Recently in blogging Category

When I saw this announcement about Mark Pasc's Order Plugin for Movable Type, I decided to check it out.  Looking at the examples included in both the announcement and plugin pages, I came up with an idea of how I'd like to be able to implement this into my site.  Currently, the main index page is set up to show the last 10 entries.  I wanted to  integrate my action stream into the main index for my site by figuring out the date of the last (10th) entry on the page, and include all the action stream data from that date forward.

I figured it could be done with some sort of conditional argument.  However, I didn't have a clue on how to begin to write the template code.  So I posed the question to the MT ProNet list.

http://www.movabletype.com/blog/2008/08/movable-type-pro-42.html

The new update of Movable Type was released last night.  I've already upgraded, but still have a bunch of work updating some templates to make use of some of the new features.

Expect changes to the site (and it to occasionally break) 

I found out last night my grandma is back in ICU (this is after finding out the day before they brought her back from the rehab center to the hospital).  Nothing immediately life threatening, they just want to be able to observe her more completely.

I have no plans for New Year's Eve.  I might just go to bed early.  If I had transportation, I'd go camping somewhere...or to the coast.  Just get away from the city for a bit.

I am looking forward to the new year however.  As of the 1st, I'll be at .75FTE at my job.  I've got some ideas I'm going to check into for some more career advancement.  Great things are going to happen this year.  

Looking back at last year, there were some pretty negative things that happened over the first half of the year.  However, the second half of the year improved greatly and I believe that I'm in a much better place at the beginning of 2007 than I was at the beginning of 2006.

Have a great New Year's everyone!!! 

I'm back to blogging after a short hiatus for most of December.  Between a webhost move and a general lack of inspiration, not much came out of me to blog about.  Anyway, a little of what has been going on with me over the past month or so.

On Nov. 27th, I became official at my job (I had been a temp employee since July).  For now I'm only working half time there, but its more than enough to live comfortably.  My boss is trying to find more budget, because she'd like me there full time.  Ideally, I think I'd like to get to .75 (or 30 hours per week).

I picked up a pretty nasty bug a couple weekends ago that had me pretty well whipped for my entire 4 day weekend.  Though I suppose its good that I didn't have to take any sick days for it.

Last weekend was the annual Eugene Santa Pub Crawl, so I went down for that.  By the time Saturday night rolled around, my heart wasn't quite in it, but I still had a good time.  Some pics are here.

Saturday morning my grandmother (dad's side) had a stroke.  I'm pretty close to my grandparents as I lived in their mother-in-law's suite for almost 8 years.  Anyway, I got to see her on Sunday afternoon for a little bit.  She recognized my dad and I and was able to talk to us.  I talked to my dad last night and she's out of ICU and the bleeding in/on her brain has stopped.  So medically she's doing pretty good.  The doctors think she'll be in the hospital for a week, but that means she may be home before Christmas as long as things continue to go well. 

I'm really going to try to finish a few posts about the time at the abbey in the next day or so.

New Jersey's Supreme court has ruled that the NJ constitution requires the state to provide the same set of rights and privileges to same sex couples as it does to "married"(straight) couples.  More details on Crooks and Liars: NJ Supreme Court: Gay couples entitled to equal spousal rights

My neighbor Elizabeth and her twin brother James are about to set off on a journey around the United States.  They are doing this for a new website called Common Ties.  The website launched at noon today with the beginnings of their travel blog.  The site should evolve over the next few months as the site expands with their travels.

On Saturday they will depart in a biodiesel powered Jeep Liberty for the first leg of the journey.  This first leg will take them to unknown places in Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Washington.  On the site you can send them emails and help direct the journey.  It's kinda like a traveling "This American Life."

Anyway, check out the site if you get a chance. 

One of the things about blogging is that it can sometimes get you in trouble.  Recently this has been in the news again with the firing of the writer of petiteanglaise.com [Read the CNN Article].  This phenomena has even made it into internet slang as being "dooced" named from the website of one of the first publicized instances of this happening [dooce.com]

So what does this mean for this blog?  Well for starters it makes me consider the things I post about (at least publicly).  While this blog isn't widely publicized, it wouldn't be that hard for someone to find it if they wanted to.  So there have been a few things that I've wanted to write about, however have refrained from posting them, because I'm not sure how someone down the road will read into them.  Eventually, I hope to be able to protect some entries, allowing known people to access them (through a login and password).  However the plugin for the blogging software I'm currently using does not quite have the functions I want yet.  A pending version looks to be more of what I'm looking for.  Until then, some of my entries will remain unpublished.