’m sure there’s a perfect home for her somewhere.” Stop making me feel guilty because I want a dog that will work with my family, rather than the random sick drop-kick dogs you are trying to hawk.

April 9, 2013

Women in Web Design (Book)

I posted a review of one of the O’Reilly Head First books today. Like all the other HF books, it is quirky and fun and fairly easy to read.

[caption id=“attachment_693” align=“aligncenter” width=“180”] Head First Web Design
Image courtesy O’Reilly[/caption]

But as I was skimming it in my final scan before writing up my review, I realized one thing that startled me:

There was only one woman photo in the entire book (okay, perhaps there were two…).

March 29, 2013

I met some great people in the scavenger hunt

Today is the last day of the Great Online Marketing Scavenger Hunt, and I’m partly relieved and partly sad. I’m relieved because DANG! it was a lot of work! But I’m also pleased because I met some great people. I’m hoping I can keep up with them. I met Rie Sheridan Rose The Barnaby Poet, who wrote a guest post on my Bloggers Create! site: It’s a Great Time to Be a Writer. She was very inspiring to me because of all that she’s accomplished, both in her life and in the hunt. [caption id=“attachment_688” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] My Amazon review of How to Twitter[/caption] Another person I met was Stacey Meyers. She wrote a great book for people who don’t know how to use Twitter called How to Twitter: Getting Started with 30 Daily Doables. This was also inspiring to me as I’m working on a couple ebooks but I have yet to be willing to release them on Amazon. It was wonderful to get the chance to see another hunter’s efforts in that area. I really think this hunt has helped me in a lot of ways. I even got a guest post proposal accepted by Firepole Marketing! I’m so glad I did this, even though now I’m really tired.

March 20, 2013

Thunder Snow Ho!

According to Komo News weather:

This time, we’ll be dealing with scattered heavy showers with possible thunderstorms and – get this – maybe even some thunder*snow* in the Puget Sound Convergence Zone areas.

And for those playing along at home, yes, I live in the “Puget Sound Convergence Zone.” I’ve always thought of it as the “zone of wacky weather” myself, but I guess the official name is better. [caption id=“attachment_680” align=“aligncenter” width=“168”] Screen shot courtesy ThunderCats Lair[/caption] Thundersnow! I’m so excited. Nearly in time for Jaryth’s birthday. We had to drive through light snow when I went into labor. Good times! But there was no thundersnow. I’m stoked!

March 10, 2013

I'm having fun scavenging online

[caption id=“attachment_673” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Don’t put that on me, dude[/caption] I’ve started doing the Firepole Marketing Great Online Marketing Scavenger Hunt. And it’s been a lot of fun. The first week I was very focused on it, but the second week I realized that I needed to do some other, actual, work. The great thing about this is that I’m getting practice at doing things to help my site(s) get better and better. For example, the above photo I took of my dogs, McKinley and Stormageddon. They were offended that most captioned photos on the interwebz are of cats. So they wanted to pose for a picture too. But posing for a picture while wearing a fire hat, not so thrilling. I took one of Auto too:

February 24, 2013

Yahoo! CEO takes Yahoo! back to the 80s… Yahoo!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the 80s—big hair, power ballads, CDs, Miami Vice, break dancing, lingerie as outer wear (okay, maybe not that last one). But one thing that I don’t miss is the idea that the only place you can do work in a corporate environment is in an office. Saying that you “work from home” was equivalent to saying you were unemployed and preferred to sit around at home watching soaps, eating bon-bons, and generally slacking. Back to the 80s This attitude persisted into the 90s, perpetuated by people like my dad (love ya Dad!) who believed that it was impossible to “work” from home. (Quote marks his.) But in the companies I worked for in the 90s, only one didn’t allow work at home, and that was because of the job, not just categorically. And at my last job in the 90s and 2000s, I not only worked from home 100% of the time, but I also managed a team of between 7 and 10 people, all of whom worked from home at least every once in a while. Rather than sacrificing “speed and quality” as Yahoo! CEO Marisa Mayer implies happens (read the memo at All Things D) when employees work from home, my team was extremely effective, had regular meetings where we had strong communication and collaboration. In fact, my team worked with people in Europe, India, China, Japan, Brazil, and North America on both coasts, and it was possible because we could wake up at 2am, stumble to the phone, and be on a call in our pajamas. If I were expected to come into the office to be on that call, I wouldn’t be on the call, and neither would any of my team (except someone who worked out of the office where that was business hours).

February 12, 2013

Busy busy busy busy

I’ve always felt that life is never dull, but sometimes I help it along a little too much. What’s funny to me is that over-scheduling seems almost natural, but these days my idea of over-scheduling is much less rigorous than it used to be. I used to schedule myself with 60+ hours of stuff to do in a week. “Sleep is for the weak” was my motto. These days, I like to sleep. I think having a kid helped me realize how much I like to sleep, since he does his best to deprive me of it. Jaryth believes that mornings start sometime between 4 and 6am. I instituted the rule of no TV before 7am and no video games before 8am. This kept the sound down a little until he started watching “The Tigger Movie.” That movie is evil. Evil, I tell you! Firstly, there’s the theme–where Tigger no longer wants to be “the only one” and wants to find his family. Finding his family is fine, but why does that mean he can’t still be special? But what’s really bad is the bouncy song. Jaryth likes to imitate it. He bounces off the walls–yes, he slams himself into the walls and bounces off of them. We got an exercise trampoline which he likes to use to start his super-dooper-alley-ooper bounce on. And since you’re crashing into things you have to make the crashing noises at the same time. Luckily he hasn’t tried bouncing off of sleeping (attempting to) mommy. But that’s not why I’m busy. Some of the things I’m doing right now include:

August 30, 2012

Set in my ways - am I stubborn?

I’ve been doing web design work since 1995, and one of the things I like best about it is how much it changes fairly regularly. When I started, writing HTML required that I know vi and be able to edit the files directly on the Unix server. Then I started storing files on my local hard drive, editing there in a text editor (Homesite was my poison), and then uploading them to my web server. In the last few years, I’ve started using the WYSIWYG portion of Dreamweaver to handle some of the trickier aspects of design and then using the text editor in Dreamweaver to manage the HTML. And of course, all the change in how I do this is not why I like web design, it’s just a side-note. What I find interesting is how stubborn people can be about their opinions about editors like Dreamweaver. Back in the 1990s when Dreamweaver first came out, the HTML that it created was questionable. Not as questionable as HTML from other WYSIWYG editors (FrontPage was especially bad), but still a lot of bloated code to do things that you could do much more efficiently in the HTML using a text editor. But that was over 10 years ago. These days, even most of the no-code editors that I’ve tried out do a decent job with the HTML and CSS. It’s rare to see a FONT tag in an HTML document that was edited by a WYSIWYG editor, and tools like WordPress offer easy-to-use WYSIWYG tools (I’m writing this post in the “visual” editor of WordPress, for instance.) built right into the blogging system. So I don’t understand why even in 2012, I can receive comments on my About.com blog like this one (emphasis mine):

August 26, 2012

8 weeks of no sugar - with only minor lapses!

I have to say i’m very impressed with myself. On July 1, 2012, I started on an 8-week program of attempting to eat not only no sugar, but also nothing sweet at all (i.e. no Diet Coke, no fruit, no stevia, etc.). The first few weeks were tough. There were points where I thought that I would chew my arm off in the hopes that my blood was sweet. I would get frustrated at the drop of a hat, and don’t get me started on the headaches and general grumpiness. Anyone who tells you that sugar is not addictive is living in a dreamworld, or they have completely different metabolism than I do. For me, sugar (and to some extent anything sweet) seems to result in this intense need to eat more and more and more and more and more. I think the cravings were the worst. I would be doing something else, anything else, and suddenly I would think “what I really need right now is some chocolate.” Before this experiment, I would just head into the kitchen at that first thought and look for chocolate - or if we didn’t have anything chocolate, something sweet of any kind. But this summer, at the first thought I would then stop myself, and search to answer what it was I was really wanting. In many cases, this search would result in the whiny brat inside me starting to whine and cry and say “I don’t want anything else, I want CHOCOLATE!!!” There were some nights were I would completely miss the plot of whatever movie or tv show I was watching that night because all I could think about was the sugar I wasn’t eating. It sucks to feel that out of control. The second week is when the headaches started. I was waking up every morning with a migraine. The only thing that kept me from throwing in the towel right then was the knowledge that too much sugar has triggered migraines for me, so I was fairly confident that it wasn’t the lack that was generating these headaches. My husband pointed out that I had been drinking 1-3 cans of diet coke a day prior to this experiment, and perhaps I was addicted to caffeine. He is a genius! I now drink cafe au lait all the time (iced because it’s hot), or at least my version of cafe au lait which is: 1/2 cup regular coffee 1 cup whole milk 1 1/2 cups ice Pour all ingredients into a 20oz iced coffee cup (I use my stainless steel cup with stainless steel straw), stir, and drink. If it’s too bitter, add more milk. My son loves to make the coffee for me. Who needs a coffee maker on a timer when your kid will do it for you?

August 8, 2012

I think I understand why polls get confusing results.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of answering a survey about health care. Normally, when I get those types of robo-dialed call-center calls, I wait for the person on the line to say “Hello,” but for whatever reason, I said hello first. And then, when asked if I’d be willing to do a survey, I uncharacteristically said “yes.” It was interesting to take the survey both because of what I know about health care and my opinions on it. But what was more interesting was how the questions were phrased. I’d often wondered how one company could do a survey claiming that 87% of Americans love chocolate. And then another company could do a survey the next day claiming that 87% of Americans hate chocolate. After taking yesterday’s survey, I understand how this can happen. The questions (and supplied answers) can rig the results. For example, several of the questions had this format:

July 22, 2012

I can rely on Jaryth to teach me what I need to learn

July 25, 2012 Update I couldn’t do it. I spent all month trying to get a Ruby dragon, and yesterday I got one. The egg was going to hatch today. But Jaryth played the game this morning, and he sped up the incubation (using all my gems) and then sold the dragon egg for gold I didn’t need. When I found myself almost crying because of this, I realized that I needed to stop playing this game. Dragonvale has been deleted from my iPad, and Jaryth hasn’t realized yet. I’m sure when he figures out that it’s gone, he’s going to scream bloody murder. But I couldn’t stand feeling angry at him over an animated image. No game is worth that.

July 19, 2012

Who needs the sugar fix? … I doooooooooo

Week three started last Sunday on my quest to purge my system of sugar. This week, the goal is to eat no more than 10-20 grams of sugar per day (1 tsp = approximately 5 grams), or between 3-6% by weight. In some ways this is pretty easy, as I’ve already removed the crazy sweet things from my house. In fact, when I get a craving most of the time I can’t really do anything about it because we don’t have any sweets available. Yes, there are a few things—treats for Jaryth, Mark has some that he keeps in his office—but in general there’s nothing sugary that I might want.

July 18, 2012

Letterpress on Kickstarter

Help fund the Creative Dubuque Letterpress Post Card Series! I love this project for two reasons:

it’s Letterpress!
it’s cheap

If you’ve never contributed to a Kickstarter campaign before, this is a great one to join. You get a nice letterpress postcard for just $5. How cool is that? [iframe src=“http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pfraterdeus/creative-dubuque-letterpress-post-card-series/widget/video.html" frameborder=“0” width=“640” height=“480”] Letterpress is one of those things that I’m actually afraid to learn to do because I’m afraid I’ll become addicted to it. So instead I spend time looking at the prints that other artists have created. [iframe frameborder=“0” height=“380” src=“http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pfraterdeus/creative-dubuque-letterpress-post-card-series/widget/card.html" width=“220”]

July 15, 2012

Starting week three, and the sugar cravings are still here

Sugar sucks. I gave up eating anything sweet three weeks ago, or was it two weeks ago? I guess two, but it seems like forever. I keep hoping that there will be a point where I won’t feel these intense cravings for sugar or something sweet. In fact, I can say with some honesty that the cravings are not as bad today as they were on July 1st. But saying that is like saying that my bathtub isn’t as wet as the ocean because there isn’t as much water there. Yes, the cravings are less, sorta, but when they hit, they hit hard! Jaryth is watching “Monsters, Inc.” and he just got to the part with the abominable snowman. “Sno-cone?” he says, and I immediately start wanting a lemon sno-cone. I don’t even like sno-cones and I especially don’t like leman! And then all I can think about are sno-cones, or maybe ice cream, or perhaps a popsicle or maybe a lollipop, my cravings don’t care.

July 12, 2012

Working offline

I’ve been building web pages for over 15 years now, and one thing I know is that the web is not stable. Things happen that cause problems and the more you can do to protect yourself and your work the better.

So an exchange I had on a forum I read was very interesting. I asked the question “what offline blog editor do you use?” And this prompted several replies. At first I was pleased, as I was hoping to get suggestions for offline editors. Right now I use MarsEdit, but there are some things about it that I don’t really like, so I was wondering if there were other options out there.

July 3, 2012

Tea and Toothpaste

So my newest life plan is to try out quitting sugar (and basically anything sweet) for the next few weeks. I started on Sunday, July 1st, which must have been a week ago now, right? I have discovered a few things in the short period I’ve been off sugar:

I am, sadly, addicted to caffeine. Mark was telling me that and I was sure he was wrong, but man, today without Diet Coke, my head was aching and my temper was short.
The cravings are ugly. I find myself thinking about sweets at the most random times. And if I don’t immediately start doing something else, they can end up taking over my head.
Tea and toothpaste are my new best friends. I have drunk about a gallon of green tea today (read somewhere that it inhibits appetite — maybe because you’ve got so much tea in your stomach?) and brushed my teeth like four times (my dentist will fall over in a dead faint).

I feel almost ridiculous posting anything about this experiment after only two days, but I also feel like if I don’t I’ll give up sooner.

June 28, 2012

Slug kisses part two

In order to open our gate, I have to crouch down to dog level, reach my arm through the slats in the gate to pull up the latch and then push the gate open. Normally, this is a pleasant opportunity for my dogs to greet me. McKinley will push his head through the slat and Storm would jump around trying to find the best way to get to me. [caption id=“attachment_593” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Stormageddon and McKinley guard the gate[/caption] But today McKinley didn’t come to the gate right away, and this gave Storm the chance to get right up to the slats where my face and arm are reaching in. Normally, I would just let her lick me, open the gate, and move on. Today, when she licked my arm, I looked down and saw sludge. My friend was telling me about how she had to clean up after her cat threw up this morning. Apparently the cat had eaten a spider and the spider egg sac. When it threw them back up the egg sac opened and all the baby spiders were crawling around in the cat barf. That’s pretty gross. Another friend was asking on Facebook for suggestions for what to do when a 4-year-old toddler pukes in the car on a road trip 1 hour away from anywhere. That’s also pretty gross. When I told these stories to my husband, he reminded me of the last time Jaryth got sick. He wandered around downstairs crying “Where’s mommy?” I came out of my office, picked him up, asked what was wrong, and he threw up in my face. That was exceptionally gross. But all of these things were surpassed today when I realized that I had been licked by a puppy with a mouthful of half-eaten slug guts. I thought cleaning her mouth of slug guts was bad. Being licked by that mouth is worse. Thank you Storm, for helping me develop a very strong anti-nausea reflex. [caption id=“attachment_595” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Stormy shows that she has no slugs on the menu right now.[/caption]

June 22, 2012

Five things I achieved without goals

I was reading Leo Babuata’s site Zen Habits for a while now, and one of the things he recommends is the idea of living without goals. This is something I struggle with. I struggle with the idea that I should declutter my life of goals. I could argue that goals are how I’ve achieved what I have in my life. But when I think more closely, the reality is that the goals were a side note. In fact, some of the things I am most happy with or most proud of happened without any goal around them at all. For instance:

June 21, 2012

New puppy challenges

Stormageddon is a great dog. She’s smart, and very friendly and happy, and she loves to eat. I should clarify, when I say she likes to eat, I should say that she likes to eat anything that even slightly resembles food. Other dogs in my life have liked to eat, and liked food, but not to Storm’s extent. She eats just about anything.

Grass and grass clippings are a favorite. Shasta used to roll in grass, turning himself green, but as far as I could tell, beyond the occasional snack, he didn’t eat grass.
Paper, especially paper that might have had food on it at one point (like a dirty paper towel or a tissue). McKinley used to raid the trash can for tissues, but he just chewed them and spat them out. Storm may be spitting them out, but it’s hard to say, in the blizzard of tissues when she’s found one.
Of course, people food makes her almost manic, like most dogs. I carried some cherries out to the hammock, and I thought she was going to jump into the bowl she wanted them so badly. I wouldn’t give her any, mostly because I was afraid she’d eat the pits as well as the cherry flesh.
But the worst thing that she eats regularly is slugs, well, slugs and snails.

I live in the Pacific Northwest, and one thing we have a lot of is slugs (and snails). I tell my friends my puppy eats slugs and they say “ooo, can she come to my garden?” But they don’t understand the true horror of it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been trained from a young age not to like snails and slugs are a close second. My mother used to have me step on the snails that she found in her garden. At around age 10, I thought to ask her why she didn’t just step on them herself. “Because I don’t like it when they scream,” she answered. To this day, I can’t step on a snail without cringing. And that is after I even asked a High School science teacher if snails could scream when you stepped on them. He told me that any whistle or squeak sound you might hear would only be the air escaping from their shell as you crushed them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I wasn’t relieved by that explanation. But screaming aside, that’s not the problem with Storm and her favorite snack. After all, slugs don’t have a shell to whistle or squeak when puppy teeth crush them. No, the problem is that slugs are like peanut butter. They glue themselves to her mouth. She walks around after eating a slug with slug guts dripping from her jaws. Literally! Yesterday morning I thought she had grass hanging out of her mouth. So, before I let her come in I reached in to get it out, and we almost discovered if she’ll eat barf. Who am I kidding, of course she would! Slug guts feel exactly as disgusting as you might imagine they do. Luckily she’s cute. [caption id=“attachment_598” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Luckily for her, she’s cute, even if she does steal my chair[/caption]

May 13, 2012

One of the reasons we got a puppy

[caption id=“attachment_574” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“Storm and McKinley playing with the tug”][/caption]
McKinley is enjoying having someone to play with.

April 25, 2012

Comment Spammers Really Are Annoying

So, for some reason my blog has gotten targeted by comment spammers just recently. The comments on this blog are (were!) moderated so none of the lame attempts to spam my site were getting through. But I still had to deal with getting dozens of notifications a day. I received 48 new comments to moderate in just 12 hours. So I turned comments off. Who knows, I might turn them on again at a future date. But at this point, if anyone wants to chat about what I’m writing here, you’ll just have to do it via FB or some other location. Sorry for the inconvenience. And to all you spammers out there - F-OFF!

April 10, 2012

Dear Amazon, How You Can Fix Your Kindle iPad Store

So, I’ve had an iPad since the first day the iPad 1 came out. And I’ve been reading books in the Kindle reader for iPad almost that long. I am a long-time book reader. In fact, when I got the iPad I didn’t think that ebooks would hold that much of a draw for me. After all, I love the feel of a good book in my hand, the smell of the glue holding the perfect binding of the paperbacks together, the crispness of the pages, yes, even the jolt awake when the hardback falls into my face while reading in bed. But in the two years since the iPad 1 has come out, I’ve changed. I like to think of it as growing. Now, I prefer to read books on my iPad, iPod, and in the cloud reader on my laptop. I love that when I get to page 110 on my iPad, I can open up my iPod and be right there on that page. This is better than when in Jr. High I learned how to almost subconsciously remember where I was in a book without bookmarks to combat the teasing people who would grab my books from me and move or remove the markers in an effort to thwart my knowing where I was. (I also learned the best hiding places for reading at my Jr. High—back in the library stacks on one of the lowest shelves where no books were stored was the best. No bullies ever venture into the library.) When Apple changed the rules and removed the bookstore links from the apps, I quickly bookmarked your site in my mobile Safari and made sure that that bookmark was synched to all my devices. And when you announced the Kindle Store, I saved the location as an app on my iPad so I could always get to it quickly.

April 8, 2012

Why I don't blame my dog or my toddler for stupid things I do

So, this morning we got back from our shopping trip and walk and I brought in the grocery bag (in my reusable wolf bag) and the cat carrier we are using to transport our new puppy in. [caption id=“attachment_456” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Stormageddon the day after we got her”][/caption] I thought about being lazy and just put the kennel down and thought, “No, I’ll put it away right now, so it’s not cluttering up the kitchen.” I then walked to where McKinley’s leash and backpack go, put them away and then walked to the storage area and put away the carrier. Yay me! [caption id=“attachment_457” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“McKinley’s leash hung up by the door”][/caption] A few minutes later I realized that I hadn’t put away the groceries. So I went back to the kitchen where I’d left the bag to put them away. No bag. But Jaryth had moved the chair by the door so he could get a cup of water from the sink. So, I guess he moved the bag. Started searching the most likely areas a toddler would put a bag of groceries—in other words I looked around the kitchen floor. No bag. So I looked in the living room and dining room. No bag. “Jaryth, do you know what happened to the grocery bag? You know, the one with the wolf on it?” Blank stare, still no bag. Mark starts helping to look about then. He looks outside where Jaryth had been playing in the rocks, in the barn, in the shed, in the trash cans, in the car. No bag. I am starting to wonder if I imagined buying groceries. As the bag is no where! I give up looking, and decide to take Storm, who has woken up with all the commotion, outside to do her business. Mark comes out and says “I found it! Now you have to find it!” Of course, I’m thinking “I’ve been looking for it for the past 20 minutes, what makes you think I could find it now that you’ve found it?” He asks, “What else were you carrying when you brought in the bag?” For those of you playing along at home, go back and look at the second photo in this post. Note that BEHIND McKinley’s backpack is a bag with a wolf on it. [caption id=“attachment_458” align=“aligncenter” width=“199” caption=“what the leash rack should look like—sans bag”][/caption] Most of the time, I do the stupid things done in this household, much as I’d like to lay the blame on any toddlers or animals in the vicinity.

March 18, 2012

My favorite holiday

One of my favorite holidays is St. Patrick’s Day probably because I get to drink beer, eat corned beef and potatoes and just have a good time with leprechauns. This is a picture I drew of a leprechaun. I did it based on instructions from the About.com drawing and sketching website. Thanks Helen! Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

February 29, 2012

Keep Calm and Carry On!

I grew up knowing I had my heart on my sleeve. Every emotion I feel seems to start on my face, move to my mouth and then register in my brain. So when I find myself thinking “they should just calm down” about someone (other than myself, of course) the irony isn’t lost on me. For the fourth year in a row, I am participating in the About.com Readers’ Choice Awards. I set up some categories related to web design, in February solcited nominations, and now the finalists are getting votes. As in previous years, some people feel that there is a problem. Their site isn’t a finalist or they think another finalst is cheating or they can’t vote or they can, but too often or something like that. And they might start with a letter to me, but then they will move on to nastygrams and sarcastic comments and more. This happens every year. I explain the rules, remind people that you can’t be a finalist without being nominated, that cheating is not tolerated, and that About.com is doing all they can to make things fair. And then I (try very hard to) let it go. Ultimately, I think that it’s great that people value these awards enough to get so upset about them. But I’m not interested in freaking out because of them. I want to stay calm and recognize that the awards will do what they do whether I am upset or calm. So I choose calm.

February 22, 2012

The Web is GOING to Change, People! Get Used to It

I’m starting to wonder if other web design sites DELETE the anachronistic and ultra-conservative design comments. It seems like whenever I write a post talking about a more modern style design, I ONLY get comments talking about how horrible it is because it’s new and different. Of course, they don’t say that’s the reason, but that’s what it really comes down to. Makes me depressed, as I really like looking at the new stuff, but when the only feedback I get is “eww, that sucks, the scroll bar makes the car move, it doesn’t scroll down the page” it’s hard to stay motivated. Specifics:
I posted a picture of the Beetle.com website last Wednesday as an example of an innovative site using HTML5 in a new and exciting way. This resulted in (so far) five comments. Two of which were positive, which is more than usual and the rest were critical with one guy going into detail about all the reasons that he found the “quality” of the site lacking. Most of them were upset with the usability, which makes me wonder if they were viewing it in some crappy browser like IE7 or something. They don’t say. My Opinion
I think that the web is changing. The classic website with “pages” and sections is going to go away and be replaced by sites like Beetle.com that are more like experiences, like games, like applications. Content is still going to be very important, but websites are going to need to compete with all the other things vying for our attention like video, radio, television, movies, other websites, mobile apps, desktop apps, and oh yeah, our work… (what’s that?) Websites that are fun and draw you in are going to be more successful than ones that are just focused on slapping up “content.” I think the other thing the people commenting on my Beetle.com post need to remember is what the audience of the Beetle.com site is and the demographics of who Beetle.com is trying to attract. Sadly, I suspect that the demographics of people who come to my site on About.com are much older (and more boring and less “hip”) than who Beetle.com is going for. Volkswagen wants to promote the new beetle as being “more power, less flower” but they also want to get on the cutting edge bandwagon of HTML5 siteapps. So they built a site that reflects that. It’s not just a website and it’s not just an app, it’s both

February 20, 2012

Photoshop Stegosaurus

Helen, the Drawing and Sketching Guide, then pointed out that I’d have gotten smoother lines using a vector drawing tool instead. But I had a lot of fun drawing this stegosaurus (my favorite dinosaur!) using her tutorial and my Bamboo tablet.

I am trying to get comfortable drawing on the computer directly, rather than in a notebook and scanning. I have been resistant for a while, primarily because drawing with a mouse is challenging. Then when I got the tablet, I realized that I was still chicken. So I thought that if I did some exercises like the ones on Helen’s site, I might get more comfortable with the idea. Let me tell you, drawing with a layer tool is really cool. You can draw the body of the stegosaurus on one layer as a big circle/oval and then draw the plates on top, and simply erase the parts of the body that the plates cover, without worrying about erasing the plates! I know, this is probably obvious, but it was almost magical to me, and I’ve been using Photoshop since 1995!

February 13, 2012

Trying to Cheer Myself Up Without Food

The hard part of changing my lifestyle is that while it’s going great, it’s easy to keep doing and not get frustrated. But when it’s not, it’s not. I’ve now had two weeks in a row of either no weight loss or weight gain, and my measurements have gone back up. And this is after I started going to CrossFit twice a week to try to get more fit. I know, I know, if I’m weight training I’m going to grow muscle and that weighs more than fat. But I’ve only gone to CF three times, and I doubt strongly that 2 pounds of muscle were formed in that time frame. I’m hoping it’s water weight and that if I just drink more water and wait it out this too shall pass. One success: I was able to keep from downing all the valentine’s chocolate in the house (which is really just one small box of See’s, but still…) after looking at the scale this morning. So, I’m trying to cheer myself up by posting the Valentine book I did for NORBAG (North Redwoods Book Arts Guild) It has the quote inside “Be around the people you want to be like because you will be like the people you are around.” And then in the heart cutouts I wrote artists, writers, book artists. The cover is this cabbage rose paper I got in Seattle with an appliqué heart that came on a card I got a while back.It’s an accordion book made from a kit that my mother-in-law gave me. Like many of the books I make, I liked it so much I didn’t want to send it out to the swap. :-) But I did, because I don’t need 90 million books lying around. I hope whoever gets it likes it too.

January 5, 2012

Pretty women don't tell much about the app

So, Apple has been pushing their “iPad App of the Year” in my face every time I open the app store for the last few weeks. So, because of repetition, I finally broke down and watched the video displaying it (see below). A very pretty blonde woman attempts to pretend that she’s manipulating the world’s largest wall iPad using Snapseed. Unfortunately, the only thing I got out of that video was that Snapseed can be very hard to use when pretending to use it on a giant wall iPad. Look at her expression when she’s trying to manipulate the photos. It’s as if she was struggling to get her hand in the right place, and then the director would yell “SMILE!” and she’d go “oh yeah, I’m supposed to be having fun!” and smile for a second. After about 4000 takes the crew was tired and the director gave up and just cut it together with what he had. I started wondering if the only point to the video was to get her model career started, as there seemed to be more images of her than of the app itself. I then went to my standby app evaluation: go to the app in iTunes (iTunes) and look at the Most Critical reviews first. Yep, here we are, from slugworthy: 1 star, “WAY overrated”. Slugworthy feels that filterstorm, photoforge2, and photogene2 are “MUCH better.” And hey! I already have those apps! Good, now I can go get an americano at *$ instead! [iframe_youtube video=“IFH-FqQlIWo”]

January 4, 2012

Books! Books! Books!

This December I was busy doing a lot of things, from Disney World with Mark, Jaryth and Mark’s parents, to both our birthdays, to Christmas, to work, and more. But one of the fun things I was doing (okay, all of those things are fun for me) was making some books. These are some of the books I made in December (and early January):

Elves

My mom sent Jaryth some mail art of some elves, and every picture had one elf sticking his foot out. Jaryth does that when he’s crossing the street, to check for cars. And of course the elves cracked my mom up. So she sent us the postcard. I loved the elves so much that I carved a stamp of them. And then made two books about them.

October 31, 2011

Halloween Scrooge This Year

So far, everyone I’ve spoken to this weekend has asked me if I’m going to dress Jaryth up for Halloween. Up until today, I’ve been telling people my idea is to rip some of his older shirts and pants, put some black splotches on his face and call him “zombie toddler” and leave it at that.

But the real answer is “no.” He’s 3 1/2 years old and he has no idea what Halloween is. He’s excited that I had some Tootsie rolls on the table tonight so he could have some “choc-wat” but beyond that tomorrow is just another Monday to him. Actually, it’s just another weekday, as our routine isn’t all that different except for the time he wakes us up in the morning.

October 28, 2011

Finished my holiday book for a swap

[caption id=“attachment_398” align=“aligncenter” width=“320” caption=“Cover of my 2011 Holiday Book”][/caption] This is the outside. On the inside it’s blank except for the instructions. The idea is that everyone who gets a book can then customize it with their own family memories. I’ll be taking mine to Thanksgiving this year to get people to write in it. [caption id=“attachment_399” align=“aligncenter” width=“320” caption=“The inside of the holiday book for 2011”][/caption]

October 22, 2011

I'm glad I'm a writer in the days of computers

I’m doing the proof edit of my book, this is my last chance to fix typos or correct errors.

Naively, I thought there wouldn’t be very many because I’d already had my draft copies (written in Pages and converted to Word) reviewed by me, two tech editors, my acquisitions editor, my development editor, my copy editor, and me again.

HOLY SHIT! was I ever wrong.

You see, whenever the copy editor made a change to one of my headlines, that resulted in crazy stuff happening in the Word conversion. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t seeing it in my copy of the .doc files, but when it would get to the production department, they’d be left with headlines that read such things as:

October 19, 2011

I need to vent about email

I know, I’ve ranted in here about email before, but seriously, the messages I receive sometimes send me around the bend. In the last week or so I’ve had the following (paraphrased) gems:

One man asked me for some help in building a complex website. He sent his first message on day 1 and when I hadn’t had a chance to answer it, he sent it again on day 2. I finally responded to his question suggesting an answer and that if he had more specific questions, he should post them to my forum. Over the next 3-5 days he sent me numerous more questions, and if I didn’t respond within 24-hours, he would resend the message. Finally, after getting tired of answering his questions (he really needed to take a class on how to use a computer before he’d be able to build a basic website, let alone the complex one he wanted to build) I just stopped. After four days of no answers from me, he started over. Yes, he sent message 1 (which I’d already answered) to me again. Messages? Meet the spam filter…
I got a long (LONG!) letter from a man who wanted to build a complicated photo-submission website. He seemed to have a good idea of what he wanted but no understanding of how to do it. I was getting ready to ignore his message when I saw that at the end he asked me if I knew anyone who could help him. Phew! I sent him my “hire someone” spiel talking about RFPs and Freelance Switch. He wrote back saying thanks. This one was unusual because of that thanks. Most people never respond at all.
Then I got an email from someone asking a bunch of questions that indicated that he really had no clue how to use the interwebs or describe his problem. The questions were along the lines of “I tried for 2 hours!! to read your email, but I couldn’t open it. Um, buh? How the heck should I know what is preventing you from opening an email message? And telling me how long you flailed blindly at it doesn’t improve my chances of figuring it out, but it does improve my ability to ask the last question you asked—“Do you have to be a computer science major to understand this or am I an idiot?” Uh, I’ll take answer B!
So, then Mr. Idiot answers my reply. His way of saying thank you “wow! I didn’t think I’d get an answer!” does not inspire me to great heights of desire to answer more stupid questions from him. Now he wants to know why my article doesn’t work on his web page. Of course, he doesn’t include a URL. Unfortunately my psychic powers are on the fritz, so I ignored that message.
He emailed again today, this time with a URL, and to tell me that because of my site 2/3s of his entire site is gone. I think he also mentioned that he spent 16 hours working on it. Maybe I’ll answer this one, um let’s see… [DELETE].

Here are some tips if you want to get an answer from me by email:

October 18, 2011

Attempting to podcast take one

This is a “podcast” or audio recording where I’m trying out doing an audio recording of my thoughts.

What I notice is that when I was staring at the computer it was very hard to talk, as I kept getting distracted by the machine.

Some things I talk about:

idea for an article on Webmaster tools and Google analytics
working on editor reviews and my plan to create a video of my favorite web editors
thoughts about a new(-ish) category of web editor—the WYSIWYG editor so people don’t need to know HTML at all
- should I create a separate evaluation of these editors?
- do customers make a distinction between WYSIWYG editors and “development” editors?

September 15, 2011

September 5, 2011

Giveaways

It’s stupid how I fall for giveaways so often. When the reality is that they are done solely so that the blog or site owner can get more readers and more comments. They have no interest in you as a person, and are most likely going to give their products away to people they know (either IRL or because they’ve posted lots of times before). They may also give away to people who write the most “heartwarming” response. But of course, they say that they’re giving them away to a “random” person. The nice thing about Goodreads is that they don’t say it’s random. They even say that people who read and review books of a similar type are more likely to win. Unfortunately, giveaways end up making me feel bad. In one case, I commented for the first time on a post because I wanted to tell the author that I really liked her post. Then I realized it was a giveaway post as well (I hadn’t read that far) and wanted to remove my comment, as the fact that the post was a giveaway made it seem like I was posting some lame “I like your site” post just to get the crappy lavender chatchkies she was sending to “one lucky reader.” Whatever. In other cases, I think I have a good chance of winning something, either because there are very few posts, or there is a large number of prizes, and when I don’t win I’m disappointed. I’m reminded of the contests About would have where the person who wrote the most content in a month would win. The first one they did, I was on fire and submitted like 20-30 new pieces of content. This was easily 3-4 times as much as I normally did in a month. Of course the winner a) didn’t have another job and more importantly b) wrote about 20-30 glossary entries A DAY. In terms of word count or character count, I probably wrote just as much as s/he did. But because s/he spread it over 600+ one sentence pages means that s/he won. This was over 10 years ago, but it sticks in the head. Of course, staff saw this contest as a huge success and so held another a few months later. And no one in the computing channel competed. We all (or nearly all) had other jobs and couldn’t waste our time on contests we had no chance of even coming in third or fourth for. At least that was the reason I didn’t bother. Our editor was very disappointed. I’m sure that another giveaway will come along tomorrow or next week that I’ll really hope to win. And maybe I’ll have the strength to think “no, don’t bother” as I don’t need more stuff anyway… But I suspect that my willpower will be weak or the thing given away is sooooo cool that I can’t stop myself. All commenters to this post will receive a FREE copy of my eternal goodwill. :-) Of course, you’d get that if you comment on any of my posts.

August 30, 2011

We're looking for another dog - all suggestions welcome

Every dog I’ve ever owned came from the pound or a rescue organization (okay, Homer might not have, but my parents got him before I was born, soI don’t think he counts). But wow, trying to get another dog now that I’m not likely to burst into tears at the though of Shasta has become, ahem, challenging. Some of the challenges:

every rescue I’ve found lists their available animals on Petfinder. This isn’t a challenge by itself, but it means that you have to use that system to find a suitable animal. And because most of the rescue organizations at best make guesses regarding breed, age, health, training level, whether they like kids or cats, etc. The data is, ahem, suspect. I can’t tell you how many dogs I’ve looked at after searching for “cat-friendly” dogs, narrowing it down to 7 or 8 animals, and having the description say “this dog cannot, under any circumstances, go to a house with cats”. I finally gave up using that search parameter, as it was useless. Same goes for the “young children” parameter.
just like when we adopted McKinley, there is a huge “application” you have to fill out to even meet these dogs. It’s annoying to me, as I’m sure I’m instantly put on their mailing list (well, instantly in the form of whenever they get around to reading their mail. They don’t let me see any animals or even answer my mail, I just get added to the mailing list. (I’m betting on this, I have no proof, yet)
but the rescue places are all staffed by volunteers so they don’t have a lot of time to read or respond to email, even if their site says “you’ll get a reply within 72 hours” I figure this must mean hours on Jupiter or something.
the aforementioned application includes tons of questions about your home, lifestyle, vet, trainer, groomer, etc. which is fine, but so far 2 out of 3 have required references, one required four references - including how long they’ve known you and in what capacity, and they can’t be relatives. (because, I suppose, we all know that Aunt Mary who has been with me and my dogs all my life might be biased and give me a good review, while my co-worker Sarah, who barely even knows I have a dog wouldn’t be…

I just wish it were a little easier. I mean, when we got Shasta, we just walked into the pound, saw him, decided to play with him and his brother, then decided to adopt, filled out the form, paid the fee and went home with a dog. When we got McKinley from Rescue Pup, I found him (on Petfinder), asked to see him, met him, filled out the application, they came and visited our house, and we adopted him. It took more than a day (because of the home visit) but definitely no more than a week. I’m currently on week 3 of trying to find out more about Hope, Darla, and another dog who’s name I’ve now forgotten. I got an answer immediately about Darla, saying “you sound perfect, please fill out an application” so I did, and then nothing. I didn’t get an answer about asking to see Hope until today and all it said was “please fill out an application” when there was nothing on the Petfinder site about an application or anything. I had to dig around to find what I think is the correct application. And finally dog #3 they haven’t answered yet (that’s the one that said I’d get an answer within 72 hours - Jupiter hours, I’m assuming). I would go and adopt from Rescue Pup again, except that all they have are blue heelers, which they won’t place with kids. Since I remember what Brendan’s pant cuffs were like (they are called “heelers” because they bite the heels of the cattle they are herding, and if they don’t have cattle, they bite the heels of the children they are herding), I don’t blame Rescue Pup, but it is annoying because I understand that about that breed. What’s sad to me is that the difficulty I’m having makes me want to go to a breeder. Do you know of any “mutt” large dog breeders I can visit? Luckily the pet store that we go to only gets drop-kick dogs in their puppy consignments, so I’m not tempted to go there to get a dog. But man, if they had any large dog puppies (great dane, mastiff, great pyrenees, akbash, shepherd, wolf hound, etc.) the only thing that would probably stop me is that their prices are insane. So, hopefully my application for Hope will be considered, and maybe I’ll be able to go visit her later this week or this weekend. But I’m not holding my breath.

August 15, 2011

1632 by Eric Flint

So, I just finished reading 1632 by Eric Flint last night (from the finalists list). This was a book I saw on the shelves when it came out but I passed it by for several reasons, including:

I’ve never been a fan of alternate history
The idea of knights mixed with pickup trucks seemed ridiculous
And I just didn’t think I would like the book

But I couldn’t have been more wrong! This book was very fun to read. The characters were engaging and I cared what happened to them. The fact that it was set in 1632 was an interesting historical backdrop, and I wanted to learn more about the 30-years war. For example, I didn’t realize that Cardinal Richelieu was a real person. I just thought of him as the villain in “The Three Musketeers” (yes, the Errol Flynn version, I haven’t read the book). The stated goals of the people transported to 1632 Germany were ones I could completely get behind. They seemed like people I would enjoy having as my neighbors. I loved that they decided immediately to draft a constitution and that they did not immediately wall themselves off from the rest of the world. I’m not confident that is what would really happen, but it’s nice to think that it could. Some of the things I didn’t like:

August 10, 2011

Anonymity - Is it Really Such a Good Thing?

I was reading an article yesterday about how facial recognition is getting so good that there are apps being built for cellphones that can identify random strangers from photos (taken as you walk along with your cell phone). The article was bemoaning the fact that this was a “further invasion of our privacy” and that pretty soon nothing we do would be private. I then moved on to another article that talked about how Google(?) was working on an algorithm that could evaluate the writing style of someone online and make a good correlation as to who actually wrote it. Even if the author had posted anonymously or with a pseudonym. The article was bemoaning the fact that this was a “further invasion of our privacy” and that pretty soon nothing that we do online would be private. But is this idea of “privacy” such a good thing? Ultimately, what it really is is the idea that we can go out in public or online and be anonymous. And some people see anonymity as the same as the freedom to do anything they want. And as we saw in London over the past few days, anything they want seems to cover a wide swath of things that most civilized societies consider wrong. Some examples of things anonymous people do:

August 8, 2011

More SciFi

Very happy to report that I now am getting both Analog and F&SF delivered to my iPad. The layout is somewhat hard to read in the default mode, but I quickly switched to one column viewing for a better experience. The first story I will read is by Robert Reed. You may be wondering how this will fit in with my goal to read all the SciFi finalist novels, and that would be a good question. To answer let me say that I am easily bored. So if I am slogging through an otherwise good but long book (Matter, I am talking to you!), I can now take a break with a shorter story to mix it up. Plus, I have been reading my dad’s copy of both these magazines for thirty years, and I want them to keep publishing, so I feel I should support them. And both magazines digitally are less than $5 a month with tax, so it’s a great deal. If you have a Kindle or a computer that can use Kindle apps, I recommend getting these magazines. They (along with Asimov’s, which I am debating getting too) provide great short speculative fiction. And now I must return to reading. I have a lot on my list. Status: page 164 of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Who has a story in the F&SF I’m reading too.

August 5, 2011

SciFi Journey commences

I have decided to read or re-read all the books on the list of finalists for best Science Fiction and Fantasy from NPR. I just finished Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. This is one of the first science fiction books I remember reading and re-reading. I know I read others before this one, but this one really stood out in my head as something really interesting. Mark was laughing because my copy (most likely from 1978 when it was published) was tattered and worn. Because I’ve read it so many times. Today I’m starting The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. This is another favorite from childhood. I’ve read it easily as many times as Dreamsnake, and I’ve of course seen the movie several times. 1632 should be coming in the mail in a few days. I requested it in a swap on Goodreads, and I’m trying to find 1984 in my collection.

August 5, 2011

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Read

Here are all the finalists in the NPR Science Fiction and Fantasy Vote for 2011. As I finish them I’ll put a ✔ next to them along with the date I finished. If I write a review, I’ll link to it. If you’re curious which ones I’ll be reading for a second (or more) time, I’ll indicate that with a ☞. 1632, by Eric Flint✔ (August 15, 2011) ☞1984, by George Orwell ☞2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne The Acts Of Caine Series, by Matthew Woodring Stover The Algebraist, by Iain M. Banks ☞Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan ☞American Gods, by Neil Gaiman ☞Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman Anathem, by Neal Stephenson✔ (September 9, 2011) ☞Animal Farm, by George Orwell The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers Armor, by John Steakley ☞The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard ☞Beggars In Spain, by Nancy Kress ☞The Belgariad, by David Eddings The Black Company Series, by Glen Cook The Black Jewels Series, by Anne Bishop ☞The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe ☞Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley Bridge Of Birds, by Barry Hughart ☞The Callahan’s Series, by Spider Robinson ☞A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller ☞The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, by Robert Heinlein ☞Cat’s Cradle , by Kurt Vonnegut ☞The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov The Change Series, by S.M. Stirling ☞Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke Children Of God, by Mary Doria Russell ☞The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny ☞The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson The City And The City, by China Mieville City And The Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke ☞A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher The Coldfire Trilogy, by C.S. Friedman The Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton ☞The Company Wars, by C.J. Cherryh The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard Contact, by Carl Sagan ☞Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson ☞The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart ☞The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks✔ So far, read: Matter (July 15, 2011) and Surface Detail (September 14, 2011) The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King The Day of Triffids, by John Wyndham Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison ☞The Deed of Paksennarion Trilogy, by Elizabeth Moon The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester ☞The Deverry Cycle, by Katharine Kerr ☞Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany ☞The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson ☞The Difference Engine, by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling ☞The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin ☞Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick Don’t Bite The Sun, by Tanith Lee ☞Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis ☞Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey ☞Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre✔ (August 4, 2011) ☞The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert ☞Earth, by David Brin Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart The Eisenhorn Omnibus, by Dan Abnett The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock ☞Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card ☞Eon, by Greg Bear The Eyes Of The Dragon, by Stephen King The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde ☞The Faded Sun Trilogy, by C.J. Cherryh ☞Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser Series, by Fritz Leiber ☞Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury ☞The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb The Female Man, by Joanna Russ The Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy, by Guy Gavriel Kay ☞A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie ☞Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys ☞The Foreigner Series, by C.J. Cherryh ☞The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman ☞The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley ☞The Gaea Trilogy, by John Varley The Gap Series, by Stephen R. Donaldson ☞The Gate To Women’s Country, by Sheri S. Tepper Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway The Gormenghast Triology, by Mervyn Peake ☞Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon ☞The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of The World, by Haruki Murakami The Heechee Saga, by Frederik Pohl ☞The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams The Hollows Series, by Kim Harrison House Of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski ☞The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson ☞I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov ☞The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson ☞The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury ☞The Incarnations Of Immortality Series, by Piers Anthony The Inheritance Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne ☞Kindred, by Octavia Butler The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss Kraken, by China Mieville ☞The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey Last Call, by Tim Powers The Last Coin, by James P. Blaylock ☞The Last Herald Mage Trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey ☞The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle✔ (August 6, 2011) ☞The Lathe Of Heaven, by Ursula K. LeGuin ☞The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore ☞The Lensman Series, by E.E. Smith The Liaden Universe Series, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller The Lies Of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch ☞Lilith’s Brood, by Octavia Butler ☞Little, Big, by John Crowley ☞The Liveship Traders Trilogy, by Robin Hobb ☞Lord Of Light, by Roger Zelazny ☞The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien ☞Lord Valentine’s Castle, by Robert Silverberg ☞Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees The Magicians, by Lev Grossman The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson ☞The Man In The High Castle, by Philip K. Dick The Manifold Trilogy, by Stephen Baxter ☞The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson ☞The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury ☞Memory And Dream, by Charles de Lint Memory, Sorrow, And Thorn Trilogy, by Tad Williams ☞Mindkiller, by Spider Robinson The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson ☞The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley ☞The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein ☞Mordant’s Need, by Stephen Donaldson ☞More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon ☞The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle The Naked Sun, by Isaac Asimov The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy, by Robert J. Sawyer ☞Neuromancer, by William Gibson ☞Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman The Newsflesh Triology, by Mira Grant The Night’s Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F. Hamilton Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith ☞Novels Of The Company, by Kage Baker ☞The Number Of The Beast, by Robert Heinlein ☞Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi On Basilisk Station, by David Weber ☞The Once And Future King, by T.H. White Oryx And Crake, by Margaret Atwood The Otherland Tetralogy, by Tad Williams The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan ☞Parable Of The Sower, by Octavia Butler The Passage, by Justin Cronin ☞Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville The Prestige, by Christopher Priest ☞The Pride Of Chanur, by C.J. Cherryh The Prince Of Nothing Trilogy, by R. Scott Bakker ☞The Princess Bride, by William Goldman Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge ☞Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke Replay, by Ken Grimwood Revelation Space, by Alistair Reynolds Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist ☞Ringworld, by Larry Niven ☞The Riverworld Series, by Philip Jose Farmer The Road, by Cormac McCarthy The Saga Of Pliocene Exile, by Julian May The Saga Of Recluce, by L.E. Modesitt Jr. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman The Sarantine Mosaic Series, by Guy Gavriel Kay ☞A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick The Scar, by China Mieville ☞The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks The Shattered Chain Trilogy, by Marion Zimmer Bradley ☞The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien The Sirens Of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut ☞Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett ☞Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson ☞The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem ☞Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury ☞Song for the Basilisk, by Patricia McKillip A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell ☞The Stainless Steel Rat Books, by Harry Harrison Stand On Zanzibar, by John Brunner The Stand, by Stephen King Stardust, by Neil Gaiman The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester ☞Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein Stations Of The Tide, by Michael Swanwick ☞Steel Beach, by John Varley ☞Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein ☞Sunshine, by Robin McKinley The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind The Swordspoint Trilogy, by Ellen Kushner ☞The Tales of Alvin Maker, by Orson Scott Card The Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn ☞Tigana , by Guy Gavriel Kay ☞Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells ☞The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger ☞To Say Nothing Of The Dog, by Connie Willis The Troy Trilogy, by David Gemmell Ubik, by Philip K. Dick ☞The Uplift Saga, by David Brin ☞The Valdemar Series, by Mercedes Lackey VALIS, by Philip K. Dick Venus On The Half-Shell, by Kilgore Trout/Philip Jose Farmer ☞The Vlad Taltos Series, by Steven Brust ☞The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold The Vurt Trilogy, by Jeff Noon The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells The Watchmen, by Alan Moore ☞Watership Down, by Richard Adams The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak ☞We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger ☞Wicked, by Gregory Maguire ☞Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi World War Z, by Max Brooks ☞The Worm Ouroboros, by E.R. Edison ☞The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon

June 15, 2011

Chapter 20 is in my sights!

I finished Chapter 19 last night. Very stoked. It’s moving along quite nicely. Chapter 20 is currently Offline Web Applications. But I think I need to re-order it to put Web Storage before it.

The other thing writing this is doing is making me more and more interested in writing a new theme for this blog. I’ll make it HTML5, but I’m not sure if I’ll use my art for it or not. I’ll have to think about it. Of course, that isn’t going to happen until after the book is completed.

June 9, 2011

Busy busy busy

If you didn’t know, I’m working on a book—Sams Teach Yourself HTML5 for Mobile Application Development in 24 Hours, and it’s been taking up a lot of my time. I just finished chapter 17—HTML5 Links. Whew! And I hope to have chapter 18 done by Saturday. It’s hard because this weekend was the first really sunny weekend we’ve had all year, and I had to sit inside for a good portion of it writing about HTML5 Drag and Drop. (Thanks, Sandi, for the suggestion for how to lengthen it! While I didn’t implement your suggestions—it ended up long enough without any sex scenes—I’m still looking forward to writing Drag and Drop—the “Good Parts” Version!)

April 17, 2011

Washing machine rental now up

I was hoping for a long morning alone with my writing. But instead I got to help clean up a flooded bathroom and attempt to fix the washing machine that hit it’s planned obsolescence date today. Mark thinks the pump cracked. We bought an expensive washer 3 years ago thinking naively that if we paid a lot for a good brand it would last longer than the cheaper model we’d bought 3 years before that. Nope. This time, if the repairs cost more than the cheapest model we can buy we are going out and buying the cheap, no frills model. At least that way in 2014 we will have paid less on our rental. In 2008, we did all this research, but the reality is that washing machine reviewers don’t have 3 years to evaluate a machine. So they really don’t know if they will last a reasonable amount of time. And no, I don’t think 3 years is reasonable. We had the same washing machine my entire childhood with a family of four. My three-year-old son has seen two machines die in this house! (Yes, the last one died about two weeks after he was born!)

April 1, 2011

Where'd the Zombies Go?

Jaryth was downstairs weeping piteously. Mark could not console him. I had no idea what was wrong. Then suddenly he was calm again. Phew, the crisis is averted. Then “I want that!” he yells. And before Mark can respond, “Where’d the zombies go?” Followed by some more crying. I can tell that having a son that is probably going to be a gamer just like his dad is going to result in a lot of humorous statements. He plays Plants vs. Zombies, and when he asks to play he says “I want to feed the zombies.” Of course, that is my fault, as I noticed that since he’s only a toddler and doesn’t understand the point of PvZ he tends to let the zombies through fairly frequently. Thus I said that he was clearly feeding them. He was concerned that the poor zombies were going hungry, so he feeds them his own brain. That’s the generous soul he is. Of course, now he’s back to playing Tozzle. Tozzle is an extremely loud game that he plays at full blast volume almost every day. He plays only three of the puzzles in it: the windmill (which he calls the “mim mill”), the train, and the planes. When he builds the “red one” (the plane with red markings) he then finishes and tells us that we are going to the airport. “We take a plane to Bibi’s house!” he announces over and over.

March 5, 2011

Interesting experience with online form

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up. So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!) I get my package and open it up and inside is a girl’s size small hockey shorts with “pelvic protector”. Um buh? I checked the box again and yes, it was addressed to me. But on the inside the shipping label was addressed to someone in New York State, both billing and shipping addresses. What I then learned is that Amazon makes it challenging to deal with problems that occur outside of their standard problems. If I wanted to return it, I was told that “returns are easy.” But then I wasn’t sure if the hockey player in New York would get the refund or not. I don’t want the money, it isn’t mine. I then thought I’d return it as a gift, and that wouldn’t work as a) Amazon does gift returns as a gift card to the recipient (ie. me) not the sender and b) this item was apparently not eligible for returns or exchanges. So then I moved on to their customer care form. First I have to indicate that the problem I’m having is not part of their online help. Then I have to choose from a drop-down that, unsurprisingly, has no option for “I received something I didn’t order and is not a gift.” I chose “other non-order related.” But it is kinda order related, but anyhow… So then I get another drop down, and by this time I’m getting ready to give up, except that I don’t want to throw away a perfectly good, brand new item, as that seems like a waste. So I slog on. I fill in the next drop down in the “other” category again, because again they don’t have one that is related to my issue. I then give details and then “more details” and hit the “contact me by email” option. I am now supposed to wait no more than 12 hours for a response. I hope that the hockey player doesn’t start her hockey games for a while. This seems like something that many online form creators should be aware of - namely the goals of the customers using the form. My perception of this customer service form was that they were trying to avoid having to talk to me. There was a lot of focus on getting me to use online help, and I’m sure that’s useful for the majority of requests. But for those that don’t fit into that mold, the form can get annoying very fast. One of the features that this form had that ended up being annoying was that it changed dynamically when I chose various options. Designers and developers love these types of forms because they are interactive, fun to build, and help the customer self-select exactly what they need. But I found it really annoying as there was never any indication that the end was in sight. I would select one option, and another would appear - poof. I would choose from that list, and the form would change again. As I said above I was getting really tired of filling out the form (and you should be aware that this form was the last in a series of things I tried before using it. I tried returning, gift returning, and then just looking for a number I could call before finding that link to customer service. If I had been even slightly busier or on any type of time restraint I would have just given up and dumped the thing in the trash never to worry about it again. I suppose the other reason it was tedious is because all of the choices I had for returns, gift returns, and even customer service were assuming that I had made some type of mistake. For example, when asked why I wanted to return it, I was given options like:

March 4, 2011

I'm definitely allergic to cleaning!

So I have a goal of getting our living room (and bedroom) rug cleaned by the end of March. And in order to accomplish that goal, I have a number of mini goals. These primarily revolve around tidying the bookshelves that I haven’t looked at in a while to make sure the books that are in it are ones that I want, need or haven’t read (so can’t decide). The sad part of this goal is that I discovered that some of the books in that case have not been looked at or touched in so long that there was a fine patina of dust covering them. It’s not helped by the fact that this case is right next to the cat door that the dog forces his muddy self through on a daily basis (hourly when Jaryth is pounding on something). By my estimation there was about two pounds of dog fur, mud, and allergen filled dust just in that corner of the room. And because of this I sneezed approximately 800 times. Proof that I’m allergic to cleaning! Let me tell you that sneezing 800 times is NOT fun. My throat was raw, my eyes were running, my nose was completely clogged, and I was generally miserable. I then took some Benadryl which didn’t seem to do anything but put me to sleep. Granted I got a better night sleep than I’ve gotten in a while, but still, it would be nice to not get the major allergic reaction and be able to complete the cleaning in one swoop rather than in about 5 swoops with the final three bundled up like a mummy with just my eyes showing. Mark threatened to get me a clean-room bunny suit! And what’s really sad is I was considering that as an option. Yes, I know that’s silly. But you would understand if you were biting your tongue while you were sneezing so much that you couldn’t breathe. Next time I am going to wear a painting mask and possibly gloves and goggles. I may look silly, but that might help deal with the dust allergies. I might include ear protection too, not from the loud noise of my sneezes, but because then maybe my ears wouldn’t itch afterwards either. And the bonus is that we have all these things … somewhere.

March 4, 2011

Great example of intentions and results

I think of myself as a rational but open-minded person, but one of the more “woo woo” theories that I strongly believe in is the power of intention. I believe that if you set your intentions clearly and deliberately, you will manifest those results in your life. Whether or not you believe in this as a type of mysticism or just a practical application of goals setting, I have done it in my life many times with great success. Many times without even knowing I’ve done it. (Unintentional intension?) I remember doing it deliberately when I got my job at About.com (then The Mining Co.). During the training/preparation series, I went to bed every night thinking “I’m really sorry for the other people who are applying for the HTML site, because it’s mine.” I also expressed mental gratitude for the person who ran the site (for a few weeks or months) before quitting and letting me have it. But what made me think of this was a post I read on Unclutterer today. She had made a resolution for February to clean out her office. But shortly after she made that resolution, there was a death in the family and she had to leave to deal with that for half the month, and she abandoned the resolution. Then, when she came home, her family decided to move and she ended up clearing out her office anyway. Sure, it mostly happened because she had to move, but that’s part of the mysticism (for me) of intention. If you are good at manifesting your intentions, they happen whether you mean them to or not. And I would bet that by setting and meeting monthly resolutions, she is good at manifesting her intentions.

February 20, 2011

Drone in the Tree

[caption id=“attachment_303” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Some people may have wondered why I stopped talking about the drone.”][/caption] It took six 2000x3008px shots to build this panorama shot. I was standing approximately 50 feet away from the base of the tree when I took the photos.

February 20, 2011

So, you may have been wondering what happened with the A.R. Drone

We got a Parrot A.R. Drone for our birthdays (Mark and I) back in December. And we had a blast with it. Jaryth absolutely loves it. He daily asks to see the drone. And when the weather is bad, he comes indoors and watches our video of our drone as well as other YouTube videos of drones. But then, come January, I stopped talking about it. Why? Well, it got stuck in a tree. [caption id=“attachment_302” align=“aligncenter” width=“497” caption=“This doesn\’t look too high, right? Click to see the full size of the tree”][/caption] Look for the red line towards the bottom of the image to find our fence-line. When it finally fell down from the tree, one of the rotors didn’t turn correctly, so now we are waiting for a repair kit and replacement rotors and shell (which disappeared).

February 17, 2011

Help! How do you keep a toddler awake?

Our current process with our son goes like this:

wake up between 7am and 8:30am
play hard all morning
lie down around noon for around 15 minutes, but don’t fall asleep
play hard all afternoon until about 4pm
fall asleep hard, and nap for an hour to two hours
play hard until mom is exhausted (any time after 10pm) and then lie in bed fighting with her because he’s not tired at all

8 hours of sleep is barely enough for me, and I’m not convinced it’s enough for him. We have determined that if we can get him to stay awake at 4pm he’ll go to bed and sleep around 7:30 or 8pm. But that period from around 4pm until 6pm is killer. We can’t seem to keep him awake. He has fallen asleep while eating, while playing, watching a movie, reading a book, and more. We then shake him (gently), talk to him, carry him around (hard when he weighs nearly 60 pounds), try to get him to play, and nothing wakes him. Yesterday he fell asleep on the couch, and when we told him we were going to feed the animals (a chore he loves to do) he woke up enough to say “I want feed animals” and then he was asleep again, and continuing threats did not wake him again. Any suggestions? How do you keep a toddler awake when he doesn’t want to be so that he will sleep when we want him to be asleep? I’m desperate (and tired).

February 14, 2011

Honestly, are "content farms" really that bad?

The most common complaint I see about content farms is that they serve up lousy information written by under-paid (or non-paid) writers. I can join the ranks of people who will tell you of the lousy results they found on eHow (or insert your other favorite content farm to bash) here. Yes, I don’t like doing a search for “how to build a web page” and getting a result that says, essentially: step 1. build a web page, step 2. put it on the internet. step 3. there’s no step 3! But I am equally tired of the writers saying “I make a living writing and they are turning writing into a commodity!” And other such statements. Guess what, Virginia, writing has always been considered something anyone can do - and as such paid as little as possible for. Yes, every writer I know, including myself, recognizes that writing is hard. To get up in the morning, stumble to the computer and stare at that blank screen is a fate all writers share. To know that you may or may not get paid a living wage for whatever pearls make it to that screen puts even more pressure on. And to then go out and read about how some moron was paid 3 cents to write the above “article” on how to build a web page is both depressing and demeaning. Some days, I start thinking that I should just start writing tutorials that are that meaningless (and I’m sure some of my “fans” would argue that I already do…). After all, that “tutorial” took me longer to think up than it did to write. But ultimately I believe in market forces (says the woman who has been known to rant for hours, yes hours, on the evils of laissez faire capitalism). If the content that is created by these under- and non-paid writers is lousy people won’t read them. And if it gets too bad, people won’t visit the sites that generate them. Then the sites won’t make any money and they will either focus on getting more non-paid writers to flood the internet with crap or they will come around to the idea that paying good writers something slightly more than peanuts is a way to get better quality content. Personally, I am hesitant when a search result feeds up an eHow or wikipedia article. Not because the writers are underpaid but because I’ve found the content to be less than stellar. And the other thing to think about: how much are you paying for the content that you read? I have friends who are proud of the fact that they view all websites with ad blockers on. Others that refuse to pay any subscription fees for content. And others who think that buying a book that was “just their blog posts” is tantamount to complete idiocy. I had a discussion with my brother a while ago where he told me he didn’t want to work with a money manager because “they just want more money”. And I thought, “well, sure, who doesn’t?” I mean seriously, how can one complain that writers aren’t being paid enough when you aren’t willing to pay them yourself? I buy and read over 100 (probably closer to 200) books per year. I have donated to websites and blogs that I find valuable, and do so every year. In this case, I think paying it forward means literally paying. And I’m okay with that, because if I like a writer I want them to keep writing so I buy their books. And another thought: what makes Wikipedia so damn popular and “content farms” so not? I have found the content on Wikipedia to be just as questionable as eHow. And the writers there aren’t paid, in fact every year the Wikipedia founder asks them to pay him! But that’s a rant for another day.

February 12, 2011

Box o prints

My mom sent me instructions for a box that I modified to hold my Firefly ATCs. Here are some pictures.

January 30, 2011

My First Sushi

[caption id=“attachment_289” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“My First Sushi - Carrot Sushi”][/caption] For those who scoff at the idea of carrot sushi, well, I have nothing to say to you. I didn’t have any daikon or other more traditional veggie-sushi veggies. Maybe next week will bring more “real” sushi foods into the house. But really, carrot sushi was yummy. I debated trying celery sushi too. What about tomato sushi?

January 30, 2011

I put it out to the universe...

that I wanted to buy seeds online again like I did last year. The problem is that I had recycled the last seed catalog I’d received. So I was just going to go online to choose my seeds. Then Mark came in with the mail and what was in it? Besides a packet of LTCs (some very cool ones, by the way) was a seed catalog. Yay! Apparently I need to buy seeds. Of course, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow (maybe). But that doesn’t mean I can’t order seedling trays so that I can start my seeds indoors. Watermelons here I come! And if I’m really lucky they might be ready by July 4th. Are you coming to my Fourth of July party? We’ll be having home grown watermelon. Other seed plans include:

January 29, 2011

Let's be overwhelmed together

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order:

Eat less junk food - ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day
Bake my own bread
Eat NO feedlot or factory meat. I want to only buy or raise my own grass fed meat and poultry.
Have an artisan turkey for Thanksgiving in 2011
Eat 5+ veggies and fruits per day.
Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
Go to the dentist every six months.
Grow a vegetable garden - and expand it every year. This year I’m expanding to potatoes.
Work out 30+ minutes per day (beyond our daily walk).
Cook 3-4 meals a week.
Read to Jaryth every night.
Write a novel.
Grow my site to be in the top 20 sites on About.com.
Let’s get real, I want my site to be #1! :-)
Build an eco-friendly house.
With a tower.
Ride my horse 3-5 times a week, regardless of weather.
Go on trail rides with Betsy.
Paint and draw.
Create a website for swapping books with other book artists. Or (and) mail artists.
Pare down my stuff to be more minimalist.
Make cheese.
Eat only locally-grown (within 100 miles of here) food.
Support more local artists, farmers, shops, etc.
Give something to someone every day.
Get a tractor.
Chickens - for eggs and meat.
A small cow - for milk for cheese.
Meditate 3-5 times per week.
Yoga.
Writing down what I eat.
Journaling every day.
Learn to make sushi I made sushi on Thursday night (photos to come soon)
start seeds for veggie garden indoors (for earlier harvests)
clean out the creek so that it flows better
plan a nut orchard
plant fruit trees
give away at least 100 books in 2011
clean my office
write at least 1 review of an app or book that is pending per week
build a bookarts swap site
build at least one of the domains that I own
move one site off of my home server onto its own site
send more postcards - 1 per week at least
read 100 books or more in 2011 (I’ve already read 14 – check out my GoodReads profile to see what I’m currently reading

For this week, I’m focusing on the following:

January 27, 2011

On the Sushi Trail

So, I’ve watched the vegetarian sushi video a couple times, I’ve bought my sushi rice and sushi vinegar (wasabi and soy sauce are already staples in my home) oh and the nori. Now I have to do two things:

finish my work for the day
stop being a wimp/chicken and start my attempt at making sushi!

Oh and we got a new 7-cup food processor (or “food robot” in my translation of the French) today. I can’t decide whether I want to make hummus first or chicken nuggets. The biggest challenge with reading a book about local food and you’re in the summer chapter is that now I want fresh tomatoes, peaches, and zucchini. I think I’m also going to make some zucchini bread tonight or tomorrow from the frozen zucchini I stored from the summer. Take THAT winter! It’s sad, but I’ve been wishing it would snow. Right now we’re having these coldish days and sometimes rain, and that just means that you risk losing your boots when you walk anywhere on the property beyond the 1/4 acre surrounding the house. And unfortunately, Jaryth doesn’t have any puddle jumpers because we didn’t buy them when we saw them in the stores and of course, there are none now. No one buys puddle jumper boots in January, do they? I suppose I could look in a consignment store, but that would require shopping and my agoraphobia limits me to the post office and school. ☺

January 27, 2011

Cheese!

So my two goals for the next week or so are to make:

vegetarian sushi
cheese

I’ve been told before that making cheese isn’t terribly hard. Of course finding rennet could be challenging… but one step at a time. There is a beer and wine making supply company in Kirkland that also sells cheese making supplies. And I want to make some bread. I think I need to get my Laurel’s Kitchen bread book out again. At least now I know where it is. This book is really inspiring me, taking me back to the things that are important to me.

January 25, 2011

Staying focused and up-beat

So, I read my previous blog post to Mark, and his first response was “Good luck!” And of course, I got a bit frustrated because that’s the sarcastic (for those playing along at home, yes, he was being sarcastic) response I dread when I talk about trying to be greener and eat more healthy. But after we talked for a while, we came up with an initial game plan:

Salads for dinner – Three years ago we implemented the plan of having a pitcher of water on the table for dinner every night. This has become so ingrained that we will sometimes end up with two pitchers because he puts one on at the same time as I do. So, the new plan includes salad every night. I am in charge of the salad.
Getting a new food processor – The only one we have is a tiny 3-cup model that I got when I was in college. It has served us well (okay, it really has served us just okay, but we’ve been too cheap to get another) for the 13 years we’ve been married. But I want hummus! And other things you can make only in a nice big 9+ cup food processor.
Getting rid of the bread maker – Of course, in our tiny kitchen, getting a new appliance means getting rid of something else to make room. And the fact is that we never use the bread maker. We mostly use it for kneading, and we have a dough hook on our KitchenAid mixer, that we use more often. Neither of us like the bread mixes you can get and bread baked in it tastes dull and boring. Do you know anyone who wants a bread maker? Hardly used!
Getting rid of other things we don’t use – Finally, we’re going to go through our clothes, the kitchen cabinets and even (gasp!) my books and the storage shed; giving away or selling anything that we don’t use. This should free up a ton of extra space!

Determining a game plan is a great way for me to feel like we’re on the way to where I want to be. Then reading about the cynicism of Monsanto and the loss of heirloom seeds and the pro-corporate greed of our “representative” government is a little less depressing.

January 24, 2011

I need a how to guide for becoming the green family I want to be!

I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now. And at the same time, I have been regularly reading The Zero Waste Home (a blog). What’s interesting to me is that I started both of these reading projects by reading some reviews and comments about them. And the comments I read went along the lines of “this is impossible!”, “what you’re asking me/us to do is not possible except for crazy zealots,” and “I don’t believe that your kids are all that thrilled by this plan for (zero waste or growing all your own food) as you imply they are.” And I admit that I read both the book and the blog with those thoughts in mind myself, kinda like I was watching a train wreck and couldn’t stop myself from rubber-necking on the side of the tracks. The problem isn’t that the ideas in these books/blogs are impossible - clearly they are possible as at least two families have made it happen. But the problem is that I don’t like to feel guilty and I don’t like to feel hopeless and that’s what both of these things do to me. I know for a fact that my home is still going to be producing waste and buying food from the grocery store a year from now. I know, with relative certainty that my son, husband, and I are all still going to be eating cookies, chips, and french fries in 2012. And I’m fairly confident that while I’ll have a garden again this year, I probably won’t be able to get much enthusiasm from my son or husband for eating what I grow. So here’s what I need:

December 24, 2010

Computer transcriptions are funny

Vonage’s transcription of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as sung into our voicemail:

“Rudolph the red nose reindeer had a very shiny though and if you have Verizon hand and you even say it glows.”

If you have Verizon hand?

A shiny though?

Surprisingly, it usually does a pretty good job. But this was particularly funny.

December 13, 2010

Interesting Drone Photo

I was cleaning up my photos from the last few days and I found this one taken by the Drone. It’s not that great a shot of our bathroom window from the outside. But if you look closely you can see the drone hovering in the reflection in the window. :-) [caption id=“attachment_251” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024” caption=“Photo from the Drone of our Bathroom”][/caption] I attached the full size image, sorry if you have to scroll.

December 12, 2010

Slightly damp here

3" of rain in Seattle equals some flooding in our barn. And our creek has overflowed its banks.

This is where there is a pipe under the road. It’s full.

The overflow pond above the pipe is full too.

And the water is flowing down from the neighbor’s property, and missing the creek entirely. P.S. It’s still raining.

December 10, 2010

OMG this is so fun!!

Jaryth and I drove the drone around the house today. I tried to send it up to Mark’s window, but I misjudged the roof and couldn’t get it up there. I’ll try again later.

This is a photo taken from the iPad as the drone was flying. It’s looking at me!

I would say that if you have any interest in RC planes, the AR Parrot Drone is a great toy. I am usually flight impaired, but the controls were easy for me to figure out after only a few flights. Plus, the fact that you can just let go of the controls to have it move back to hover mode is a really nice feature. When I get nervous or think it’s going too fast (or slow or high or low or right into an obstacle or whatever) I just let go and it comes back to hover. Granted sometimes it comes back to hover too slowly, but (I mean, I recognized the impending doom too late) it’s certainly more bullet proof than other flying planes I’ve seen.

December 4, 2010

Jaryth and I build a graham cracker house

Jaryth liked licking the icing. I also learned that marshmallows must be eaten on a stick (courtesy s’mores we had last summer). He yelled “stick! Stick!” over and over until Mark gave him a toothpick.

December 4, 2010

Print that’s bigger inside than out

So, carved a stamp for a Zodiac ring and when I mentioned that the carve was approximately 5"x5" a couple people freaked, saying it was too large. So I made this ATC that showcases the print but is still only 2.5"x3.5". It’s a card AND a pop-up book. ;-)

closed

open

November 25, 2010

Layered print

I decided to carve a three layer print. It looks odd at first, but as I stamp the layers it really comes out well.

October 26, 2010

Do you know what a top ten list is?

I got an email yesterday from someone who wrote (paraphrased): “I read your top 10 list of best web editors, and it was interesting. I use ___ editor, and I was wondering if there was a better one than it available.” Really? The editor he mentioned was not on the list. I honestly don’t know what to tell him. I mean, seriously, if his editor was not on the list (and it does qualify to be on that list - it’s free and it’s for Windows), then chances are, I believe that all ten editors on that list are better than the one he named. The only thing I can think is that he doesn’t understand what a “Top 10” list is.

October 26, 2010

Decisions... Decisions...

The phone is ringing. The caller ID says it’s “Telemarketer.” Should I answer? What do you think? Oooops, I accidentally decided to write this blog post before I answered. And now the phone says 1 missed call. Too bad.

October 25, 2010

Some days it doesn’t pay to take a vacation

I decided last Thursday to take some time off from my About.com site (and clearly I still am…) because I was tired of HTML editors, didn’t want to talk CSS, wasn’t interested in updating old pages, wanted to finish a project for my art class, and was upset about a change in pay and how they tried to spin it to make it sound like it was chocolate-coated bad news. (It’s not really that bad of news, it’s just annoying how staff feels the need to spin things. Just be honest with us, most of us are grown ups, we can take it without the chocolate coating.) Anyway… So I arrived at my desk this morning chipper and eager to get back to work, or at least not as burnt out, and found:

October 18, 2010

Someone needs to teach Symantec the definition of "ignore"

I’ve been using Norton Antivirus (NAV) for a long time. Honestly. And not because I worked for Symantec for 9 years. I used it even before I worked there. And I continue to use it even though I don’t work there any longer. But let me tell you, every day, often many times a day, I’m annoyed by this software. I’ve even gone as far as finding a new product that I’m considering switching to as soon as my definitions expire (in a month or so). That’s how annoying this “feature” is. Here’s how it goes:

October 14, 2010

My son is so cool!

He can’t decide what he wants to watch today: “Rocky and Bullwinkle” or “Mythbusters.” He watched an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to pop popcorn with a bomb and with a laser. And all Jaryth wanted to see was the house get “broke all to bits”. And the “big fire!” When they switched to the car driving really fast (Jamie testing if driving fast in rain with the top down will keep you drier), Jaryth wasn’t interested. Then he started yelling “Rocket J. Squirrel! Rocket J. Squirrel!” I guess the ultimate episode would be where they blew something up while Rocky flew overhead.

October 12, 2010

Okay, maybe it IS rocket science

I got an email today asking if there were an easier way to take my online class because when she clicked on a link that she thought was the next step, she was taken somewhere else. I really don’t know what to tell these people. It isn’t that hard, people! Of course, it IS that hard if you need someone holding your hand the entire way. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that, step 3 go here, step 4 go there, poof, you’re a web designer! I like teaching beginners. I really do. But I don’t like teaching lazy people who can’t be bothered to read or follow instructions. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I wrote to her telling her to go to the syllabus for the week and follow the links from there, going back to that page when she’d finished an article. Her reply: “That is what I did but could not get back. I saw a lot of links to other websites. I was reading lesson 1 and it said to type in HTML and I do not know how to do that yet so I think I registered for the wrong class. I thought I was registering for the html class but I think it is the wrong one. “ OH MY GOD! You couldn’t get back? See that fancy button in the upper left of your browser window? That’s the (wait for it) BACK button. Try clicking that. I’ll wait… Or, if that doesn’t work, try going back to the email where you first got the link. Oh, you deleted that already? How the FUCK can I help you then? I just wrote her again with step-by-fucking-step instructions for how to find the lessons, how to stay on them, how to avoid clicking anything other than what’s on the syllabus. Unfortunately, I can’t fucking control her mouse to stop her from clicking on anything shiny that she sees while she’s not reading the lesson. Holy fuck woman. Okay, after calming down a bit I took a look at the articles. I think she’s getting hung up in one of the Notepad articles that says “write your HTML here” and since she hasn’t learned HTML, she’s thinking “but I don’t know HTML” and getting frustrated. I honestly don’t know, as of course, she can’t even make that much clear in her communication to me. So I added a note in that article saying “if you are in the HTML class, don’t worry about writing HTML here, just type a few words and move to the next step.” Or something like that. Honestly, I think that what is rocket science is writing a course that is easy enough for the people who need their hands held but not so easy that the more adventurous learners aren’t bored to tears and walk away.

September 24, 2010

He's gonna swim with Dory!

Jaryth is downstairs yelling “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” Mark replies “Which one? Nemo or Cars?” “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” “You can only watch one at a time.” “Emo! Cars! Emo! He’s gonna swim with Dory!” In this instance “he” is Jaryth referring to himself. I guess he not only wants to watch “Emo” he wants to go swimming with Dory.

September 21, 2010

Now what to work on?

I did it! I got my link checker to zero. Or as the tool says “empty container”. [caption id=“attachment_188” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Woo-Hoo! Linkchecker at Zero”][/caption]

Now I suppose I have to go back to writing actual articles! Of course, I also need to finish cleaning up the HTML Tag Library and I should work on updating the CSS Style Properties Library. Those are tedious jobs too. :-)

September 17, 2010

Online recipes

So, I’ve started cooking again. I figure it’s not good karma for me to let Mark do all the cooking forever. ☺ But in order to facilitate this, I’ve started looking at online recipes. And I have two questions:

Why does Cooks.com get listed so often when their recipes are all the same?
I did a search for something the other day, and was excited to see that there were like 20 recipes listed on Cooks.com. Of those 20, there were exactly three different ones. Three!?! I think Cooks.com is one of those user-generated content sites, and it’s obvious in this situation that there are no editors doing anything there. I mean, how many times do I need to read the same recipe? Even if they have slightly different titles, they are the same and once I’ve decided I don’t want the first copy of it, finding it again 10 more times just makes me leave the site without using any of the recipes. Lame!
Why do people, when rating recipes, give a recipe a 5 star rating and then proceed to explain how they completely changed the recipe?
For example: “This was an awesome recipe! My family loved it! I replaced the chicken with tuna, added tomatoes and green onions (for color), and got rid of the garlic and onions (my family doesn’t like them). Oh, and I used cauliflower instead of potatoes.” And this is on a recipe for chicken-potato pie. It sounds to me like she made tuna-cauliflower pie.

Any suggestions for great, easy recipes are welcome! Please comment.

September 16, 2010

at least he thought I was funny

I got this mail series yesterday and today. It’s still not very informative… ——– Original Message ——– Subject: Re: Re: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:49:30 -0500 From: Noah Hansen xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx To: Jennifer Kyrnin <webdesign.guide@about.com> lol ————————————————– From: “Jennifer Kyrnin” <webdesign.guide@about.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 6:21 PM To: “Noah Hansen” <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: > You’re right. This mail isn’t very informative. ☺ > > Was there something specific you were feeling was not very informative? Or was this a commentary on me in general? > > Jennifer Kyrnin > Guide to Web Design / HTML > http://webdesign.about.com/ > About.com | Need. Know. Accomplish > ———————————————— > About.com is part of the New York Times Company > > http://www.facebook.com/AboutWebDesign > http://www.twitter.com/htmljenn > > On 9/15/10 2:49 PM, Noah Hansen wrote: » not very informative » ~~Noah Hansen~~

September 8, 2010

MMMMMMMMM Buttery Sticks :-p~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[caption id=“attachment_178” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Buttery Sticks - Margarine is for losers!”][/caption]

Yummy!

It’s sad when marketing has decided that “margarine” isn’t yummy sounding enough.

Psst: Nucoa people… Buttery sticks makes it sound like I’m about to use twigs that have been basted. And, personally, I’m not a huge fan of twigs.

July 21, 2010

And so it begins...

Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday - Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is. He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything. What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much. [caption id=“attachment_172” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.”][/caption] What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow. Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.) [caption id=“attachment_175” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

July 12, 2010

Get Your Own Rock!

There is this big rock off Highway 9 that we pass when we’re going to the Post Office. And the local high school students regularly paint it with various things. The typical paintings are like “Sarah loves Jesse” and “Panther’s Rule!” but today the rock says: “Get your own rock!” And on the other side it has the icons for Snohomish High School. I don’t know what they were responding too, but I’m guessing that students from another school painted it and SHS students were “taking it back”. I did have a laugh at the “get your own rock” phrase. You tell ‘em, kids! I’m sure that’ll keep them off your rock!

July 10, 2010

Spam police

Today I received a comment on my web design blog complaining that a previous comment was “clearly spam”. The post in question talked about web design books I was looking forward to seeing. And the (possibly spammy) commenter linked to an ebook he was looking forward to.

My question is: what makes this spam? The fact that he bolded the title of the book? The fact that he included a link to the ebook’s web page? The fact that he didn’t say “I am not the author, I just like this book” or something equally obsequious?

July 10, 2010

In the spring of 2010, I took an art class at Everett Community College. In that class I learned about a whole lot of different art techniques including: drawing in graphite and charcoal drawing with pen and ink drawing with color pencils painting with ink and brushes painting with watercolors And I fell in love with watercolor painting. Previously, my efforts at watercolor were ugly at best, but this class showed me different techniques, different paints and brushes, and different papers (Yupo paper is really cool!). And I decided to do my final project as a watercolor painting of the NGPA in our backyard. But our instructor had us do more than just draw something or paint a picture for our final project. She wanted us to write a proposal for the project, and include in it what the purpose and intentions were for the project. Now I could have said something like: “My intention is to create a painting for my final project.” But that would have been weak and somewhat pointless. Then I was looking at my blog, and getting frustrated again that I was using a blog template rather than my own design. And it hit me!…

July 10, 2010

I have been writing professionally since 1993, but I haven’t spent a lot of time writing for myself. So this space is where I’m allowing myself to write about what interests me. If it interests you as well, well, I’m glad. But if it doesn’t, frankly, I don’t care. Here is the boring info about me: I write about HTML and Web design at About.com I’ve written two books that my mother has read (or at least looked at) but you probably haven’t I’ve worked as a manager, Web designer, Web producer, Webmaster, Web writer, and Tech Support Rep I’ve also herded monkeys and cats, cleaned up after toddlers and library patrons, taught English, translated Uzbek, and bitten baby sheep – all for some sort of remuneration If I could I would spend my days doing three things: playing with my son, reading Science Fiction, and riding my horse If I ruled the world, mean people would be executed, but sarcastic people would be rewarded – as long as it wasn’t mean sarcasm. Rambler, Jennifer, and Jaryth

July 10, 2010

Home

July 8, 2010

Heat makes things difficult

I’m hot, which is a nice change from the whole of June, where we had fall weather, but still, hot is no fun. Because it’s hot I’m furious that the post office can’t seem to mail my post cards. I’ve sent the below postcard twice already. And yes, i’ve added new stamps to it. And this is one of three that the postal carrier can’t seem to grasp DOESN’T need to go here. I understand that the post office is mostly automated, but where is the brain that my postal carrier is supposed to have. I mean SERIOUSLY, can’t s/he read? It says “TO” next to the to address and “FROM” above the from address. Also, why would I put 98cents worth of stamps on a postcard to myself??? I like the post office, most of the time, but sometimes their complete reliance on machines to the point of idiocy makes me mad. If there were a way to send post cards by UPS I would do it! [caption id=“attachment_155” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“I have already spent $1.96 to send this card twice! Stupid PO.”] postcard I had to send 3 times [/caption]

July 7, 2010

Finally, a Flying Car!

I love reading Marc’s Green Living Blog. I do try to be conscious of eco-friendly or green choices, but his blog offers so much more than just that. Yesterday’s post “Finally, My Flying Car is Here” is a great example! I mean, would you really think of flying cars as something green? I mean, heck, they’re totally important, don’t get me wrong. As an avid Sci-Fi reader I’ve been waiting for the promised flying car for years! But to learn that not only is this car legal to fly with only 20 hours of flying time, but it also gets better gas mileage than my truck. Now if they’d just invent a flying trailer to go with it - or a truck that gets better than 13MPG and can still tow a 2-horse trailer. In other news: Jaryth’s site is back up. So if you’ve been jonesing for pictures like this, your wait is over. I’ve built it so that I can add new pictures by just uploading them into a directory. Lazy, yes, but heck, the photos are on the site again, so I’m happy, and hopefully his faraway relatives are too. ☺ I asked him to “smile” as I took the picture. This is the result. [caption id=“attachment_145” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

June 23, 2010

Chocolate Goldfish!

I know, I don’t need any more sweets in my life. But Pepperidge Farms hit the jackpot with me with their Chocolate Goldfish Grahams. Jaryth doesn’t like them, but that’s okay, I do. :-)[caption id=“attachment_139” align=“aligncenter” width=“99” caption=“Yum!”][/caption]

June 22, 2010

First swim lesson

Jaryth was a bit scared of his first lesson. But as I told Danielle, his teacher, starting low means he has more room for improvement. He cried less on day 2.

June 18, 2010

The zen of stuff

We are participating in a garage sale today and tomorrow, and it’s been interesting. In the morning you get all the people who look like they are searching for a Van Gogh hidden among our clothes. They glance at the stuff and sniff or if they are feeling sorry for us tell us they like our house/barn/dog/tree before they walk away. They do an awesome job making you look at the detritus of your life and think “wow, I bought a lot of crap!” and then you consider dropping the prices even though you have only been out there for an hour. But you stand firm, after all none of them even made an offer let alone bought anything. Then around mid-day the neighbors start showing up. They ask how your dog is doing (he died a month ago) then comment on how big Jaryth is getting and how they see us walking every day. I think most of our neighbors know us by sight, but we only know the one or two who come out. It’s bizarre to be greeted by people who comment on how big Jaryth is, and they are complete strangers to you. It’s 3pm now and we’ve done pretty well. Most of the big baby things are gone. One monitor sold. And some jewelry. The computers will have to go to Costco, I suspect. And the baby toys and clothes to charity. But we still have one more day!

June 16, 2010

I want it!

I was talking to my Dad today about Jaryth’s language. He was wondering if we spoke baby talk to him or if we tried to encourage him to speak correctly. I then commented on how we had been trying to get him to use the pronoun “I” rather than “he” or “baby” or “Jaryth” when referring to himself. So, just now, Jaryth came upstairs and was asking me where the remote controlled car was. Mark told him and then Jaryth said “he wants it”. Meaning that he wants to play with the car. Mark then said, “no, you should say ‘I want it’ to say that you want it.” Guess what Jaryth is now saying over and over and over? “I want it.” “I want it.” “I want it!” He cracks me up. He’s still downstairs telling Mark, “I want it.”

June 9, 2010

Audience

One of the reasons I struggle with writing a blog, is the idea of audience. When I write in my personal journal, I know that my audience is me. (Except in the unlikely scenario where Mark picks it up and reads it - luckily I’m very boring…) The challenge with a blog, no matter how much I know that my audience is really just me, myself and I (and, yes, we can be a narcissistic bunch), there is the idea that maybe, possibly, in some outer realm of probability someone else is reading this stuff. So I find myself censoring. “What if my dentist reads this?” I think, and erase the snarky comment about dental drills. “What if I need to get a job in the coffee industry” and out goes the aside about Starbucks. It got even scarier on the days leading up to Tuesday this week, because that was the day I was presenting my layout/design to the class. Yes, it was going to be on an overhead projector with very little visible (the projector isn’t big like my iMac…). But what if someone actually read what I wrote in the three minutes it was up on the screen? And then of course, in the days leading up to the presentation, I sent the URL out to several of my friends, relatives, and colleagues. Luckily, most of them are too busy to come back after the initial “follow Jenn’s link so she won’t be mad at me” impulse. But ultimately it comes down to this. For me, writing this blog is a personal exercise. It’s just that putting it on the Web makes me hope that someone is reading it, someone is finding it not boring, some one is (dare I ask it?) laughing at my jokes. I’m trying not to care about whether anyone other than the three of us are reading it. I’m pretty sure Mark never opens it, and he’s the only one I would think might. But I don’t write about PC games or Windows hardware, so he’s not likely to arrive. The best thing about writing for myself, is that I don’t get mad when I don’t post a new picture or excerpt for a while. I just post when I feel like it.

June 7, 2010

Easily distracted by the "shiny"

So, my design is scheduled to be presented tomorrow, and I’ve already got a new design in mind. Holy, cow, Jenn! Why not stick with a design for, oh, say a week to try it out? Or at least until you’ve finished your presentation. But the “shiny!” Step away from the shiny, Jenn. You’re feverish, just walk away from Dreamweaver for right now.

June 6, 2010

My son, the gamer

What you can’t really see from this picture is that he’s playing Plants vs. Zombies. When the zombie apocalypse comes, he’ll be ready with his biters!

June 5, 2010

This one's for you, Bren

So, you said that it was very square, so I rounded some of the corners, just for you. Of course, if you were viewing this in IE, you’d still see the square corners because I didn’t do it with images but with CSS (faster to download). Luckily, I know you’re not viewing it in IE. And this method works for Firefox 1+, Safari 3+, Opera 10.5+, Chrome 1+, and browsers that use Gecko or Webkit. I don’t remember what browser you use, however. Okay, time to stop stalling on my newsletter.

June 4, 2010

Good little writer, me...

My editor sent me a note about Apple’s new HTML 5 Showcase and my first reaction was to chat with her about it. But then my brain kicked in and I realized that she wanted me to write something about it. :-)

I’m slow, but I do catch on eventually.

I posted a note about writing this template and discussed the virtues of using HTML 5 or lack thereof. I still think HTML 5 is cool, but if you know your audience is using Internet Explorer, you need to head back to HTML 4/XHTML 1 -land if you want it to work. :-(

June 4, 2010

Oops

Memo to self: if you’re going to send a ranting email to a mailing list, it’s best to find out if the person you’re ranting about is also on that list… [[forehead slap]]

June 2, 2010

So Happy!

I’ve got my new template up and running. I’m sure I’ll continue to find things I need to tweak and fix on it, but for now I’m pleased with it.

This is my first foray into my own images for a design. Or I should say, it’s the first time I’ve ever used a painting or drawing I did. I really like how it turned out. If you’re curious to know more about why I built this template, check out the About this Site link in the navigation above.

June 2, 2010

Ah parenting....

My dad used to say to my brother and I “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” As a kid that statement always bothered me, as clearly I had something to cry about - why else would I be crying??? But now, as a parent, I understand the impulse to say that. After a 10 minute moaning/crying jag just now, I was about ready to “give him something to cry about” myself! But let me set the scene: Jaryth had just woken up from a 1.5 hour nap and was in a great mood. We played with his ball for several minutes, then he said he wanted toast with peanut butter, so we made that. Then he wanted water from the fridge. So he got his cup, and I unlocked the water dispenser. He held up his cup and filled it (about half full) with water. Then I locked the water dispenser. And he promptly got mad and dropped his cup. I kept my cool as I dried him and the floor off, calmed him down, and gave him back his cup and unlocked the water dispenser again. Lather. Rinse. REPEAT I didn’t stay as calm this time, as he started screaming (again) because he was (again) covered in water, there was water (again) all over the floor, and he still didn’t get a drink. I tried to calm him down, but I suspect the statement “you don’t get more water out of the dispenser if you’re just going to drop it on the floor” is what triggered the 10 minute crying/moaning jag. Toddlers can be a lot of fun. But sometimes, not so much.

May 20, 2010

I have to wonder, sometimes

I have a form on my site asking for people to define what they feel a webmaster is. It asks:

“Share your thoughts. What is a webmaster?”

And I received this reply:

“Title: Webmaster description…OMG I just read several responses to what others opinion are regarding what a webmaster is and quite frankly, the grammar, spelling, and English are deplorable. If one cannot master the fundamentals of communication, then the game is over. Webmasters will become specialized because of their skills and not because of a simple desire and a minimal education. How would like to go to a dentist who was self taught and just got by in school? Ouch………..”

May 18, 2010

Starting my download of CS5 - boom

I started downloading the disk images of CS5 for my reviews today. Yay! Of course, one of the images failed. Hopefully the other one will work. Then I’ll start the second one alone. Downloading Master Collection seems like a bit of overkill. At least I have a nice new BIG hard drive to store the 2 disk images. Then the second image failed as well - of course they wait until they are fully downloaded before they die. But YAY! Second time’s the charm. I got it downloaded this time, and have already started making some edits to a WordPress site using Dreamweaver.

May 14, 2010

Diaspora - I'm intrigued

May 12, 2010

So, Today's Trick is to Create a Puzzle Web App

I don’t know why, but I’m interested in puzzles lately, and I thought it would be fun to create an app to let people post and fill out puzzles. Of course, I’ll have to limit how the puzzles work at first, but this should be a fun exercise in planning and implementing a site. And if I’m lucky, I might even have enough documentation at the end to actually get a few articles out of the idea. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So the first thing I’ll be using is my newest note taking app on the iPad AbleNote. This app appears to have all the features that I was looking for in a note taking app. It’s kinda eerie making that blog post to the universe and then the next day (or maybe 2 I forget when I downloaded it) finding that app. True, it’s not free, but it seems to work better than the other one I was using. (That, while free, now has the “feature” of in-app purchases to try to entice me to pay them, um, yeah…). AbleNote wasn’t $9.99 - yay!

May 7, 2010

Note taking apps - some feature requests

So, today I got fed up with my current iPad note taking app (Sundry Notes) crashing and taking my notes with it and decided to look for a new one. Wow! There are a lot of sticky notes, cork boards, and note taking / drawing apps out there! They could be a category all their own. EXCEPT They all do the same damn thing. Let me tell you, if you’re planning on creating a note taking app for the iPad, your app will not be “stupendous” “amazing” or “revolutionary” (no matter how many times you use those or other superlatives in your description) if all you have is the ability to write notes and change the background color/pattern of the paper. Here’s what I want from a note taking app:

May 5, 2010

DDH Software, You Disappoint

It’s really hard to not feel like everyone in the universe is greedy for more more more when most of the apps that I used regularly on the iPhone have new, bigger iPad brethren that cost more, a lot more. I’m starting to think that apps that are universal will get an extra star from me, or maybe that apps that have an iPhone version that is cheaper than the iPad version would lose a star (or half a star?). I feel like I just bought DDH Software HanDBase for my iPhone/iPod. And now they have an iPad only version for $9.99. I’m sorry, DDH, but you won’t get my business a fifth time. I’ve bought the Mac desktop version (which is crap), the iPhone version, the Palm version, and the Windows desktop version. No way in hell are you getting another dime from me. Sorry, but your app works fine in the version I have, and since you didn’t see fit to make a universal app I don’t see fit to give you any more of my cash.

May 3, 2010

College clases are hard

I’m enjoying the drawing part of my class, but the writing part, not so much. Holy cow! I honestly don’t care about what Margaret Kilgallen’s influences were/are. And it’s frustrating that I have to figure something out to write about them.

Edited to Add…

So, I worked on my paper, and after talking with the professor, got some great ideas. I was still stumped for a while, so I made a little pictorial book of her influences. That was what I needed. I ended up with a 9-page paper that I wrote in about an hour. Whew! And it was actually fun to write!

May 3, 2010

Here's a hint

If you’re asking me a question, and I reply saying “I don’t understand what you mean by this word.” Don’t reply saying “I just need information about the same word.” Last week I got an email that read:

I am a college student and I am having my thesis right now. I would like to propose a topic regarding CMS and my thesis should use an algorithm. Do you know any algorithms used for CMS?

April 14, 2010

No Spam Filter? iPad, You're KILLING ME!

So, I love my iPad, don’t get me wrong. I love it so much that I set up all my email to go there as a way to stay curent and up-to-date with my mail even when I’m not at the “big-big-computer” as Jaryth calls it. But holy spam insanity, Batman! All of my accounts have spam filters on them at the server level. And they work at about 3 different effectiveness levels:

April 7, 2010

iPad tip

My 27" iMac has a shiny screen that is remarkably similar to my iPad (if slightly larger). And in the box of goodies that it came with was a fancy black cloth for keeping it shiny. However, since I don’t touch my iMac screen nearly as often as I do my iPad (except when I forget that it doesn’t have multi-touch built-in), so it doesn’t have as many fingerprints. So I liberated the cloth and it now travels with my iPad (along with the iMac’s bluetooth mini-keyboard. I kept my full-sized one with number pad, even though it has to be plugged in, gasp!). One other tip: the multitouch still works through the cloth, so it’s best to turn off when shining the iPad.

April 7, 2010

I really should know better

I have been writing for the Web since 1995, and you’d think I would know by now not to engage the loonies, but every month or so I still attempt to interact with them. Today’s email gem was from a woman who found a typo/spelling error on my blog. A simple way to report a spelling error is to write: “I found a typo or spelling error on your site” and then point out the word and the URL where it was found. Short, to the point, doesn’t make any inane references. In fact, it’s hard to object to an email like that. When I get those, I typically respond with “Thanks! I’ll get that fixed as soon as possible.” But as you might have guessed, that’s not what she wrote. She informed me of the spelling error. Chastised me for not using a spell-checker, and then said that spelling errors like that bring into question all the facts presented on the site. I replied telling her that my spell checker (and I have two - one in the browser for blog posts and one in my editor where I write the blog posts first) did not object to my spelling of the word. But that I would fix it to her preferred spelling as soon as I could. I closed it with “Thank you for your feedback.” And I figured that was the end of it. I mean, I was polite in my reply, and I said I would fix it. What else could she want? Hahahahahaha! Apparently I wasn’t sufficiently cowed by her assessment of me so she replied to (in effect) call me a liar. She wrote, “I find it amazing how people don’t want to admit to their mistakes.” Then she wrote “look at the little red squiggly under the word, that means it’s misspelled.” And she closed with “I read your site every day and I daily find spelling errors on the Web.” Let’s take these one at a time: 1. admitting my mistakes: Yes, I don’t like “constructive criticism” but honestly, I don’t think her first email was all that constructive. It was rude and made implications about my abilities as a writer and fact checker. If she were my mother or my elementary grammar teacher, the tone would have been fine. But she’s neither. As far as I know, my only mistake was in using a spell checker that doesn’t conform to her dictionary. I did say I would fix it, even if I didn’t agree that it was an error. 2. looking at the spell checker. I told her in my first email that the “red squiggly” wasn’t there. If I accept her premise that I should use a spell checker, then I should trust its results, shouldn’t I? But in her world I must know what words the spell checker doesn’t know. 3. reading my site daily. If she really does read it daily, she would know that I don’t regularly make a lot of spelling errors or typos. And while I’d love to be “ruler of the Web,” that title has not been voted to me, so I can’t control the typos on pages that aren’t mine. As soon as I can, I’ll send electric shocks to writers who post spelling errors on websites. If you want to report errors to me, please do so. I appreciate it, And like most of my readers, I’m only human and do make mistakes. Just remember that even if you do read my site daily, we are not best friends, you aren’t my editor/mother/grammar teacher, and I don’t know you. Pretend you’re approaching a stranger in public when you write your email. Who knows, if you’re nice enough, you might even turn into a friend of mine (not making any promises). But if you’re rude, sarcastic, or mean, the best you can expect is a reply in kind. But I really should know better and not reply to you at all.

April 5, 2010

I am drawing my NGPA for art class

I am drawing my NGPA for a project for my Art class. And to stay inspired, I decided to also try out a challenge from Sue’s site: Out of Border It’s fun! [caption id=“attachment_48” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“NGPA Out of Border”][/caption] I think what would be even cooler is if I wrapped the text around the edge of the birdhouse, rather than having it appear above it. But this is definitely a start. Thanks, Sue, for the inspiration!

April 3, 2010

on my iPad

This is just too cool. So much easier to type on the iPad than the iPod. Plus it has all the help that the iPod has like the double space for a period and capital letter. Silly to be happy about that but I am. I’m trying a bunch of new apps for the iPad. I’ll have to give an update of all of them later. I’ve already watched a tv show, downloaded a book, and tried out a bunch of apps. I know, I’m gushing, but it really is just as cool as I thought it would be!!

March 28, 2010

2x to 4x the cost? Um, not!

So Mark found some analysis of possible prices for upcoming iPad apps and they are insane!! apparently they appear to be planning to charge anywhere from 2 to 4 times more for an iPad app as for the same app on the iPhone. TUAW is falling down by not reporting on this (or not asking in their interviews). They posted a “first look” at Polyhedra XL which I have the iPhone version. What a joke!

March 24, 2010

I just don't understand conservatives...

I was reading a post on the US Conservatives blog on About.com. As I read that post I was first nodding, then pausing, and finally gaping. It’s not that I disagree with the premise that people lose healthcare when they lose their jobs. But the statement that healthcare is guaranteed in this country just made me laugh. I suppose if you ascribe to the belief that people who lose their jobs and thus insurance will then only need medical care for ER type things. Things like Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, and multiple myeloma. They’ll have their foot go gangrenous because of poor circulation and the ER will be enough care for them. By all means, let’s get more jobs with insurance. But let’s not use that argument muddy the waters of the need for a real healthcare system for anyone not wealthy. What astounds me more is that the writer doesn’t have insurance through his job writing for About.com. But maybe his wife does?

March 16, 2010

The Search Box is Your Friend

I was reading TUAW this morning, and they were talking about the Apple.com site and how some people were reporting that the Downloads section was gone. In a nutshell their article was just saying that no, it’s not, it’s just not on the navigation now because they needed room for an iPad tab. My favorite quote from the article* was:

“Fortunately you can easily locate the downloads section simply by typing the word “downloads” into the search box.“

March 10, 2010

Shasta

Went to the vet with a limp, came home with terminal bone cancer. 9 years isn’t enough!!!

March 9, 2010

Do People Really Know How to Read?

I’m currently reading Booklife and one thing that he mentions is the idea that school literature programs have made people bad readers. At first I was somewhat taken aback by this assertion, but as I read more about what his premise was, I started to agree with him. In a nutshell: in literature classes in high school and college we are taught to read literature with an eye towards what is not written. In other words, you’re supposed to find the allegory, the symbolism, the hidden meanings. Doing this is fun because for one thing it’s a pretty creative way of reading. If the meaning you are positing is “hidden” then the fact that no one else can see it just proves your point more. In fact, as long as you can argue your interpretation effectively it doesn’t matter that no one else can see it. If you’re persuasive enough, everyone will see it (if only to get you to stop harping at them). But what does this mean for reading later? If you’re always looking for the hidden meaning in something, then there’s a good chance you’ll miss the overt meaning. In High School, I had to read the Hemingway story “Hills Like White Elephants”. This story stuck in my head because it was the first time I ever really understood what people were seeing when they found these hidden meanings. (Thank you Mr. Duncanson.) I’m not saying that I really believed they were there, but we read that story so many times that I started to believe that the story might have actually been about elephants - not just descriptively titled. My question to that class is, do you remember what the story was about, what the text said? In other words, not the pregnancy, or the idea that the character was trying to talk her into an abortion. None of that was actually said. Do you remember what the scene was? My guess is that most people don’t remember, because we got so hung up in the hidden story. Where was it set? What were they doing? To badly mangle another quote: “sometimes and elephant is just an elephant”. Perhaps if we started reading things looking for the un-hidden meaning first we might have an easier time understanding what people are trying to tell us. Why I Like Science Fiction If you read most scifi books with an eye to what is said, and not what is not said, you’ll get the basics of most books. Literary snobs might argue that that makes the books less interesting - but I find them plenty interesting. And they don’t have to be obfuscated to hold my attention. Don’t get me wrong, in re-reading “Hills Like White Elephants” 25 years after my first read, I was profoundly moved by the story. Most of the allegory that we discovered in that long-ago class has disappeared into where ever memories go when they aren’t used. And I suspect that a lot of the reason I found it difficult at age 17 was because of my age and lack of experience. But I still enjoyed the story first as a description of a couple sitting in a foreign train station, waiting for a train, and discussing their life together (or not) and what they were going to do.

March 6, 2010

iPad Apps

Okay, I’ve mentioned that I am looking forward to the iPad release. If nothing else, it will be nice to be able to type a little more accurately with my fat fingers. But I have to say that while it’s nice that a lot of developers are working on iPad specific versions of their apps, I hope they don’t all go that route. For instance, I have 2 ereaders on my iPod. I don’t want to have to go out and buy them AGAIN for the iPad. That would piss me off. Mark thinks that the apps should work, and I’m hoping that they will. But I am honestly convinced that most of the developers who are working on an iPad version of their products are doing so so that they can get more money out of me, and less because their app won’t work on the larger device. I also suspect that most iPad apps will cost more (if not significantly more) than their iPhone counterparts. It’s as if since the device is larger, they must charge more for their programs. Who knows, we’ll obviously have to wait and see, but I can tell you that something that I might have been willing to pay a dollar for (99cents) on my iPod is not necessarily something I’d be willing to pay $5 for (or more) just because now it’s bigger on the iPad. Don’t forget that app developers! I think one of the reasons the app store took off was because people would think “I’d buy that for a dollar” and then click, whirr, they’d have it on their phone. The saying isn’t “I’d buy that for 10 dollars.” Don’t get greedy, app developers. Stick with prices that are reasonable, and show us the benefit of paying 5-10 times more for your app on the larger device before you expect us to just open our wallets. We are still in a recession. Some apps I don’t plan to buy an iPad version of because I already have an iPhone version:

March 6, 2010

Interesting - MacJournal for iPhone

This latest version of MacJournal includes “support for syncing with MacJournal for iPhone” but the iPhone version isn’t available.

March 2, 2010

Twitter Meanies

I’m currently reading Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer. One of the first chapters talks about Twitter and he says that he doesn’t really like Twitter because it “fragments [his] attention”. Like him, I don’t find Twitter all that friendly. Many of the people I used to chat with on Twitter now have so many people in their timeline that they never even see my posts. And I’ve never had the experience of asking a question or for help and getting more than a minimal response and often a snarky, negative one. I wish I’d had a better experience, as it was a lot of fun at first. But now I just sync my Web Design blog to the account and mostly ignore it. It’s less stressful that way.

March 1, 2010

Dreams of an iPad

I’ve got a few apps on my iPod that would be so much more pleasant to use on a larger screen. Take this WordPress app for instance. I find it humorous that many of the complaints about the iPad are that it’s just a big iPod. That’s why I want one! Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod. I use it everyday! But a larger screen to read and a bigger keyboard to type on would be awesome. I want a bigger iPod. Bring it on!

February 25, 2010

Who Killed Kumar?

I just finished the 4th season of House. And of all the characters to kill, why did they need to kill ___? It’s something Whedon would do. He was my favorite of the team. I understand that it pushed forward a plot point. But it was still disappointing to have the nice character die, especially by suicide.

February 23, 2010

pain

Okay, I woke up with migrating pain in my sinuses. Taking advil and some antibiotic turned that off. Now the dull pain in my jaw is back. Makes it hard to focus or concentrate or write. I wish this were over with. I wish I hadn’t believed that the pain would stay manageable until Thursday and just made the appointment for Monday morning. Ah if wishes were fishes I’d be well fed for Lent.

February 22, 2010

I am not a number...

Why do medical practitioners insist on treating their customers as cogs in a machine? Some offices use random numbers, others use parts of your social security number, and still others use your birth date. But what about something that is unique to me and I’m used to responding to, know by heart, and makes me feel like a person rather than a computer? I know this is going out on a limb, but maybe my NAME??? Add that to the office having their millions of systems that aren’t connected together and it doesn’t make me excited and happy to go to the doctor: «ring» receptionist: Hello XYZ medical clinic, how can I help you? me on phone: Hi, I’m in intense pain and was wondering if I could get in to see the Dr. today rather than on Thursday for my appointment. r: Sure! Let’s see, what’s your [ID number that they use]? me: ### r: [type type] Jennifer? me: Yes. r: Let’s see, I can transfer you to your Doctor’s receptionist. [click hold] me: (thinking) what are you then? «ring» receptionist 2: Hello, XYZ medical clinic, how can I help you? me: Hi, I’m in intense pain and was wondering if I could get in to see the Dr. today rather than on Thursday for my appointment. r2: Sure! Let’s see, what’s your [ID number that they use]? me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! What is it about the medical community that they seem to confuse efficiency with lack of customer interaction? I don’t hearken back to the “good ole days” when the cure for a hangnail was to cut off your leg, but I wish I could afford a “concierge doctor” who would come to me and at least pretend to care that I’m scared, in pain, and upset. The end result was that I can’t move my appointment forward, they don’t have any room. But she was willing to cancel my appointment for me if I wanted. BUH??? Sure, I’m in pain, and want to move it FORWARD, but I’m sure canceling it completely will solve the problem. Perhaps you have a gun I can use to put myself out of my misery?

February 20, 2010

Ah irony

I saw this advertisement today, and it made me laugh. King county decided that all restaurants must put calories on their menus so people have a better idea of what they are ordering. A year or so later they decided to see if this had changed how people order. It did. Now they make their kids eat more healthily while ordering the double-big-mac-large-fries-chocolate-shake for themselves. I’m taking my first step to be a better role model - I’ve made a dentist appointment (and haven’t cancelled it yet).