I finally got around to doing something about the horrid state of the old Ups and Downs web site. Specifically, I began playing with new design ideas utilizing my increased knowledge of XHTML and CSS.
Earlier today, I got that familiar restless feeling that happens whenever I haven’t done anything productive for too long. It’s ugly: makes me feel like I don’t know what to do with myself and like I just want to crawl out of skin. Thankfully, Danica and I were able to leave the house and head on over to Saint’s Alp Teahouse with my laptop in tow. The Saint’s Alp by us offers free Wi-Fi access so it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places to hang out.
While chowing down on some great minced pork I SFTPed myself a few sample pages from the Ups and Downs site and began working on redesigning the whole things in a standards-compliant and accessible way. It was actually quite a lot of fun besides being something I had been telling myself I’d do for over three months already.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that I get real irritable when I don’t keep my promises to myself. No, wait, scratch that: I get angry at myself when I feel like I’ve been wasting my time. While the solution is laughably simple (don’t waste my time) it’s not very easy to do on a consistent basis. I don’t know why, but I think it’d help me out if I did.
Feeling productive, like I’ve done something with my time, is absolutely crucial to waking up day after day and not becoming totally apathetic about life.
I woke up this morning after having a bad dream involving lava, rhinoceros made out of water and evolution, and spent the next two hours fighting with my Windows PC laptop about my Synaptics TouchPad™ driver. I had the worst feeling this morning that the rest of the day would be just like that.
It takes some effort on my part to actually go and do something — anything — when I haven’t in a while. I’ve had minimal work to do this week (which is because no one seems to be returning my calls [I've tried to get the Basil Rouskas people to look at my redesign for them for more than a week already! AUGH!]) so I got addicted to Sim City 4 for a while. For the past two days or so I’ve been watching lots of Twin Peaks episodes with Danica. Anyway, take a look at the work I’ve done so far (I’m taking the road less traveled and making all my changes live). I’m looking forward to seeing what else I can do in my apparently too-ample spare time. Suggestions are more than welcome, they’re appreciated.
