Wow. Is this thing still here? I’ve been notified that it’s been a while since I posted last. Guess I should update, huh?

Work

Work is busy. Really busy. We’re moving to new software package to manage pretty much everything at work. That wouldn’t normally be a huge deal for me, since I don’t work with donors or accounting or missionaries. But…

There’s a ton of stuff that will go on the web. So I’m in—we’re redoing the missionary portal to give them easier access to all of their data. It’s a big project. Other big work projects: website realignment, two ministry websites, a very-custom blog (though that actually just launched (still have some tweaking to do), and some other stuff I can’t remember right now.

Side Job

I don’t just do web stuff at work—I also do freelance web design. Right now, I’m mostly contracting with Asta’s employer. We launched a site late last month—some good pro bono work. (note to self: put together a portfolio area of the site.) I’ve also done a couple of small projects for them, updating various files and such, and we’re pretty close on two more sites.

I’m also redoing our church’s site—linked is the current site. It’ll be going away, soon, hopefully. The church has a new logo and has some cool collateral, so it’d be nice to unify a bit. Plus, the new site will be a ton easier to update. It’s functionally there; we’re working on content right now.

The rest of life: biking

I got a 2007 Trek 3700 mountain bike earlier this summer and have been riding it all over the place. We’re close to a bunch of trails, and I think I remember reading that Minneapolis has been ranked one of the best urban mountain biking areas in the country. There’s a really good community online (and on the trails, too.) Plus, we moved closer to work at the beginning of the summer—I’m 2.5 miles from the office now—so I ride my bike in as often as possible. The weather’s not been cooperating lately for mountain biking, but when it does, it’s great.

In conclusion

So maybe I’ll keep updating the site—hopefully so, but my life is pretty boring. Let me know if there’s something you want to hear about.

If you’re using one of my RSS Feeds (Atom or RSS 2.0), you may have had some… interesting… things come across. I’ve been working on integrating the photo feed and the main feed, and tried to just “wing it.” Don’t wing it. It’s not a good thing. It means people who read your site in feed readers get weird messages coming through, not the articles you want them to get.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me. It should all be good now.

So I've been away for a while. Part of that is due to a new version of Movable Type and working on changes to the site related to that. Part of it is sheer laziness.

And part of it is because I got a new camera. A couple of Saturdays ago, Asta and I bought a new Pentax *IST DL. It's so cool. Related to that, the "Photography" link at the top of the page now works. Keep in mind that this section is very much under construction, and while it works now, I'm hoping to make it a bit more photo-album-like in the coming weeks. If you've got any suggestions, let me know. For now, there's just a couple of pictures there, but that will grow.

And if you feel like it, head on over. Let me know what you think!

I haven't been writing diligently.

It's something that I try to reinforce to the people I work with as important, but I'm not doing such a great job of it myself.

I don't think that a lack of time has anything to do with it. Part of it's just laziness. Writing is hard, and I've got other, easier things that I'd rather do. Part of it is intimidation. I read some of my friends' blogs, and I know that I'm not as good a writer as them (ignoring the fact that some of them were English writing majors). And I feel that if I'm not a good writer, then I may as well not bother.

It's not as if I don't have things that I'm passionate enough to write about (even good writing!) It's more that I have trouble articulating them. And I read enough in a day (I have about 60 sites in my RSS reader--somewhere around 100-150 posts a day) to have SOMETHING to talk about (or at least link to).

No, I think that the biggest problem is that the part that I love is already over by the time I'm ready to start writing. I've designed the site, made all the graphics, and written my HTML and CSS. I've incorporated some of the cool tricks that I have learned and keep on finding out about. And writing seems so much less... fun... than all that nerdy goodness.

With all of that in mind, I'm not really sure what to do. I'd like to get a nice digital camera (though I'm not sure if by nice I mean "a small point-and-shoot" or I mean a digital SLR that I can fuss with settings until I'm happy with pictures) and post some pictures. I'd like to write more, because practice and critique is the only way to get better at something. And I'd like to design more, but as fun as it is, it's time consuming and I've not yet learned how to "be creative." I'm afraid that I'll run out of ideas.

If anyone has any advice, I'd love to hear it. That is, if anyone's still reading. And if you are, sorry for this post. Next time will be something fun, whenever that is.

I know it's been a while. I hope there's still someone reading this. If you just happen to be stumbling on this for the first time (or, since it's been a while, you want to know if I'm really going to keep this up), here's the low-down. (If you don't want to read anything below this, here's the uber-condensed version: I'm going to update this on a regular basis, and not everything works yet. For the rest of you, read on.)

The blog

1. I work for a large non-profit. Lately, I've been offering a "Blogging 101" class to a number of the people in the company, and I've broken my cardinal rule: update regularly. That's largely the impetus of the site.

2. I also do web design "on the side." Since I only work part-time for the aforementioned non-profit, I would like to do more web design. Hence, this site should (hopefully) showcase my work.

3. I'm hoping to update this site at least daily. I visit a lot of websites in a day, so many posts may be links that I think are cool.

3. I'm a nerd. Blogging lets me be nerdy.

The rest

4. Some of the links and sections on this site aren't ready yet. Witness the three links at the top: About, Photography, and Resume. None of them work yet. The key word here is yet, and the hope is that the "yet" won't be a long yet.

5. If there's something you feel like I'm missing, please let me know. I'd love to add things that people want.