a website oversight

Work is going well! Mostly, I’ve been reading to get familiar with the business, their software, etc. and that can make for a long day, but it’s a necessary first step. Happily, I realized yesterday that all of the reading *is* serving its purpose, as I do feel more familiar with the material.

In other news, this week I was finally able to check one of my (twenty or so) old email accounts. It had – I exaggerate not – over 4000 emails. Of course, 3996 of them were spam. Of the four valid ones, one was a test email I’d recently sent, which is actually what inspired me to do the work to check that account. But the other three non-spams were warnings from TheFanlistings.org. Apparently my MacGyver fanlisting was on the troubles list, and since I didn’t respond to their two warnings, they wrote to say that it was removed from the network. And this happened back in October of 2007. Oops!

I would’ve sworn I checked the TFL.org site not long ago to be sure my three sites were still listed. I guess I checked the two I thought were more likely to have been removed. Oops again.

This is not a tragedy. I think of the MacGyver site primarily as a fan website, and the bulk of its traffic is from people who are looking for MacGyver information. Still, I am embarrassed at this oversight, and after checking to see that there isn’t a new Mac fan listing, I applied for mine to be it again.

And if they say no, the new layout was made in such a way that it’ll be very easy to remove the fanlisting related links from the menu.

another day, another new layout

As of yesterday, I’ve completed posting a new layout (well, with the same banner) at the MacGyver site.

new layout, kinda

I recycled the eclectic layout at rusted-crush.com so that I could focus on organizing and upgrading the content. (Which, I’m happy to report, is done!)

I also updated the MacGyver site, and I posted my first MacGyver fanfiction.

new layout

I just completed a major overhaul of my so-called personal site. I started this project months ago, but I’d work on a layout for a while and then decide I didn’t like it. I did that three times (or was it four?), and I find it ironic that the theme I started out with was “Perfection is my enemy.”

In any event, after *hours* spent finalizing it – both yesterday and today – it’s ready.

Now I can move on to the next overhaul…

gainfully unemployed

Shortly after I lost my job, I was sitting around listening to the radio with my sister. To amuse myself, I’d turn the lyrics into something job related, like “I Still Haven’t Found The Job I’m Looking For” by U2, and – my personal favorite – that classic remake by Hall & Oates, “You’ve Lost That Jobbing Feeling.”

After several days of up and down emotion, going from an optimistic, “I’ll find something. Something better!” to the highly disheartened “I’ll never find anything!!” I’m now leveling out somewhere closer to the upbeat end of the spectrum. (For now at least. Give me five minutes, and it could change.)

It helps that a recruiter called today. As I expected, the job he’s trying to fill is WAY south of here, near the Alabama-Florida state line actually. I said that I wasn’t interested in moving that far, but the guy – a nice recruiter, for a change – offered that I could think about it over the weekend and call him on Monday. Eh, why not. That’ll give me time to debate which is worse: being five hours away from my family or continuing an indefinite period of being unemployed. (Hmm. Tough call.)

In the mean time, I’m very glad to have website work to help keep me busy. Last week I finished the first part of adding a new layout to the Alias site, and I’m on track to finish the rest of the update this month.

Unless, of course, I wind up moving. :sigh:

it’s going

Maybe other bloggers can relate: there are times when I feel compelled to share anything and everything, and then there are times when my attention is focused elsewhere.

I’m currently experiencing the latter, to the point where I’m not even reading other people’s blogs. Lately my free time is devoted to website work. A few weeks ago I finally found some inspiration on a project that I’ve planned to accomplish by the end of the year, and now I really, really, really want to finish that.

There’s also the small matter of Christmas shopping. I’ve already purchased a good portion of the gifts I planned to gift, but ever the masochist, I decided to be creative with one of my Mom’s gifts. (And I can post about it because Mom does not use the Internet.) The fam and I went on a one-day road trip back in July, and I still haven’t printed the pictures. So, since I’ll be printing, I decided to go back through all of my digital pictures – over five years’ worth – and print the ones I think she’d like as a memento. I plan to put them in a photo album and caption – or at least date – each one. So far, I haven’t even completed the first step of this project which is picking out the ones to print.

Hmm … I guess I should stop typing and start doing, yes? I leave you with a highly relevant quote, sent to me by a lovely visitor to my Christmas site:

“As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.” – Donald E. Westlake

on the web and on the shelf

I just finished reading “What Would MacGyver Do?“, and I was *overjoyed* to find that the last story references my site! :dances: I literally sat agape for several minutes, stunned and flattered …

… until I realized that the site name was misspelled in the book. :slaps forehead: No, I did not originally misspell “MacGyver”. That site has been around since 2002, and for *all* of that time, MacGyver has been spelled correctly.

I was slightly bummed and tried to comfort myself. “Surely people will know to spell the show’s name correctly…?”

Yeah, I wasn’t very comforted by that. Most people don’t give these things that much thought. They’ll simply type in the URL (and that’s assuming they’re interested enough to even go that far), and when it doesn’t work, they’ll shrug and assume it closed down.

Hmm. What *would* MacGyver do? You know, if MacGyver were a chick with a fan website that’s been wrongly cited? Of course! Add the incorrectly spelled page as it appears in the book – page 187  - and point people to the site:

http://www.rusted-crush.com/macgvyer/macep128.html

Now my only regret is that I wished I’d finished reading the book a year ago, like I kept planning to…

to do, long overdue

On Thanksgiving Day, I was at my mom’s. My mother and my sister were watching Ugly Betty, and since I had no interest in that, I was in another room on my computer. I’d been organizing the files for a backup, but that was pretty much done – or maybe it’s better said that I’d done all I cared to do on it. Then I looked in the folder with my MacGyver website files, and thought, “Hmm, might I have time to accomplish some of the To Dos for that site…?”

Next thing I know, I’m working to add some information that I’ve been planning to add for months now. (The Gratuitous Backstory: an old MacGyver site closed, and I had asked the webmiss if I could re-post some of that content at my site. To my great joy, she said yes! But by the time I received her reply, my Real Life had grown busy again.) After I started the project, I realized that it wasn’t nearly the daunting task I’d thought it would be, and I was actually embarrassed for not taking the time to do it earlier.

Soon, I decided that this would also be the perfect time to redesign the banner at that site, another thing I’ve wanted to do for months, because the colors of the old banner were SO not good.

I worked on both of those projects off and on until yesterday, when I finally finished and added it all to the site.

Now, I am irrationally pleased at having accomplished those two long-time members of my To Do list. It’s encouraging to be reminded that, once I actually start the project, not all website updates take me months to complete. Apparently all I need is for my family to be distracted for a while, for my boyfriend to be out of town, and to have several days off from work.

shine on

After two failed attempts at redesigning my “inspirational” site, I decided to convert it into a blog. I think that format will work well for the content, and I’ll be able to add my own ponderings, although as always I make no guarantee that I will write anything of note.

Anyway, I’ve started posting content there. When it’s all moved, I’ll post the new address at the old site, but you, my visitor(s?), can get a sneak peek of it at the link below:

http://rainshine.wordpress.com/

me and my big blog

I’m happy to report that the old, non-working refrigerator has been removed from my apartment, and a new, working one stands in its place. Given the seventeen inch gash down the side, I’m guessing it was from some scratch-and-dent collection, but as long as it works, I’m good with it.

Moving on to the tale behind my subject line, a few weeks ago my OfficeMate (OM, as I call him here for short) mentioned possibly doing a website for the side business he’s trying to start. After briefly considering whether I was sharing too much, I confided that I have had quite a few websites for quite a long while, and we chatted about that, with him asking me various HTML-related questions.

Note that I didn’t go so far as telling him what the sites specifically are. He agreed when the topic came up again a bit later that it was best he didn’t know, because he didn’t trust himself not to spill the virtual beans when he gets to talking. Since then, he’s made reference to my websites while various people have been in the office. As OM is widely known for being misleading, I’ve been able to just roll my eyes at his remarks, and people remember the rule: “When OM talks, we don’t believe him.”

Until last Friday. OM again mentioned my sites – I’ve seriously started accusing him of being compulsive – and our visitor asked, in a somewhat derogatory tone, if I have a myspace page. OM is all, “Oh, she’s gone BEYOND myspace.” Our visitor looked quizzically at me, and I admitted vaguely that I have “a website.” The visitor continued to look at me, like, “Well, what is it?” I said that I wasn’t going to tell him what it was. He said confidently that he would find it.

Now, although I’m very cautious in what information I post – why do you think I avoid posting real names as I tell these tales? No, I’m not *trying* to be annoying – I know that it’s possible to find my domains if you know what to search for. I had every confidence that Website Searcher Guy would find one, so I asked that when he finds it, he not tell me. He said that he’d leave a message in the guestbook. 

WSG left the room, and I griped at my officemate for again sharing information that I told him in confidence. OM was typically unrepentant, saying that although he jokes about it, he’s really impressed with my hobby. Yeah, I don’t accept that as a valid excuse, but thanks for showing your true colors once again, OM, before I trust you with something truly important.

I considered the ramifications of WSG finding the sites. I figured that finding this blog would be too big of a coup not to share, and I imagined him telling everyone at work. I briefly entertained the thought that I might become the local dooce.

And making all of this a little more complicated? WSG also just happens to be the Inappropriate Crush Guy that I mentioned two posts ago. Perhaps my biggest fear of all in this is that WSG/ICG (wow, even the abbreviations are getting complicated) would find that post and ask me who I was crushing on. I pictured him hounding me about it, and me – as I marveled over one of the weirdest turn of events ever in my life – answering, “Would you believe that it’s you?” I don’t see how things could be anything but awkward after that.

Today, WSG/ICG came to work a bit later, but he finally did pay us a visit. I almost held my breath, waiting for him to tell what he found. Thanks to OM, the topic at hand quickly spiraled into talk of my website. WSG/ICG said that he looked but couldn’t find it, and he expressed doubt that I even have one. I sighed with relief.

Still I can’t escape the thought that perhaps he did find the sites, but he’s honoring my request and not telling me. Yes, I think he’s a decent enough guy to do that. This is why I don’t mind admitting here that he is the one I was talking about last week. I never have to know that he knows, he never has to know that I know, and all that awkwardness … remains unknown.

In any event, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my on-line presence (such as it is) a secret for long. I try to bear that in mind as I write these things. As I like to quote: “Do not be ashamed to say what you’re not ashamed to think.”