Domestic Geek

When I upgraded to Expression Engine 2 awhile back, several of my plugins broke. One of them was the music player I had to embed mp3s into my blog posts. It was cool, except that it used flash. When I was deleting paid posts, I realized that broken player made their posts error out. I was browsing the EE forums looking for a solution when I saw a mention about using HTML 5. I asked Marcus about it and he showed me what I needed to do to make that work. I got bummed out when I realized how out of touch I've become with web coding (I've basically stopped coding since I started my current job 8 years ago). Marcus suggested a book to read, so I'm itching to learn more. I used to be really good at this stuff, I really want to be again.

“Creation is messy. You want genius, you get madness; two sides of the same coin.” ― Steve Jobs

I always make a huge mess whenever I do anything creative (drawing/coloring/crafting). This is a is a poster I'm working on for a TeamHousewares golf tournament.

Another fine THW Golf tournament poster is under my belt. Hit a design block on this last night about 2 am. I already had the image drawn, inked and colored, but Marcus and I just couldn't figure out how to incorporate it into the poster format and tie in with the PGA Presidents Cup theme. See, they have their tournaments coincide with real golf tourneys, so we try to include some reference when possible. I was consumed with thinking about this poster and even my customary hot shower did nothing to clear my block. When I gave in and went to bed, I still didn't drift off right away and I dreamed about this darned thing all night. When the alarm went off at 7:30am, I had a flash and it resulted in what you see below. The guys seemed to like it and now they're getting ready to tee off for their matches.



I guess I should explain the poster for those not in the know. Via Banana Buzzsaw is the concoction that Marcus drinks when he's playing, consisting of either hot or cold Via blended with a banana. This weekend is the President's Cup and Marcus drinks this in the big Starbucks cup pictured in the poster...you get the idea, I hope.

On a sad note, one of my parakeets dropped dead while we were working on this. Marcus was standing behind my chair watching me color when there was a big ruckus in the cage to our right. Marcus is a little traumatized, I think, because he saw the bird fall and then close its eyes for the final time. Poor bird. I got the pair on Freecycle quite a while ago (their names were Luke and Leia - not kidding). I never knew the sex of the bird that died, but since it didn't lay eggs like the other one, I christened him to be Luke. I have no idea how old they were when I adopted them, so I wasn't surprised. Still sad, though. I hate losing pets. RIP, Luke.

No time for a lengthy post tonight as I'm behind schedule on this week's THW Golf tournament poster. I'll post a finished one tomorrow, but here's a preview:

I realized yesterday that I need to take some time and clean up my template. There is so much broken and incomplete stuff here that it is driving me crazy. Might be one of the reasons I don't blog as much as I'd like. I tend to avoid things on which I need to work. I intended to get rid of the double sidebar quite some time ago, but have yet to do it. There are some things in a text file on my desktop that I meant to add back to the sidebars when I last redesigned, but have yet to tackle that. Also, I need a wider content area to accommodate YouTube videos. That one I posted yesterday irks me that it is too wide and I can't do anything about it. I tried messing with it today, but I'm coughing too hard to really concentrate. Sadly, my coding skills are no longer second nature.

I fear we may have some rodents cohabiting with us (and I'm not talking about my rabbit). I was clearing some processed foods out of our cupboards and came across some stuff that had been nibbled. Not overly surprising with the construction going on around here, but something I need to nip in the bud before they breed in the walls. I'll be making sure the foodstuffs are in containers and I'll be better about keeping the bird seed swept up. I hate having mice in the house.

Well, better get to bed. I have to take the back way out of where we live. They've got Potomac St. totally blocked off this week while they connect up the new bridge. Totally inconvenient and adds 10 minutes to my commute.