First Step Toward World Domination

Meta

Before I finish getting ready to leave (and yes it’s 4 AM) I would just like to point to this search. Google is a harsh mistress; weeks ago I was on the fourth page (after skirting the first page a while back) and now somehow I’ve been bumped up to 8, 7 if you take out the duplicate.

I can’t think of a better birthday present for this blog from Google. (This domain turned one year old a couple of days ago. I’m working on a year recap but it’s taking a while. Loving the new WordPress draft feature though.)

Leaving (for) Las Vegas

Music

At an ungodly hour Saturday morning I will be leaving hot Houston for very hot Las Vegas.

Why? Why does anyone go to Vegas? To play of course. I will be performing twice with a local union band for the American Federation of Musicians’ conference. I think the music is going to be pretty good so I’ll try to get a recording of it up on the site sometime (if I get one).

I’m looking forward to this a lot and I’m going to try not to get into too much trouble while I’m there. Wish me luck and if you’d like anything while I’m there get me an email quick.

I’m not sure if I’ll have any sort of internet access while I’m gone, so email responses may be even further delayed than normal. Updates probably won’t happen but I do plan to take a lot of pictures, so look for that when I get back. (Or when I find good WiFi.)

Speaking of pictures, Photo Matt.net has had its very first guest photographer, Elissa, whose photos are interspersed with photos from Tuesday (with Julie!). My plan is to eventually have them all in chronological order, but that’s proving to be quite a pain, so for now things are a little bouncy.

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.