The Week in Review

Well, I spent most of this week at home, working on code, only to find out Friday when I was almost done, that Yahoo's RTML doesn't allow you to keep track of an incremental variable, unless you use their FOR loop. And that would be fine, unless you're doing what I am, and trying to run a FOR-EACH-OBJECT loop and need that incremental variable in the html output so I can run a javascript over it. So that's what I get to work on Monday when I go back to the office. I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue to work at home though - I may need to get that re-approved.

Overall, looking back, it has been a calm week - at least the memory of it is. There were some bumps though, like my neighbor during the last issue I had with him, and also a small...scare (?)...more like an "uh oh" when I realized that I gave one of my former co-workers the link to this blog, and forgot that I wrote about my frustrations at that job here also...and she was mentioned. Oops. :-/ Well, because I'm me, it probably would have been better not to point her this direction, but because I did, I'll take whatever consequences arrise from it.

I also spent the week without talking to the girl from college I mentioned a couple posts back. I finally emailed her back late Saturday night explaining my thoughts, in as few words as possible, but trying not to sound mean about it. And she emailed me back, but I couldn't find the words to do another reply. I'm still trying to put the abstract into formulated sentences - it's just that the whole time we've been talking...for the first time, the logic side of me was ready to go, but the romantic side of me wasn't feeling it. She's pretty, smart, and financially stable - which has been a problem with a lot of my previous girlfriends...but without the romantic interest there (not being able to move myself past friends), it just doesn't feel right. I guess that would be a good enough explanation, but is there really such a thing?

Moving on, I went to Downtown Dallas with some Plano friends, and friends my age from Flickr, and we shot photos around the West End area. And, while I wasn't feeling the muse or inspiration, it was still a fun time. I enjoyed seeing Rachel again, and hanging out with Eric as well. It's good to mix energy with other people participating in the same hobby. It shares new or different perspectives and inspirations that wouldn't otherwise come.

When I got home, I uploaded the photos, and was ready to go back out and try it all again the next day. But, that didn't happen. I actually slept in till around 10 or 11, because I was up till past midnight hanging out with Chelsea, Chris, and Beth at Denny's. We talked about all kinds of things, and it was very reminiscent of the times we'd all get together about a year ago at Chris and his roommate's apartment and just hang out talking. Religion, relationships, addictions, idolatry, frustrations, and work were just some of the topics. I really enjoy that kind of get-together, and was ready to go late into the night with it. It brought back memories of being at ETBU in the lobbies or at Waffle House just hanging out. So maybe there will be more of those.

So after I recovered from staying up so late last night, I went to the store, and got lunch/dinner. Tonight, I was hoping to see the speech that Obama was giving in front of the Lincoln Memorial - but by the time I realized that the show I scheduled to DVR was a documentary, and too late for "this afternoon" (which was when it was touted the speech would be given) it was too late. But not only that, the documentary they said would start at 7 EST actually started at 5 EST...so I got there half-way into it, because they jumped the gun. Oh well. I had Brautwursts for dinner, and bought some Chicken, and salad dressing. This is the frist time I've had Asian Salad Dressing, and it tastes a lot like the Peanut Sauce the Thai Restaurant gives us for our salad.

Without sports, Sundays are pretty boring. So I'll probably start finding other things to spend my day doing. But whatever I find, it'll be something slightly different to go along with some kind of new liveliness I found during my outtings this weekend.

I've got more to write...some realizations, some plans, and other miscellanea...but if I put them all here, I won't have anything to say for a couple more days. So I'm off to bed now.

The answer is in the code...

I don't know if it's because it's new to me, or because it's just what I know best - but this past week, I've been enjoying getting lost in a coding project I've taken on.

We're doing a site redesign for the store that I work for, and while I was out browsing other websites and their features, I came across one that apparently spent a lot of money to have someone code a lot of features into their yahoo store for them. Just one half of the script I was working on costs $450 for someone to do. The other half costs $224. But neither one of them does what mine does, nor as good (if I do say so myself, and I do, because I tested the others on example sites).

Anyway, all it took was putting on some of my hacking music, and rounding up a whiteboard, notepad++, and firefox - and I was off in my own world, swimming in and out of logical loops...following streams of thought...coming up for air only when I ran out of Ice Water.

The only troubles I had were the interruptions that were many and frequent - and usually at the most inopportune time...right when I had a new objective, discovered a bug, or needed to address something I forgot. (This led to me being given permission to work from home, without interruption.)

This would be the first time, in a long time, I've written a program from scratch...and I liked it. So that's my plan for this year...

In the years past, there have been various degrees of involvement in the technology that I've elected to administer. The-spot.net's code has all but taken care of itself these days (with the latest programming techniques and phpbb 3.0's update feature, the site runs itself, and updating is no big deal)....my tech blog will surely get used more as the year goes on with some of the projects I'll be working on....and hopefully I'll get a podcast up and running at ThePizzy.net.

Thanks to winkydo's help, I've got a new server up and running so I can better administrate the one at work. I'll be doing more to learn MS SQL Server, and how to administrate a Windows Server and everything that goes along with Active Directory (and hopefully an Exchange Server if I can get one set up).

With all this focus on learning more, I recently decided to give up on a relationship that could not distinguish itself beyond a friendship with a girl I've known since college. I'm hoping that something else will turn up here in Plano this year, but I'm not looking for it any time soon.

So that's the plan:
1.) Work on me -working out, learning more stuff, getting involved in the things I enjoy doing.
2.) Work on finding a "her" - get out, meet some people once I've worked on me, and see what happens
3.) Start an "us" by the end of the year.