Bah… Yeah!

Personal

There are three hundred and seventy-two emails in my two inboxes; with the way I work each represents something I need to do, respond to, tweak, fix, file. I’m going to try and get each inbox (@mullenweg = personal projects, @swcdesign = work) under a hundred messages tonight, though I’m pretty tired.

The tiredness is great though, because it comes from a very active night. Things started at about 5 at The Button. I arrived with the Sarahs and went to see everyone when out of nowhere popped out Julie! How crazy is that? Well, you wouldn’t think it was that crazy unless you thought as I did that she was in New York. The whole gang—Sarah W., Sarah C., Ramie, Julie, Josh, Elissa, and Chris. (Yes that’s pretty much the whole “clique” list which, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is also a pun. :)) So Julie pushed the button (she waited for me!) and then everyone headed to Van Loc for some pho but I actually had to go to Kim Son to meet a client.

I ended up at the wrong one, when he said the Kim Son downtown I assumed it was the one off of Travis where the big Kim Son sign is, but no. There is actually no restruant there, something I found after walking a few blocks to get there. The weather was comfortable though, so it wasn’t that big a deal. I ended up being a few minutes late though (theme of the day) to meet him at the one in midtown, about 10 minutes (drive) away.

David Caceres was going to join us but he couldn’t for some reason, but I have a lesson with him tomorrow so we’ll catch up then. So I ate dinner at Kim Son for my first time. Talking with Woody was great. He was one of my very first clients (two years ago!), and looking back he really took a chance in a way in hiring someone who really didn’t have much experience. Anyway he wants a redesign, and I’m exciting about it because it’s really time for one; the site is starting to show its age. Some things will be trimmed, some things will be added (including a psuedo-blog), and it’s going to look very different. Everything has changed so much in the past two years. Also discussing a redesign with my very first client, whose web page I’m slightly embarassed to link to now. :-p

The all-star big band concert at Moore’s was so good, I’m not even going to try and describe it. Basically it’s the best musicians of every instrument, most seldom seen together because they all lead their own groups. It just blew me away, and I was delighted to see my non-jazz friends were digging it as well. Sarah C. ducked out for the concert and really missed out.

The night wouldn’t have been complete with some pie, so the House of it was. Great fun, chocolate brownie, bavarian banana cream, coconut, peaches, and lots of whipped cream (melt). Also saw Joe and Marcos which was a nice surprise. There are a million pictures on the camera, but Elissa has some up already. All her pictures are going to end up here as she becomes the first official photomatt.net guest photographer. (Inspired of course by Julie’s guest entries.)

Now, I need to go practice.

Mr Mailman is Back

Uncategorized

A late night meant I woke up to the sound of the delivery man knocking on the door. Three brisk taps signalled that my package from Amazon had come, containing most notably Jeffrey Zeldman’s new little orange book, Designing with Web Standards. The cover is freaking me out up close (is that a moustache?) and Amazon bent it a little, but it looks fantastic! So much to read, so little time.

Lucky Bear

Humor

Why Josh is the coolest ever:

So in my normal browsing I occassionally come across things that are humorous and I share with whoever I’m chatting with at the time. Via Ad Rag I came across this picture that I accompanied with the commentary “lucky bear.”

Snuggles bear sitting on a boat with a pretty model

Fifteen minutes later Josh comes back with this:

Snuggles bear with my face on top of it sitting with pretty model

However contrary to popular opinion that is not where I’ve been the past few days. That’s a whole other story.

More Updates

Meta

The new release of WordPress is out and kicking, so get it while it’s hot.

The photolog is also back up, but it’s ugly. An attempt to make it standards-compliant with some help from Gerrit Kaiser crashed and burned when I realized that I was overwriting files with older versions and that was breaking a lot of things. So right now it’s in a very half-baked state but as Kevin said the other day, any update is always preferable to nothing. So I’ll save face by calling it “public redesign” of the photolog.

Upgrade Day

Meta,

Just finished upgrading the server to address a mod_ssl vulnerability and get PHP 4.3.2. It went swimmingly, which is always nice.

In the process of upgrading about half a dozen sites to WordPress .71 to test it out before the code is released. It’s a good process because the sites need updating (security problem again) and it’s a good way to find any bugs that may have made it through so far.

I’ve always remarked that people tend to write about bad things more than they write about good things. Journals, blogs, diaries, all tend to be one-sided, at least in my experience. As is such though yesterday started quite badly, after I emerged from my migraine-medicine–induced haze I had a pleasant evening with my family.

Today has been great too; been hanging out with Mike and Christine at Kaveh Kanes (where the chai is tasty and the music is grooving) getting Christine set up in email utopia, where spam is like the distant buzzing of a fly you think you heard but you’re sure it’s really just in your head. Back to work! There looks to be some frisbee in the plans this evening…

Update: Mike has a meta moment.

Terrible Headache

Uncategorized

My throbbing head from the moment I woke up is telling me to stay away from work, but commitments keep me tied to the computer screen. I don’t remember the last time I had a headache this bad, and my medicine has yet to kick in. Perhaps some time away is in order after all.

Summer Showers

Meta

I woke up this morning to a delightful storm outside, which I think is the best possible way to wake up. It’s also the best time to stay in bed, which I did for a while and just enjoyed the storm from the comfort and protection of my semi-slumber. Houston really needed the rain.

There have been a few changes around here, for one I decided that wider is better, and content now stretches like it used to. There have been a few tweaks here and there, and I was hoping to bring the photolog back up but some WordPress work is going to prevent that today. Also you’ll notice that the endorsement box at the top is a little nicer and it has a new extra touch. If you visit this site using Internet Explorer, which is a satisfactory product but looks dead from an upgrade point of view, you will see a small promotional message extolling a virtue of the official browser of PhotoMatt.net, Mozilla. It’s the browser so good I installed it for my Mother. Yes, it’s that easy. If you tried it before and it didn’t suit your fancy I highly encourage you to give it another go, as it has progressed by leaps and bounds and is hardly recognizable as the slow dinosaur it used to be.

There are new shares of PhotoMatt available if you’re into that sort of thing. BlogShares finally figured out I’m worth something and adjusted my price accordingly, so I thought a few extra shares out there would spice things up. I’ve decided to take a very passive approach to the whole game. Besides, Brad has made me rich enough to retire to a small island and relax. Thanks Brad!

Flush Time

Uncategorized

The quirks on my laptop were just getting too weird, so when the control panel stopped working I decided it was time to do a system recovery. I have actually never done one of these before as I’ve always used home-built systems except for my last laptop, and when I wanted to do a system recovery on that I couldn’t find the CDs. Well this came with six CDs to do just what I need, so I guess we’ll see how this goes. It’ll be a pain reinstalling everything, but I think deep down inside I really enjoy doing that. Funny side note: when it was starting up the CD drive made a sound like the violins from Psycho. How appropiate. 16 minutes and 59 seconds later, all done.

Updated Updated

Meta

The updated blogroll on the sidebar is now powered using WordPress Links instead of Blogrolling. It’s always nice to use your own project. One more thing knocked off my very long list of things todo this early Monday morning. Speaking of things to do, Alex’s Tasks might be just what the doctor ordered for organizing me a bit. In the past the most sucessful system I used was my Palm, but that’s relatively inflexible and I can’t forsee a situation where I wouldn’t have internet connectivity anyway.

While I’m on this meta post, I should let you know that PhotoMatt.net is seeking a summer editor. Rebecca Lammons, who has edited almost from day one, is not going to be online very much for the rest of the summer. So if you have a keen eye for proofreading and visit the site when it updates drop me an email and let me know why I should give you administrator access to this blog. What do you get in return? Well, you will be less frustrated by the errors that crop up occassionally (okay, frequently) in the posts. I can also promise fame, fortune, prominent linkage, and something from your Amazon wishlist at the end of the summer.

Blogging by Degrees

Uncategorized

There’s a new tool called Downhill that attempts to find the connections between two weblogs. It’s a neat idea however nothing I tried worked. It also seemed to force an old URL (the www. one) for this site, so I don’t know what that means. You might have better luck though, so check it out. [via CamWorld]