2010

It’s been snowing all day. I woke up at around 11 and shoveled the porch, and I swept it again around 3. It’s 10:30PM and it is still snowing. I have to be somewhere tomorrow and shoot some video, so hopefully I will be able to get out to the LIE, if the roads around here are too bad though, I am not going to risk taking that long of a drive. Luckily though I don’t have to be there until around 4:00PM, so I have time for the roads to clear.

In work news, I have been swamped trying to finish up a lot of stuff. I have stuff from months ago that I need to finish and other new sites I need to get up. I am trying to do all the old stuff and get them up, but as of right now I am swamped and haven’t had much time for anything else.

Well I better get back to work on these sites. Hopefully I can make a huge dent in one or two before I finally crash for the night.

The recipes section is doing okay for a part of the site that hasn’t been indexed by search engines yet, and I am surprised since I haven’t really begun advertising it yet. Hopefully it keeps gaining more exposure.

On Saturday Kris and I bought some new toys. With Kris trying to go back to school she needed a laptop she could take with her wherever she went in order to do school work. She ended up picking up an HP netbook. She isn’t the only one who picked up a new toy though, I picked up a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Last year I did a few daily sketches and I am hoping to get a section up for sketches soon, but before I do I want to get more used to the tablet. I am thinking about finishing up that Superman artwork with it, or sketch something then color it and shade it with the tablet. So far I can say that using it in Photoshop is a lot easier than using a mouse.

On Sunday Kris and I are heading down to NJ for a Super Bowl party at my father’s. He has a high definition 62″ television, so add that to the fact that we will probably head down early and get Denny’s for lunch, it is well worth the trip. It only takes about two hours to get down there, so it shouldn’t be too bad, hopefully traffic won’t be too bad on the way down or on the way back. It would mean more if the Jets could have actually made it into the game though, I guess there’s always next year.

I am getting really tired of saying there’s always next year. Come on Jets, make it all the way already.

I added the newest section of Lep’s Lair last night. I put up recipes because I had them and I think a lot of people would like them. I believe there are a few thousand or so of them in there. If you have some recipes I will add them and I would love to hear feedback on some of the recipes already up, so if you decide to cook them, let me know how they turn out. If I find some more databases filled with recipes I will put them up as well.

As for what I am going to do with this current section as it stands, I am thinking a mailing list for Recipe of the Day and possibly a Recipe of the Day widget like the Zen Quote of the Day widget. It all depends on how successful this section is though, as those two will be a few if I do them.

In the comments on my last blog about me being without power for a day, Mallory and Shiela said that they have gone without power for days, sometimes even a week at a time. I think if that was me, I’d go crazy. I work from home, I am a freelance programmer, so without power I couldn’t work, so being without power for a week I think I’d go mad just doing nothing.

I don’t necessarily think being powerless would be a bad thing though, I think it brings people together. I know that more sex happens when there is no power with no other distractions. I also think that without power you get to know people better. Years ago neighbors knew each other, people watched out for each other, today there’s television and video games and so many other things that get in the way, I think if we didn’t have so many distactions, then we’d get closer to the people around us. It’s strange, the more technology, the more isolated we seem to get.

Now I am not saying that it is just the distractions at home, people tend to work more nowadays, so being out 6 or 7 days a week at work isn’t an uncommon occurrence, so that too plays a factor in it, but if you think about it, work is just another distraction keeping people from each other. I know there are people sitting there saying I am spitting out BS, but when I had a Playstation if I wanted to play with someone, then they’d need to be in the same room as me. Now, I can hop on the XBox and play with my friends in New Jersey. Yes, back then the distance would be hard, but back then you would go out and meet new people because you wouldn’t have anyone else, now you are simply a voice in a video game, or on a phone, or on Skype, actual human interaction seems to be a thing of the past.

Going a day without power was hard for me, but maybe more people should go days without power and go and have a beer with a neighbor, it may bring you closer to the people who are nearest to you.

On Monday morning, around 9:20 AM a metal awning that was attached to the building for the passed twenty five years ripped off the building and flew over it to land in the middle of the street. Within a few seconds we were without power. We went without power until around 11:30 Tuesday morning.

Being without power is horrible. Our lives revolve around power, so not being able to play video games, watch television, or even just check emil was a real shell shock. The only thing that I was able to do was play some Lego Star Wars 2 on Kristen’s DS and sleep. I don’t know how people can live without modern conveniences, but if I can never go another day without them, I’d really like that.

I got a lot of work done today, but I am still behind with not being able to work yesterday, so I guess I should be working, but I am using a laziness excuse since I already finished up some stuff today and am going to go work on this site.

I’ve got a lot of changes going on with the site that I’d like to talk about. First are new sections. I’ve got a lot of new sections coming with new features like getting emailed daily for daily stuff, like the Zen Quote of the Day. These sections will have a lot of content so I am trying to find the best way to implement them. I am working on the first one tonight.

The next stuff I want to talk about is revamping existing stuff. Since I’ve put up the Previews and Reviews section I’ve stopped talking about movies and video games in my blogs. I want to revamp them and have video games and movies sections where I talk about them, give news updates, previews, and reviews. I think this will make everything more organized and provide a better opening to some other ideas that I’ve had.

There’s also going to be some new features to existing sections coming. I am trying to figure out a way to bring more content to the fanlistings, plus give members more options like subscribing to threads, uploading photos, and a profile page. I’ve gotten some inquiries on why this isn’t already up since almost all forum software come with it and the answer is simple, I coded the forum and member’s section by hand, I didn’t use a script. Speaking of the member’s section, once I do a profile page (or maybe even before) I want to do more Girl of the Moment contests, which would now require applicants to be members of the site in order to apply for that.

Of course the plans I laid out are only the beginning and anything can change. I hope you enjoy the new stuff that will be coming.

By now you probably know that Haiti had an earthquake which left many people homeless. My thoughts are with the Haitians and their loved ones in this time of need. It is hard to imagine that in one instant everything you have is just gone.

Up until the Haitian earthquake, 2010 was turning out to be a pretty good year. Not many people died, I got some stuff done on the website, and I am making a little bit more money than I previously was. I am working with a financial and business planner to get something really exciting off the ground. I have been running into snags on my end though. Between problems with After Effects CS4 and just not knowing enough Flash, it has been a learning experience, and I think I will come out of it with a lot more knowledge regarding these two technologies than I previously had.

I’ve also been doing the same old PHP stuff. Flash is all right, but I’d much prefer to code stuff through PHP rather than Flash, it makes everything so much simpler, even when it is a complex program like some of the clients I am working with. I mean, this site is run entirely on PHP and there is a lot of content and a lot more that I am gearing towards putting up, just need to figure out the specifics of it. I did manage to do some modifications to the site since 2010 started though, I changed the Myspace Adder and added some stuff to the forum. I am hoping to do a lot more very soon.

That’s it for now, I am waiting for Kris to get home so we can go out for dinner. Hopefully I will have something new up soon enough.