The Time Sink

Well, weeks like last week, when I'm sickly and whiny and brain dead make it real easy to set up the "ToDo" list: all I have to do is roll over last week's <g>. ...other than this week is a three-day week for me. ...but considering the number of people on vacation, it's usually a little light.

...and I could use 'light'; I made it through the weekend, but only with copious quantities of water and lots of sleep. I may have progressed to the 'cough' stage of this thing and that would almost be okay. ...but there are still Things to Do at home and Things I'm Behind On at work, so a little catchup is in order.

I did get to play some with Amphetadesk as linked by Dave on Saturday. It's cool enough, but I need to see how to cut down on the number of entries per site. ...and next up on the test bed is Blogrolling; I haven't given it run yet, but it's been well received in the blogging community. I suspect I'll find a use for both in one fashion or another...

Cold this morning... Yeah, the first time this season that I actually wondered where my gloves were when I got in the car. ...and realized I'll have to get a jacket out soon. I think they said it was 40F or so...

That wasn't enough to keep back the fog. It was socked down just west of the house and really bad on the way in. That could be a bit of a challenge for Thanksgiving when we have to travel down the valley a bit.

...and for those keeping score at home, it's Cold 7, Dan 0.5 (maybe). Brad's better, but I'm having a time of it with coughing and lack of sleep. Things went better today, so here's hoping for tonight!

Since last week, I've been using a different HTML editor, a little gem called EditPlus. A friend recommended it to me, saying she even used it to hack away at Cold Fusion site work. Well, NoteTab had just issued an update; and while I'm pretty darned happy with CoffeeCup's product line for for the Win32 environment, it never hurts to see what's out there. Coupled with the fact I don't have a Linux box out here in the kitchen yet (and Bluefish for web work in that sandbox) and it's a Good Time to test things out.

Short version: good enough to run the trial copy out through the allotted thirty days (the NoteTab update didn't survive the weekend: nothing really new and the lack of an FTP client is a killer for me).

Not so short version: one of those paradigm shift things, like the spell checker having to be invoked rather than having it live. ...and different hot keys. But adding to the fun are things like auto-complete for HTML tags and a better 'view in browser' system than I'm used to. So far all my Daynotes for this week (and last week's page flip) have been handled here. I haven't done much on the blog, but what I did do worked well enough once I figured out the FTP system. I'll know a bit more when I archive over there. ...and do some site development. ...and then try some other wackiness with a splash page. ...but for now, if you're a hand-coder, it's worth a look.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you here from the states. ...and Happy Thursday to everyone here from everywhere else!

Yep, it's an "over the river and through the woods day"; we'll head off to Shelley's father's place for the game and a meal and some chat and a whole bunch of dessert! ...and then back home to allow Shelley some time to rest up for her very big day tomorrow. Yep, she's off shopping once again! ...leaving the men folk at home to deal with the trees and decorations and all that fun stuff.

...and here's hoping that we don't have good weather: last year it was so sunny I couldn't even tell where the lights ended up on the outside trees until nightfall. Hmmm... I wonder if wishing for a foggy day is a Bad Thing?

...or not. It's clear and cool here today, but neither of us is out yet. Up maybe; but out, no. Shelley's nose attacked us both last night with much drainage and coughing and Great Inconvenience. ...and to such an extent she's still reading the paper and I'm wondering how to hang the next 20 ounces of latte as an IV drip.

Sheesh. OTOH, it is a nice day outside. Maybe we'll both spread our Friday projects over today and tomorrow. ...or maybe I'll see about doubling up the expresso in the next one<g>.

Well, I didn't finish the light show yesterday. I started a little late and I found myself way behind on the time:energy curve. ...and frankly, I haven't finished with this cold/whatever.

...and for once, I didn't "press on regardless"; I shoved everything into the garage and came inside and took a shower. ...and had a nice dinner. Tomorrow is another day...

Yeah, it rained Saturday; but not much and not for long. ...and the outside lights ended up looking okay after several more hours of work.