2001-01-03
feeling kinda
seems as if everyone is in the throes of redesign these days. several of the journals i read regularly and a few of the collabs i'm in have all put up spiffy new layouts in the last few days. and there are more on the way, or so i've heard, if all the hosts cooperate nicely. i ran my page thru a few verification engines and learned, much to my delight, that not only does the code degrade nicely to 2.0 standards, it also displays pretty well in text-only interfaces. huh! who'da thunk? of course, you don't get all the nifty images and such, but the content and navigation is intact, which i happen to think is rather spectacular, not so much about my coding as that text interfaces can screen out enough to make it still legible. something else i've noticed as part of the redesign: i trolled thru all my old pages to clean up anything that didn't display nicely, and had done the same thing with the last layout. recent pages are just fine, but the very first ones? oooohhhhh... you can tell i was a kid with a new toy from the way i threw graphics and font tags everywhere. lesson #37 for today: there's absolutely no reason to use pink text to make your point. i've pretty well scrubbed all that formatting crap out of the older pages, so that they'll look hunky dorey no matter what i do with the overall layout. all except one page, which i didn't have the patience to touch, and it has everything to do with the Netscrape programmers on crack. look here if you're interested in the details; just ignore the crappy color in the first bit. could not bring myself to recode the fifth or so paragraph.
tried to go couch shopping last night, and it was just all kinds of frustrating. first, sweetie tried to take a shortcut to my office, and ended up the next town over, which was more frustrating for him than me. then when we got to the supposedly 'discount' place, Bernie and Phil's, it turned out to be as expensive as any other furniture store, in addition to having generally tacky furniture. both of these things i stated while in the store. hey, they gotta know already, so it's not like i was breaking the news to them. there wasn't any place else near there worth going to, and i was in no mood to hike around town, so we went over to Cambridge Brewing Company for some beer (duh) and dinner. by the time i got home, i just wanted to be a vegetable. there were a lot of things i should have done, like a little marketing effort for my non-profit, but the couch and the remote control were very appealing. i fell asleep watching the History channel. exciting night, eh?
well, that's not strictly true. i did do the dishes. now, i'm not a girly girl, but i did take the time to do my nails nicely for New Year's. and i didn't really want to mess them up. so i put on a pair of those rubber dish gloves. don't ask why i even have them in the house; i'm not sure. it was kind of an odd feeling to do the dishes and feel the heat from the water, but not get my hands wet.
my night did improve when i got home and checked the mail - big fuck-off check waiting for me!! the payout from my telegony plan (a kind of retirement fund) from the remnants of my old company finally arrived. very very exciting... i took the payout and the tax hit so that i could pay off some outstanding debts and get myself debt-free this year for the first time in a long time. i managed to default on a few credit cards in the process of getting divorced (outfall of the emotional trauma, not that they were joint cards or anything - i never gave that emotional midget access to my money), and have been working on correcting it, slowly. this money will let me clear up the last of it, and hopefully clear up my credit rating as well. that's the project for the next few months. and then maybe i can get one credit card for emergencies. i've been without one for several years, and don't really *need* one, as i've learned to live wholly within my income, but it would be a nice security blanket should anything unexpected pop up.
picked up my photos at lunch today, after running to the bank. i was supposed to get them last night, but i forgot to run over there before going shopping. some really nice shots from Christmas (altho i'm still kicking myself that i forgot to take out the camera while i was at gram's), and a bunch from New Year's, including a really nice one of me and my honey at dinner. many shots from the party at the house, so i got to see what i missed, which from the looks of it was rather incriminating. there were also some artsy shots, which i assume my honey took. he put one of the artsy ones from his birthday party up on his site. it's also the only thing on his site, but take a peek. i rather like it.
i'm feeling rather ragged today, in the longish hair sense. finally snagged an appointment for after work today. it's such a change to be able to go get my hair done whenever i want to, now that i have a hairdresser in town. for years (about 12, actually), i went home to the Cape to see the same woman, regardless of where i was actually living. given that i've almost never had a car, this was a bit of a challenge. it was also a pretty strict schedule, as she only worked every other weekend, and i could only get down there on Saturdays. so pretty much every 6 weeks like clockwork, i'd spend a day getting down there and back. after doing the math, it occurred to me that i could be going to some swank salon on Newbury Street and still save money. ah... but fear of a bad haircut will do strange things to you. so i kept spending the money. then i tried my sister's hairdresser, because i always liked sis's haircuts. this woman is a gem. love her, LOVE her. she's rescued me from a few botched hair color experiments without too much flack, and always gives me a great cut.
hey, i saw the coolest thing last week, while walking home - a single seat electric car! it should be no suprise that one of the few available so far would crop up in the People's Republik of Cambridge. *g* it's really a nifty looking little vehicle, and pretty practical for the city. beats a Mini hands down. check out their site. they're kinda cute. maybe they'd let me adopt one.
