Tag: Web Development

It’s back to school for me

Personal

I made the decision to finally go back to school (again) after setting aside my grievances with learning material I more than likely already know. I have wanted to earn my Associate (in Applied Science) and then my Bachelor’s degree for quite some time but it just didn’t feel like it is something I really needed to do. I was going to go back for the Fall 2010 term but had some issues with classes I wanted (one was canceled and a replacement wasn’t possible due to scheduling conflicts). So I pushed it back to Spring 2011. Eesh, 2011.. That’s 7 years after graduating high school!

Since I’m pretty much a ‘freshman’ level (I’ve only got about 16 credits from the classes I took back in 2007) a lot of my courses are more rudimentary but I’m sucking it up and taking advantage of what should be an ‘A’ for the class. Ionly took four classes for a total of 12 credits as I didn’t want to go too crazy since it’s been quite some time since having a full school load. I’ve got a Flash CS4 class, Photoshop CS4 class, Adv Web Design and an E-Commerce class. Of the four the only one that will actually be new to me is my flash class. I’ve never enjoyed flash (and the last time I even attempted it was probably 2006) so this will be a nice little addition for me. The photoshop class is definitely going to be something I already have experience with but I decided that I would like to LEARN how to be more efficient with it. I’m ass backwards when it comes to working with it. What I should be able to do in ~10 minutes with various tools within PS, I probably take ~20+ or more since I do it the ‘hard way.’

Adv Web Design and E-commerce are other Major Core requirements for my AAS so I’ll be trying to make the best of it since these are two I am very knowledgeable in. If anything I can take all the pride in being a teacher’s pet or something ;). So here’s to promising myself to not act like a spoiled know-it-all like I did in 2007 when I wrote this: It should be easy for a webdesigner taking rudementary webdesign classes, right?. I’m here to take the class no matter what my skill level is or isn’t so I can get a good grade, finish through 68 semester hours and receive my Associates in Applied Science so I can be that much more bad ass.

My site needs a refresh

Personal

I haven’t even had this design up for two months and I’ve hated it the day I ended up launching it. Tired of the colors, the huge size of it and the fact that it still isn’t making me want to blog more often. So I’m considering working on a new design for it but yet again I’m not even sure that I want to keep it on icupcake.org. I like the domain but I was contemplating moving everything over to jordanriane.com (or even trying to get ahold of riane.com but not sure if that will happen.) Who knows what will happen because I’ve got a million ideas for some other projects I’m working on so I’ll end up pushing it back.

In other news, in four more days I’ll have been walking for a month. I started off using a walker for a couple weeks and eventually moved to just using a single crutch on my right side. Now I can pretty much walk without it although I did have an issue sprout up on Thanksgiving. My tendons are moving over the knee whenever it bends thus causing it to pop. There isn’t any pain involved but it’s very awkward walking. I’ll find out Thursday at my orthopedic appointment on what I can do to help it.

I also graduated to being able to walk up and down stairs although I’ve yet to accomplish this feat at my house (excluding the patio stairs which are only 5 steps total.) My house stairs are both wooden so it’s a little more difficult to use without the fear of slipping. Otherwise I’ve got not problems at Steve’s house or the movie theaters (which we’ve gone to twice for New Moon & The Blind Side.) Now it’s just a matter of getting more therapy (done by myself) to be able to squat without needing any kind of support and gaining mobility with my hip and knee.

Goodbye Blackjack, hello iPhone

Personal

Well, almost two months into the job and things are still going very well. The only thing I still can’t adjust to is that I wake up around 6:30am every morning, yet I still go to sleep around 12:30-1am. There are days when it doesn’t affect me, but I have maybe 1-2 days a week where I feel completely drained and am constantly yawning and fighting to stay awake.

I’m sure eventually I’ll go to sleep early! In other news with the reliable source of income, I’ve made the decision to go ahead and do away with my Samsung Blackjack and get an Apple iPhone 3G. I just really needed something that was more suitable for me as I’m constantly downtown. I need a better way to stay updated on the go, and because I just want to have an iPhone. I’m going in tomorrow to AT&T to upgrade my phone to get the $199 price for the 8GB iPhone. My Blackjack I actually ordered online from eBay so the last time I had an upgrade was in 2006 and it was with a Samsung SGH-D807 aka the Slider Phone.

Not only am I splurging on that but after talking with Armando I decided that I’m going to go ahead divvy up my money. $250 per check will go to my dad, and $200 will go straight into savings. Then the other money I have is pretty much used for gas, $116/mo train pass, and anything leftover is for anything I want to buy. Which I decided would be mostly electronics ranging from a new HDTV LCD monitor (not sure what size yet), Blackmagic Intensity capture card, possibly a new DSL-R, and then trying to fix up my car.

Originally I planned on saving most of money from each check for a new car, but if I’m going to move downtown I won’t need a car to do the public transit around here (that and I hate parallel parking).

Oh, and aside from work I’ve been working with a fantastic designer, Anthony Bullock on getting together a new design for Holdfire so hopefully once that’s 100% complete (he’s working on the subpage design) I’ll be able to get started on the redesign and relaunch for it. 🙂

Server Move

Personal

I’ve had a new server on my network for a few months now, and have been procrastinating moving atourworst.org over to it. I’m not really sure why, because it was just a matter of logging into SSH to get the process started. Not like I had to physically do anything!

Anyway, I finally decided to get it done with today, so it’s now residing on grunt, while it had previously been on oreos. The main decision to move it was because I don’t like using resources that should be set aside for Holdfire Network. Granted, grunt is still a network server, but there’s about triple the resources available on this server, compared to my other ones. I was initially setting it up as my personal dev server, but decided to add it to the company instead.

That aside, I’ve been putting some finishing touches on a new design that I’ve been working on. The process is a bit slow, since it’s always a pain designing for myself. Sooner or later I’ll get it up, although I’d prefer sooner.

In other news, I haven’t been up to much other than trying to look around for more freelance work. It’s so frustrating being a freelancer sometimes, when your skillset does not include graphic design. It’d be much easier to find work if I was also a graphic designer, but because I’m not, my scope is a bit more narrow. There was a full time opportunity I was a candidate for, but I didn’t get offered the job, and the owner of the company is not able to give me any details as to why I didn’t get it. I’m a bit miffed that I can’t resolve what I lacked, but I’ll just keep trying elsewhere. I’ve been searching like a mad woman the past couple of weeks.

Couldn’t have been a better time

Personal

Well, the interview I had on Monday went spectacular, and of course means I am now officially employed again. Although I still retain the label “freelance designer” I am no longer of the “unemployed” group. I was originally scheduled to start work on Monday the 29th, but the guy putting together my [webdesign] work got sick with strep. Now I’ll start on Thursday May 1st. Not bad at all.

Although this job came at a perfect time. I’ve got a hefty bill that I have to have paid by May 31st. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit, but it’s of my own accord, so I’m dealing with it. My 2 year old cell phone finally took a shit on me. It’s a Samsung D807, and somehow the inner LCD cracked and leaked. I’m not sure how it happened because it didn’t drop once during the day it happened. As such, I ventured out to eBay for a new phone. I was 6 seconds away from winning a Blackberry Pearl for $80, but some little nasty bugger decided to snipe me.

That’s okay because I ended up winning a perfect Blackjack with extra accessories for about $130 (including shipping.) I was skeptical to spend that much on a phone, but with my new job, it’s a necessity. I need to be able to access emails on the go, sync up, and of course, have a phone I can *use.*

Other than that I’ve been trying out for a Halo 3 clan through Army of the Republic. Yes, you read it right. I’m still a fanatic for Halo, and it won’t ever stop. Outside of actually having fun with the game, I’ve met so many awesome people through it, that it’s the one reason why I enjoy it the most. Of course, some of the other websites I’ve come across, like halo3.junk.ws, have also been reasons why I play this game over anything else.

Since I’ve got a few more days until i won’t have much time for myself, I figured I’d spend my hours trying to come up with some decent WordPress themes. I don’t know if I’ll actually create them for free or as premium, but I’m sure something will happen. Oh, and maybe a new design for here.. 😛 Yeah, we’ll see!