I’ve finally gotten around to beginning the work for remaking my site.  I’m saving myself some effort for the time being by using Joomla (a pre-made content management system).

As a result of this new, and easier to manage site, I will no longer be posting technical articles here (not that I did many).  Additionally I hope to actually write more of them and post them on the main site.

So this blog will now be solely for personal articles – the usual sharing of experiences.  The main section of my website will be devoted to web design and hosting, and I will be doing some spring cleaning on the server – archiving old files and removing them from the server.

I’m still not opening the doors and taking on new design clients – I simply don’t have the time – but I’ll be putting the information out there nonetheless.  I may even get into template design, or some other more hands-off approach, and hopefully I can get together some good articles published that will help people out.

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that, as a precautionary measure, I’m taking everything in my writing category and making it private, so that you will need to log in to view it.  This way, if I ever want to publish anything I’ve posted here, there’s less of a chance that someone would steal it.  Though I’m protected by copyright laws, I’m no lawyer and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Any new posts that I tag as "Private" will also not show up in the RSS Feeds, so in order to know about them, you’ll have to log in and check.  I’m not sure if they’ll show up on the calendar or not.

So, I apologize for the inconvenience, but all of that stuff will still be available.  Additionally, it also means that I’ll probably be writing, or at least posting, things that I’ve written more frequently.  Hopefully, anyways.

As if there wasn’t enough to do and worry about lately.

The other day we decided we just cannot bring the rabbits with us to Poland.  To start with, we can’t bring them on the plane with us, so that means they have to ride in cargo.  They will probably end up on a separate plane, and could, like luggage, get lost or delayed.  In addition, it’s is a total of 10 hours of travel, during which time they will not be fed or cared for, and will be riding in a section of the plane with no temperature control.  Plus it will be very loud, and there could be other animals in close proximity.  So for 8 1/2 hours, someone’s dog could be trying to eat them. 

But, in summary, the rabbits might not even survive the trip.  If they do, then we have to care for them in a foreign country, and if we ever travel (which we will), then we will need someone to care for them, which might not be possible since most of the people we’ll know will be on the same schedule.

This news bummed me out a bit, but I think made Jess even more sad then me.  Neither of us are thinking about it too much, but when we have fun with the rabbits, you can’t help but think of it.

Fortunately, Jess’ parents will take care of the rabbits while we’re gone, so we’ll still get to see them once in a while.

I’ll have to leave my plants behind, too, but I was expecting that.  And, while not nearly the same kind of emotional attachment you get for an animal, I am going to miss them.  It sounds weird, but when you put a lot of time and care into raising something, it’s never easy to see it go.  But Steve will be taking care of some of them for me, and I know he’s good with plants.

But wait, there’s more!

I had forgotten about my impending meeting with Fay Butler, a master metalworker in central Massachusetts.  I stumbled across Mr. Butler’s website while looking for info about Jesse James, of West Coast Choppers.  Both use the Yoder Power Hammer, which was made by one of the companies whose website I was redesigning.  The original intent was to swap links.  West Coast Choppers never got back to me, but Fay did.  Not only that, but he invited me out to his shop, and has a good deal of information he’d like to share with me. 

While I am very excited about this meeting, I’m also very scared.  I tend to be more on the shy side, especially around people I don’t know well.  But I want to represent our companies, as well as learn as much as I can.  I don’t have much to offer, so I’ve been trying to gather whatever I can that might be good for me to know in advance, or to bring with me.  So far, I have very little, and feel underprepared.  But I still have a few weeks.

So.  Right now, within the next 4 months I’m:

• Getting ready for the wedding this Saturday
• Then preparing for a meeting with an expert on a product one of our companies used to make that I didn’t even know about until a few months ago
• Then getting together a camping trip for Memorial Day Weekend
• Then having the big wedding reception/going away party/4th of july party at my parents house on July 5th
• Then moving to Poland (and all of the preparation that goes along with that)

It’s all fairly evenly spaced, but there’s not much time to slow down in there.  Especially when I’m also trying to maintain my taekwondo skills by going to the gym as often as I can, so that when we get to Poland and meet with the coach of their national team (I’ll get to that another time), I don’t get my ass handed to me.

Also note that there’s no honeymoon on that list.

When this is all over, I’m taking a nap.

Well, now I’ve done it.  I’ve crossed over to the other side.  Broken the barrier.  Embraced my inner artist.   Yep.  I got  mac.  A macbook to be precise.  Jess and I got it as a shared computer since both of our other ones are fading.  Plus we wanted something small and new for when we travel.  I also picked up a Western Digital 1TB My Book, which is pretty sweet.  I’m going to put all the movies on it, and also use it as a backup.  It’s a ton of space, but we’ll probably use most of it up relatively soon.

Anyways, I’m still getting used to the mac, but I like it.   I’ve wanted a mac for a while now.  I like a lot of things they do, so I figure it’s about time.  I’ll probably post more about it at some point.  But right now, I have gadgets to play with. 

I installed a new photo gallery.  I put a lot of work into the old one, but I haven’t updated it in a long time, and the scripts are currently broken.  Given how busy I’ve been, I felt this would be the best way to handle it.  Plus I have TONS of server space, so why not?

I decided to take advantage of the built-in script support I have, and install a blog feature. I also found a number of customer support scripts similar to what I was trying to create by hand. Since I don’t have much time these days and, let’s face it, I’m as much a child of the age of instant gratification as the next guy, I decided to go with them.

So there will be some major changes to my website over the next week or two as I get everything configured and in place. Including this blog. I figure it’s fitting since I’ve been branching out and trying a lot of things these days, that I should share my successes and failures with anyone interested and patient enough to read my ramblings.

So enjoy. I’m off to the grocery store to stock our barren cabinets for another week.