You must realise I'm the one with the knowledge of colour schemes, cross-browser platform issues, typography, navigation, and usability, not you. So why don't you SHUT THE HELL UP, sign me a blank cheque, and learn to appreciate my years of experience and the blood, sweat, and beers I've spent in perfecting my skills—just so I can create a 'new design paradigm' for your sorry ass."

I couldn't have said it better myself, a story by robbie Shepherd published at A List Apart.

So there was a May 5th site redesign movement going on -- in case you missed all of that. I didn't bother because, to be honest, I didn't read about it until it was a little too late. Maybe there will be a June 5th redesign for me.

Your airbox is a consolation prize.

I get a kick out of oddities on eBay. A story on ZDNet today noted that the United States Postal Service now auctions off undeliverable packages using the eBay site. I found a listing of just the "miscellaneous items" that the USPS has to offer. They also have categories for Books, CDs, Movies, and Collectibles. Fantastic.... so if you're missing a Christmas or Birthday gift, maybe you can bid on one.

I can't believe that I finally added a new chip to my PC two months ago for a bit of a performance boost -- an 850 MHz -- and Intel has 1.7 GHz chips on the market. This is out of control.

The wintry season is just about over. Most of the resorts in Colorado shut down this weekend, so I guess that means I can focus on other things that were on the back burner for a while. I think I have to finish my lamp soon -- it hasn't really been mentioned here, but I'll have pictures soon.

"Colonize.com is a leading email publishing company providing unique content publications that are enjoyed by millions of readers every day."

Yeah, sure.

I was recently subscribed to Colonize .... not on my own, however. A good friend of mine signed me up. I think she signed me up for every single newsletter that Colonize publishes.

"Colonize.com is a leading email publishing company providing unbelieveable amounts of spam to your email address and despite initial efforts to unsubscribe, you'll probably be stuck with our crap for quite some time."

My first attempt met a message that read something like this: "Due to the large amounts of traffic that we receive at Colonize.com, it may take up to 3 or 4 days to remove your address from our mailing list." It certainly did. I was still receiving email this morning when I decided to unsubscribe again.

"Colonize.com receives over 11 million unique visitors and sends over 250 million opt-in emails every month."

It's a really good thing that Colonize.com authenticates your email address, because just about anyone could sign up for their service and put your email on the list. Just look at me!

Microsoft just announced today that the next version of Windows (XP) will not natively support the new USB standard, version 2.0. Instead, MS will use the FireWire standard that was developed by Apple. The story was from ZDNet and noted that around the release of Windows 98, a demonstration of USB at a tech show caused Windows to crash while Bill Gates and another MS developer were demonstrating the technology. I looked around today to find a movie clip from the event.

Here is the movie for your viewing enjoyment.

So NorthPoint goes bankrupt, and I lose my DSL service for about a week. I'm not paying for this shit to just break, you know.

I'm finding myself mired in clean-up and maintenance from last quarter. On top of that, I still have to figure out something to do with my taxes.

Some break. How could I not complain about it being to short? (I see a joke coming there.) Vail kicked ass. We had an awesome condo for a couple of days and enough friends to fill it and make it really cheap for each of us. That mountain seems bigger and bigger every time I am there.

So what's up? I go to NYC this weekend.... hell yeah! I should be in a better mood, Copper rocked today while I was there this morning. Your Local Forecast F-ed up again. Last night it was reported as 39 degree high, mostly cloudy. This morning it was changed to a high of 29, windy and 60 percent chance of snow. So instead, it was really about 40-45, mostly sunny, 5-10 mph winds. Sooooooo nice. I guess I'm mostly happy. I have a little something dragging me down. They call it "classes" and they start tomorrow. yuck.

Every 5 minutes that goes by turns up a new appreciation that I have for all of my professors in the past. This is enough work to kill someone.

Grading finals... that's what I'm all about.

no really, I love this. I think I will stay up until 6:30 more often. Hey -- time for speed.

I just love to grade student projects. Everyone I know has finished their quarter and is moving onto new things. I want to get on with my own, but I still have a lot of work this weekend.

I feel really out of it right now. I have a lot of things I want to get to this week, but I have a feeling I probably won't do any of them. I head out to Vail on Monday, so that's definitely a good thing. And in two weeks, NYC for $160. Can't beat it.

OK -- back to work. I'll keep me posted.

Aching aching aching...

So wrapped up in my own life right now I think I light be neglecting some people these days. This quarter is nearly over and it will be nice when it is. Then perhaps I can set up us the bomb.

We're going to Vail.

And soon after that, NYC.

Once again, I have myself worked over a project that shouldn't be that difficult. I'm just making my life harder than necessary -- which is funny because I would much rather ignore the whole thing and enjoy myself for the next 3 days. Even after the quarter is over, I still get to hang around and grade assignments and project from my class. Maybe I'll just give everyone an A and save myself the effort....

.......naaahhhh.

Friends of mine threw a surprise birthday party for me last night. They thought the Titanic was "A Night to Remember" -- but they didn't suffer the 300 lbs. of Big Bad Momma.

Quickly realizing all of the work that goes into teaching. The part about reviewing homework and grading assignments is a time-sink.

I'm going to Vail over break... wanna come?

Documentation of hard drive repair begins now. I've got the hammer in my hand and a can of gasoline just in case the more gentle methods don't work out.

This week I got a cold or something related. You know, the usual -- sniffles, sore throat, genital warts.... OK, maybe not the warts, but I've still been feeling rather out of it. Of course, that couldn't be the end of hell week for me. My hard drive crashed on Valentine's day. Thought maybe this was virus related, but I don't really have sufficient evidence for that. Besides the hard drive trouble, V-day was rather uneventful (again).

Clement Mok is coming to town to do some talking. I cancelled my class for Tuesday night and told my students to go see his presentation instead. One more class out of the way.

Friends from NYC are coming into town tonight, so I have a trip to the airport again. Don't know what to do yet to keep them occupied. Maybe I'll just bribe them to reinstall all of my software and fix up my computer for me. Dell was right on the mo-fo with a replacement hard drive. I called them at 2AM on Thursday morning and it arrived at noon today. Great to have working parts again, but now I have to deal with putting them back together.

"Girls don't like me. They don't want to be with me. They don't want to talk to me. Hell, they don't even want to look at me. My dilemna is, I like girls. A lot." This is the Confession of a Math Whore.

Did somebody say DHTML? assembler.org is so nice.

This is NOT for children... but damn, it's some funny shit. Lego Porn courtesy of drew.

I'm ditchin' my brain for a sweet tooth and a candy-apple.
It's not the creaks that make me paranoid,
but the silence all around
as night falls and enshrouds me.

Skewed lines of perspective
stretching out to my horizons
underscore the haze and disconnections.
My thoughts travel on a different path
from day to day, hour to hour.
I'm on the way to the grave...

But no, don't even think it --
I've got a long way to go.

Must persist amidst confusion
avoiding the disillusion.
I've got the blindfold tied on tight
and the tail is in my hand.

Quickly learning the ins and outs of working with Premiere. The ins -- makes awesome movies with a really simple interface. The outs... I just had a birthday while waiting for my movie file to render.

"Although you are introverted and somewhat reserved, you have a forceful personality that your friends appreciate and your enemies fear. God help them. God help all of us."

-- The Spark.com's Personality Test

In an attempt to make sure there is something funny here once in a while, we're serving up thumb.

Headed out tomorrow to check out the Chank Road Show... it's a font development workshop. I have very little experience with font making, but thought it looked pretty cool. I like most of Chank Diesel's work and I figure that if it isn't that much fun, at least I can go heckle.

Another fun day at Copper. Why I didn't buy a pass for that mountain this year is beyond me. The good news is that I had picked up another of the cheapo 4-pass deals for my friend who was supposed to come visit this season... she's a little down on her jobby-job luck right now and a little down on the dollars, so I'm buying it back from her. Sorry, Gail.

Science is fun. Up until the point when you plug something is that shorts out the electricity in your house. If I ever finish this project, maybe I'll tell you about it. It's TOP SECRET.

It's a little different around here. It's a little late right now. My eyes are a little sore. I have little time to sleep before class. My stomach hurts a little bit. I blew out the electricity in part of my house tonight, but just a little. Time to get a little sleep.

By the way... that little tribute to adidas in the upper right was not intentional.

The cutest fish i ever did see.

Yes. Quarter-after-two is a very good time to get out of bed. Where is the day???

Wrap myself.
button up, it's cold outside.
Keep me warm, keeping tight,
rain and snow cannot
penetrate.

My candy-coated shell is a protector.

Hide me from the elements
and hide me from the crowds.
Your words --
they all pour down like rain.
I want to take a walk and
find myself drenched without worry
but pnemonia threats and
I pull up tight.
I pull up tighter,
I pull up tighter.

Hide my face under the covers.
I wish for this storm to pass.
I cover myself,
with my numbing hands
and more numbing,
my mind.

Words are forsaken.
Emotion tucked away.
Hide me and keep me tight.
I become even colder.

Yeeaaaahhhhh.... god bless php.

Teaching can really take it out of you. Little did I know how much time it would take to grade a couple of assignments!

24th day at Copper on Friday. Great conditions for the pipe. Lot's-o-fun.

Scientists link eye cancer to mobile phones. Thought I should note this since I posted a couple weeks ago some findings that noted that the connection of brain tumors and cell phones was inconclusive.

I've been working hard on making my programming class work out for everyone. First time is always a little rough I guess. I was nervous as all hell last week, but I think I've got it together now. My students are cool. Hopefully, we'll have some good projects posted here in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday I did my first invert. No, it wasn't on purpose. Yes, I thought I was in for some real trouble. Chad told me that I took off, and then I was straight up and down, board to the sky. I remember doing a Superman, thinking I was going to land on my face. Next I remember screaming some obscenities -- something to the effect of, "OOOOOOH F*CK!" (Would you have missed me if I was gone?). I tucked my head and next thing I know I landed (softly) on my back, nothing broken, nothing bruised. I got right up and kept riding. Chad came over the knoll looking horrified, probably expecting me to be in 2 pieces.

Someone asked me a minute later, "Did you land that flip? That looked awesome."

I'm happy to be here today.

I want to go to the zoo.

I teach my first class tomorrow... AAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!

I love my crashbox.

You might say it's neat when Blogger is running.

You also might say it's neat when the temperature at the bank was reading 80 F this afternoon, yet I was at Breckenridge this morning. Nice.

My class starts on Tuesday. My syllabus is nearly completed. phew. I decided to turn over the index on my DU account to a legit page again so that I'm not redirecting all over the place as before. oh well.

Blogger is working on upgrades with the Server Fund that has apparently been rather successful. Last night I couldn't update anything it was moving so slow... maybe updates in the wee hours will make a difference.

OK, I just wrote a long entry here and it got deleted by slow server performance. =( That's crap.

I'll sum up. Copper was crowded on new year's day because people didn't drink enough to be hung over. I start teaching next tuesday. There are noises outside my house that make me nervous.