snarf
Sep 30th
Gotta love it when the headlines write themselves – and the editors that let it fly:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/35/31_35_mm_bjs_reaction.html
Unorganized
Sep 19th
I’ve always been unorganized. I’ve tried several different ways to keep things organized, but I’ve never stuck with one. As a result, I have task items and calendar notifications in Outlook, AOL.com and Google. I have Post-It notes everywhere. I have scraps of paper I scribble on. I have a Franklin Planner that I write in religiously…for three days or so, and then it gets buried under the scraps of paper and Post-It notes. I need to find a way to organize pretty much my life in general. Anyone have any tricks or tips or thoughts? What do you use to organize? Do you follow the GTD crowd? Do you use a PIM of some sort?
I bring this up because I dropped the ball on a project that was due this past Wednesday. Thankfully the marketing manager I was supposed to do this for wasn’t concerned about the date (in fact, he left me voice mail last night stating he had changes to the web pages he wanted to make), but it still grates that I missed this. I was in the middle of doing “urgent updates” to the website for another department that was launching a product today. Because it didn’t get in the production schedule, I really wasn’t supposed to be doing it. As a result, it’s going to be late, along with a couple of other projects.
I foresee a late night tonight, especially if I’m sitting here writing journal entries rather than cranking out the work.
Ah well…
Here and there…
Sep 17th
I probably sat here trying to think of how to start this for about 5 minutes. At first I was going to apologize for lack of posts, but that strikes me as stupid and a bit narcissistic; after all, who should I be apologizing to? It’s not like people pay to read content here. It’s not like people hang on my every word.
So yeah, I haven’t posted anything meaningful. Oh well 
In truth, I have been busy. It seems like when it rains it pours. Work has been crazy, but even more so is after work stuff. Not only am I coaching Sarah’s soccer team again, with practices two nights a week, but I’m on the office softball team as well. And on top of that, I have 4 freelancing clients I’m doing side work for, and they all decided they needed stuff done at the same time.
So that’s where I’ve been 
I can’t promise to write more. I can promise I’ll probably change the WordPress theme more often than I should.
Chrome
Sep 2nd
So it looks as if Google is entering the browser market with their new open source browser, Google Chrome. As the cutesy comic they released indicates, it sounds as if they have some good ideas concerning browsers. All I see out of this, however, is another version of the browser wars. I can see a time in the futures where not only will designs and layouts be different in Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc… but apps won’t work either. I guess that happens now, to some extent, but it’ll be worse.
I honestly think it’s faster to design and build a new site, than to tweak it into working across platforms nowadays.
Police in da ‘hood
Aug 7th
Driving home last night, I came upon a police checkpoint. This checkpoint was in my neighborhood, literally 400 yards from my house. They were doing a driver’s license check.
This bothers me. I feel like there’s no valid reason for me to have to show my license unless I’ve specifically broken the law. As I was not being pulled over for speeding or some other moving violation, I felt as if they had no right to ask me for my license. I asked before handing it over what the purpose was, and was simply told “To make sure you have a valid license.”
It seems too much like a bad movie when you see the KGB (or Nazi’s or some other facisct police state) asking to see your papers. “Prove you’re a citizen and you can be on your way. If you have nothing to worry about, you shouldn’t have a problem showing us your papers!”
Am I wrong to feel this way?
Ben Wilmore on Pixel Perfect
Aug 5th
I’ve been following Ben Willmore on his blog for some time. He’s a photographer that has really experimented and perfected (if there is such a thing) the art of HDR Photography. He travels the country via a Prevost Bus and gives lectures, writes books, and creates DVDs. Quite frankly, I’m a bit jealous of his lifestyle.
He recently did a two part series on HDR at Pixel Perfect with Bert Monroy, who is an amazing digital photo-realist artist. In the video, he goes in to detail about how to create HDR images and the though processes behind it. Ben also introduces us to a Photoshop plug-in called Photomatrix that really lets you have complete control over the HDR process.
This is a great video series for someone (Krysta?) looking into expanding their photography skills and experimentation. The Wife and I were just lamenting last night on how our goals for this year (her to do more pottery, mine to do more photography) have fallen woe-fully short. Watching these videos gives me an itch to go out and shoot. Just gotta find (or make) the time!
And apparently I put way too many things (is that possible?) in parenthesis.
Hybrids are everywhere
Aug 4th
It’s no secret that I’m a Mac fanboy, and have been for several years. I use a Windows machine at work, and it gets the job done. I honestly have very few complaints about Windows boxen (assuming it’s not Vista. Don’t get me started on Vista). I think my biggest gripe is lack of aesthetics in your typical Windows computer.
Dell just might change that though. Their new Studio Hybrids are quite sexy.
I think any of these would be a compliment to any room of the house. Nice.
Assuming I can install XP or Linux on it.
Time to get this show back on the road
Aug 2nd
Enough lollygagging.
I’ve been flipping back and forth over so many aspects of this journal/blog/site/what-have-you that it’s been nearly crippling me. So much so that for two months I’d think “well, I have this idea I want to write about in the journal, but geez, I still haven’t completed the new layout I have in mind, I have to update to WP 2.6, maybe I want to switch over to EE instead, but I also need to figure out if I want to focus on something specific, or if I want to continue the way it was…” blah blah blah. I’m my own worst enemy.
When it comes down to it, I’ve missed writing. Whatever I’ve decided to write about, I’ve been missing it. So while there will be some tweaks to the layout here and there, the text will still be up. It might be all skewed as I play around, but you all are used to that, right?
So again, welcome back me. This time I’m not going to close the curtain unless this show ceases production.
Jun 5th
Isn’t this a beautiful theme?
Obviously not mine, I could never do anything this pretty. And that’s probably part of the reason why my site’s been MIA for awhile. I just wasn’t happy with it, couldn’t decide what to do with it, and was getting annoyed every time I looked at it. So I removed it.
I still don’t know if I’ll be sitting here talking about nothing important and being happy about it. I wish this journal had a better focus. On what, I don’t know. Writing? Photography? Music? I’ve thought about all three, but if I’m honest with myself, I’m simply not dedicated to any of them to make it worth while.
So for now, I guess this will be what it’s always been. Which isn’t much.