Mon Jan 05, 2009
Winter Vacation By The Numbers
I posted earlier today that it was back to work day after a long restful two weeks of lazing around. I discovered when I got to work that I was far from the only one who had the same sort of winter break. As my friend Mark said, "It's the whole reason we live here. This beautiful winter weather. Who wants to stay inside?"
But on reflection I decided that I had in fact accomplished quite a bit over the last two weeks. When you count it all up, it was really quite an impressive list of things that I'd achieved.
Twelve: Total working days taken off. Gotta love the education business at times like this.
Eleven: Species of birds seen from my front porch one morning as I sat reading the newspaper. Despite repeated hours spent on the porch I was not able to top that figure.
Ten: Levels of Command and Conquer completely and thoroughly well, conquered. The shocking thing? This was the computer application I spent the most time with during the holidays.
Nine: Hours reading in the backyard. At least. Mornings, afternoons, this time of year it doesn't matter. You can read outdoors any time of day.
Eight: Shooting stars seen while sitting in the back yard when it was too dark to read. Really.
Seven: Total trips out jogging along the gorgeous South Flagler Drive during the holidays.
Six: Varieties of pork served at the annual family Christmas day brunch. Sausage gravy with biscuits, country ham, spiral cut ham, sausage and cheese puffs, bacon, and link sausage.
Five: Hours spent at the beach.
Four: Manatee sightings in the Lake Worth Lagoon while out jogging.
Three: Lunches at the wonderful Dune Deck Cafe' perched on its overlook above Lantana Beach.
Two: Trips out on the boat.
One: Great freaking vacation.
Get On Back to Work
Well, here we are. January 5th and my winter vacation has run its course. It's been an unusual one for sure, since for the first time in a very long while I actually took the entire two weeks and did essentially nothing. This was a major departure from my behavior over the last 10 years where every extended time off from my day job was filled with some other kind of work--writing books and articles, working on the house, speaking at conferences and on and on. Even when not actively working I've been in this heavily-connected, always-on worldwide community of people that are available 24/7 through a newsgroup, blog, and now, God help me through the wonders of twitter, right in my pocket.
Disconnecting from all of that isn't easy, but over the last two weeks I've set out to unplug, turn off, and slow the heck down for a while. And while my Puritan work ethic stabbed me occassionally with pangs of guilt for having nothing more involved in my day than some time sitting in the sun and reading, it's been a good time for me to relax, pause, reflect, and just rest for a while.
But now the trips to the beach, the time out on the boat, the long afternoon naps and the lazy days of winter are over, and it's time to get back to work. Lots of projects and deadlines are sitting in my cubicle waiting for me, and I expect a low hum to emit from our mail servers as everyone goes back to work today and starts the process of grinding away once again.
For me, I think I've learned some lessons about achieving a better balance between work and the simple human need to slow down and rejuvenate from time to time. It's been fun and relaxing, but now it's time to get on back to work.
Mon Dec 29, 2008
It's Open House at CommunityMX Again!
Every year at this time my partners and I at CommunityMX throw open the vaults to the 3,000 plus articles that we've produced over the years and make all of them free to read online. It's our little gift to the web developer/designer community and gives you a chance to check out some of what we offer on a regular basis. (CommunityMX is a subscription-based online journal where two articles, extensions, or tutorials have been produced Monday through Friday for the last 4 years.)
Recently I've been focusing my writing on WordPress customization and for those who've written and asked about these articles I'm happy to say that you can now read them for free. Here's a run-down of the entire series:
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 1: Editing Header Images
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 2: Examining WordPress Themes with the Firebug Extension for Firefox
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 3: Examining WordPress Themes with the Web Developer's Extension
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 4: Creating a Testing Environment Using MAMP and Dreamweaver
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 5: Editing WordPress Themes in Dreamweaver CS4
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 6: Using the Snapshot Technique for Editing WordPress Themes
Lot's of good stuff in those articles, if I do say so myself, especially the last three articles on Dreamweaver CS4 that show how the changes in the latest version of Dreamweaver can be leveraged to make production work in WordPress a snap.
You'll find a list of all of the articles I've written at CommunityMX at this link--covering Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Presenter, Acrobat Connect--and tons of others. Enjoy, and be sure to look into the awesome articles written by authors such as Jim Babbage, Sheri German, Tom Green, Tom Muck, and others while you're looking around.
Twitter Ate My Blog
I've heard a bit of dissatisfaction from my throng of fan about my lack of posting here at the old blog. (Note to self: Do not use a holiday such as Halloween in the title of a blog entry if you aren't planning to write for a while. It makes it really glaring that you aren't keeping up.)
So, what exactly happened in the nearly two months since the last time I wrote? One word: Twitter.
Yah see, with the new iPhone and the amazing twitterFon it's just too easy to post quick thoughts and even snapshots to my twitter account. The term micro-blogging certainly applies as most of my thoughts have been in the micro category of late. Well. Some big thoughts creep in, but when I have that urge to post a quick note--maybe something silly like wanting to start a new drinking game where we all head to the nearest bar any time we hear Burl Ives sing "Holly Jolly Christmas", well the thought is in my head and the phone is in my hand and before you know it I've expunged the creative urge by posting to twitter. (Sorry, I just can not bring myself to call those postings "tweets".)
So, apologies to those who've been expecting more writing from me. But maybe this marks a milestone posting whereby I regain my muse and feel the urge to start writing longer pieces again. Who know. But for now you can always follow what I'm posting to twitter over there in the right sidebar, or you can follow me directly at Twitter.
Fri Oct 31, 2008
Happy Halloween from BrainPOP
I had the chance to speak with Allisyn Levy from BrainPOP Educators the other day. If you don't know about this community of BrainPOP-loving teachers then you're missing out on some great ideas for integrating BrainPOP into your classroom. It's definintely worth your time to sign up (free of course) and join in. Whether you're using BrainPOP, BrainPOP Junior, or BrainPOP en Espanol--which we make available at school and at home in my school district--you'l find that this is another example of how your personal learning community can be expanded by becoming involved in discussions with like-minded educators.
One of the great benefits of joining BrainPOP Educators is it gives you the ability to embed the featured movie of the month in your own web site. That's right! All you need to do is copy and paste the code provided to you after you request the snippet from BrainPOP and away you go. Try it! It's easy!
So, without further ado, here's this month's featured movie from BrainPOP, describing the origins of Halloween in the usual, goofy and fun way that Moby and Tim find to illustrate things. Good fun of course, but as always there's lots of solid curriculum material that you can expand into once your students have had their imaginations captured by this introduction. Enjoy!
Fri Oct 24, 2008
Four Contract Clause that Creatives Never See
A comment tossed of by my buddy Stephanie Sullivan in twitter this week gave me an idea for a new article on those contract clauses that are never explicitly stated when you work in a creative field, but seem to hold true none the less. My completed article is available now at CommunityMX.com.
Am I cynical about dealing with clients? Oh, maybe just a little, but after working in some creative field or the other for the last 20 years these unspoken attitudes on the part of my clients always seem to come up:
Clause 1: You will be expected to complete your work on time. We'll expect to pay you when we're darn good and ready.
Clause 2: Sorry, but we kind of think you're just an over-grown kid who plays around with stuff to make what we want. Our work is meaningful, yours is just a little frivolous.
Clause 3: Changes will be made often and will frequently be inconsequential, annoying, and frivolous. This is totally due to us not knowing exactly what we want. Get over it.
Clause 4: The customer is always right. Even when they make a mistake that you have to fix.
Got some more of your own! Feel free to post a comment here.
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