Well, the website I was putting together for that guy's business is finished.
It's not the best looking page since he wanted a dark background... he even mentioned marble. Things like dark backgrounds or marble backgrounds aren't considered very professional in web site design. Yeah, I know this site is garnet and black with dark gray cells, but it's also not a business webpage.
Needless to say, I was shooting for a pretty basic look. Nothing too fancy... CSS so that I could get some right and left padding on the text and rollover javascript is about as complex as this page got.
I wasn't thrilled about putting the animated button right in the middle of the welcome page, but he insisted that it be easier for his customers to get to the Black Oxide parts images. I guess I understand since a lot of people don't take the time to read web pages and a picture says a thousand words, but I think the button right in the middle looks worse than the page did without it.
He did say he was pretty happy with the page though, so that's a good thing.
When temperatures are in the lower 70's, how could you not get some Spring yardwork done?
I leveled off an eyesore of a hill where the previous owner of our house collected 6 years of grass clippings. I think he was trying to make mulch, but never used it. I also sprayed our shrubs for whiteflies, put down some pre-emergent weed killer on the lawn and watered that in pretty well, and pruned back our crepe myrtle out front. Christina also pruned our holly bush out back so that you can see the trunk structure underneath. It's quite... bonzai.
Sunday was spent inside and we got some Spring cleaning done in there also and I re-caulked the shower in our bathroom since it was getting bad.
Well, it's my hour to escape work, so that's all for now.
We decided not to fight the crowds and do the restaurant thing this year for Valentine's Day and stayed home instead.
I took Friday afternoon off to run a couple errands and had the time to catch a few innings of our home opener for Carolina baseball. It was a nice sunny 60 degree day on Friday.
3,800 for an opening day crowd was pretty good. We won 3-2... much closer than it should have been. The other two games on Saturday and Sunday were rainy and cold. Didn't make it to those games. We won on Saturday 38-0. There should be better mercy rules, 38-0 is just sick. Sunday we won 3-1. Not bad to start a season with a sweep.
And the basketball team got their 20th win of the season by beating Vandy on Saturday. 1/2 game behind Kentucky for the SEC East title!
Well, Christina doesn't have kidney stones... that's a good thing. She's been in some pain from time to time for about a week so she went in and the doctor thought it might be kidney stones so she had xrays done. No stones!
Also, check out the icicle picture my mom sent me. That's at least half way down the height of the back door of the house. But you can't see the end of it because it's cut off in the picture by the pump house in the foreground.
Well, the monitor came and looks great! I can't believe the guy's selling them for $200 less than they cost brand new from Dell. The only difference between buying it from him and from Dell... his shipping label was stuck on top of Dell's UPS label when they shipped it to him. And he still has 14 of them left. Amazing.
We're using it for a PC monitor for now during the off season, but eventually it'll be used for tailgating or mounted up in the corner of the game room.
I figured it would only be fair since I got a vday present yesterday that I give Christina hers too. I figured vday is supposed to be about love so I got her some of her loves. A gift card to Books A Million, a couple bigger paint brushes for large canvases, a DVD she's been wanting (Underworld), and a huge 4' x 3' canvas. She's been wanting to paint something on a bigger scale for a while and now that I have a vehicle that I can actually fit one of those things in, I thought she'd like it.
Not sure if we're doing anything else... we may make reservations for Melting Pot (fondue), but we're not sure yet.
Went out last night and had a pretty good time. Hadn't went out with friends in a while either. Christina didn't go, though that's probably a good thing since I doubt she would have made it until 3:30am anyway. Long day today though, that's for sure. Thank goodness it's Sunday.
I've been digging through our knee-wall storage lately looking for things to sell on Ebay. So far I've made over $140 on there selling stuff in the last couple weeks that I never used anyway. Plus another $150 selling things to people at work that I didn't use like a receiver and TV and DVD player.
Probably a good thing though since Christina decided to get me that Dell monitor on Ebay as a Vday present. I got that monitor and a cantilever wall mount arm on Ebay for a combined $607. Not bad considering that monitor retails for $699 and the arm retails for $129. I can't wait until tailgating this season.
Today's been a lazy day though of laundry, lunch at Flying Saucer, washing the cars, going to the store, and more laundry. Exciting, eh?
Long week already I guess. We had some people over for the Superbowl Sunday, but had 4 that couldn't make it, so it wasn't as big as we had planned. Still managed to finish off most of the beer though... which explains why it's been such a long week perhaps.
I've also started working on a website for a guy from the Gamecock forums. He has a metal coating business in northern South Carolina and his page was a wreck, so I am designing a new one and working with him to get a better web hosting company for his site. The new one should be much better and I'm making $500 for doing it, so that's not too bad. A little mad money I suppose.
It does cut into free time though and there are two thoughts on work and life. Usually you either work for life or live for work. I try to do the prior... just get my paycheck so that I can live my life. But I thought with web design it's something I already know how to do, I'm on the computer anyway, and it's more of a form of art or expression really than manual labor. So, I agreed to do his page. And I don't really do any side work... kind of odd. I think down the road (if he gives referrals to others) that I'd like maybe 5-6 of these jobs a year in total. Not enough to keep me busy all the time, just something to give me a little extra money for gadgets and such.
Like this gadget:
It's a 17" LCD TV from Dell that would work really well for tailgating. I've found one on Ebay for about $170 less than what Dell is charging. The cool thing is that it's still sealed in the factory box and comes with the 1-year warranty. The dealer on there is selling 26 of them at the lower price. We'll see though.
Speaking of flat panels, I got one at work recently! Kind of a surprise too. There were two extras from a big server order we had and my boss gave them to me and Marty, the woman I work with. It's a nice, sharp 17" black Dell flat panel monitor. My desk at work still feels bare!
Not a lot else going on... the new truck is still driving great. We absolutely love it. Well, everything except the gas mileage. I swear I can watch the needle drop as I drive... and on top of that, it takes 91 octance minimum. Which means the 93 octance premium price. I filled up for the first time and I have never put $29 worth of gas into any vehicle ever. I imagine I'll get used to that though in time.
Also, I've been telling everyone about this because it's a pretty good service. If you're not intimidated by doing your own taxes, check out http://www.taxact.com. Their standard software is free online (though I prefer to download it from their website, but either works). It's an interview based tax software, so you answer questions and it fills out the form for you. Quite comprehensive also.. it didn't miss any of our itemized deductions.
