Mine Road

Well all of my rent issues seem to have been taken care of as of Monday so I will be moving my bed, dresser, and secondary computer desk to Columbus on Sunday with Tom. Which is a huge weight off of my shoulders as I can start settling in up there and get a “work pattern” established. Now some of you may be saying “what is a work pattern?” right now. Now I’m sure that there is a much more technical term for this but it is what I call getting into a 10-6 schedule and forcing yourself to be productive. This may sound funny to all of you who work at somewhere other than your home but to me it is very hard. I have a 15 step commute from my bedroom to my “office” and it is quite a job to actually work. Especially when 20 things need to be done around the house or the tv, xbox, phone, book, etc. are calling to you all the time.

So what is the title of your post about anyway, Nick? All you’ve talked about so far is the fact that you don’t have the willpower to make yourself work and that you are moving some stuff from one place in Ohio to another. Well, that is totally correct, but as some of you know I live in two different places. I hold a residence in Columbus, Ohio as well as Steubenville, Ohio as I had mentioned in an earlier post. This is normally a really nice thing until weeks like this pop up. I forgot both my business and personal checkbooks in Steubenville and had to drive back there to pick them up. A 3 hour drive normally won’t affect me much but today it just seemed to drain the life from me. I think this is due to the fact that I had to drive out to Mary Rutan Hostpital in Bellefontaine on Monday already this week. But, alas, that is how my life works and it seems to fit the title of traveling salesman.

On a more computer related note it seems that MacWorld has been good to all of the Apple zealots around the world (including myself). They came out with a $499 Mac called the Mac mini and a new version of the iPod call the iPod Shuffle. I plan on purchasing the iPod Shuffle sometime in the next week or two and will try and have a review handy for everyone to read soon after said purchase. I think I’ll also pick up a Mac mini in the next 6 months as well. My old macs are unable to run the newest versions of Safari last I checked so I need a more up to date “test” machine to check my browser compatibility issues.

This last little bit goes out to Reyhan Dhuny who was wondering what happened to my layout. I had installed the Zen layout by Michee Rose when I first put WordPress up in order to get rid of the default layout you currently see as to spruce things up a bit. I took down that layout because I didn’t think it reflected what I wanted this site to feel like. I am in the process of building a template for this site between work on client sites and should have it up sometime next week if all goes well. I’ll make sure to post a screen shot of it when I get a finalized look nailed down in Photoshop.

Today I while wondering the blogosphere I ran into a link from Brainstorms&Raves to this article over at molly.com which although I seem to be about a month late in reading was interesting. It is an interesting reflection on the web design community’s view on web standards after Web Design World 2004.

On a side note I don’t think I’ve ever spent more time just cleaning a bathroom and kitchen as I did tonight. Oh well it’ll just be minor cleaning and upkeep from now on though.

Well, I just got some lovely news a little bit ago. It seems that the house I was going to move into with my friends just got put up for auction because our landlord missed some payments and foreclosed on their loan. So instead of the “Why is your site called Mine Road?” ramble I was going to write for today I’m going to write this out of sheer annoyance. This auction would be so bad if a) we had known about it before a few days ago b) if our landlord hadn’t said it was taken care of and wouldn’t be happening and c) if it wasn’t TOMORROW. Yes, you heard right boys and girls my place in Columbus is being auctioned off tomorrow. This is more than slightly annoying as I had planned on having a domicile in that area for the next 6 months. I have already told clients I would be available to them as a resident of Columbus at least 2 weeks a month. I was also looking forward to being in a city slightly larger and more cultured than the one I currently reside in (Steubenville, OH) at least half of the month. Not to mention that my friends would have been my roommates and good times would have been had for all. We may all get lucky though and the person who buys the house will allow us to stay at the current rent until the end of the lease. Well I really should get back to work now as I have to get some designs done before the end of the day.

At one time that motto above ruled most of my life, especially the part that dealt with my “blogging” and writing. I often did this because I never felt that I had anything of interest to say and that if I did no one would really read it. To be honest that is still as true today as it was in 1998 or so when I first start my venture into the world of blogging. Back then it was called an “online diary” and I hand edited it instead of using programs like WordPress and I enjoyed it much more. But then what is better to an angst ridden teenager than being able to share his angst with the rest of the world? Now I am slightly less angst ridden (or so I like to think) and coming up on my 23rd birthday in 16 days. The reason for writing has changed though. I’ve found that since graduating from college last year my written skills have begun to deteriorate at an unparalled rate. I am pretty sure that this is because I don’t have four or so papers a week due anymore and tend to only write in response to emails and to comment snippets of code. So in an effort to curb the deterioration, share some of my life and maybe even a little bit of Internet lore with those who happen to stumble upon this site I have started this little project.

So to anyone who reads this I hope you enjoy it and welcome to mineroad.com and a little window into my life.