January 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I went out today, despite that it started snowing an hour or two before I did so. See, we've had snow lying around for about a week and clear skies with freezing temperatures, but today's the first day we got more snow, and it was rather wet and slick. Driving on it was rather scary down my road and I felt a little sliding going on, but kept going. Thought about turning around (which I probably should have done), but I was meeting Emily for lunch and she was probably already at the place and I didn't want to call and say she'd gone out for nothing and I wasn't coming. lol Managed to get there okay. Had lunch, stopped into a few shops, and then went to run the rest of my errands. First stop was the gas station. Put gas into my car, all normal, then got in and went to start my car, but it didn't do anything. Lights came on, the CD player fired up, but that was it. No sound that the engine was even attempting to turn over or anything. Mom called after my second try... good timing. lol
Turns out mom and dad were going to come out where I was anyway, so they came to rescue me. Man, I felt really silly just sitting in my car next to the pump for over ten minutes though. Tried to pop the hood, but it wouldn't work. That happened last year... something to do with the cold. So my car wouldn't start and I couldn't get the hood up. lol Parents got there, Dad grabbed the hood when I attempted to pop it again, and this time we got it open. He hooked up the jumper cables, and my car started, no problem at all. Makes no sense! I'm pretty sure I didn't leave my lights on when I was having lunch with Emily, and anyhow, the car started first time right after that. So, hopefully my car's going to be okay. I was going to run a couple more errands, but dad said it would be best if I just drove home, so I did that and made it okay. The roads were a little better on the way back, but I still drove slow--don't want a repeat of a few years ago when I did a one-eighty and went into a ditch. Nope. Definitely don't want that.
Yesterday I did some stuff to fix my computer. Ever since I got it, it has inexplicably re-started itself at random moments, usually in connection to using my optical drive. Weird. So, found out a few months back that the re-starting is the new setup instead of going to a blue screen, but then you don't know what error occured and have no way to find out how to fix whatever it is. So, found instructions to turn off the auto re-start and got a lovely blue screen after removing a music CD and incerting a new one. Wrote down the error and then went to the ever-trusty Google to search for answers. Took some time. Finally found some stuff about the Event Viewer in Windows and how to open it and then got more info on the error, which was, apparently, always the same one and happened quite often, not always causing my computer to shut down. So, did search on that and am finally led to the most probably explanation and a solution. Turns out my computer had a driver installed for a utility it's not configured to use (smart people, *rolls eyes*). And, turns out that there was a removal utility at my manufacturer's site. So, I backed up all of my files, prayed a number of times, and ran the thing. Computer re-started with no problems, so that was a good sign. Then I ran some tests of my own devising. Previously my computer would always re-start if I put a DVD+RW in that already had data on it and tried to browse through the folders on the disk. So, I did that and even opened some files off the DVD and it didn't give me the BSOD! Praise God! I'm still praying it will last and that fixed pretty much all of the re-start problems I've had over the past year since I got this computer. That would be lovely. Trying not to get my hopes up that it's so just yet in case it has a hissy fit in a few days or something though. Hoping and praying that won't happen though. lol
Finally, I've been looking for a new domain registrar to transfer my domains to. I've long been disgusted with GoDaddy for their vulgar and demeaning commercials (which I found out about a couple years ago). I even wrote a letter to the company president expressing said disgust. I received a reply that essentially said, "too the heck bad for you." Nice, huh? I wanted to transfer my domains then and there, but didn't know where to for a decent price and eventually it fell to the back of my mind. I've been reminded again, and have heard numerous other reasons to switch registrars, so now I'm on the hunt for one. I could go with my host, as it's an accredited registrar as well, but I've heard numerous warnings advising not to have your domains registered through your host. I wonder if it would be slightly different in this case, however, as DreamHost is an accredited registrar itself, and not just buying through an agreement with another registrar? Posted a thread at the CodeGrrl Forums asking people's opinions, and will probably post at another forum as well. So, it's sort of a silly little prayer request, but if you pray and have a chance to do so, maybe send a quick little one to God asking for Him to give me decernment on which registrar to go with. Thanks. :)
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Not much to mention for over the weekend. I did write some the past few days (except yesterday); mostly notes and whatnot, but still good. :) Oh, and I've got a new short-term freelance web design job, so that's super good as I will get some much needed extra money. Happy. Also got a referral at DreamHost out of it, so that helps a bunch, too. Praise God! :D He does provide, that's for certain.
Tuesday mom and I went out to run errands, have lunch, and go see 27 Dresses. I did very well in the shopping arena and only spent around $10. :D Then we had pizza for lunch (oh yum!). The movie was very cute and both mom and I enjoyed it. Only bummer about such movies is that it causes some hurt in me, being single and all. But, I'm fine now. lol Only lasted for a few hours.
Yesterday, Emily and I got lunch and then went to the theatre to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks. The print we have for that is absolutely horrible. Looks like there were developing errors and it's very staticly charged, which causes jamming and other fun issues resulting in the movie having to be stopped, things having to be spliced, etc. Kind of nice not to have to be in charge of all the fixing, though I do miss some of that stuff as I found it fun. :)
Later was the young adult group through church and our first actual Bible study time as last week was just social stuff to get to know each other some. *sigh* Amy, who's close to my age, was there last time, but has decided not to come anymore so I am the youngest by at least 3 or 4 years, one of two not married, and the only person not in a relationship. That part doesn't matter for the Bible study portion, but as we're eating dinner beforehand, it makes that more difficult than it already is for me. I'm not terribly social, but it's worse when I've got very little in common with those around me. Will continue to go for a few more weeks at least though before I make a decision either way on staying or going. Or, I might just come after the dinner portion is done as I was never really thrilled with that idea of it anyway. *shrugs*
Today I'm just hanging around. Watched some TV, emptied the dishwasher, got on the computer. Now I'm chatting with Sam on AIM. She sent me a link to a video of people playing football (aka soccer) in cars, so I'm going to go watch that now and hopefully have a very good laugh. ;) Edit: Here's the video. It's AWESOME! lol
Friday, January 18, 2008
Here's my helpful hint to you all: don't buy a Zune. Just save yourself the time and frustration and pick something else. *sigh* Thought the Zune sounded pretty good, and it's cheaper than a new iPod, so I bought one off of eBay for a really good price and it came in the mail on Wednesday. I didn't get a chance to start doing anything with it until around 10 pm. First, the software (which you download from the internet) wouldn't install. It kept hanging up on the "preparing your computer" stage. I'm all, "how prepared does my computer need to be? Dang." So, read some stuff online about making sure your computer's fully up-to-date, so I did that. Then, the software finally installed. I thought, "good, the snag is out of the way now, everything should go smoothly." No.
The Zune software does not have options for you to add music by file or folder. No, they thought they were being incredibly smart and innovative my setting it up so that it "watches" certain folders for music files and adds every music file in those folders. But, I didn't want EVERY music file in those folders on the player. So, I delete them from my "collection." Once you do that, you can't re-add anything individually. If you made a boo-boo you have to "recover" everything you deleted. *rolls eyes* The final draw of this insanely sub-par software was that it decided to rename a number of my music files changing the album names and grouping them under different artists, but leaving the artist name in tact. $@*! Thought I'd go ahead and load the music onto the Zune to see if it would be fixed there. Nope. I cannot deal with that. The player was fine and the music quality was good, but not having the songs organized the way they ought to be is beyond obnoxious. Do not buy a Zune. I was up until four in the flippin' morning (took no breaks except to the W.C.) first trying to get the song info correct, finally giving up and then spending a lot of time trying to get the stupid software completely uninstalled from my computer. Who knows if it even really is, still!
Now I have the fun of attempting to re-sell the thing and hoping that I get at least close to what I paid for it so that I can re-coup the money lost. Serves me right, I suppose. My iPod Mini still works fine, but I had to have a smaller one with more space. *rolls eyes at self* Hopefully my lesson is now well learned and you all can learn vicariously through me in this instance. Don't buy a Zune.
In other news, my church has finally started a regular young adult group. First night was Wednesday and we got together, ate, played get-to-know-each other games, and talked about what kind of Bible study we wanted to do. Looks like we'll be going through John for starters. :) I suggested Daniel, but no one seemed terribly excited about an Old Testiment study, though perhaps we'll do it sometime in the future. The story of Daniel in the lion's den was always my favorite one to read during church when I was younger and couldn't follow the pastor's message. lol It'd be nice to do a study of the whole book someday. John is good, too though, and any reading of the Bible will be immensely valuable to me, I'm sure.
Earlier on Wednesday (a lot of things happened that day), mom and I went to see the new Veggie Tales movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Major take-offs from PotC and some other epic-style movies, for sure. It was cute though, and had quite a few funny little parts. The message wasn't as strong as most of the half-hour episodes, but it was still there, at least. It was how God uses all kinds of people to do all kinds of things, even amazing things.
I guess that's all I've really got to write about for now. Atlantis is on in fifteen, so it's good that I'm finishing now. Plenty of time to get a snack ready and then settle in to watch the new episode. :D
Monday, January 14, 2008
Yesterday I began moving my layouts portfolio over to by Hol. It took a while, but seemed like everything would be just fine. First slight snag was that I forgot to upload an image for one of the layouts and thought it was a code problem so wasted time attempting to fix said non-existent code problem before I realized I just needed to upload a GIF. Silly me. Second was a large snag affecting multiple layouts. See, the skins weren't working since I've got a higher version of PHP running on that site than at STARafar. At least I finally learned about some of the differences between the newer version of PHP and older ones when updating the TCG Admin script, so I made the modifications so it would work with register_globals off. Still wasn't working, so then spent a good few hours fiddling with it. Finally gave up for the night and realized I'd probably have to come up with all new code to get it to work since the original (from a tutorial) wasn't going to cut it.
That brings me to today. I decided I'd try again and just code it my own way. Didn't take too long and ended up with less code than the original... and it worked! :D *happy dances* Took a little longer for the second one as there were some other code boo-boos (doesn't help will you spell words incorrectly), but still far less time than I spent last night being silly. I should have just straight-up recoded it, but I thought it would take a while and it was getting very late. But it's good now and that's the important part. :)
Only other news to report is that I finally started reading Captain's Fury the other day and am now almost 100 pages in. A few things I don't like, but overall good thus far, so I suppose I will just not pay attention to the bad things (what I deem inappropriate); I shall simply skim quickly through those parts.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Not all books should be made into movies. Likewise not all movies should be put into book format. There are some that can take dual form, whereas some stories are meant to only be read or only be viewed. I've not read The Golden Compass, but I watched the movie today and find it should not have been put into movie format; I hope the book is better. What was the point of the movie? Were my feelings caught up in the hopes, dreams, adventures of the characters? No. Yes, it was sad when they were going to seperate the girl from her "animal soul," but I needed only to know they had a great bond to feel sad at the thought of someone breaking it. And the ending was, in fact, not an ending. I am aware there are other books, but this is not the way you end a movie. There was not enough of a story arc to make a complete movie. Where the climax ought to have been, there was a fight scene, which was not the great culminating point of the story, although it was nice the children were reunited with their parents. *sigh* Good thing it was free.
In other news, I've not been up to much. Watched the latest Atlantis episode last night, and it was pretty good. Poor Rodney's going to have nightmares. *hugs Rodney* He's my hero, you know. The earlier part of this season got off to a good start, then stalled some, and now seems to be getting better. I'm excited that Teal'c will be in one of the upcoming episodes facing off against Ronon. That should be quite interesting. Oh, which then reminds me that I pre-ordered Stargate - The Ark of Truth last night. Wee! :) Also ordered myself some Legos. Yes, Legos. Those things are awesome and they have new Indiana Jones ones so I got the cheapest set that has both Indiana and his dad. I couldn't help it! The figures were just so cute!
I also got myself a new flash drive the other day, but it's scaring me some. I was saving files on it and everything was going fine. The next day when I put it into my computer to add some more files, I get this message that the disk is not formatted. Good thing I hadn't deleted any of the files I'd saved from my computer because I had to reformat the thing and therefore lost everything on it. I'm going to be putting it into my computer again soon, and I'm a little nervous. I'm hoping and praying it will work okay this time and just had a little hicup incident or something. I just want it to work like it's supposed to. Haha.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
My last day at work was originally supposed to be today, but when I got to work on Monday, my manager told me she'd changed my schedule for the other two days completely. *sigh* She'd forgotten one of the other workers asked for time off, so she needed me to work different hours so I said okay. I'd been hoping to go out with my mom on Tuesday. Rawr. We did end up going out to Staples to get really cheap office supplies (yay! I can't resist the free pen offers.), and then to lunch before I had to go to work at least, but it would have been nicer to have more time. Oh well. Now that I'm done we can plan a proper day out soon. :D
My feet are extremely happy the job is over. Over the last few days they were in a lot of pain due to it all accumulating up from the past few weeks. They tried to ask me to stay again on Monday, but there's just no way I could handle it. I would have left already if I wasn't so dang nice and there hadn't been the holidays--had to be there for those though, as they were counting on me. Now my feet will hopefully recoup fully and go back to their more normal state of only bothering me every once in a while. :) Truly, I am just glad that I have feet that function and I can stand and walk. Which reminds me, funny enough, how many people don't like their feet or think feet are gross; perhaps it's partly because of the problems I've had, but I love my feet. I think they're beautiful and amazing. Think about it. They carry the weight of your entire body, and they're so small compared to the rest of you. They're just amazing. Love your feet my friends, love your feet.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Only a few more hours until the new Atlantis episode tonight... and I hope the power doesn't go out.
The wind kicked up a lot during the night and I was awoken early this morning to the sounds of the power going out. It's interesting how the turning off everything has its own sound, and I am now somehow attuned to noticing it. Not that I always wake up, but most times I do. Anyway, it wasn't out for too long because I was woken up a few hours later when my mom was having an issue reprograming the VCR to tape an episode of Atlantis that we'd missed at the beginning of the season (saw it, but the VCR went wacko at the time of recording). Fixed that and then went back to sleep. Sleeping in is nice; especially when you haven't been getting enough sleep the previous nights, all due to my own faults, of course.
I've only three more days of work before I'm done, and I'm delighted at the prospect. My feet are vastly looking forward to it as well. I've also managed to do something to my knee, but it only hurts when moved in a certain direction, so not too bad. I think it's bruised, though I'm not sure how I did that. I'll blame it on work. lol Already hints have been dropped about how much needs to be done at work, etc., and they've flat-out asked me to stay, too, but when I started I said I'd just be seasonal, and I've attempted to explain that my feet cannot handle it, so I'm sorry for them, but I'm still not staying. Hopefully they'll be able to hire someone else soon. As to what I'll be doing after that, I've no idea. Something involving mostly sitting I imagine. Hopefully not all sitting because doing that for eight hours isn't fun for the body either, but a nice balance of sorts would be good. What type of job offers that that I'm also qualified for? I've no idea.
Between last night and today I've decided that it's time I started learning more web-related stuff. I'm not even close to all-knowing with HTML, CSS, PHP and mySQL, but I do know quite a bit and I'd like to work on some new stuff. So, my two goals are thus: to harness the power of DIVs and CSS for table-looking layouts (since most all my table layouts are done with actual tables, which is technically discouraged by those actual know-it-all people), and figure out how to do a theme for WordPress. I know I can do it, but at first glance, the code in those template files is confusing and the WP codex is written mostly in mumbo jumbo, so now I've bookmarked a few "English" tutorials and will try my hand at that eventually. Not sure if I'll implement that here--wouldn't be for a while if I did--but I've heard all these great things about how powerful and nice it is and it could be useful for another site or something.
And then, of course, there is the writing that should be done. I've been jotting more notes the past couple days than the previous weeks, and I've been trying to write journal pages each day again as well, but still I have not sat down to actually work on writing the story. Part of me knows I can, has the faith, but this other part of me recoils from the thought of sitting in the current chair I occupy, in front of this very screen, and opening the word processor. Somehow I must push past the veil. I've been praying about it, and the best thing I can do is to continue doing that and see where God leads me, but waiting is hard, uncertainty annoying, and I am faulted and do not pray as often as I should about such things as this. I pray almost every night the Lord's Prayer and for other things, but for things for myself, I don't remember to pray consistantly much of the time.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Happy new year everyone! As you can see, my blog has moved to a lovely new domain and features a new layout. I actually originally made this layout for paraph.net, but never put it up. It was pretty easy to modify with the exception that the original version was going to have an iframe (I refuse to use frames for my blog), so I had to make a seamless pattern for the background and that took some time as I wanted it to look pretty nice. I'm thinking of doing a tutorial for seamless patterns in Photoshop as I want to put up some tutorials at byHol.com. But yes, welcome to the new home of my blog! :D
I didn't do anything special last night to ring in the new year. Leading up to the later hours I mostly worked on getting this site ready to go. Then, I watched Young Ivanhoe since I just got the DVD version in the mail. A few seconds before midnight I paused the movie and watched the fireworks at the Space Needle for about a minute. That was seriously lame. The musical selection was the Fox Fanfare, then I swear I heard part of the Jaws theme and then it went into Star Wars. Much as I like the score from those, it was a silly choice, and especially the Fanfare track... Fox is taking over the world! RUN! lmao I also had some sparkling cider, but I'd already been drinking that beforehand, too. If you couldn't tell, I'm not big on the party stuff for this holiday. And, really, the new year is different for each of us because it's on our birthday, right? Haha. Hope everyone had a fun/safe night though.
