elorg.net

I need to finish this book so I can have my life back… I haven’t been making nearly as much progress on school or design work because I’ve been reading.

The book is so long (759 pages?) that I can’t just finish it in a day. And since it’s the last book in a 7 book series, it’s not like I can just read one chapter a day and be satisfied. I’m a bit over 1/2 way through and it’s just starting to get good!

*shakes fist* I hope to have it completed before this weekend. Wish me luck.

There’s no need to fear… Underdog is near!

Apparently Disney is making an Underdog movie. But not an animated movie. A movie with a real, live dog. I haven’t seen much about it, but it already looks horrible.

Well, it looks cute and possibly amusing, but geared towards kids today who have probably never even heard of Underdog. I mean – I didn’t even hear any variation of the old theme song in the trailer at all.

Seriously?

We just got a letter in the mail to the previous owner “or current resident” from Maytag / Jenn-Air. It states that if your dishwasher falls within certain serial number ranges:

Liquid rinse-aid can leak from the dispenser of certain Maytag brand and Jenn-Air brand dishwashers and come into contact with the dishwasher’s internal wiring which can short circuit and ignite, posing a fire hazard. Maytag Corporation has received 135 reports of dishwasher fires resulting in product and/or property damage. Four injuries have been reported, including three reports of smoke inhalation and ne serious hand laceration when operating a fire extinguisher to put out a dishwasher fire.

There’s a voluntary recall. Steve’s emptying the dishwasher now.

I was finally satisfied with the majority of the website’s redesign (on my Mac), and then I checked it out on the PC this morning. I still have a bit of work left to do… (and the menu still needs a lot of help) But I have other projects that need to get finished first, so I’ll probably back-burner it again for a while. At least for now the general color scheme is more “me”.

I’ve been getting outside a lot these days and have been trying to keep the garden going. There’s a LOT of weeding to be done (ugh). We found out this morning that apparently the deer are eating all of our veggies (double-ugh!)!! And they’re not even fully grown or ripe yet! At this rate all the veggies will be eaten before they get a chance to fully grown. So we ran out tonight and got some deer netting and tried to get the garden covered until we can get a better solution setup – a taller fence? But, the sun had already set and we were working almost blind. That was fun! We’ll see how well it worked tomorrow. Hopefully we don’t end up with some deer actually caught inside it… d’oh!

School’s progressing really well. I wanted to wait for my first assignment to be graded to move onto the second lesson of my first class. I started to get impatient waiting for the grade and feedback – but I received my grade today – 95! As long as I can keep that up, I’ll be very happy. And I’ll be able to get reimbursed 100% from my company – an even happier camper. I should be reading up my next lesson tomorrow, and hopefully have the assignment submitted by the end of the week.

Lately I’ve been motivated and in an “improvement” mode. Self improvement and general all-around improvement. Weeding / keeping up the flowers and misc. plants as well. Making progress (slowly) on the projects around the house. Fixing up some of the trees outside. Reorganizing junk and sorting through / getting rid of junk (physical and electronic – heh). I finally went to the gym tonight (only 12 minutes on the eliptical machine, but after 8 months of no gym, it’s a great start).

I’m moving along with school work – while maintaining my day job. I’m trying to keep it as a day job and leaving work at the office (mostly) instead of making it take over my life (that’s pretty hard actually). I’ve decided what I want to do in life / where I want to be. I’ve identified what I need to do or have in order to get there, and I’ve laid out a plan and some goals (no set deadlines yet though).

Completing school is one of them. I’m hoping to complete 1 class each month (give or take depending on the # of lessons). That would be ideal for both progress and my wallet since I payed for the classes up front on my credit card and need the reimbursements. hehehe Building up a portfolio is the other main goal / necessity which means finishing up some projects – finding the time for this will be the hardest part of all. I have plenty of projects lined up, I just have to sit down and do them. I’d also really like to get certified by Adobe (ACE, “Adobe Certified Expert“). The day I can put that logo on my business card and website, will be a very good day indeed.

I’m trying to keep my weight down (losing some would be even better – but not gaining is good too). Heck – I’ve even been working on toilet training the cats! No joke – they’re coming right along too – gimme a couple more weeks and we should *knock on wood* be a litter-free household!

So things are coming along rather well, as long as I can keep up the pace. I think I can. I’m pretty motivated. Talk to me again in a year and we’ll see how far along I am. =)

I’ve spent the past several hours hacking up the css and php template files to “elorgify” the theme. Mmmm blue.

I’m about 80% done with the major stuff. I have a few other things that I still need to do including some color adjustments here and there. Keep checking back.

Enjoy.