You DO love me! You really love me! Or read me, at least.

September 14, 2003

Whoa, comments all of a sudden! Guess people I didn’t know about DO read my website. Yes, Margaret, I dug through my access log, but it was just out of curiosity, plus it was after midnight and I had nothing else to do, so I figured what the hell?

I got one thing fixed on my website that’s been bugging me for weeks now–no, I’d actually say closer to a year. My webcam feature has always bugged me in the sense that I could take pictures, store them on my site, let other people view them, but the setup I was using had no way to keep copies of all the pictures taken. Granted, that’s a lot of disk space assuming I use the camera a lot, but it bothered me at some level that I was taking pictures I couldn’t ever see again. Well I finally got my site situated in such a way that every webcam picture I take is now archived and once I get around to making a page for it, will be able to be displayed. So once it’s fully implemented, you can go back and look at all the old webcam pictures to your heart’s desire. I think that’s mostly for me, honestly, but eh, it’s nice to have. So right now the to-do list of my website looks like this:

-Put pictures back up (which is more work than it sounds like since I have to design the index page, design each page, and then of course, transfer over my descriptions and the like)
-Put new pictures up
-Add additional contact information beyond email address
-Put “About Me” page back up
-Fix the damned box at the bottom of the right pane. You know, that one with the MT and Apache picture in it. Why won’t it line up?!?
-Implement webcam archive page
-Fix title image so it fits with the rest of the site better

Doesn’t sound like a whole lot to do, but that’s a good 10 hours of work right there. It’s not like I have much standing in the way of doing it, but I know it’s there and some of it I don’t know how to start on. I’m just as clueless about the backend of the new website system I’m using as you are, honestly.

I’m told that the second night of Folk and Blues got rained out at Beloit last night. That’s too bad. My first Spring Day had that happen my freshmen year, but if it hadn’t been raining, I’m not certain I would have gone anyway. I was pretty much a cave troll my freshmen year most of the time, and rooming with Dan didn’t help things. Dan and I, well, we thought alike much of the time, and it was amazing what we were willing to put off to do things like play games and just bum around. Let’s hear it for geekiness. I think back on my first year of college, and I spent a LOT of time dicking around on my computer playing games, but while I spend almost as much time in front of a computer now, I don’t play as many games. I wonder if it’s because I’ve grown up a little (even though I still play games), or because that was a unique situation. I think that in points in my past I’ve played games to escape from certain situations, so I wonder if I was doing it then? I did have some things that part of me wanted to escape from, but that’s being a little harsh.

Man, I need a shave. Last time I ran my electric shaver over my face was last Monday afternoon before the party, so I’m getting a little scruffy. When I don’t do anything, I usually shave once a week because once you reach that 6/7 day range, the hair just glides off your face really smoothly, leaving little or no irritation from the blades. Same goes for safety razors. If you go much past that, it starts getting bad again. Kind of a sadistic bell curve, no? Well, I think I may go down to the Bridgeport Brewery sometime this week and check in person to see if they’ve gotten my application, plus that’ll give me a good opportunity to have a pint or two. Mental note: drink the beer AFTER you talk to the manager. Wouldn’t be too good to have me drink a pint and then go talk to the head honcho feeling a little loquacious, would it?

My friend Heather spent a long time the other night trying to convince me that I should get a job in the meantime, at least to keep me occupied. Preaching to the choir, Heather, preaching to the choir. That I turned down a job this summer doesn’t imply that I felt I was too good for it and that I could do something better, or that I wanted time off, but simply that I did not want to work there anymore. I’m amazed that people still mention it as something I could have done. My Dad told me recently that there are things you can’t compromise with jobs, and one of them is don’t work for a company you don’t want to work for, because it will be bad right off the bat. Well it’s not that I don’t want to work for Papa Murphy’s Pizza, it’s that I don’t want to work THERE. Would I work at another one? Well, no. I’m tired of take and bake pizza.

One thing that I thought a lot about, though, is that I’ve always complained about my managers in one way or another when I worked there. Mike was a great guy, but a pretty lazy manager. All the other managers after him were just the opposite–I didn’t like them, but they did an OK job of managing. Guy last summer was bad on both fronts, but that’s another story. In this case, though, *I* would have been the manager, and so people would be complaining to their friends and coworkers about me. I know that I could have done the job, but the fact remains that I just didn’t want to work there again. One day a year sounds pretty good. This year’s taken care of, guess I don’t need to go back again until next May.

I appreciate the comments, though I’m never sure if I should leave comments myself after that, because the person who originally wrote them is unlikely to see my response. I find it better to just address the comments in my next posting. So in that respect, why eat a Gardenburger when you can eat a 100% beef hamburger, Julie? Why order a 7-Up instead of a Coke? I keep telling you–it’s not meant as a replacement for beef, it’s a different meal altogether! Sounds like you have about a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a real Gardenburger brand Gardenburger at your new college, though, so I’d probably skip them if they’re served in your cafeteria.

Which reminds me, I have a bunch of Boca burgers still in the freezer. Better get some buns next time I’m at the store….

Smile! You’re on Andrew’s camera.

Posted in Beer, Beloit, Geekery, General