Archive for June, 2003
Monday, June 30th, 2003
We had a slightly busy weekend. Saturday we did yard work. It was so tiring. We mowed the lawn and pulled weeds. The weeds were horrible so it took a while to finish. Then we pulled up some carpet stuff that was on the front doorstep…you know that carpet that looks like grass or something. But this one was brown. It was pretty yuck. The front step looks much better now. We also had to put a rubber seal on the front door, cause the bottom of it was messed up. There was a huge gap under the door and water and bugs were coming in. The fix was put to the test when we pulled up the carpet, since we used the pressure washer to blow away the leftover glue. No water got into the house, so our door now seals. yeah! saved us a bunch of money cause we were thinking we had to replace the front door.
I’ve mailed out 4 books today. And I have 2 waiting to be mailed. I am also waiting to receive about 6 books from the people I’m mailing to. I also put my books back on the bookshelf finally. I took them down when we painted the bedroom.
Oh yeah. Yesterday we also picked up some more paint so we can do the living room. The color is rum punch and it is a dark red color. Since that room has our Cirque du Soleil posters the color will go really well. We’ve decided how we are going to paint the kitchen cabinets as well. So we are on our way. Our next step though is the hallway, where we are only painting the trim. The wallpaper that is there is in fairly good condition so we are going to leave it. I’m ready to keep going, even though I’m so sore, I can barely move. LOL!
Posted in The Inner Me | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 25th, 2003
So, we have to get a new A/C unit. There is a leak in the inside and outside coils, so that isn’t good. Good is that they will be out tomorrow to install the new system. So we’ll be cooling off again soon. Of course we’ll be broke, but at least we won’t be broiling in the house.
In other news, I have to mail books to 5 people from BookCrossing! I’m waiting till I get paid…this air issue has really messed with our budget. I’ve also got 2 or 3 new books arriving soon. I’m really liking this BookCrossing thing. I get to trade so many books, it’s fabulous, and cheaper than buying all these books at the bookstore.
Oh, I’m trying out a new spam blocker that is an add-in to Outlook, Spam Inspector. I like the one I’ve been using but an addin is just easier to work with. I had twenty-something spam messages this morning in my email and it processed all but two. One that was spam it missed and one that wasn’t spam that it quarentined. I think that is a good detection rate. And of course, as I mark messages as spam or not spam it keeps track of it so it knows for next time. It may be a product worth buying. I have 15 days to try it out.
Oh yeah…Happy Birthday to me! I’m officially 28 years old. Well, ok, it’s not really official til 10:46 PM tonight, but who’s keeping track. 
Posted in Geekery, The Inner Me | 7 Comments »
Sunday, June 22nd, 2003
We did it! We finally painted the bedroom. We’ve even done the doors and the trim. Well, we still have one door to paint, but it looks really fabulous. If we didn’t say, you would never know there was ever a horrible border stuck on there that we had to sand off. We had thought the paint was too pinkish, but as it has been drying it is getting more sandy color. It looks a lot better than it did when we were painting it. I told the hubby all we need now is new carpet and we’d have a brand new bedroom. LOL!
Of course when something great happens, something bad has to go with it…our a/c is broken. It doesn’t cool like it should, so we’re not sure what is going on. We’ve had some guys come out twice this past week trying to figure out what is wrong with it. We got a referral from our neighbor so we are scheduling someone else to come out and look at it and see if it is something that can be fixed. It is just really hot in our house and the a/c runs 24/7. Ok, it actually shut off at some point last night, because it’s been cool enough at night, fortunately, so we can at least sleep comfortably. I’m actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow so I don’t have to stay in the hot house. Heehee!
Anyway, that has been our weekend…painting and being hot. We also had some friends over last night, so we watched the big fight between Lennox Lewis and the russian guy that was stopped because the russian guy’s eye was so cut. They kept showing the cut over and over…it was so gross…it looked like his eyelid was going to just come right off. Yuck! Did anyone else see that? It was nasty!
Posted in At Home | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 20th, 2003
It appears I’ve successfully upgraded to v2.64 of MoveableType. Of course, as always, I’ve decided to stick with MT for the time being. It is most comfortable to use and I like some of its features that I’ve not found in other blogging tools. I would guess that for those who have never used MT, other systems would be fabulous, but I guess I’m one of those who have been spoiled by the many great things MT can do, so I won’t be changing anytime soon. MT has won. 
I look forward to seeing what TypePad is all about. What kind of pricing they will offer and what kind of hosting services. I think this will be an excellent choice for those who have wanted to try out MT but are having difficulties with installation. A hosting package that has an easy-to-use MT installation all bundled together. It even has extra features that us traditional MT users do not get…like the photo albums. And the interface looks really cool!
Posted in All Work and No Play | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 19th, 2003
Just learned that In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner will be out in paperback on July 8. Hurray! I’ve been wanting to read this book, but I prefer pb over hardbacks 98% of the time. I can’t wait to hop over to B&N to pick it up.
BookCrossing has become a sort of obsession as I probably mentioned before. I’ve met some new friends via this group. I just received a book from one of them that looks to be a good one. In the package I got a little surprise. She sent me a Strawberry Shortcake coloring book! I love Strawberry Shortcake. I think that is mentioned on my about page. I was just thinking to myself that I needed to go out and get a coloring book and some crayons so I could indulge in a little childhood pasttime. My sister and I did a little coloring when I was out there last month and it was so relaxing. She somehow read my mind and knew just what I wanted. How cool is that?!
Posted in Bookworm | 2 Comments »
Sunday, June 15th, 2003
We’ve finally gotten around to painting. We started on our bedroom, of course so it is taking longer than we planned. We had to first strip the wallpaper from one wall and a border from all of the wall. The border is taking a long time to get off because the adhesive remover didn’t do the trick, so we are sanding it off! Fun! We are also painting the doors. They were an ugly brown and we are painting them white. I got new doorknobs for them and we got new outlet plates in white for all the outlets and the light switch in the room. I can’t wait to start painting. The color we choose is called Chalkware and it is a sandy peachy color. It is really pretty and light. We are also looking around for new bedroom furniture. Hopefully we’ll find something we like that isn’t too expensive.
Maybe I’ll get some pictures of what it looks like once we are done. I can’t wait too see the finished bedroom myself, but we are having fun redoing it…it’s just a horrible mess right now. I think we might get the sanding done today and I can clean up the room and all the dust so we can start painting tomorrow after work.
Posted in At Home | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 13th, 2003
Browsing through the latest edition of PC Magazine, I stumbled on an article about blogging. They mentioned Movable Type as the most popular blogging tool. Even had a snapshot of it. The also mentioned b2, Blogger and a few others. I thought that was pretty cool! Even though I’m considering switching to WordPress for the simple convenience of speed. I hesitate because I really love MT, but I am really beginning to hate the rebuild process. Oh the dilemna!
Posted in Geekery | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 12th, 2003
I’m working on a php script that will let me keep a booklog. I can add books based on ISBN and it should pull in the author and title. I can then set a status (to be read, currently reading or finished reading) of the book and add notes. This gets stored in a database. From there I can display my booklist. I will have it store the date the book was added to the list and the date it was modified, so that I can keep a record of when books were set from currently reading to finished. If there is enough interest, I will develop functions to display the lists broken down by year or month.
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while because as much as I like the MT plugin for Amazon, I wanted something independant of that. I hope to get it working, then maybe develop a nice admin interface for it so that I can make it available to others. It does use the Amazon Web Service, so it requires a developer token to work properly.
For now, I’m somewhat doing it just for myself. If you think you’d be interested, let me know and I’ll let you know when it is “released.”
Posted in All Work and No Play | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
I’m testing out WordPress. It’s the official branch of b2, so any new changes or updates will be there instead of cafelog.com. It is very similar, yet incorporates several hacks and has some new features.
It would be even better if the xmlrpc would work. Then I could use w.bloggar to post and edit the templates. It will eventually also have a template system as well, making it easier to set up your pages.
I’m not sure I like the admin interface. It is very basic with no colors. it is in black and white and has no graphics. Granted it is simple to use, but I like having some color. The font used is Georgia and after a while it begins to hurt the eyes. I can make some changes in the CSS file that the admin section is using so I may do that to brighten it up. The layout is kind of bland and is similar to b2 with the menu at the top and the post/edit screen combines the add new post and the view all your posts sections. Since I’m a long-time MT user I like having those two separate. Maybe someone will come up with a better interface for it.
Because it is like b2, it doesn’t have a separate extended section. You just add <!<del>-more</del>-> to your entry and the code interprets whatever that is after that tag as your extended entry. Which makes it all the more difficult to add the loved show/hide javascript.
Posted in All Work and No Play | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 9th, 2003
I’m wishing that I could do something different. It’s not that I don’t like my job. I do. I think I’m just getting tired of doing computer work…I wish I could do something that isn’t computer related. Working on the computer is fine…if it’s documents, data entry, etc. But I’d love to get away from IT work. My preference would be to work with books, writers, authors, etc. I love books so much. More than computers. But of course the way things go today, it’s not easy to switch career fields. It involves school, and lots of hard work. But I really wish I could do something other than computers. There are so many other things to do out there. Where do I begin looking?
It’s not like I can just go back to school, although, I do get a discount since my husband works for a university. But of course, I can’t do what I really would like to…get my Master’s Degree in Library Science. I almost did years ago, but didn’t have the money and didn’t quite want to get further in debt by getting a loan. And now that I’m married, I can’t just pick up and go. History also interests me a great deal. I love reading about early life in America, particulary the American Revolution and the Civil War eras.
Who knows…maybe this is just a weird phase I’m going through, but for some reason, this weekend has done something to my mind. Nothing happened besides the usual…cleaning house, mowing the yard, shopping, but something changed. I didn’t once get on the computer all day yesterday. And Saturday I may have but it was for a very short period of time. I loved it….it felt so good to stay away from it. I spent a lot of time reading…trying to finish the book I’m on so I can start a new one. It felt so refreshing to do something other than sitting in front of the computer screen. Who knows…maybe I’m just in a slump and need a break from the whole thing.
Posted in All Work and No Play, The Inner Me | No Comments »
