geekspeak

Today’s Coding Accomplishment

Today’s accomplishment: making the beginnings of a photo gallery on the LSM site. Compares a table of events to a table of photos, lists the events where there are photos, links to a page of thumbnails and descriptions for said event, and those links open pop-up windows with larger versions of each photo.

For seasoned codeheads, this is no big whoop. For me, it’s applying what I’ve learned in Visual Basic for Applications and Microsoft Access at work to PHP and SQL at home. And there are still things I need to learn and investigate, like the imagecopyresampled() function that could automatically make the thumbnails from the full-sized images. Hmm.

This weekend? E-mailing the owners of the broken Frontpage site and offering my services for a pittance. I need the experience, and I’m actually kind of excited about taking on a new project. As long as they understand that it won’t be done super-quick; I have other things that take precedence, like my portfolio and prior commitments to LSM and my contracting job (if it ever gets started). I’ll let you know how it all pans out.

the ongoing saga of my job

Personal Improvement

I’m glad that I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I can summon some anger and determination to excel, where in years past I would have sunk into depression and given up for the time being. This is a step in the right direction.

I’m going to go start working on this now, while I have candles brewing upstairs, preparing to earn a big ol’ twelve bucks for me tomorrow at work. Yee-haw.

When I’m not working on either of those things, I’ll be visiting Cameron Moll‘s site for sources of inspiration influence.

I’m still so fucking fragile. At least I’m dealing with it in the proper manner now.

Update, 8:45pm: The SQL database backend of my new portfolio site is complete, apart from detailed descriptions of my work. I will now use all of my willpower to make it work *before* I make it pretty.

Update, 9:30pm: I’ve got a nice While loop happening now, and I’ve managed to make a dynamic (but unlovely) list of the work I plan to showcase in my updated portfolio. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about my candle wax melting upstairs; fortunately, it wasn’t at a critical point where forgetting about it was a Bad Thing™.

the ongoing saga of my job

Oh No You Didn’t

I think I just got stood up for the one-hour training session for my contract job.

We were tentatively scheduled to have a web meeting at 7pm Central. I never heard otherwise, so I was waiting at my computer with my phone by my side at 8pm Eastern. It’s now 9pm Eastern, and even accounting for confusion between timezones, it doesn’t look like this meeting is going to happen today.

I didn’t want to get myself engrossed in anything important, then have to interrupt myself for something more important, so I’ve been websurfing at my desk for the last hour-plus. Not that that’s entirely a bad thing, but I did have things I wanted to take care of. Like a cardio workout, or cleaning my desk, or podcasting, or administering the LSM forums.

I’m feeling a little put out… but not entirely, because he did say he’d have to consult with one of his coworkers and get back with me for a confirmation, which I never got. Maybe the conference they’re running is a little crazier than they banked on. I’m not really that upset or anything. It’s all good.

I’m going to sit here for another 20 minutes or so, just to be sure, then I’m going to e-mail my contact person and go take a shower. I’m unusually sleepy for 9pm on a Tuesday.

Update, Wednesday evening: Looks like my contact got caught up in putting out fires at the event he’s manning this week. He apologized in response to my e-mail and said he’s going to get with his co-worker and see when we can reschedule. I can certainly relate to getting caught up in taking care of business, so no biggie.

If I feel comfortable quoting a website makeover, I may have even more freelance work on the horizon… I’ve gotta just jump in and give it a go. The worst thing that can happen is that I screw something up and/or don’t get paid, and either case will be a learning experience.

weight loss

Diet & Fitness Reboot

I allowed myself one week to keep eating as I had been, instead of jumping back into weight-loss mode right away. Figured it might be better on me both physically and mentally, being that my body was still pumped full of pregnancy hormones. This past week, though, I started purposefully increasing my activity level and tracking my food intake.

Monday: 30 min walk + PUSH DVD #2, Session #1
Tuesday: 30 min walk + 15 minutes of jogging on a trampoline (rebounding)
Wednesday: 30 min walk + PUSH DVD #2, Session #1
Thursday: 30 min walk + 10 minutes of DDR Supernova, workout mode (60 calories burned)
Friday: 30 min walk

I signed up for an account on SparkPeople, mainly because a.) I’d been tracking my food intake on their BabyFit website, and b.) I had previously been tracking my food using Diet Organizer on my PDA, but my PDA battery had died. I only recently replaced said battery, after I already got in the SparkPeople habit.

I’m planning to give my impressions of SparkPeople on an upcoming podcast, but I’ll mention here that I like it overall. It touts the “Spark Diet,” which is mainly just Eat Right And Exercise, but it’s really the tracking that does it. Plus, there are “trophies” members can achieve by earning SparkPoints online. SparkPoints can be had by entering food eaten, entering exercises done, tracking goals, reading articles, reading e-mails, logging in, and basically just surfing around the site. It’s an ingenious idea to generate return traffic, and to keep people entering their info daily.

My weight hasn’t changed this week; I’m still at 201.5 lbs. I’m OK with that, though — at least I’ve lost and kept off the few pounds I put on in those two months of pregnancy. Now I have the chance to lose at least ten more pounds before we try again. The healthier I am, the better… although going through the medical game of 20 Questions at the hospital last month made me realize that my only major health issue IS my weight. Apart from that, I’m good to go. No heart disease, allergies, high blood pressure, any of that. So, count me lucky, I suppose.

Next week, I plan to measure myself and compare to my last measurements from September (if I can find them… I think I inadvertently threw away the sheet I’d recorded them on, thinking they were also in my PDA).

Here we go, on another fun weight-loss adventure. The way I figure, I should be able to jump in where I left off in the Fall, and keep on losing half a pound a week, if not more. If I can do that, I can lose ten pounds by the time we leave for our trip to Japan (during which I may end up gaining it all back). 🙂