Nomad Shadows

I have been nothing but loyal to Apple since I was 7 years old, which is incredibly difficult to do in rural South Eastern Ohio where the nearest apple store is at least 2 hours away, and everyone buys their computers from the Wal*Mart down the street.  I was having Mac/Windows debates on the school bus on the way to elementary school, and in the courtyard at lunch time in high school.  My life is run on a refurbished G4 I bought on Ebay because it was in my price range.  As a Graphic Design major, I’ve been holding out for a MacBook, even though I might actually be able to afford a laptop running Windows, because I despise the other operating system and am only comfortable on OSX.  I have wanted an iPod since the very first, big, clunky, white, somewhat boring model came out when I was in High School.

Even when my High School Graduation G3 iBook went black, I still defended Macs to the death. 

So, imagine my elation when I received a beautiful blue iPod Nano on Christmas Day from my parents.  Here I am, 6 years later, finally realizing my dream.  I carried it around, loved it, cherished it, filled it up with pictures of my daughter and all my favorite music.  I was showing pictures to people at work. . . I had it in my pocket, because I couldn’t really carry it around in the case I usually had it in when I was running around the kitchen. . . 

It was still in my pocket when I threw it in the Washing Machine.  And I didn’t realize until after the Dryer.  

You can imagine my terror when I saw the earbud at the top of the pile, my sorrow when I tried the clickwheel to no avail over and over for the next 24 hours or so while I waited for it to dry.  My hope when I saw that other people had the same problem, and apple sent them replacements.

Now, I ask you- Apple:  what is the point of a Warranty if it doesn’t cover Accidental Damage?

Granted, it was my fault for not checking my pockets- but after looking online, It’s clear the problem happens all the time.  It’s so tiny, and there’s no real convenient way to carry the beautiful little things except in your hand or in your pocket, unless you spend $30 for some sort of carrier, which I was actually planning on doing with birthday money (my birthday was 3 days after I sent it in to be checked.)

This is the first time I’ve ever been truly upset, at least with apple, by an experience with an apple product.  (I was pretty upset about the iBook.) They’re sending it back from iPod Hospital with no care whatsoever.  And I, with my forgetfulness, am iPodless once again.  And it looks like I may be forever more.

It’s a sad, sad day.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

It’s been a while since my last post. Just when I start to do good with keeping up-to-date, and reading all my feeds like a good little web-girl, things get busy again.

I’ve been back at Holzer for a few weeks now, weekends only, and it hasn’t been bad. Runner on Weekends in the Summer time beats the heck out of Runner on a Wednesday in the dead of Winter. Plus I’m working with the people I enjoy, and it’s paying the bills.

Of course, however, as soon as I tell Karen I need more kitchen work, I get a message from a Craig’s List Ad I’d replied to a while back. John Thorndike’s Game Point Ohio site about the OU Women’s Volleyball team has had a major rework over the last two weeks, and is coming along quite nicely. It’s been a really good job, and my work with Mary Lisa the Page Rank Queen has helped out in answering his questions, even though he’s on his computer in Athens and I’m on my computer here. So I’ve been pretty busy lately, but it’s been nice. No more design lull, for now.

I’ve also been struggling with Thom’s blogger template- I’ve looked everywhere for a tutorial on Blogger Layouts, without much luck. I understand what the tags and code are doing in the template I’ve opened up, but it would be nice to have some real instruction. If anybody can point me in the right direction for the info, I’d be much obliged.

Jazi emailed me the other day- she’s done with school (YAY!) and asked about a site. I’m just super happy for her- she’s worked hard. If anybody needs massage therapy in the Dayton area you should call her up! I should have an ad for her on here somewhere before the summer’s over.

Now for the fun stuff. It’s Summer Musical time, and, although we won’t be in the same place- it’ll still be a pretty good mix of the same crew. Audrey has taken the directorial helm this year, and has moved us from the Ariel to the new theatre in the Point Pleasant high school. We won’t be there for a while yet, rehearsals will be closer to home, but we’re all a bit curious to see what this new place has to offer.

We’re doing The Civil War, which is basically show-stopper after show-stopper, lots of great music in this one. And it features our guys, which is really exciting. I’ve been listening to the CDs and imagining all the great voices we have singing this stuff and it makes me happy the show’s coming. It’s a pretty good mix of the very best of our boys, too. I’m especially looking forward to the addition of Seth in the song “Judgement Day” with Steve and Robert. He was Horton in the production of “Seussical” Steve and I took Reni to not long ago. Three phenomenal Tenors in one place. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself ha ha.

I actually have a feature too- I’ll be in the Candle in the Window trio with Courtney Sanders and Evans Smalley, Margaret Evens’ daughter, who happens to be the new girl this year. That should be pretty fun- it was the song I was hoping to get. There isn’t much for girls in this show, but the songs that are for girls are all good ones.

Being able to put names, faces and voices to these songs is really bringing a lot of hope for this show. They’re all great songs, and all great people. It’ll be worth coming to once August comes around. (15th and 16th- clear your calendars!)

And I heard Audrey was doubting JD’s ability to act drunk for Oh Be Joyful. . . SOMEBODY obviously didn’t come see Broken Up (ha again)

So, those were my business notes, and the shameless show plug. We’ll see how things go next week.

The End.

-edit - never mind about the blogger layout tutorial, I think I found something that will work here. First thing in the morning, baby. . .

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

So, I’m 3 days away from the end of my 30 day trial of Coda, and I think it’s done it’s job. 30 days was more than enough time to get used to its interface.

Some of my favorite things about it:

• First of all, it’s name is Coda- how can I not like a program with a musical term play on words as a name?
• The Preview, CSS, Text Editor, FTP panel, and reference books all in one window. This totally saves room on the dock. I haven’t had any use to make of the terminal yet, but I know that as time went by I’d get back into it.
• It gets me back into coding, with the hints and the included reference books I’m back to where I started, learning the language, which will be great alongside all the artsy education I’m getting at school.
• Simplicity, it gives me just what I need without all the junk Dreamweaver tends to keep hanging around. This makes work go faster in my case.
• The Sites, it keeps my sites all organized & remembers where I left off in each one. And it has a spiffy preview of the front page of each one.
• And, of course, the fact that it’s made completely with Mac in mind.

As soon as I’ve raised up enough $$ I’m definitely going to be buying this one. It’s currently $79, and I can get it for $69 since I already own a copy of Transmit, Panic’s FTP program.

It’ll go nicely on the Macbook I’m going to get someday.

And as for the free ebook? I saw this on PSDTuts last night, so I clicked and went to bed while the 22.4 MB ebook downloaded. The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques. It’s 128 pages of everything a beginner in Photoshop needs to know about basic tools, background and button making, and things of that sort. I looked through it and it looks pretty nice, so I’m spreading the love. It’s definitely for beginners though, so if you have evil Dial Up and already know your way around the tool panel, it may not be worth the 2-3 hours. Go download Great Big Sea instead.

The End.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

Holding my breath, just applied for my first jobs through Freelanceswitch. We’ll see what happens.

Also, I found a tutorial and was struck with inspiration. The new theme is really, very pretty- and I’m quite proud of it. (yes, that’s me in the banner. I’m the only model I have. And the only photographer. . .) I got tired of not being able to find the pic I wanted online, it was a beautiful windy day, and I couldn’t get Steve to wake up from his Sunday-Afternoon Nap to come over to take my picture, so I had to time my camera. . .

I had to use these six pieces to put together the photo, then followed the steps in this tutorial from PSDTuts to get the groovy look.

Then all put together with the filter:

And the super-groovy result.

Anyway, now the Munch & Me are going to the playground. Until later.

The End.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, that’s right. I just spent 2 hours downloading all 20.4 MB of Flock with my evil dial-up connection (eDUC? haha), and another hour sorting through my feeds and making my bookmarks work to their full potential. The bookmarks can still use a little work, but my toolbar is all ready to Stumble, I have Jen and Lucy in my Media Bar, and I’m going to attempt to start using the Mail feature, but I really like my Mac Mail. We’ll see how long that lasts.

It seems promising, not only will it keep me up to date on my RSS feeds (all neatly organized by person and category), but also Facebook friend updates, and people’s pictures. Yes, it seems promising, but only time will tell if I stick with it or get burnt out on all the features and go back to my nice, simple, safe Safari. I’m just trying to keep up-to-the-minute with my friends, the design news & tutorials I subscribe to, and any new things I might find out there in internet land. Hopefully Flock will help me do that.

And, speaking of new things, Steve & I went into the library last night so he could find songbooks for the Holzer Banquet tonight (he’s playing piano & singing, and I got suckered into serving), and I saw Thom sitting all lonely-like at the Reference desk. So I went to catch up with him and got his email & blog address. So, Hello Thom, I subscribe to you now =).

Notes from the Flight
Got the call from Jerry Lucas Wednesday night (excuse the unprofessional “Yay!”). We meet this Thursday.

Still no word from Mason. (excuse the unprofessional “Grr.”)

Getting a business plan done.

Tags: Flock, Mac Stuff, Social Me, Notes,

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

I’m going to miss the High Speed Mac Lab this summer. *Cries.*

Maybe I’ll just suck it up and get High Speed wireless from Jake @ JBnets. I’ll have to shell out the money for the set-up. . . I’m going to have to figure something out, because I can’t be a Graphic-Designer on Dial-Up. It’ll drive me crazy.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

May 9th & 10th at 7:00pm at the Rio Grande Fine and Performing Arts Centre.

Tom & Meg have been married for years and years, but Tom fell for one of the “occupational hazards” of being a middle-aged-assistant-English-professor, and is now suffering the consequences. Now Meg is demanding divorce, and is moving into the apartment down the hall.

Tom is tired of living on cold food and bean sprouts, and is trying to get Meg back. Meg’s best friend has set her up on a blind date with Roger Egan, the talkative author of books on marriage & divorce. Gordon, the young maintenance man of the building, is also trying to get in on the action as he helps Meg get settled in.

Watch the madness unfold as Meg and Tom try to figure out how to live apart, Gordon tries to go for divorce number 4, and Roger tells the woeful tale of his ex-wife and the Varsity Swimming team. . .

Tom Owens : Steve Sisson
Meg Owens : Jessica Thompson
Gordon. . . Gordon : Eric Farley
Roger Egan : John “JD” Markley

Directed by Michelle Miller, put on by Shifting Stage.

Tickets $7 each.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

Yesterday wasn’t very productive. Got back from Audrey about the job, I definitely still have it, and we officially start work next week. That’s good. I tried to install a few plugins for making some extra cash and making the biz work a little more smoothly. The AMM Amazon plugin was one of them, I just need to make a new template. I’m always trying to get away from the A-Store, for the same reasons I like to run my own blog. I guess I’m something of a control-freak when it comes to this stuff. I also tried to do the PrestoGifto Cafe Press plugin again, and I couldn’t get it to work, again. The third has some promise, Instinct’s E-Commerce plugin. I’ve played with it before, it has so much to it, it’s like adding a whole other program that just happens to use the WordPress admin area. My main problem was that I was trying to do 3 things at once. I did get some groovy “a pixel’s a pixel” products on my Cafe Press store. I’ll have to add a link.

Need to do something to the index page. I think I may just condense EVERYTHING into wordpress pages, now that I’m getting into making new templates. I definitely think I’ll make Wordpress my specialty. Oh, and truejeska.com also redirects here now. I just couldn’t let it go.

Today is my first Holzer-Free day. And since we’re fast approaching the end of school, I’ll be spending it putting together my Art History portfolio & writing my paper on Time Management for Wellness (that’s a laugh- I told him that was a good subject for me), then my social-interraction for the day so I don’t get crazy-cabin-fever. Broken Up play practice at 4, then a bunch of us are going to Parkersburg to preview Civil War (This Year’s Summer Musical.)

I’m glad I’m doing Broken Up, it’s a small comedy with a perfect rehearsal schedule & it’s giving me a warm-up after my year-long theatre break. It’s also officially put me in Shifting Stage, besides “official graphic designer.” Michelle actually wrote a play with me, Steve, Eric & JD in mind- I just got done reading it, it’s weird. You can totally tell it was written for us. The main girl’s name is Jessie and she’s a 23 year old theatre major, the main guy is Adam, and he’s a 28 year old working on his English Masters. Had to change our majors from Art & Opera to not make it “too” obvious, I guess.

Okay- so I’m totally avoiding my Art History portfolio. I have a lot of notes to transfer to InDesign. Off I go. . .

The End.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

Mary Lisa just told me to check out the Puppy Site on IE. I knew what was coming. I knew that IE Didn’t like height attributes. Sure enough, spaces between the sidebar buttons. And to add to that- the height=auto was completely ignored in the css for the images. Ugh. So what do I do? Just put a “Download Firefox” button in the sidebar? Grr. . .

My only hope is that maybe it’s an issue with older versions, because the last version available for Mac was 5.2.3.

But, for future reference, I found the last version that was available for download for mac here. It was something I needed to have, I was just avoiding it.

I think I’ll download flock while I’m at school. That way I’ll have 4 browsers to check through.

Ugh.

The End.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.

Got a blessed email from MacHighway this morning about the connectivity problems I’ve been having recently! The problem wasn’t what they thought it was, but thankfully they figured it out and got it all worked out. Which is SUCH a good thing, I was on the end of my rope trying to work yesterday! I knew they’d get it fixed.

And after working with LJ yesterday I was reminded of all the reasons I went to Wordpress in the first place. It’s grown into a monster since those simple days of high school blogging. Ads. Lack of customization without paying for it. Way more features than I needed and the features I DID need I have to pay for to make it worth anything. The only thing I really care about on there is my friends list, and I have to pay to get an RSS feed of just my friends list. So we’ll just have to remember to log on.

Next week is my first Holzer-Kitchenless weekend. I’ll be spending it getting things ready for the Mason County job, and franticly trying to catch up for the end of the semester. But I have a production/payment schedule set up for the Mason County job, and the way I figured it I shouldn’t have to touch a patient tray for the entire Summer. So let’s make that my goal.

But that’s next weekend. Today is Saturday, and I think I’m on Cafeteria Duty. A half-hour of register time. *ugh*

The End.

Originally published at Wing O' The Wolf Designs, Etc. Please leave any comments there.