• Future Projects

    I’m debating making changes to this site, for the purposes of making it more functional. One of the major changes I’m thinking of putting together a link to some of the content I’m more fond of, either as a header or a sidebar. I might also add in a function to sort by category easier. I’m not sure how many people interact with my site, so I’m not sure how much work I should put into making it easier to interact with.

    I’m also considering learning how to do some basic audio/video production, and potentially putting together a podcast/youtube channel. I think I’d need  co-host/cohort, I’m not sure who I know who has the time.

    I’m also thinking of working on more written articles, but the big limitation on that is that I tend to get a bit demoralized when I’m not getting much in the way of feedback on the stuff I’m working on. It’s a difficult balance, because too much feedback can be as bad as too little, since it can make me self-conscious about what I’m working on.

  • Mayday…

    So, the last while… things have happened. Nothing major, beyond Gram coming back to the house for at least one night, and maybe more. That’ll be a bit different. I suspect I’ll stress in the evenings for a bit, til I get used to her being back here. Mostly just not sure she wants to be alone for that long. Though I know she’s got plenty of friends who will come over and visit, if she lets them know she wants company. For now, I think she’ll want just piece and quiet.

    I ended up getting some new hardware, a spare tower from Chris at work, which I’ve yet to actually move components over into. That’s a project I should have worked on today, but I didn’t. Instead I built another website. My third or fourth this week. Though really they’re just wordpress installs that I’m setting up with some minor bits and bobs, and are fairly barebones at the moment.

    One of them I set up for my friend Kylie, as a birthday present. I bought her a .ninja domain. I’ve still got a few things to do to get that up 100%, but for now, it’s a start. When she has finished celebrating her birthday, we’ll actually get all the functionality working. aredbaroness.ninja, for the curious.

    Today, while having coffee with Julia, and telling her about the site I built for Kylie, we decided to build her a site, so we built juliarants.com, a place for her rants. It’s lacking in content, but given Julia’s passion, I don’t expect it to stay that way for long.

    I built a site for work the other day, that I won’t link here, which is going to be a knowledge base, with some internal and external facing bits. I’ve yet figure out the long term of it, but in the short term, I’m happy with it.

    Prior to that, I built a site for Nick Black, because he’s been asking for a site to be built for a while now and while I think I’m not worth paying, he was happy with what I was able to build for him. And despite his initial protests that he’s not any good with it, he picked up the basics of WordPress pretty quick. It’s one of those things that is far more intimidating in people’s heads than it is once you sit down in front of it.

    While I probably could have billed him for hours and hours of updates, but I’d rather just get him comfortable putting up his own updates. I’m perfectly happy getting paid to create content, but for some reason I’m not a fan of getting paid to move content from one place to another. I think it’s a moral objection. Either I’m not getting paid enough for it to be worth my time, or I’m getting paid far more than the job is worth, and neither of those appeal to me.

    Anyways, enough rambling. I’ve built blackandbluebdsm.com for Nick Black, and I’ll be working with him in the future to develop and promote it. My 2/3rds of a marketing degree are going to get put to good use.

    My next project, is probably to learn more about how SEO works. Since that’s something I’m fairly clueless about. I should also work on adding the internal sections to the secret new work site, and figure out the security bits on those. Having an easily update-able page for “Known and Suspected Issues” seems like it would be a good thing.  Or maybe just a category with posting functionality. I need to figure out the best solution. Well, that’s what experimentation is for.

     

  • Productivity

    I’ve entered into a phase of high productivity, insomnia and mild mania.

    I’m unclear as to the catalyst to this state. I’ve no illusions that I understand how to maintain it, no solid predictions on the duration or the potential aftermath.

    I notice I’ve become less detail oriented, more absentminded, but for now this is compensated for by the drive forward. Momentum over precision.

    Forget a required piece for this step? Work around it. Hit a wall on one project? Bash head into wall until cracks appear or something shiny interrupts. Chase the shiny.

  • The keys

    Stumbling into the darkened kitchen, I noticed a shine on the table. Flicking on the lights, I found a hastily scrawled note. “The door locks from the other side now, here are the keys.” The keys lay there, reflecting the light.

  • True North Facts : Water Features

    Before foreign architects included water features in designs for their buildings, Canadians needed to travel into the wilderness to take part in recreational ice climbing. Now that many buildings include them, urban Canadians can enjoy a nice climb during their lunch hour. The practice has become so popular that a some restaurants have included a “winter entrance”.

  • I need to write more.

    I’ve looked over the dates on my blogs and I’ve had a period recently where I haven’t really been writing. I’ve worked on a couple of articles for Erotic Vancouver, but I’ve only managed to publish one. I’ve got another one that needs to some work, the idea is there, but what I’m going to do with it isn’t there yet. Beyond that, I wrote one short piece of fiction, and a couple smaller things, but almost nothing of any note in the last month or so.

    Partially this was related to stress and tech issues. I had a couple of cellphone issues and some PC issues. And work was busy for a bit, which tends to leave me more frazzled than functional.

    I’ve been walking more, and I haven’t had a good way to dictate while I’m walking, which might be something to look into. I suppose I could re-install the cogi app, which was designed for recording audio and flagging important bits. But for that to really work, I’d need a better mic for it. I suppose I could get a bluetooth mic, but I think that seems like a higher tech solution to the problem than I want to get into at the moment. Carrying the lighter of the two laptops and stopping to write when I have an idea is probably the best solution.

    Speaking of audio tech, I should also see if I can find a co-host, as I batting around the idea of starting a podcast. That seems like it might be something I’d be good at. Though apparently the best podcasts do some pre-scripting.

    Still, I should be writing more.

    I suppose it didn’t help that I got very little response to ISLE, which I thought was a charming little idea.

    I expected Garth Spencer to have been amused by it and reposting it, at the very least, but nothing from him.

     

  • #30for30. I failed.

    Well, last weekend, I managed my 30for30 on the first day off, but not the second day off, as I spend the day buried under the blankets with a sore throat, drinking fluids and generally trying to conserve energy. That carried over for a couple more days, and I didn’t continue my post work walking, though I should have.

    So, I’ve failed the challenge, though I’ll be trying to get back into the habit of it soon.

    My hours at work will be changing. I’ll be doing the Monday to Friday, noon to nine shift. I’m going to try to walk home after, which should be good. Or at least walk as far as BCIT.

     

  • ISLE

    The Irresponsible Scientists League of Earth (ISLE) claimed responsibility today, sort of, for the horrific events of last week. They admitted that they installed the intelligence expansion devices in churches, mosques and synagogues around the world, but claim that the devices were intended to slowly increase the intelligence of attendees and not cause rapid cranial expansion. ISLE had expected depression and confusion, followed by enlightenment and an increased interest in science. Not the showers of blood and gore that accompanied the head explosions.

    “Apparently one of the guys overclocked it for better performance, and the result was perfectly logical.”

  • Upgrading my current PC

    I’ve got an invoice for a PC I built in 2012, for around a grand. I want to figure out what’s the best upgrade path. Aiming for playable Star Citizen at 1920X1080. Any thoughts would be welcome.

    The parts list from the invoice:

    EVGA GeForce GTX 460 823MHZ 1024MB 4GHZ GDDR5 SLI Ready 2DVI Mini HDMI PCI-E Video Card

    Antec Truepower New 650W Modular Power Supply ATX12V V2.3 Active PFC 80 Plus SLI Ready 120MM PWM Fan

    Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 Vengeance 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1866 CL9-10-9-27 Memory Kit

    AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Quad Core Processor AM3 3.4GHZ 8MB Cache 125W 45NM Retail Box

    ASUS M5A99X Evo ATX AM3+ DDR3 AMD 990X 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 1PCI USB3.0 SATA3 GBLAN Motherboard

    Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5IN SATA3 Sandforce SF-2281 SSD Solid State Disk Flash Drive – Replaced with a different SSD after a failure.

    Update :

    I’ve doubled the Ram and installed a second SSD as my games drive, using my funds from my midnight moving service.

    I’ve also swapped back to Windows 7, and most of the issues appear to be resolved.

  • Scheduling issues.

    So, I thought I had a shift tonight and so I showed up at the office at 2:30, only to find all the desks were taken. But, we’ve had busy evenings lately, so they figure I might as well stick around. After about an hour, the morning shift clears out and I get my desk back. Not long after that, one of the regular night shift guys finds himself developing a migraine. So, it worked out. I finished a full Friday shift, and headed home.

    I’ve got Sunday booked off for recovery after helping with the Noir Setup and Teardown. I’m hoping that my friend doesn’t bail on our Saturday night plans, as currently I’m going to require her assistance to get back from parking lot after I drop off the van. The vehicles for this time lined up in the wrong ways, which has complicated things. Worst case, I’ll get creative.

    Or get some late night exercise in.

    At some point on Saturday and maybe Sunday, I’d like to get some gaming in. Possibly some solo LotR on Saturday morning.

    I still need to play Dead of Winter at some point, but it needs 3-5 people.