Archive for the 'Links' Category

Sometimes You Just Gotta Dance!

Marty January 31st, 2006

And he was Kung Fu fightinnnnnggg...

Other diversions »

Where Have I Been?

Marty November 12th, 2005

I’ve been swamped with work and trying to find some time to spend on myself - most of which has involved getting out there and doing some photography. Not much else to report right now, but I have found some amusing links…

Here Comes the Rain Again

Marty May 27th, 2005

It’s been raining for … oh, about 40 days and 40 nights, and the natives are getting restless. I’m not particularly up for the ‘walk in the pouring rain so you can stiff some other dog’s leftovers’ thing, so the dogs are stir-crazy. In fact, so am I. I’m going to head out later to 1) harass a client who won’t pay for the work I did; 2) pick up some oranges and a new feeder for our Baltimore Orioles; 3) Get the hell out of the house.

I’m still looking for a new permanent position, although I have had some offers for short-term projects. I’m taking different things to keep me busy, but I’m hoping that $1.5M per year (plus bonus) job in Boulder, CO comes around soon. Or maybe just a nice job in Philly in a place with a Pac-Man game in the corner.

Newest Flickr photo:

Northern Mockingbird I’m really proud of this shot.

Almost-Daily Links

A fortnight later

Marty April 22nd, 2005

Wow, has it really been that long. Strange how time flies when you’re out sweating while building new flower beds. My wife and I have been working our butts off to put in 4 new flower beds, a new vegetable garden, plant 101 different flowers and plants (including an entire hummingbird/butterfly garden), spread 4 cu. feet of topsoil and 7 cu. feet of mulch, and basically got a great workout and tans for the last week or so.

The end product was worth it, but between that and my latest design work (see below), I’ve been too busy to really do much blogging - or even surfing for that matter.

I did have a chance, however, to go pick up my latest pictures. I had quite a few that I really like - mostly flower pictures (we were at Longwood Gardens after all), but still some shots that I’m really happy with.

Design News

I’ve been busy lately, too. I got most of the new martytdx.com up and running. The sub-pages are still coming, mostly because I’m struggling with a design idea: do I stay with a similar theme 2 and 3 layers deep, or do I make the tertiary pages a little more exciting? I’m still on the fence, although I will probably try both ways and just see what I like.

On the work front, I finished 99% of the update for the spring on Mystique, I’m putting the finishing the touches on a law firm’s website, I have a logo/site design offer for a online music site, and a bunch of side projects that I finally have had SOME time to get too. And I’m finally getting some bites for a normal 9-5 job, too. Thanks, Van!

completely unrelated

I saw this on overcaffeinated.net last night - the Top 100 Quotes off of QDB (bash.org). Even without any real experience with chat, these were hysterical.

Welcome to the Ranks of the Underemployed

Marty April 9th, 2005

Well, it’s official - I’m on the first real week of my voluntary severance package. While I have to admit that it felt great to sleep in until 9 a.m. (I’m still recovering from the bachelor party Saturday night), it’s also kind of scary. I’m not unemployed in the sense of not getting paid, but I still have no place to head every weekday morning to rip the creative, moral and spiritual energy from me … um, I mean place to ‘have a job’. I’m looking for prospects right now, but to be honest this is giving me a chance to do some things that I’ve been trying to do for months - small projects, freelance projects, photography, etc. I can’t ‘play’ for more than a week, but hopefully this week will allow me to finish up projects for Mystique, but also some other jobs, as well as finally finishing up my homepage (I’ve gone through four iterations without ever putting any of them up because I tire of them before I’ve finished). Should be nice.

I do have to say that I have a client that I am working with a fairly large project (for me), and when I sent him my standard SOW, it includes the fact that half of the bill is due up front. Well, three weeks later and I still haven’t received that payment, and he’s expressing concern over my asking for it. I think that it’s a fairly standard policy when dealing with a small company, but I’d be curious to see what others think… I know that one of the big hitters that I have talked to said that he feels that is an industry standard as well, which made me feel better.

Meanwhile, look for me to finally upgrade to WordPress 1.5 (the whole ad controversy notwithstanding), and finally get the martytdx.com homepage up, as well as those other projects.

Other notes»

  • I’m an uncle!
    Well, my sister had her baby! Caleb Johanes Welch was born yesterday, April 3, weighing 5.6 lbs and measuring 19″ long. I’m so proud of her. Pictures whenever I get them!
  • Epinions
    A couple new Epinions - I’ve been so bad about keeping up with them. Check out my reviews of Mikimoto’s and Mandarin Buffet.
  • Photography
    My latest shots - I’ve been playing with my macro lens a bit, so I’ve taken a few floral shots.

    Daffodil Reflections Daffodil Reflections Daffodils - Three in a Row Fresia Super Macro

Daily Links »

Honey, I’ve Got a Little Project For Us

Marty February 14th, 2005

Men - if you ever hear those words, know that Hell is a much better place to hide.

My wife has been struggling down in our basement office lately - lots of headaches, sinus trouble, etc. And we found the culprit - a set of older bankers boxes had gotten wet and had a bunch of mold in them. We cleaned them out, but she decided that a wholescale ‘reinvention’ of the office was in order. Now, don’t get me wrong - if it will stop the headaches and make our office a better place, I’m all for it. However, the 8am - 10 pm schedules over the weekend were killer. I spent more time at Home Depot than I did in bed, I know my local lumber rep better than my neighbors and I think I’m going to get invited to the company picnic at DuPont after all of the countertop that I purchased.

The new design - I think we’re on version 4.3 now - involved a lot more construction than we had time this weekend. Lots of power tools, lots of new toys (I particularly love the Black and Decker Laser Level, but hated the Black and Decker Sonic Measuring Tape), and a lot of back aches this morning, not to mention sinuses from all of the dust.

It might be Valentine’s Day today, but I’ll be spending it attaching more countertops instead of eating bon-bons over a swanky, pre-prepped dinner. I mean, I’m not exactly enthused by the V.D. dinner (they tend to be over-priced and underperforming), but I would run out to do it instead of another day of drills, planers, saws and paint.

Have I mentioned she’s already got plans for our ‘next little project’?

Daily Links »

What Would YOU Do With $50M

Marty January 24th, 2005

Okay, the guy won the election and deserves to have his inauguration and inaugural ball. That’s fine. But doesn’t anyone in his administration see ANYTHING wrong with spending over $50 million for this thing? I’ve been laying off ol’ Dubya for a bit now, although he has done nothing to make me feel any more comfortable with him winning in November. In fact, I’ve only seen more of the same and that scares me.

But this is just ludicrous. FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. Think about it - this is the same administration that only committed $10 million to the Tsunami relief at first, but had $40 million ear-marked for a party for lobbyists, politicians and the well-connected (yes, I know that they have donated a bunch more - but impressions still count). I can think of a hundred things that it would be better spent on. Sure, go ahead and blow a cool million on your party - I still think that’s a bit much but if you are hosting dignataries from around the world, at least it is somewhat understandable. But $50M? What about our troops and their need for supplies? What about the cuts to funding for urban renewal projects? What about the budget shortfall of the Park Service? What about kicking some of that money into alternative fuel development research.

No, it’s obviously better spent providing entertainment and dinner to the people who supported the President in his bid to further screw up this country. But let’s just say MAYBE we had ear-marked it for something else. What else could $50 million have got us?

  • It could give the Forest Service the $12M they need to meet their budget, and still have enough to fund energy research to the tune of $38M
  • It could provide food and shelter for $1.78M homeless people in the U.S. (Lewin Group Report, 11/19/04)
  • It could buy more than 100,000 kevlar body armor vests for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (based on an estimated $500 per vest).
  • It could pay to hire 900 new police officers for cities around the country (based on average pay of $55,613 - U.S. Census Bureau, March 2003) or for 1,377 new firefighters at an average salary of $36,309 (source: Salary.com)
  • It could provide $1.67 to every poverty-level individual in the U.S. (source: U.S. Census)
  • It could pay for 75% of the additional fire-fighting equipment requested by the Forest Service to fight the wildfires it has seen increase every year since 2000.
  • It could give 600 Enron employees back their average losses ($83,300, according to IBEW.com) or give all of the 12,000 employees $4167 of lost money back. After all, how much of that money came from Kenneth Lay, Dubya’s #1 contributor for his first campaign?

Don’t those all sound like better causes than a big party for a moron?

Daily Links »

New PC

Marty November 10th, 2004

A few days ago, I heard one of those sounds that you know can’t be good coming from my computer. At first, I wasn’t sure whether it was the fan or the hard drive, but later decided that it was the fan. Still, I quick tap to the back of the cabinet seemed to fix it. It happened again last night, so I cleaned out the dust and everything seemed normal.

**CRASH!** Suddenly, my computer locks up and I hear the gutteral death throes of my hard drive. NOOOOOO!!!! I turn the computer off, let it cool down and try it again. After a quick disk scan, the computer booted up and was working properly, but I knew the prognosis - I would need an immediate disc replacement. If I could just get it to last long enough to buy a new Hard Drive so that I could move my data over, everything would be fine.This morning, I foolishly decided to check on the computer - and now it won’t boot. It gets to the WinXP loading screen (yes, I’m a Windows user - flame away), and then shuts down completely. Not the power
- because I still have power to the keyboard and monitor - but just to the PC. Now I’m scared. If the hard drive has fried, I’m going to need expert help to get my data back, and despite the fact that I have been backing it up fairly regularly, there is still about a month of work on there that would be unrecoverable.

But the worse thought (or better, depending no perspective) would be that the problem is my processor, my motherboard - or both. In that case, I’ll be able to at least salvage my data, but that means a new PC to be bought. NOT the expense I was planning on making.

Update: Unfortunately, the hard drive is (probably) fine - my processor and mother board went. On the plus side, it means that I get a new PC, although I am skimping a little bit right now to save some money until I have that whopping ‘free turkey’ bonus check. I can always get the advanced graphics board and the flat screen after Xmas. To start with, I’ll have a 3.2GHz Pentium 4, 80GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, 48x CD-RW and 16X DVD-ROM to get me through reinstalling EVERYTHING I had. But it will be a better video card than I had, a better sound card than I had, and more hard drive and RAM than I had. It’s a start. But my wife is going to kill me as I get the itch to finish it off…

Links »

No News, Just Links

Marty November 4th, 2004

I’m out of venom, but here are some amusing links…

Darned Upgrade

Marty October 28th, 2004

Well, I tried to upgrade to WordPress 1.2, and it killed the blog, so I’m back to the old version for now. I might consider loading the newest version directly from WordPress instead of through my ISP, or I might try out MT - which seems to be a bit more versatile. Anyone out there have a preference?

Links »

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