Moving on, letting go

he hardest part of a project for me is deciding that it's finished. Usually it takes getting distracted by something new for me to really move on (this probably goes for some other stuff, too...) because otherwise I just can't let myself stop futzing, adjusting and perfecting. Translation: beating my head against something that just isn't making any more progress. So I have to learn to let it go, move forward.

In case you haven't been following along, in this case I'm referring to my "One Week Website" series of posts (clearly the timing didn't quite work out, but I never really expected it to). I started designing a new resume, and made great leaps of progress... until I ran into a wall attempting to make it perfectly responsive. This actually would have worked fine except that in keeping it super simple I was avoiding @media queries and pretty much everything except some basic CSS (see below).

And it was all going pretty well until I went to make a PDF. I have no idea how print formatting works, from web page to print dialog to PDF, but the margins didn't behave properly, it didn't fit on one page, and the white space looked weird instead of stylish (at least I hope the HTML version looks decent). So I reformatted a bit with those 800px min-widths on the #page-wrap and #content sections. Of course, now the #web and #general skills lists don't float and switch from side-by-side layout to being a single column, which means the 50% layout looks darn silly on mobile.

I tried using sections and header and h1-h6 instead of a flock of divs, and since this is a one use document, I just went with ids rather than classes. Feels wrong, though. At the very least, I have a resume that looks a little better than an old Word document, even if it isn't actually responsive. And! I did finally stop poking at it and just hit print.

body {font: normal 1em Times, serif;}
#page-wrap {width: 75%; margin: 5% auto; min-width: 800px;}
#me {display: inline-block; width: 100%; position: relative;}
#logoname {float: left; width: 25%; min-width: 165px;}
#logoname span span:first-of-type {color: #6C8771;}
#logoname span {color: #4D4D4D}
#contact {text-align: right; position: absolute; right: 0; bottom: 0;}
#content {width: 75%; float: right; min-width: 800px;}
#skills li {text-indent: -0.5em; padding-left: .5em;}
#web {float: left; width: 50%; clear: both;}
#general {float: left; width: 50%;}
#experience {clear: both;}
#learning li {display: inline; padding: 0 0.5em; border-left: 1px solid black;}
#learning li:last-child {border-right: 1px solid black;}

section {border-top: 1px solid black; padding-bottom: 20px;}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {font-family: Baskerville, Palantino, serif; border-top: 1px solid black; margin: 0; padding: 0; display: inline-block; margin-bottom: 2%;}
h1 {font-size: 2em;}
h4 {float: left; font-size: 1.17em;}
h5 {padding-top: 3px;}
a {text-decoration: none; color: black;}
a:hover {color: gray;}
ul {list-style: none; padding:0; margin: 0;}
li {margin-bottom: 1%;}
dl {padding: 0; margin: 0;}
dt {padding-bottom: 1px;}
dd {padding-bottom: 1%;}

Now I just need to figure out if I really want to make my entire resume public on the internet. My feeling is no, not one bit, but then part of the point of doing it in HTML is lost. Still, it was fun to put together, and that's more important anyway.

OWW: Tidying up

o, how about that acronym? It is sort of descriptive of how my brain gets to feeling after too many hours staring at the screen. Here's a post on some trouble-shooting of the last two posts, and tidying up any loose ends that I can.

First, the original list post was confused about what element tags to use for embedding HTML content. I started with embed because it sounded like what I wanted to do, but it's actually "for an external (typically non-HTML) application or interactive content." Then I found object, which "will either be treated as an image, as a nested browsing context, or as an external resource to be processed by a plugin." And finally iframe which I had really thought went the way of the dodo for some reason, and which "represents a nested browsing context." Sooo...

Second, hopefully related, the embedded HTML doesn't show up in Google Reader. By switching to object tags, I did get it to at least display alt text. Turns out this is indeed a security problem with RSS feeds.

However, problem B is that the entire embed shows up as an empty frame for at least one reader using (you guessed it) Internet Explorer (IE. Abbreviations will carry into future posts). I suspect this has something to do with cross-site restrictions/same origin policies, or possibly just content blocking. Looked up user agent switching and (yay) Chrome has a built in feature to switch user agents from the developer console. However, everything displayed just fine when I checked the blog through the IE emulators, so I dunno.

The original list has now been tidied up, streamlined, and the stray notes I had in there for my own benefit have been relegated to drafted blog posts. I probably shouldn't blow any time styling it, but it's tempting. I would at least like to standardise some nice classy, plain styling for future documentation purposes.

Also, since this entire blog ought to be transferred to my domain in the near future, I'm not sure how much will be lost in the translation, so I'm not futzing about style too much right now. I did settle on using courier bold to highlight code terms, but then discovered that the code element does the same thing, so will use that henceforth.

Oh yes, and I had intended to use some pre and code elements in my TodoList file, but they didn't display properly on the first two tries. Turns out the < and > are still interpreted as HTML, so substituting in "&lt" and "&gt" respectively was necessary. It's worth noting that all of my HTML/CSS coding is happening using only TextWrangler, having upgraded from TextEdit. Someday fancy software (especially for previewing work) would be nice, but right now I like this basic approach.

Phew. I like fixing all the little problems, but it can certainly get a bit tedious. All my librarian research skills sure are coming in handy!

Orwellian syntax

he title of this post is a little iffy, but I think it works in a couple of ways. First, the content here is by George Orwell, therefore is by definition Orwellian, right? Secondly, his proposed overhaul of the English language (which we'll get to as soon as I'm done justifying and rationalising) is a bit on the totalitarian side, ergo, Orwellian. And uh, Thirdly... thirdly... oh yes, his criticism of the current state of prose essentially compares it to the sort of meaningless catchphrases found in 1984, where words cease to have any relation to their meaning and generally cause the downfall of civilisation as we know it.

That pretty much sums it up, actually, but a little context: I've just read George Orwell's essay on Politics and the English Language. The essay alternates between lambasting several samples of [truly lousy] writing and prescribing a few guidelines to avoid further transgressions. It was written in 1946, so we can only imagine how pained Orwell would be to see the current state of the written word (probably including my own. erk.). I bet he and Hemingway would've gotten along in some ways...

And now, for my own reference and for yours, George Orwell's basic rules for passable writing:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Taken from the essay Politics and the English Language, 1946, page 156 of George Orwell, A Collection of Essays, Harcourt Brace, 1981. 

Technical Testing Tribulations

ay back in November I finally staked my claim on a corner of the internet by registering and hosting a website under my name. I had stalled for almost a full year, thinking there was too much I would want to research before pinning down a registrar/host. Turns out that was the easy part (once I realised I didn't need a slew of dedicated servers in the former Soviet Bloc).

After choosing DreamHost at the recommendation of a friend and a popular website (Lifehacker, who recently re-affirmed DreamHost's dominance), all I had to do was learn how to code an entire website. And not just any website, one that would display a photographic portfolio dynamically and interactively and [buzzword] and [so on]. Ok, so I haven't quite gotten to that part yet, but the site exists and is a decent placeholder.

The holdup is that I'm the sort of person who can't just throw up something pre-fabricated and call it a day, I have to learn how to code the entire thing myself, learn databases and cascading stylesheets, from scratch. Maybe once I've done that I could take an easier route, but without understanding the background it seems too much like cheating. Besides, most of the point was giving myself opportunity to learn, given that my photos probably aren't going to start flying off the shelves (there are some up, but they, too, are placeholders).

So in the meantime I've just been using the web export feature in Adobe Lightroom (a god-send for those of us who like cataloging, integration with other applications and services and powerful but simple tools). The problem I'm leading up to is that I'd like to stop hosting the photos I use in blog posts on Picasa and move them all over to a dedicated storage folder on my website. Heck, someday I should move this blog there, too.

The problem is that to use a photo in a post, I need to have a link to the .jpg file that will never change, or at least use a relative link to just "/kitten.jpg" rather than "http:// blah/folderA/section56/kitten.jpg" and so on. So that's one solution. But I also need the photo to link to a gallery view on my website, so that the clicker can browse through other photos from my blog, and also use spiffy navigation controls to browse by keyword or just mosey back through other parts of my portfolio.

I'm not going to list how much of that I have no idea how to accomplish, because it's too overwhelming. But, I've written an entire blogpost about it now, so that will hopefully motivate me.

Oh, and the reason there are random photos of pie here is because they're hosted on my website, just... not very sophisticatedly.

Garden Variety Anxiety

uch to my dismay, Twitter has trained me to only have witty, entertaining thoughts in 140 character spans. This makes writing blog posts a humorless and rambly process, especially if I don't crank out a post immediately when inspiration strikes (whaBAM).

So now here I am, three weeks after starting an ambitious yard rehabilitation project (it's impossible to phrase that in any clever or alliterative manner. Cookie to anyone who can) trying to remember what I wanted to say about it.

I guess the first thing would be "hire a dang landscaper with a backhoe," if you can. The yard I'm working with is (according to Zillow.com) 0.13 acres, maybe half of it taken up by the house, but with a good sized front yard and considerable backyard. When we moved in, all but maybe, maybe 20% of the backyard was either underwater or overgrown. I wouldn't want to lose the topsoil by having heavy machinery rip out the overgrowth, but regrading would be easier, nay-doable with something more efficient than a shovel.




Anyway, having thrown my back out doing too much of that by hand (and the upcoming birthday doesn't make me feel younger, either), I'm going to wait for it to actually rain again before reevaluating the drainage situation. I improvised a rain garden with existing daylilies and added irises, bee balm and a willow stick which will hopefully sprout (they always do when I don't want them to...) and a little slope and dip for water to accumulate in.





Mostly, the rest of the work is ripping out vines (english ivy, poison ivy, virginia creeper, roses, that variegated purple flowering thing and whatever else) and hopefully getting grass to grow. The new lawn needs to be tilled and aerated, but there are so many roots and bricks (which is great, I'm planning a patio, too, but at 30+ bricks randomly strewn around the yard under the grass...) I'm not sure a rototiller is a good idea.  So for the moment, turning over a new garden bed, an existing one and getting my seedlings in will take top priority.



After all of that, I'm (understandably, I hope) anxious about getting everything to grow. The addition of (free!) composted horse manure that I lugged up from Lorton (yes, by myself, in contractor bags, in my little honda) should be enough to improve the soil and feed the plants. For exciting realtime updates, just follow the hashtag: #gardenvarietyanxiety. ¹

1. Note that because twitter is stupid, the hashtag isn't searchable. Yet.

Books Read in Chincoteague (0 of 7): Introduction

am a reader. If I could be The Reader I would be, but in this day and age it seems that all of the archetypes have all been claimed, and all one can do is occupy an indefinite article.

In order to avoid a[nother] rant about [the sad state of] contemporary society, I will simply describe the situation, the setting for the seven posts I will make in the forthcoming fortnight. Once a year, every year for the last [20+] my family has vacationed in a small cottage on Chincoteague Island for a week. When I was smaller and/or younger, the purpose included daily trips to the ocean for sandcastle making and mole-crab catching, mom-made sandwiches and hours spent sitting in the porch swing listening to books on tape. 

Now the entire purpose seems to be to bike around the [nice, flat] island a bit, go for a long walk or two on [what's left of] Assateague Island and spend as much time as possible reading book after [quality] book. In my teens, I blazed through every book Anne McCaffrey had written in the space of approximately 48 hours (Slight exaggeration. May have been 72.). While I'm still not reading Joyce and James and Dostoevsky in the space of hours, I did manage a few decently mature books in the space of a week; a book a day for soothing a soul. 

And, somehow, the books I brought along matched my mental state and future-goals with aplomb. Each stood up and made its point across time and space, reaching me through excellent authors, stories and words. 

The overarching themes in a nutshell: From The Shipping News to Catch-22, a frabjous sense of optimism or hopeless-hope in the face of disaster, despair and delirium (Endless tie-in!), lessons on the paths we take through life to the place Ruth Reichl's mom teaches us to be: unshakably within our selves.

Then, from Boneshaker back to Shipping News, a sense of community and grand purpose pervading humanity in times of challenge and need. Reichl's mother proselytizes steadfast self-confidence, but the citizens of Proulx's Newfoundland will tell you: in the end, only the wind and the sea will have their way.

Stay tuned for seven (7!) upcoming (short) book reviews...

Photo post: What happens when I get bored on Sunday afternoon

• I weed. I weed books, I weed clothes, I weed my life. The result is usually a bag of little-used odds and ends that winds up in my parents' house until I see fit to sort through it all (sorry about that). More to the point, weeding also results in realising that 75% of my jackets are corduroy.

• I clean and dust maniacally, including inside things, which leads back to #1, there. This week my small collection of [also little-used] makeup fell victim to my boredom. And then so did my face. Disclaimer: the most makeup I ever wear is mascara, and I have no clue what I'm doing otherwise. 

• I ponder crafty things. Aside from the long list of half-finished projects and box o' mending I've been avoiding (despite having hauled my sewing machine over here) I recently acquired some little green wool balls. There was a big tub of multi-coloured wool balls at Eastern Market a while back when I went with Wortklauberlein, and I fished out some in my favourite colour. Anyone have ideas as to what I should do with them? I was thinking poms for something scarf-like. There are 10.

These Are My Confessions

Well, really just the one: I kind of, maybe, just a little, but only in some respects, like Martha Stewart. Not like-like, and not like, want-to-be-"BFFs" -like, but one really has to admire the woman. If spending time in jail doesn't cause your massive domestic empire to fold up and hide in a corner, and you pretty much built all that yourself, well.. would that I may someday be so successful (sans the imprisonment thing).

I've been hunting for the book that started it all (according to Amazon, anyway): Entertaining, the 1982 guide to all things party, from hiring help to setting the table and making a bazillion dishes for the guests. For some reason none of the used bookstores I've scoured (a significant number, both in Brattleboro, Vermont and Washington, DC. The links are to my favourites) have it in stock. I think everyone else wants to hang on to it as well. For one thing, it's an emblem of a bygone era, the 1980s. In hindsight (and I'll grant you, I wasn't alive for most of that decade) everything was bright and hopeful, exuberant and jubilant and full of optimism. Nostalgia aside, the book brings that back to us, and gives denizens of this decade and century an opportunity to modify and modernize some very classy parties to fit our own characterless era.

I did find my own copy of Hors d'Oeuvres, which is equally sumptuous and dreamy. I think juxtaposing that style of opulence in decor and food presentation with a contemporary minimalism could be very gratifying. The best part of this book is not that Martha presents themed party menus or very tasty and precise recipes, but that everything is a bit mix and match. Because my guests are so often vegetarian or vegan, I need to be on my toes with modifications. Miniature tarts and sandwiches, small bites of fruit and cheese, roasted tortellini (the pictures in Hors d'Oeuvres inspired me to make my first tortellini from scratch) are all conveniently alterable. There's usually two parts to a recipe: the filling and the base. If, for example, I really like the salmon mousse tartlets, but can't serve salmon, I can replace it with herb mayonnaise and cucumbers, a sprig of dill on top. The first menu even begins with highly interchangeable tea sandwiches (p. 19).

This is also the book that led me to discover how few people in the States know what a pain de mie pan is. I even made a bet with a friend that Sur La Table wouldn't have one, or know what it was. Someone still owes me a cookie.

All of this is actually leading up to the fact that I made a recipe from Martha Stewart Living (May 2009) for dinner last night and it was very tasty. It did, however, fulfill my butter limit for the week, so I guess I'll be having dry toast for a while. The recipe was Brioche French Toast with Roasted Asparagus and Orange Beurre Blanc (image and recipe from MarthaStewart.com). As usual, I had about half the required ingredients, but I think it came out just as well anyway. I substituted smaller amounts of vermouth, soymilk, blood orange juice and onions for dry white wine, heavy cream (which I also left out of the beurre blanc altogether), more orange juice and shallots. And I made the brioche from scratch that morning, from a recipe in my new Beard's Bread Book for brioche loaf (not to be confused with little brioche buns). Very tasty bread, and it adds to the egginess of the dish without oversoaking the slices. Plus it smelled great in the pan as it was cooking. And I like asparagus.

Conflict of interest

Not to sound schizophrenic, but I have a choice here, and I'm of two minds about it (and they keep fighting. In my head). On the one hand, I could be making money (in theory) off this blog. I could monetize, I could use the $100 Google AdWords coupon they sent me (and look into AdSense, too), I could sell something, I could even put a Paypal donation button on here.

Or I could do none of those things, appealing in part because then I have to do none of those things (I'm not lazy, I just like to conserve time). I could have a beautiful, ad-free blog, affix this lovely ad-free blog sticker to myself (er, I mean, the blog) and skip about on my moral and ethical high ground.



I don't really want to expect revenue from my readers, or plague them with advertisements, or, in general, be a sellout. As a librarian, the point of blogging (and life) is to share information with people who need it (even if they don't know they need it. mwahaha.) I realise that just putting up a couple ads and such isn't really demanding anything more from readers than the rest of the internet does, but heck, I don't want to be the rest of the internet. I want my motives for writing to be pure and simple (not that this seems to generate frequent updates).

On the other other hand, I'm kinda broke.

The conclusion I've come to is that as soon as I stop procrastinating and set things up, I'll do a trial run of Attempting To Make Money With My Blog. Comments and thoughts on this whole thing would be appreciated. I'm likely over-thinking it. I'm also trying out partial syndication, so people who get my blog in a feed reader will need to click through to get the full post. Again, thoughts appreciated.

EDIT: That was a dumb idea. "Short" syndication publishes a fragment, doesn't append so much as an ellipses, and therefore doesn't let the reader know that there's more to be had just one click away. If I could get a "read more" link in there it would be fine. Heck, I say, to heck with that.

There's a Calvin and Hobbes strip that illustrates how I feel about the internet, which I wont post here because I'm sure it would incur all kinds of copyright wrath. It's the one where Calvin is standing outside staring at the stars and he yells "I'M SIGNIFICANT!" pauses, then says "...screamed the dust speck."