12.31.01 - Last chance to get any comment(ary/s) in before the new year!

First of all, the remainder of my car journey across the southwest was wonderful and relatively problem free (excepting a minor bumper battle in my X's driveway in Springdale, AR... as Mr. Goodwin pronounced: "I thought you two had worked these little things out!"). Driving weather was beautiful, even though I was hoping and praying for the snow storm of the century to keep us (B. & me) locked into Santa Fe until about March. While the snows didn't happen, the luminarias of Sante Fe made up for any possible disappointment as Christmas eve was absolutely beautiful!
 

4500 miles later, we're back in dear ol' San Francisco Bay Area. While nice to be home, I'm already thinking of my next major drive.

Plans for this site for next year include [finally] getting some of my personal pages built -- photos of old artwork, jewelry and sculpture design -- and implementing a good glossary of terms commonly encountered on web pages discussing anything Internet, graphic, computer or networking related. That'll be an industrious endeavor, but I've just about got all of the terms and definitions in order, now just to code the pages and implement a search tool.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to a fantastic 2002 and hope any who may read this are doing the same... will enjoy the same! Not sure we've really seen the bottom of the Dot-Dust-Bust or the recession, but I do believe it'll start showing signs of repair early in the year and this silly Web thingy should show some signs of stabilization and healing as well. I'll certainly continue to make my little "ant that could" efforts toward bringing sense and rationality to all of my clients' projects. Happy New Year to all...!

12.13.01 - OK, this "site chronology" just became a little more comprehensive... now including something of a journal of my travels by car across the southwest to Arkansas and back via Santa Fe, NM. The plan being to pick up Bonnie at DFW on the 20th, swing up through Wichita Falls, TX, then on to Santa Fe for Christmas. (I'm not so secretly praying to get snowed in there!)

Left S.S.F. at 3:45am morning of the Dec. 12. All things were perfect... had spent weeks before preparing and making sure my car was up to the miles, weather was clear, traffic light. I was making excellent time. Somewhere, at about 11:45am and somewhere about 70 miles east of Barstow in Rt.40, I threw the pulley wheel on the power steering unit. Got off the highway within a quarter mile on a safe expanse of gravel on the shoulder.

At 12:55, Dave, my AAA tow truck driver arrived, loaded me up on his flat-bed, and off we went back to Barstow. An arduous hour and a half plus later, we arrived at Barstow Tire & Tow. Dave, by the way was not the cause of ardor — no, it was a governor on the truck that kept us to a monotonous 65m.p.h. the entire 70 miles back to Barstow. Any who've been on that stretch of road know what I mean. Dave, an energetic and cheery young man, five years in CA from Iowa, was a good traveling companion. We spent the time chatting on several subjects, not to the exclusion of 9/11, its aftermath, and concerns for Middle Eastern people living in the U.S. being targets of hate crimes. A good man, Dave.

After thinking I wasn't getting the attention from the repair folks at Barstow Tire & Tow, I discovered Jerry, the manager was in fact diligently doing everything he possibly could to get me back on the road. Unfortunately, the part wasn't available yesterday, and not I sit in Rm. 148 of Motel 6, waiting for good news on the fix. Jerry seem hopeful that a wrecking yard will have the part locally and it'll be on my '96 Olds Ciera within the hour.

Barstow is a sleepy little big town surrounded by military bases. Everywhere you look, you find young men in Army or Marine's camouflage fatigues driving around. Weather's beautifully clear and crisp this morning, and after a rotten night of feeling defeat (I so wanted to get back on my way last night!), I'm excited again, and ready to get on with this little adventure. After all, I did call it that from the beginning — not since my days as a young "hippy" have I been on such a journey without the benefit of flight — and it's certainly turning out to be just that.

11.11.01 - Update Resume and Client List.

11.10.01 - Update to Portfolio to include new Tower of Faith site (live date: 11.10.01).

10.07.01 - Updated Portfolio with the new release of CommunityCare Foundation's Web site (09.16.01). There's also been some additions to the Home page over the last month or so. Added an "Almost Daily Pic" (ADP) section with updated, small images taken with a digital camera and reduced to a consistent size & aspect ratio — a multi-phased experiment for myself by challenging me to continually look for "images" as I go through daily and sometimes mundane activities, look at scenes and image capgures with an eye toward the final rendering presented on the Home page, and to play with keeping a visual journal of sorts. There's also a small acknowledgement to emotions of the time — aftermath of 9.11 WTC attack.

08.31.01 - Finally! Got around to updating the Portfolio section of Seidel & Associates. A long time coming, but worth the wait. The YWCA in Santa Clara Valley site was a large but fulfilling project. Lots of functionality, including secure donation forms to wrap my head around and is a great showcase for YWCA, YMCA and other nationally affiliated Web sites in general. The new NWACF site is amongst the line-up, and a new member to the client list is Espresso Garden & Cafe, an absolutely wonderful little acoustic music venue in San Jose specializing in folk, blue grass and jazz.

08.16.01 - First issue of CONZZ_ARCHIVES (Web Info Newsletter for The Rest of Us!) has been distributed and the newsletter archive posted to the Library.

08.06.01 - Took in a "road show." Lynda.com came to SF for a little one-day seminar in cahoots with Aquent. How can I say this without seeming like a self-absorbed tinker?... ok, I can't. So I'll just say it. I had trepidations! I wanted to attend this event (enough to pay the fee!) but wasn't sure I was ready for sitting through another Web industry maven's self inflation. But the title was Art and Usability in Web Design, so on the outside chance I might actually learn something new, I trucked on up to my old stomping grounds. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. Lynda Weinman is as genuine as they get and had a bundle of heart on top of technique and style to share with attendees. OK, here's the self-absorbed part: she said so many things I've been thinking and saying about the state of the state regarding things Webbie and designey – only it comes with some substantial impact when said by the Queen of Web Design. Oh yeah, I did learn a couple new tricks as well. Her co-presenter, Bruce Heavin had some really clever Photoshop tricks up his sleeve too.

08.05.01 - A few additions/corrections to the 'ol résumé.

08.03.01 - New release of YWCA in Santa Clara Valley uploaded and taken live. More to come, but a little local press and a bit of controversy made going "live" a priority over completed content!

07.26.01 - Hmmm, slow to update, aren't I? Well, good or no, I do have reasons: it's summer and I'm researching childhood... again; I'm spending time at the keyboard updating client sites instead of my own; picked up Rob't Ludlum and Tom Robbins books to read instead of JavaScript Bible; and took a little "r&r&r" (rest, relaxation, & recon) trip to S.W. Montana.

Now, not to be accused of spending the whole summer just messing about, I have finished two new sites (McRoskey Airflex Mattress Co. and Northwest Arkansas Community Foundation) that I still need to get samplings of loaded into the S&A portfolio pages. Others in progress are new releases for CommunityCare Foundation and YWCA of Santa Clara Valley.

But for the moment...

06.23.01 - Bird babies...

Actually left the nest today, fluttering away under a watchful parent's tutelage, one by one. No eagles these, but a valiant effort nonetheless and after fluttering 3 stories down to the ground, mama shuffled them off to a new nest in the bushes where I can hear them chirping away even now.
     Production-wise, updates to the portfolio client list have been made — decided to just take the link off of sites that have either been removed from their server or have gone under the knife of a different web designer with little resemblance left to their former state.

06.18.01 - Whoa! Where do the time go??? Hadn't realized it'd been that long sinc I upated, but it's been a haul. I've been to Customer Service Hell, DSL Hell, PacBell Hell, and believe it or not, USPO Hell. But I'm b-a-a-a-a-a-ck!
     So, while I haven't been doing much related to this particular site, I've been working on several new client sites. I'll post later to update this and the portfolio pages. But for now, suffice to say, I've worked remotely, been humbled by 24000kbps baud rates, and learned that the post office can get really anal about that little Dymo stickie thing that keeps falliing off your mail box! The latest "this is kinda cool" news is the family of bird babies that've hatched outside the front entrance to the Seidel & Assoc. World Domination Headquarters.

04.27.01 - Added a Utilities section to the Library.

04.26.01 - Finally! A solution to IE5's (Mac) poor translation of css style sheet font size instructions. You have to use px sizes for fonts, not pt — like every other browswer uses! — in order for Mac's IE5 to properly render the font. Jeez, will there ever be an end to the browser incapabilities???

04.22.01 - Addition to Seidel & Associates > Portfolio page.

04.15.01 - Easter! Decided to take the Easter Bunnie for a hike in the hills of Palo Alto. Yes, I had to reassure her we were in Palo Alto! Why?

04.12.01 - Seidel & Assoc. World Domination Headquarters nears completion!

04.11.01 - Completed writing template for Search Results page.

04.07.01 - Plugged in to AtomZ's hosted search engine. I've used this on client sites before and it's cool... their engine indexes and provides search functionality, ability to re-index, free (although you can remove AtomZ's branding for a small annual fee), it's fast, it works, you can embed the results page into your own template, and, oh yeah, did I mention it was free?

03.30.01 - Reviewing plans for world domination.

03.29.01 - Job seeking individual taking lunch while working on résumé and networking with other Palo Alto professionals!

03.27.01 - Some adjustment to my résumé cover letter.

03.26.01 - Project at Charitableway ends. A sad day as a truly great team bids farewell to move on in their individual directions in life. Here's to staying in touch gang! And "thank you" for the experience!

03.20-26.01 - Little tweeks and adjustments. And a hearty "thank you" to Bonnie Morgan for her eye for detail and incredible editing skills.

03.19.01-09:30pm - Finished the IA document and uploaded all files concerned.

03.18.01 - More work on the IA document, and some massaging of my cover letter and résumé.

03.17.01 - Happy St. Patrick's Day! However instead of massive quantities of some greenish brew I spent the evening re-writing the information architecture document that I want to post in the library.

03.16.01 - gathering together all of the images for personal portfolio is taking more time than I would have thought.

Meanwhile, the last days at Charitableway continue to tick off. And the engineers set about finishing their projects...

03.15.01 - worked on Aquent profile and images for upcoming personal portfolio.

03.13.01-12:30am - added more pages and artwork to the web graphics portfolio.
- Charitableway finally hit the pages of "fuckedcompany.com" today. What maroons! No one internal at CWay submitted anything, just a bunch of pimply faced ravers with nothing else to do than rant about something they know absolutely nothing about.

03.12.01-10:00pm - thank God for good friends - updated edits by Bonnie Morgan and Bronwyn Belling.

03.12.01-08:00am - upload to production.

03.11.01-10:30pm - edits, create necessary pages so there's no broken links and prepare for upload to production tomorrow.

03.11.01-01:30pm - edit and correct pages w/Bonnie Morgan.

03.10.01-05:30pm - just added "stuff" pages and header images, spent several hours here without human contact or solid food.

03.09.01-06:00am - add chronography page, image for chrono.

03.08.01-11:30pm - put a few finishing touches on Seidel & Assoc., photo session with rubber duck models — two with bad attitudes, one on uppers, and one just too young and with the attention span of string cheese... remind me never to use that modeling agency again — and imaging for S&A.

03.05.01 - getting closer. Have most of Seidel & Assoc. ready and most of the portfolio for that section in place.

03.03.01 - conzz.com has suffered from a "cobbler's kids have no shoes" syndrome long enough. Time to evolve.

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