Archive for April, 2007

WordPress Treasure Hunt revisited: Item #1

April 30th, 2007

I came up with a brilliant plan today. I was looking over my 2007 blogging goals and noticed the second one is to blog consistently, at least 5 times a week. I haven’t been very good about it, but I thought one of the ways I could ensure I post more often is to discuss something from the WordPress Treasure Hunt every Monday. I had said I’d go back to it regularly, which I haven’t since I finished it, but now if I plan on doing it every week, I’ll get thru’ what I want to. And I might even learn something in the process.

So, today we’ll start at the top of the list with “404.” I’d found a web page that showed you not only how to create a customized web page, but also have WordPress “guess” at what the user was really asking for, and provide a list of those posts. I might try that someday, but for now I think I’ll just look at making the 404 page resemble the rest of my website.

I’ve been working on creating a new theme for my Benjamin Bratt website. Rather than start from scratch, I decided to use the Falling theme (on the right), significantly changing the colors and a few other things. To help me along the way, I used the WordPress theme guide by Urban Giraffe. (I tried to link to the Graphic Dreams website, but it’s disappeared—one of the hazards of the online community.)

I’m almost done with my theme. (If you’d like to take a sneak peek at the theme, check it out.) I still have to format some of the pages, including the 404 page. But now that the grunt work (the main page and the single post page) is done, the rest should be a piece of cake. At least, that’s the way I’m reading it in the WordPress Theme Guide by John Godbey. (Yes, I bought his book. This tutorial is so good, I thought he deserved a little reward for it. Besides, it’s nice to have something to look at away from the computer.)

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Thursday Thirteen: 13 reasons I love American Heiress

April 27th, 2007

Is it ok to post a Thursday Thirteen on Friday? I got home late from work last night, and since it was a Supernatural night, I didn’t get on the computer. So, here we go…

I haven’t watch American Idol since the initial season, and even then I didn’t watch it regularly. How many American idols can one have? Apparently as many as the tv ratings will support. Nope, on Tuesdays, you’ll find me watching American Heiress on the floundering MyNetworkTV. Why? Here’s why:

Thirteen reasons I love American Heiress

  1. I get to see Alicia Leigh Willis every week. I’ve missed her beauty, talent & bubbly persona.
  2. Alicia plays the title role and has top billing in a very large cast. Yay! \o/
  3. The show doesn’t take itself too seriously. I was hesitant to watch at first, fearing it would be horrible, but during the initial preview/teaser, I laughed out loud several times.
  4. The acting is pretty darned good. Not what you’d necessarily expect from a show casted with Really Beautiful People.
  5. Fun and funny characters abound. Some are over-the-top stereo-types and may seem little one dimensional, but there’s plenty of time for them to grow. And some are genuinely a treat to watch. Computer wiz and all-around slob Kenny (played by Christopher Bello) comes to mind.
  6. There are some great one-liners, and the cast does an terrific job of delivering them with just the right amount of sarcasm and wit.
  7. Patrick Burleigh (who plays company & family lawyer Parker Banks) is gorgeous. And he plays the part well. I wish he were in more episodes.
  8. AnnaLynne McCord has been fun to watch (except when when she attempts to sing) with her well-timed and delivered ditzy comments. And her speech about her feelings for her mother let us know that there’s more to Loren Wakefield than just a party animal.
  9. Race Owen plays a great, slimy villain. It took me a couple episodes to embrace the nastiness of Damian Wakefiled, but now for the most part, he’s quite fun to watch.
  10. John Aprea plays Lionel Wakefield, an industrial mogul with a good heart & conscience. He and Alicia have worked together before, and they have a wonderful father-daughter bond.
  11. The bantering (and chemistry) between Alicia’s Elizabeth Wakefield and pilot JD Bruce (played by Carter MacIntyre) is delightful. I find myself grinning from ear-to-ear when they’re together.
  12. Carter MacIntyre’s dimples.
  13. Carter MacIntyre, period. Although I wasn’t all that impressed with him in the previews (mostly from a looks point of view—yes, shallow, I know), I’m extremely impressed with his talent. He plays very well off Alicia, and I expect (or at least hope) we’ll being seeing more of him.

Posted in Couch Critic, Thursday 13 | Comments (0)

Fads and fads

April 22nd, 2007

You know, I don’t understand the fascination with Starbucks. The coffee is stupid expensive, and yet people go there every day to get their fix. At work, they sell the plain ol’ regular Starbucks coffee (no lattes or anything like that) and it’s quite popular, yet it’s more expensive than the regular stuff. And the regular stuff tastes better.

But yesterday I stopped into one to get a caffe mocha. I had to park on the street because the little parking lot was full. That’s ok, it was a nice day and I needed the little extra walk. Inside the store, the line was long, but it fairly quickly. Until they got to the woman in front of me. I don’t know what she wanted, but she took up a lot of the clerk’s time. In fact, by the time I was done paying, my coffee was up and getting cool. When I left, the parking lot was still full, but there were two cars idling, just waiting for someone to leave. Here’s the thing, the lot isn’t big enough to just sit. If a car is sitting in the middle, other cars can’t back out. Oh, and there’s another Starbucks about 3 blocks from this one (with an even worse parking lot.)

It just astounds me the hold that Starbucks has on people. I’m beginning to think someone needs to start be a Starbucks Anonymous.

Then, I went to a knitting shop to buy some yarn. With only one exception, everyone in the store was carrying a Vera Bradley handbag. Me included. I have several styles in different patterns sitting in my closet. And there are a few of the newer patterns and styles I’d like to have. And yet, I’m not really that big a fan of them. Whoever thought of the idea to bring out new patterns every 6 months, keep them around for a couple year, then “retire” them really thought up a marketers dream. And we all fall for it.

On another note, I went to the grocery store today, and I had a lot to buy. Before I left the house, I noticed the clock said 2:00 p.m. When I got back into the car to come home, it was 2:59. (And the clock in my car is fast!) What was my secret? I had a shopping list. I just went down the list, didn’t go down any extra aisles, and was done before I knew it. Of course, the fact that it was a beautiful and people were probably out enjoying it; there was no line to speak of at the check out.

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Spring has sprung (redux… again)

April 21st, 2007

I think spring is finally here. It’s about damn time, too!

I drove into DC yesterday. My niece was in town & we had planned to do lunch together. I’m always timid about driving into DC, and I don’t know why. It’s not like driving in Manhattan, or Italy, or even Boston. The streets are fairly well laid out, and the drivers are reasonable, for the most part. The only “hazard” this time of year is the tourists. At one of the stoplights, I looked to my left & there was the Washington Monument. And when I turned to drive up Independence Ave, the Capital loomed in front of me. It really is a terrific feeling.

My niece’s office is on Pennsylvania Ave, near the Navy Memorial. I met Kristen at the restaurant. She’d walked thru the memorial’s plaza and said they were setting up for some sort of ceremony. I figured it was probably a retirement ceremony. After lunch, we strolled into the plaza and sure enough, someone was retiring. The ceremony was just finishing up and she got to see the officer being “piped ashore.” And I was there to explain what was happening and some of the Naval traditions.

I’ve seen the Navy Memorial driving by from the street, but I never stopped to take a closer look. It’s really beautiful, especially on such a lovely, sunny day as yesterday. There are numerous fountains and pools of water, and they absolutely glistened in the sun. Even the animals were enjoying the day—I noticed a lone duck swimming in one of the pools. I have no idea where he came from. He was the only one in sight, so it’s not like there’s a flock (or whatever a group of ducks is called) resident in the area. My only regret is that I didn’t take any pictures. I had my camera with me, and yet I kept it in my purse. So I have no remebrance of the day except my memory. I really need to get back into the shutterbug habit.

Posted in Family, Military | Comments (0)

So many topics, so little blogging

April 18th, 2007

I have numerous things to write about, and yet have done no blogging for awhile. The silence has more to do with laziness and distraction than with lack of subject matter. I certainly need to relook at my blogging goals for 2007 and renew my committment to blog more regularly.

And while I’m not going to write about anything specific tonight (I’m much too distracted to try out some graphic ideas), I do want to mention the things that I do want to discuss, otherwise I’ll probably forget them. Let’s see, there’s the incident with my car key breaking in the ignition & the ridiculous cost of replacing it. There’s the beautiful trees outside my doorway that I’ve discussed before, and that are now in full bloom. There’s the two pidgeons who managed to find a cubby hole near the door of the building I work at. And of course there’s the lousy, cold weather we’ve been having. Oh, and the other entertaining television show you’re not watching.

But don’t look for me tomorrow. I doubt I’ll even be able to get on the computer. Our condo association is having its annual meeting tomorrow (ick!); and Supernatural is back with a new episode (yay!).

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Unexplainable remembering

April 9th, 2007

We have a big 4 day conference coming up, starting tomorrow, and the fellow who’s coordinating it works next to me. He’s been working late every night for quite a while. I know his pain. When I was in the Navy, I had to plan a big conference 2 years in a row. Late nights, no acknowledgement, no thanks.

The first year, I had my foot in a cast. Fortunately, it was a walking cast (crutches are evil things!), but it was still a pain, both literally & figuratively. The second year, my mom was in the final stages of her terminal illness. In fact, the idiot senior officer gave me duty the Saturday after the conference (and I worked closely with him). And that Saturday, my mom took a turn for the worse. Everyone tried to get ahold of me, but I wasn’t at home, and I wasn’t at my desk at work. When I got home Sunday morning, there were several messages on my answering machine. They had taken her to the hospital and she wasn’t very coherent. I made my plane reservations for Monday, but Sunday night my dad called to say she had passed away.

As I was thinking about that, a sudden wave of intense sadness came over me.  This was the 2nd time in as many weeks.  Even tho she’s been gone for 20 years, I’ve recently been longing for her company.  I’m not sure why I’m having these feelings again.  She died in December, not in April.  Her birthday is in February, so that’s not the trigger.  I have no answers.  I guess it’s just best to remember what a remarkable and wonderful woman she was.

Posted in Family, Work | Comments (0)

Thursday Thirteen: 13 things about me

April 5th, 2007

Well, it’s a good thing I wrote the bulk of this post during the week and saved it. I just got home from work (busy, long day) and I realized I ought to post this. So, here are…

13 things about me that those who know me might not know

  1. I lived in only one house (until I went away to school). In other words, the house my parents lived in when I was born was the same house they were living in when my mother died 36 years later.
  2. I have a Master’s degree in audiology. What? Yeah, yeah.
  3. My first car was a blue Pontiac LeMans (the decent mid-size one, not the tin can it now is) with white interior.
  4. My friends in graduate school called my car “The Tank.”
  5. Since I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, I became a Navy officer.
  6. I could have gone into the Navy’s Medical Service Corp as an audiologist. The school was only a few weekslong and I would have been commissioned a LTJG (Lieutenant Junior Grade, O-2). However, I wanted to see if I could actually make it through 4 whole months of Officer Candidate School (OCS), and was commissioned as an Ensign (O-1). I did make it, but just barely. :)
  7. I lived in Italy for 2 years. It was a hard adjustment, but now I’m grateful for the experience. I have fond memories, the food was fabulous, and the wine was cheap & plentiful.
  8. I have a second cousin who rode in and actually finished the Tour de France. (His name is Andy Bishop, and I’ve never met him, but I knew who he was before I knew I was related to him.)
  9. I love ballroom dancing but refuse to watch Dancing with the Stars. It’s too flamboyant it’s not and the music (the couple times I’ve surfed over it) usually sucks.
  10. My best features are my eyes (large & very blue), my hands (until I scarred one with the chards of a broken shower door), and my legs (until I aged & got the little veiny thing).
  11. I have no intention of getting plastic surgery. I’ve decided that age is character and character IS beauty.
  12. I’m the world’s biggest procrastinator. I still have pictures to hang in my home… and I’ve lived there for nearly 20 years!
  13. All my pets have come from the animal shelter or a rescue league. And they’ve all been spade or neutered.

Well, that’s it for this week. Since it’s danged near 8 p.m., I think I better go eat some dinner.

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