My new site appearance is now live, rather than on my staging server.

One problem with this, however, is that I haven't got my CMS to allow comments, so I am still cross-posting with LJ until I have that going.

I have once again made a major change to my site. It is based on LiveJournal's "Refried Paper" theme, but using much leaner markup. It currently resides on my staging server, if you want to check it out.

I am also once again working on my CMS, as I hope to soon expel LJ from my blogging life. Right now this entry is being cross-posted to my LJ, my CMS-in-progress, and is being handtyped on the index for my site.

I must admit, though, that I really like what I see from TextPattern, and once it is released, I may just give up on my CMS and use that. We'll see.

My Christmas went okay. I spent the day with vixenlenore, which of course meant I had a happy day. Didn't get much in the way of presents, but I get fewer and fewer every year, so that didn't bother me much.

I like LiveJournal's refried paper style, but it is quite non-symantic, so I recoded it with all the styling done using CSS. It isn't my default style yet, but you can preview it if you wish:

• recent entries
• friends
• archives

Feel free to leave comments and/or screenshots.

Update, 15:57:

After losing my old computer, I got the old Mac that Landon gave me up and running. I had originally installed Yellow Dog Linux on it, but it didn't recognize the nonstandard ethernet card. So, faced with the choice between my precious Linux and my precious Internet, I am again using the Mac OS. It isn't a bad operating system, but I am having to readjust to it. However, as I no longer am able to use PHP or MySQL locally, development on my CMS is halted for now.

I just made a small change in my site and journal templates. It won’t make a big difference to people using a graphical browser, but for people using text or voice browsers it will be nice. I moved the navigational links from the bottom of the page to the top. They will be positioned in the same place to people using CSS capable browsers, but if your browser can’t handle my style sheets they will be at the top of the page. A visible change, however: I moved the validation badges to the footer, as most people won’t know what they are anyway.

Jennifer, Mike, and I just watched a Dead Kennedy’s video. It was an early Christmas present from Erik; it made me happy. But not as happy as vixenlenore makes me.

My site as viewed in Lynx.

Also, I love vixenlenore very much.

• Working:
  • Viewing entries
  • Viewing comments
    • (including threaded comments)
  • Posting comments
  • Perma-Links
  • RSS feeds
  • Going back past the entries shown on the main page
    • (This feature will need to be tidied up, however.)
• Still needed:
  • Posting entries
  • Going back past the entries shown on the main page
  • User registration, login screen, and info updating
  • RSS feeds
  • Session control
  • Simple management of preferences (including HTML templates)
  • Code cleanup
• Planned for future releases:
  • Calendar
  • Categories

I know I have said it before, but I am making quite a bit of progress on my homegrown CMS. Having my own computer running Linux is helping quite a bit since it lets me preview my work without worrying about uploading. Once it is complete I will make the source publicly available, perhaps try to get it listed on Sourceforge. I am currently working on creating a RSS feed going so LJers can still read my entries.

With my lack of a job, I am about to have to give up my powerhouse computer. I am getting it from RentACenter, but can not afford the payment, which is due in two days. I am trying to install Yellow Dog Linux (a Mac version of Red Hat) on the old Mac that Landon gave me. I don’t know if it will work though.

My apartment is turning into the place people come to get drunk. It is quite annoying. I don’t guess I have too much room to talk, as I have drank a couple of times lately myself, but it would be nice to live somewhere that doesn’t turn into a flophouse for once in my life.

While at the store earlier, I was approached to sign a petition. Haltom City is a dry city. It always has been. But now there is a petition to legalize sale of beer and wine in city limits. Although I occasionally drink, I will be voting against it.

A bit of history: Most of the land that is now Haltom City was once owned by one man, a fellow named Haltom. Being a fairly nice guy, he donated it to become Haltom City. He didn’t ask for money, fame, even a political position. The only stipulation he placed on the donation was that alcohol not be sold in city limits, to which the Texas government agreed. I know that was around 150 years ago, but it seems to me to be a matter of honor; the state government made an agreement and it should still be honored.

Have an opinion? ( Vote in my poll! )Vote in my poll!

I am a bit miffed at Wells Fargo. The other day I checked my account balance online to make sure I had enough to cover my check for rent; I did, so of course I wrote them the check. A couple of days later I checked my balance again; while the rent check hadn’t hit, something else had, so I was going to be ten dollars short. No big deal, I deposited it in cash to ensure that it would be immediately credited to my account. Well, yesterday I got an “insufficient funds” notice in the mail; apparently the check for rent hit my account in the half hour between when I noticed and when I deposited the money. That isn’t supposed to happen; checks credit in the middle of the night.

Okay, so far I am a bit annoyed. The worst part is the $27 fee for a returned check that I really needed to pay my rent, especially since I am now going to have a late fee. I call the bank and tell them they messed up somehow, and I would like my fee returned. After about thirty minutes (might have been more, but it was at least thirty as an entire episode of Simpson’s came and left) on hold I am told that it was my fault and I can not have my fee returned.

Tomorrow I am closing my account

Also tomorrow, Shell is supposed to call me and tell me when I am to show up to orientation. I am looking forward to this job, and not just because I need a job (although that is the main reason); I have always wanted a graveyard shift job, and now I am going to have one. Much fun.

I made quite a bit of progress coding my own CMS last night, so hopefully soon I can use my own rather than LiveJournal’s. LJis all good and all, but I don’t feel like I have enough control over it, and don’t like having to pay to customize my HTML. Once I have it going I will create a syndicated feed so that other LJers can keep me on their friends list.

Mike annoys me. This is all.

I am going to work graveyard at Shell. They are supposed to call me Monday and tell me when to show up for orientation.

Last night was fucked up. I have detailed it in a protected entry as I don’t think Jennifer would want the entire world to read about it.

Out of a five day long Bond marathon I didn’t see one full movie. Part of it was because Jennifer’s friend’s grandmother died, and she was like family to Jennifer. I had to go to the viewing and funeral with her for support. That doesn’t bother me one bit. But the rest of it was annoying stuff that could have easily waited. I love Bond and it sucks that I missed it. Ugh.

I updated to Red Hat 9 and most of my problems have gone away. My sound card, for example, is working now. I still can’t get CD’s or DVD’s to play, but I bet that is something that I can easily fix.

7-Eleven is supposed to call me back tomorrow and let me know if I have the job or not. I am going to get a job tomorrow one way or another. Erik is probably moving out soon and I will need a job to pay rent. I need one bad. And I need to get it soon because the closer to Christmas we are the the harder it will be to get one.

Spike TV is running a five-day long Bond marathon. I haven't been this happy about television in ages!

Jennifer and I had another fight today. I love her. I really do. But sometimes she just pisses me off! Not enough that I regret being with her or anything like that, she just sometimes gets on my last nerve. But the fact that that doesn't in any way make me wonder if I should be with her or not is proof enough that I love her, I suppose.

I am getting a bit annoyed with my system. I have downloaded a couple of RPMs from FreshMeat that I would like to install, but there seem to be various other packages that are not installed and I have no idea what are, much less where to find. Perhaps it is because I am running RedHat 8. However, I found a great site that sells various Linux distributions for practically nothing and should be receiving the upgrade soon. I actually downloaded the images for the 3 CD install, but then I couldn't get my burner software to recognize them. After logging out then back in under KDE, I found that they were too large for my black discs anyway. Grrr…

I have only been unemployed for three days and I already have an interview scheduled. It is at 7-Eleven. It would be nice to have a job where I do not have to worry as much about customer service (i.e. delivery time and the such); not to mention, I have always wanted a graveyard shift job, and that is prolly what I am going to get. Huzzah!

I just got fired. I wasn't thinking it would be me, but I was wrong.

Papa John's has a catalog where you can order stuff like jackets, hats, and other random stuff with the logo on it. I took money from people in the store and was going to do an order with my check card. However, it would seem that the person who took it billed it to the store rather than my card. Apparently, Joan is under the belief that I was attempting to steal the money I collected or something, and fired me. I attempted to pay her (or the company, however you look at it) back, but she didn't even seem to care. I guess it was all very convienant for her.

The worst part is why this all came about in the first place. You have to understand that Joan is a sexist pig. My old manager got drunk with her at one point and she told him how the company shits on women and how she was going to fix it or something. That was a while back. Fast forward a couple of months from there; when I (having worked there for almost six months) went to training to become a shift leader, half of what I was doing at the training store was training Sunshine and her mother. Sunshine is now a GM and her mother is an assistant manager. They were both hired from outside the company in as assistant managers, and highly paid assistant managers, at that.

Now, I am being replaced out of convienance by someone from another district, who was either a driver or pizza-maker. She is also a woman. To the best of my knowledge, I am actually the only male to recive any kind of a promotion under Joan's regime.

I am suing. Seriously. I have put my heart and soul into that company for over a year, and one way or another, Papa John's is going to pay my rent.