Glitter

I recently needed to shop for a couple of greeting cards, and was reminded of how much shopping for greeting cards pisses me off. To buy a card that is at all appropriate for the intended recipients, it’s necessary to browse and read a number of cards. Invariably I walk out of the card shop or pharmacy brushing glitter off of my hands. Invariably, I find a spot of glitter on my shoes, or shirt, or nose hours later. I’ve vowed to never again purchase cards with glitter - and if I see a particularly shimmery card, I won’t even pick it up.

Nevertheless, with each passing holiday, there seems to be another pound of glitter distributed among the cards. I can only assume that the majority of men, and probably some women have the same reaction I have to the glitter. I never had such intense negative feelings toward glitter when wearing it was optional - but now that it’s become mandatory for card shoppers, it rubs against my grain more than a little bit.

I’ve done enough design that I know that it’s tempting to be self-indulgent, and easy to forget some elements of the experience of the user/consumer/target market/human at the other end of the chain. But reel it in with the glitter already - or suffer the devestating embargo that you will otherwise be forcing me to organize.

I can explain everything

So, I am moved. I was just settling into the new house last week, with an eye toward finishing unpacking, cleaning, etc. over the weekend. But it was not to be: for the Appendix Rebellion was upon me. I’ll spare you the details, but I needed surgery soon after going to the hospital. I was discharged Friday, and didn’t spend much time upright over the weekend.

I can’t imagine that anyone is bothering to check for regular updates to the site anymore. Sorry. I still intend to update with more frequency - but perhaps the universe is aligned to prevent that. We will see.

Get A Move On

I see it’s been just about a month since my last post. A busy month. I’ve worked countless hours, including a side project or two - and I’ve neglected this site. Not that anyone would notice… but it’s too early into it to take a month off.

I’ve also been looking for a house, signing paperwork, cleaning and packing. Another move. Which is said in order to apoligize in advance for further inevitable gaps between posts. I’ve got a litttle work to do on the new place, further packing, and the actual move coming up over the next couple of weeks. I’ll try to post during that time - but I certainly intend to avoid another month long silence - at least for a few more months.

The Freshmaker! (?)

I buy Mentos regularly - sometimes at one of the convenience stores on the route to my office. In Florida. I’ve noticed that when I buy them at two of the several stores I frequent, they have what appears to be Arabic writing on them. Not exclusively, but largely. Interestingly, the words “Expiry Date” are in English, but what is presumably the date itself is in Arabic.

I would also swear that the flavor is slightly different from the all-English Mentos that I purchase at other stores. Not necessarily worse - but different.

Here is a photo. Translations welcomed.

(P)lenty (H)ave (P)erished

I’m spending the little time I have available for this site scrolling repeatedly through the same pages of code, trying to tweak a series of templates into the design I want. It’s not the fault of WordPress (WP) — it works really well at what it does after a simple installation. The problem, I’m beginning to see, is that you have to either be content to use a template (again, there are many great free templates available - but I want my own design), or know PHP, and understand the WP structure.

I seriously considered both WP and Movable Type (MT) initially. I went with WP because it seemed more configurable, had a great support community, an enthusiastic development team, extensive documentation, and was free. MT seems cool also, but the array of similar products the parent company has available, and the pricing structure (free, unless you want support, or multiple users) led me to choose WP.

I’m rethinking that, but I still like WP for all the same reasons - and if weren’t for wanting my own design, it would be a cinch. At any rate, please continue to excuse the frequent (and often unpleasant) changes to the site, and the infrequent posts until I’m able to muddle through this process.

Hey Mr. Tough

My stepfather rode in the rodeo when he was a teenager. He had a basketball scholarship to a local college when he finished high school at seventeen, but he joined the Marines instead. My grandmother says that if she didn’t sign for him to join, he had sworn to join anyway a couple of months later when he turned eighteen. My aunt says, he was so wild that grandma thought this might be his only chance to avoid ending up in jail, or, ironically, dead. So he went to Paris Island, and then to Vietnam. He was decorated for bravery, and for the injuries he sustained in combat.

He and my mother moved to a farm a few years ago. He raises horses now. Miniature horses. Useless, silly little horses. Not particularly macho.

I only asked my stepfather about the war once, when I was ten or so. Mom had always told me that he didn’t like to talk about it (she also told me to stand across the room and shout at him if I ever needed to wake him up, rather than stand within his reach). It’s no wonder he didn’t like to talk about it. He was basically a kid when he was shipped overseas

I don’t know that I’ll ever feel comfortable repeating what he told me, somehow it just doesn’t seem like it’s mine to tell. But it was a horrific and disturbing story, even with some of the details that he must have omitted. He only hesitated for a minute before telling me, and it was difficult for even an imaginative child to imagine. I don’t know why he told me. I like to think that it was so I wouldn’t have a glorified image of war — and so I’d never want to go myself.

Those nightmarish circumstances left this man one of the most gentle and generous people I’ve known. I think he’s happy on the peaceful little farm now, tending his silly little horses.

This is the thing…

I’m in the process of teaching myself WordPress (WP),and consequently, PHP. Not to mention brushing up rusty HTML and CSS. I’ll begin to add posts about things other than the process of building the site in the near future. For now, that’s what is consuming much of my free time, so it’s what is on my mind. There are some really great WP themes, but art and design are my area, so I’ll be changing the look here frequently as I learn to incorporate my own visuals via the aforementioned WP/PHP.

Of course the design is just the presentation, and once that is settled, or perhaps before - the site should start to gel in terms of content and non-visual identity as well. So come back. Say hello.