randomness

Immensely Satisfying

#1. Walking into the post office, surveying the line of suits waiting to mail stuff on their lunchbreak, then simply dropping my online-postage-bedecked package into the package slot and turning on my heel. Total time at the post office: 45 seconds.

#2. Rain. Not snow, but rain.

In other news, I can’t afford to have very many of these totally exhausted evenings. Not with two concurrent web projects going on. Hopefully I can have a productive evening tomorrow, getting some detailed thumbnails cranked out for my client. Once I get set up and trained on the use of their online time logging system, I’m going to need to shift gears to get the other contracting project done. I think I can juggle both — again, as long as I can force myself to time-manage properly and not allow myself to be unusually tired in the evening.

That said, I’m going to bed early tonight. Like, now.

the ongoing saga of my job

Things Are About To Get Interesting

Had a call with my freelance client during my day off today. Discussed time frames, design ideas, web presence goals, and so forth. Realized after the fact that better pre-phone-call notes are in order for my next client, as well as actual signed paperwork, rather than just a verbal agreement. Might have been a little optimistic on my timeframe for ultimate delivery. Let’s just say that the next five to seven weeks are going to be devoted to this project as much as possible.

Enter the higher-paying freelance gig. I’m apparently getting training in the structure of their interface tomorrow evening, via the magic of the internet and conference calling. That very likely means that the dude has a project ready and waiting for me to tackle. These projects are estimated to take 16 hours to complete, which will basically be one week of evenings.

Add to that about one evening a week of juggling eBay postings, and I’m going to be one busy bee right shortly.

At least I gave the other freelance client an “assuming life doesn’t drop stuff on my head” clause.

Must not bow to the temptation to shirk exercise in favor of working on web stuff. Need to continue taking care of myself, despite all else.

P.S. – Did I mention that we’ve lost another team member at work, and will be losing another this Friday? Makes the workplace a lot more jumpin’, too.

ruminations 1 Comment

Master Of None

Some people need to get a hobby.

Me, I need to drop some.

It occured to me while I was playing Viva Piñata on the 360 tonight, being that it’s a gardening game of sorts, and I’m a real-life gardener… of sorts. My hobbies are part seasonal, part on-a-whim-sical. I especially enjoy outdoor gardening in the spring — but, come summer, I lose interest and miss a few days’ worth of watering and my plants promptly croak. Except the bulbs and the catnip, and I love them for it. Then there’s my winter hobby of candlemaking, and my sometimes hobby of photography, and my hobby-turning-avocation of web design and development. And don’t forget my every-November hobby of writing, and the dozen or so unfinished short stories or novellas on my hard drive. And in my files, from before I even owned a computer.

To think that some people can barely stick with knitting.

Sometimes I feel all enriched and shit — look at me, I can do all these creative things, and I’ve even let some of my talents fall by the wayside (like drawing, which used to be my passion, and music, which used to be my identity). Sometimes I wonder why I can’t be like a “normal” person and only be interested in one or two pursuits.

I wonder if I’m not driven enough to focus on one passion, or if I’m just too interested in everything to pick just one.

the ongoing saga of my job 3 Comments

Out of the Woodwork

A “normal” freelance web designer wouldn’t exactly call three gigs “a lot,” but it’s a lot for me. None are totally off the ground yet, but all are promising, even if not from a monetary standpoint.

Number one is the fellow podcaster who’s having me do time-consuming but relatively menial work for a good wage. He’s been snowed under by work lately (not literally like we have in Ohio, though), and hasn’t been able to reschedule my “training session.” I bugged him this evening via Google Chat, and we’re going to try to make it work for tomorrow or Monday evening. We’ll see how that works out.

Number two is the Frontpage website, referred by my corps buddy. I did some research on his nonworking .asf files, and it looks like he was using deprecated tags that the new IE7 no longer supports. Tonight, I e-mailed him some alternate code and a very reasonable quote (IMHO) for a new website, including three design comps and free minor tweaks after the design process is complete.

Number three is a new prospect. A new/reforming senior corps is researching other corps’ websites, and I basically got a fan letter regarding how the LSM site was designed. The representative of the new corps likes the lack of pop-up and pop-under advertising, the clean look, and the design concept in general. I e-mailed him this evening and gave him the name of our forum software and its server requirements, a run-down of the features of the LSM website, and an offer to assist him with his website research and the design of their new site, no charge. (I can’t bring myself to charge a non-profit. I know corps have severely limited budgets, and they’re gonna need to spend money on webhosting already.)

Add these to my drive and determination to get my portfolio done, and I’m one bad mutha.

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Don’t laugh. That’s not nice. I’m trying to boost my self-esteem here.

randomness

What I Did On My Snow Day

I thought for sure that I’d get *so* much accomplished on my snow day. I had such grand plans.

*sigh*

I made a concerted effort to work on the LSM site, as I appeared to be on a bit of a roll with that. Within the past couple of days, I had locked down the Guest logins so no one can change the passwords on those, or add their own name to the contact info (grrr!). I also made it so that no one can delete an event that already happened, just in case I need to upload photos of that event later, as the photo table relies on the event table to get info about each event. I also adapted the script that displays the available sheet music for download, and changed it around so that my new script (on another page) displays all the board meeting minutes that are uploaded.

I was pretty proud of having done that, so I started working on a couple things this morning. First, I tried changing the upload form to include uploads of meeting minutes, so I wouldn’t have to rename and upload all of them myself. I wasn’t in the groove, though, and couldn’t wrap my mind around all the small changes I was going to have to make. Instead, I thought I’d work on some e-mail forwarding: making a singular e-mail address for the board of directors forward to each member of the board. I tried setting up a mailing list on my personal domain, which was daunting, then went to make sure I could forward an address on the LSM domain to one on my domain. And OMG none of the forwarding I set up would take effect! Not even when I tested it and forwarded the new board e-mail to my personal address. Seriously frustrating. I mean, forwarders don’t need to propagate like domains, do they? Why should I have to wait to see if the forwarding works? At any point, I gave up.

Aaron and I had grilled cheese on 100% whole wheat bread for lunch, then he went outside and shoveled the driveway for an hour. In the meantime, I did the dishes, bleached the sink, swept the kitchen floor, and cleared off the dining room table. And listened to Pimsleur’s Japanese 1 lesson #2, where I learned to say, “How are you?” and “I’m fine, thanks,” along with other things I already knew, like “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Thank you,” and “Goodbye.”

After Aaron was done shoveling, we sat together in the living room while he warmed back up, then I posted some stuff to eBay while he talked to a couple friends on the phone and decided whether to go to work tonight.

After Aaron left for work around 5:30pm, the evening turned into something fairly normal. Made dinner, watched the news and Good Eats, and played on teh internets. And here I am.

Not exactly a vacation day, but not exactly a day full of accomplishments, either. Ah, well.