Why Does Vacation Just Zip By?
December 12, 2007
Wow, the time just flies by when you are on vacation. It hardly seems like its been a week so far, but it has. Luckily, I will still be on vacation for almost another three weeks.
The worst part is that it seems like I have accomplished almost nothing of substance done while on vacation. Or at least nothing done except computer work and a bunch of work done on my websites. The kids are still in school, so we don’t get to play around as much as I like when on my yearly end of the year vacation. Unfortunately, they dont get much vacation before Christmas this year. They get the week of Christmas and the week of New Years off. I am slated to go back to work on the 2nd of January but am contemplating just taking that whole week off to enjoy the family.
Speaking of website work, its the holiday season, so it must be time to give Cruise Talk Central another facelift. I was pretty happy when I finished with the theme about a year ago, but every week, the happiness left a bit. The theme is just to wordy and too tubular. The information is good, but needs a different sort of presentation. So, I have been sitting down and sketching out how I wanted it too look. I plan to give it more of magazine look.
I had just started coding up the CSS for the new design when I came across a brand newly released theme that met like 80% of my requirements. So, I have shifted gears and am now customizing that theme for Cruise Talk Central. I hope to launch the new theme there before the first of the year.
I am also continuing my work on the Simple Forum plugin for WordPress. I am helping the main developer prepare the next major release of the software, version 3.0. We are hoping for a Beta release in January, but that may be overly aggressive considering with both have Christmas things to do.
The cold which hit me the first day of my vacation is slowly fading away. Luckily, it never really hit that hard, but it did let me know it was here. Suzanne appears that she may be coming down with a mild case of it too.
The two day snow storm that hit Southern Arizona yesterday has left. It actually was mostly rain for everyone except for folks in the higher elevations. The mountains around us are covered in a wonderful layer of snow. Some mountains received a couple feet of snow. At our elevation of 5000 feet, we had several brief snow showers, but no accumulation. In an average year here, we end up with some accumulation about twice a year. I wouldn’t actually mind a few more in a year. Having grown up in Michigan, though, I wouldn’t want to go back to those winters.
Okay, time to go do something useful with the vacation time, like maybe clean the house for Suzanne while she is off volunteering at the VA Hospital today.
New Laptop
December 5, 2007
Well, I finally broke down and bought a laptop computer. I have been wanting one for personal use for some time now, but could never justify the expenditure. I am not really sure that I did this time either, but never the less, I now have a laptop.
I envision using it on family trips and for easy computer access from various points around the house. Since we take a fair number of family trips, it will allow me to keep an eye on all of my websites when away from the house. For those long dance weekends, where countless hours are spent watching other parents’ kids dance, I can slip out and do some compute work until my kids are ready to dance.
Set up and installation of the laptop was a piece of cake and went off without a hitch. I must say I am pretty impressed with the Windows Vista that came on the laptop. It is a nice upgrade from Windows XP. That said, I don’t see spending the bucks needed to upgrade the 5 PCs scattered throughout the house. It’s not that much nicer.
In order to access my home network and the internet from the laptop, I also set up a wireless network. Previously, I had stayed with a wired network as I had multiple LAN drops wired into every room of the house when it was built. If I really want a mobile laptop, plugging it in wasn’t going to work. All of my PCs are still hardwired to the network but the laptop connects wireless. Setting up the network was also a piece of cake. I was worried about Vista and XP communicating with each other properly, but it turned out to be a non-issue.
The geek lives on…
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