Wow.

After releasing Modern Linguist on Friday, Chris Coyier gave me a shout out on Digging Into WordPress. I got a ton of traffic from that, and I owe him some thanks. It seems like those who have taken a look at the theme really enjoy it. I had to make a few modifications after my word counts got entered into the NaNoWriMo site, but it’s working. I did find out that their API is a little slower than I had anticipated. Maybe that a future project to donate to the Office of Letters and Light.

I’m well on my way to the 10,000 words I need by the end of the week. Jessica and I attended the Southern Illinois regional kick-off write-in and I was able to get 3700-something words packed in in the first four hours of noveling. Not too shabby. I’m planning to write another couple of thousand tonight and pull ahead of where I need to be.

I am also considering prepping some of my past WordPress templates for mass release. Some of them need rewrites and I’m thinking that might be a good beginning of 2010 project. Releasing one has got me all into it.

In other news, one major project down, one to finish up. Two of my big day job projects are winding down too, which means I can devote attention to a couple of other major ones that have been waiting in the wings.

We’ve got plane tickets booked for Christmas, plans set for Thanksgiving. It just might be a good end to 2009.

This week has been absolutely nuts. I’m hoping I’m not heading toward burnout at work. I’m trying not to. It’s become super important for me to protect my time, otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done.

After a long day of talking to people and trying to explain to them what exactly it takes to provide them with the web stuff they are asking for, I come home and work on freelance stuff. The good part about that is that I should have a new project premiering later this week after a a couple months of work (sporadic, of course).

I have another WordPress template coming out in a couple of weeks. In fact, I completely redesigned said template because I wasn’t happy with the previous one.

Also found out at the beginning of the week I’ve got about $1300 worth of car repairs I need to take care of. Great. I need some more freelance jobs to pay for the fixes.

Couple other exciting things coming up including National Novel Writing Month in November. If you’re participating in NaNoWriMO, make sure you add me as a writing buddy!

Wow. It’s already been a busy week.

We released the new Athletics site at work that I have been developing for the last few months. That was Monday. I have gotten far fewer comments than I expected. And no news is good news as far as I’m concerned. Overall I’m pretty happy with it. Everything at work just seems to overwhelm me right now, so it’s good to have a major project out of the way. Check it out if you want: http://www.gcpanthers.com

I did a project for Randall a couple week ago. I’m only going to say this: I coded the design as a WordPress template in about 2.5 hours.

I’ve got a few projects on deck now (freelance speaking). One of those is a new WP template for a friend from back home. It’s a fun project. And I feel kind of bad because it’s not going to take that long to code, I just haven’t had much time the last few weeks what with work and preparing for my class. But it’s coming in the next couple of weeks. She’s got a really great blog and I’m excited to be a part of getting this design out for her. Check out tea@elevensies »

I start my first bout with teaching college students on Monday evening. I’m really excited about it, but have a bunch of work to do. I need to put together a better keynote presentation and finish up the first assessment for them. I need to get a feel for what they already know about web design. So I’m going to “test” them the first evening. They’ll get points just for taking the assessment, no matter what they know or don’t know. So hopefully the students will forgive me for a test during the first class.

If you’re interested, I could still use help creating questions for that initial test. Check out my previous post and leave the question you think I should ask.

I didn’t have an incredibly great week last week. It started out pretty good but got increasingly poor as the days went on. This weekend was a blessing of a break. Even though we did a lot of driving I was still able to get away from here and that was good.

Saturday we drove to Poplar Bluff in Southern Missouri for my friend Ryan’s wedding. It was a 3 1/2 hour drive, but entirely worth it to see him get married. I also got to see my good friend Rod who lives on the East Coast now.

And we slept in. That was really nice. Today we went to the bookstore and I picked up Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue which I’ve been eyeing for a while. I’m excited to start reading it tonight before bed. I think it’s going to be really interesting.

But I am not excited to have work tomorrow. I need a break. I need an extended vacation. I need some time to recover. I haven’t had any time away from work since Christmas and I am definitely starting to feel the effects. I was going to take Jessica to Six Flags last week but didn’t feel I was able to after some things that happened at work and with Kevin taking Friday off. So hopefully I will be able to work out a long weekend this week and we can take care of these cheap Six Flags tickets I have.

And today was Father’s Day. Looks like I will finally be starting on a design for my dad’s site which is good. He needs it and I have a good idea for what I’m going to do design-wise. Hopefully  I’ll have some more freelance coming my way in the near future.

I haz it. 

Man. I don’t know what it is–crazy complex work projects, freelance designs and not having a computer to do them on (until a few days ago), waiting for a grad school response, all of the above–but I am seriously down. It’s not melancholy, it’s not depression… it’s just massive fatigue.

I need something fun and carefree for about a week. Maybe I need to go shoot some photos someplace. I think probably I would just really like answers and closure on all of these wide open tasks and inquiries. I want to be accepted to grad school. I want to shoot this documentary that’s in my head.

Projects as of right now:

• dotCMS deployment at work
• Site for Andrew Stonestreet
• whatisawix.com
• Site for Greenville Free Methodist Church
• Blog for Stephen Stonestreet
• Site for my dad.
• And I REALLY want to update my blog’s design

Plus miscellaneous everyday sort of tasks at work; website updates, keeping people happy, AgapeFest.com updates. 

Maybe I just need some sunshine and colour. I think what I really need is a change of pace. And some time to just sit down and create. Some travel would be nice as well. But real travel. Not these stupid 8-hour drives to spend one day someplace remote. 

I need some adventure.

Wow. Sorry for the lack of posts. A ton is going on at work. And at night, well Jess and I have been burning through the How I Met Your Mother DVDs. Hilarious show. I highly recommend it.

So what else has been going on? Well, we’re rolling on our dotCMS project at work. We’re in the design stages, which is fantastic, and I’m acting as project manager. Kevin started work on Monday and is getting into the swing of stuff. We’re going to have a lot of fun with this as it moves.

I’ve been working on a site design for my friend Chris. I’m hoping to start slicing and markup by this weekend at the latest. I would like to have his blog rolled out by the middle of February, and once the designs are done, the actual coding shouldn’t take too horribly long. I’m pretty proud of it too, it’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. Here’s a sample.

Implementing some new stuff over at AgapeFest.com. New videoBlog up, a deal with Sonicbids, some other stuff. It’s going good.

I’m reading this incredible book called The Meaning of Night. It’s incredible and complicated, so it’d take a lot to explain it. Hit up Amazon and read the summary. It’s so good.

Jess is finally reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves and thinks it is great, just as I predicted she would.

It is super cold here this morning. -2ºF. And my office is drafty.

Well. Now that the novel is out of the way, I have other projects to attend to.

Next up on the list is putting together a website for my good friend Chris. It’ll be nice to put some time into designing again and I’m particularly excited about the asthetic he’s going for. It’s going to be sort of and 80s color palette mixed with grunge elements and a futuristic interface. Sort of. I am pretty happy with what I’ve come up with so far.

Around the house I’ve got more wainscot to put up plus chair rail and crown molding. I need to get some shoe board or quarter round for some of the rooms and we have a hole that needs to be patched under our window.

I still need to finish a bit of my novel’s story. I won, but the story isn’t finished yet. There’s probably close to another thousand words left. Hopefully I can get that squared away in the next day or so.

We’re supposed to get snow tomorrow here in Greenville, which will be nice. It’s already feeling like Christmas. Thanksgiving break has been great. It’s the first time that Jessica and I have stayed home for during an extended break and it’s been greatly relaxing. We’ll be heading to West Virginia the day before Christmas Eve and then to Michigan on 02 January.

I love this season. Peppermint ice cream, pumpkin pie, Starbucks Christmas Blend… mmmm. Yes. All food related. Anyway. I hope you’re having a great season!