Personal Blog – Page 14

Once too warm, now too cold: A Goldilocks winter in NY

Just a few days ago the weather was unseasonably warm, now it’s bitter cold.

Last night I had to take Bozzio for his late afternoon walk and stay out until he deigned to poop.

He is unlike other dogs I’ve known in that he will not poop sometimes even if he has to. He gets distracted from the main goal of the late afternoon walk (pooping) by rain, bags blowing in the wind that might be kitties (we can never be sure),actual kitties, chicken bones which are very tasty but you don’t know this,Sion because you’ve never eaten an old one off the sidewalk have you? Delicious!—
and people getting off the bus that might be A.,or D.or E. or A.’s brother also an A.We can both be soaking wet or freezing our butts off but the dog will not poop. Other people within earshot of me when I’m undergoing a non pooping situation might be entertained by my pleading with Bozzio to poop. Or they just think I’m crazy.

But last night was too much even for Bozzio so he pooped within a relatively short amount of time. Triumphant, we headed home facing an evil excoriating wind that was roaring down Flushing ave. My hat was unceremoniously blown off my head and I unceremoniously dropped the bag of poop I always seem to have to carry for about 50 miles before I can ever find a trash can in this neighborhood.

At that point I’d had enough. Enough of the bitter cold,enough of having to find my hat and pick up a bag of dog dirt, so I opted for the hat and left the poop to blow down Flushing ave. Sorry everybody.

Tonight A. and I were going to go see No Country for Old Men but the weather is not permitting so instead we are staying in and renting some piece of comedy crap from On Demand…

I’ve lost my film picking privileges due to my last unfortunate choice of Skinwalkers; a silly cheesy flick about Indians? Werewolves? The triumph of Good over Evil? Who knows? The director seemed more interested in training his camera on the belly of one of the female bad guys at every possible moment,than relaying an actual plot or story of some kind.
Skip this movie unless you really want to look at a girl’s stomache for an hour and a half.

What to do when you can’t work on your webproject?

I had to decide this for myself last night because Dreamhost(those lovely bastards) had taken everyone down during a cluster migration.That’s technical talk for you’re screwed until it’s over.
Hopping on over to the forum for Dreamhost I saw many fruitless bitch and moan comments that followed the announcement.This is the web equivilant to honking one’s horn in a traffic jam.You can’t do anything about it so you lean on your horn so everyone else around you will hate you.
Apparently Dreamhost had warned everyone 2 weeks earlier that this downtime would take place….but no one read the email and now they were pissed. I hadn’t read the email,either because I am not this account’s exec admin and I’ve asked several times to have the login for the web panel but so far no luck.
Continue reading What to do when you can’t work on your webproject?

Is being a designer like being a contractor?

Well, no because one still doesn’t need to have a license in order to be a working web designer.
But the comparison came to me while I was watching a home improvement show called Holmes on Homes where Mr.Holmes comes in and repairs the shoddy work of contractors who have basically skipped town with the money.
He usually has to tear down walls and rip up floors to get to the problem and he always seems to find bad plumbing,insulation and wiring.This particular episode showed a beautiful home,beautiful in every way cosmetically but underneath the gorgeous framework was a total nightmare.
Of course a home is a much more important thing than a website.
Bad/faulty wiring can kill,which is why contractors must have permits and licenses and their work must be inspected and pass code.
Your badly/outdated coded website will not kill you and may look great on the surface and depending on what you need it to do it might not need to be coded to standards anyway.
But when I’m asked to work on a website that wasn’t built to my standards I sort of feel like that exacting contractor who has nothing but contempt for the other worker and empathy for the ripped off client. In my case however, the client has no idea they’ve been ripped off and I have to be tactful when I explain how I’d like to proceed.I don’t always succeed in being tactful.

There are rules and standards and ethics involved in designing a website for me even though apparently there needen’t be any at all,I’m not held to any work ethic other than the one I make for myself.
Continue reading Is being a designer like being a contractor?

63 degrees in February

We have all the windows open and I am sitting right next to one wearing just a tank top and pj bottoms and I’m not cold at all.
This winter has had insanely warm days and the regular cold days,too but if you’re familiar with NY winters,when it’s cold it is cold with a cruel wind to help you freeze even more.
Not sure what this warm weather in Feb. is good for –besides taking the Booj for a long walk in Fort Greene park,maybe.Which he is hinting he would like very much by flopping on the bathmat in the bathroom and looking sorry for himself.