Crafty, crafty holidays
This month, a few of the Lullabots (myself included) have been working on one of our rare development projects. Most of our work is training, architecture, and workshop oriented stuff, but every once in a while a client that we've been working with has a last-minute need for some ninjas and we put our heads together for some custom coding work.
While short, it was definitely an interesting project and one that I think might be a first for Drupal. When the site goes live I'll have to point it out; the Treehouse Agency team is doing some great theming work for the site, and I'm curious to see how it all turns out. We built the site in phases, and created a set of custom module-managed tpl.php files for them to customize. It's the first project that's involved a hand-off like that, and Drupal 6's templating made it quite a bit easier. I'm looking forward to kicking around ideas with them about how that transition can be smoothed even more.
James and Addi and I hustled out to Penn State last week to give a cool group of educators the Drupal intensive boot camp. CCK, Views, theming... they ate it up and we were really impressed with how much they absorbed in a short stretch of time. On the downside, Addi was hit with the flu and James and I ended up stranded by flight delays... but we're safe and sound now, so all is (pretty) well.
And now? The holidays are sneaking up on us all, and Catherine and I celebrated preemptively with a nice dinner dinner and... well... An X-Box 360. We've been eying one for a while, and the sudden appearance of Fallout 3 was the tipping point. She's got Assassin's Creed and I'm making my way through the post-apocalyptic wastelands with my trusty Pip-Boy 3000... I don't think I will ever go through the hassle of building a gaming PC again. Having things just work is awesome.
The Next Four Years
President Elect Barack Obama.
It's a strange feeling having supported a candidate without too many reservations. It's been a long time since I've done that -- even longer since I've done that and they won.
Catherine and I spent a good bit of the evening purposely avoiding our laptops or the news; it's easy to get into the stress-loop of realtime coverage, and it was definitely one of those situations where the results were out of our hands. Tuning in to see Obama's acceptance speech was a profound moment, I think. I can certainly understand those who object to some of the policies he's proposed, and who are concerned about some of the positions that seem to come along with a democratic majority and President. But his speech was one of those moments that people in our generation have never really had an opportunity to witness first-hand.
Here we have a candidate who, for the first time in my political memory, had everything including the kitchen sink thrown at him; yet continued to communicate a message of optimism for the future and hope for how we can deal with difficult times ahead as a nation. We'll see how he governs as a president, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, it's a genuinely inspiring thing. The fact that our next president isn't white (and was born to a single mother, no less) is a pretty remarkable thing in and of itself. The fact that he's a a gifted orator? It makes me actually look forward to dissecting his statements and speeches and figuring out if I agree with him or not.
I've been kicking around a lot of thoughts with the folks from #predicate over the past several weeks and months about how the campaign (both in the primaries and the general) have evolved. It's a fascinating story, I think, and there's doubtless time for the armchair quarterbacking and memoir writing. I'll probably post some thoughts later. For now, though, I'm happy.
Election Day Stress
Never let it be said that MetaFilter doesn't deliver. One link, one title: BOX FULL OF PUPPIES WEBCAM.
This is totally my go-to site until polls close. I've got it on the living room TV right now so Catherine and I can just look over and watch them scuffle. Right now the one with the green collar seems to be chewing on Red's head. It's a thug puppy life.
OMG SO CUTE.
Bumper crop
Another day, another photo, another blog post. It's just under the wire, but I'm determined to keep things rolling. I've been spending some time this weekend going over the book and reading for last-minute technical errors -- I can only imagine what John VanDyk had to juggle doing Pro Drupal Development solo. I salute you, sir.
Catherine and I got a bit of a -- well, no, quite a bit of a scare today when Smoky Joe decided to take a walk on the banister... and lost his footing. Catherine heard the clatter, and made it to the stairs in time to see Joe recovering from a full fall down the stairwell. Being full of catlike grace, he landed on his face. Bleeding a bit and stunned, he hobbled up the stairs and paused while we freaked out... but careful observation and a call with the vet indicates that he's okay. No signs of a concussion, no broken bones as best as we can tell, and he's eating fine.
He's got the kitty equivalent of a split lip and a fat cheek, but the swelling is going down and he's starting to romp again. He looks like quite the street scuffler: any younger, more impressionable kittens will be sure to act impressed and give him wide berth.
Intimidation
So NaNoWriMo started. And I didn't.
Every year there's a tug towards the challenge of it, and this time around a couple friends have tackled it themselves. I've made a tentative stab at it each time, but the atrophy of my fiction-writing skills is definitely frustrating. With the time that I put into Drupal work (and play), family stuff, and tentative stabs at relaxation, and... Yeah, no, that's all a lie.
The problem is that I'm a perfectionist. A perfectionist who's out of practice, and can't stand writing stuff that he doesn't like. Of course, it's stupid: I tell my friends to ignore that internal editor's voice when they're writing, and here I am listening to it and nodding alongside.
Am I afraid? Yep. I am. I've got ideas I think are awesome (like everyone), and the danger of putting them to paper is that they'll probably turn out to be slightly less than awesome. Maybe even suck. What do I do?
I'll write. I won't be keeping to the rigorous firehose schedule of NaNoWriMo, but I've promised myself and Catherine that I'll be writing this month, and doing it regularly. With the O'Reilly book finally put to bed, there's an extra little boost of encouragement as well. Here's hoping that I can get past my internal editor this time...
