I have discovered a new way to get home from work. Now that Main Ave. construction is done, I thought I’d give it a try to see if it was any quicker or at least piss me off less … LOL. I usually take University south (from 2nd St. N) to 13th Ave. S and then 13th over to 33rd St and then take some back roads home. That way got so damn plugged up at times. And people don’t know how to drive!!!

Today, I took Main Ave over to 25th St south to 5th Ave S and then some back roads home. I’m not sure if it was quicker (if it was, it was only by a few minutes), but it was a LOT less of a headache. No backing up … no bitching at other drivers (or at least not as much … LOL) … no road rage. Woohoo!!! I’ll keep taking that route ’til it turns into a headache. Hopefully that won’t happen.

Mood: hungry

I’m hoping someone out there can help me out. I’m in the market for a new code editor. I’ve been using HTML-Kit for quite a while now. But I want something more advanced. I want to be able to set up projects and have customizable syntax highlighting. I use phpEd at work (from NuSphere). I’d love to use that at home, but it’s not freeware. I believe it’s rather expensive (I don’t remember how much it is). I am willing to pay if it’s good software, but I’d prefer freeware.

Tonite, I’ve downloaded TopStyle Lite and a demo of TopStyle Pro, PSPad, and Texturizer. I might try out PSPad a bit more. It’s closer to what I’m looking for.

So my dear readers (do I even have any regular readers? LOL) … I’m looking for recommendations for code editors. Anything and everything. Okay … maybe not anything. Just good ones … LOL … usability-wise. Freeware or paid software. I want to find something that I’ll use for a long time (and if it’s really good, I will shell out the money … if I have it). Thanks in advance for anyone who gives me any recommendations.

Mood: dorky

Okay … I really don’t hate Amazon. I’ve never bought anything from them, so I have no idea how they are. But I can say this …

I hate Amazon integration!!!

At work, we’ve been working in integrating a client’s e-commerce site with Amazon. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining … I’m just now getting into it. Some of the other guys have been working on this for quite a while. My part in this is the administrative editors.

Just when I think I’m starting to understand the stuff I need to in order to create or edit the editors, I get confused again. Doesn’t take much these days … The only part of this that really has me worried is the database side of things. I’m so scared that I’m gonna completely fuck up the database. Yeah … it is just a test database … the live one is on another server … but still …

I really need to have more confidence in myself. I think that’s my main problem. I know I can do this stuff. Yeah … I may have to look up some of the stuff since I’m not all that acclimated to working with MSSQL … but I pick things up quickly. Lord knows I take enough notes … LOL.

Mood: empty

I’m very superstitious when it comes to watching NASCAR races. I’ve my Dale Jr bracelet from Colleen that I always wear on Sundays (or Saturday nites) during the race. I also have a little bear wearing a Dale Jr sweatshirt that I put on my coffee table. And when I wear my red Dale Jr tshirt, he runs good. Well … today I wore my red tshirt, but completely forgot to put on my bracelet and put my bear on my coffee table. So … it’s all my fault that Dale Jr had such a crappy day and ends up with a DNF … I’m a bad Dale Jr fan …

Dale Jr … I PROMISE that I won’t forget to wear my bracelet or put my bear on the coffee table ever again … especially for the rest of the races during the “Chase”. Can you ever forgive me?

Mood: sad

I finally upgraded to version 1.2.1 tonite. If you encounter any problems on your visit, please let me know … leave a comment on this post. So far everything looks like it’s running okay. I only uploaded the changed files (thank goodness I found the list in the WP support forum). I didn’t want to upload all of the files because of the customizing I’ve done. I’ve even customized the admin area a bit tonite. I found an alternate admin stylesheet at whitespace thanks to Kristine. I liked it ‘cuz it was green … and that’s my favorite color. I implemented the stylesheet and moved a few things around on the post screen so it looked ‘pretty’. I’m very happy with how it looks now.

I’m tempted to install and test out version 1.3 from cvs. I’m not sure if I’m gonna though. I’ve got some other website maintenance to do this weekend. Maybe I’ll do it if I have the energy … LOL.

Mood: dorky

When I started this job, I knew (X)HTML, CSS, php, and mySQL. Because of this job, I’m now learning MSSQL … stored procedures, views, and triggers. I’m not really sure I like it … LOL. I wanna go back to mySQL. I’ve also done some work in asp.

Actually, I guess that MSSQL isn’t all that bad. I just started with triggers today, and I’ve got a pretty good understanding of them. Stored procedures aren’t all that bad either. I need to figure out JOINs though. And I’m a bit scared of doing that kind of stuff ‘cuz I don’t wanna blow up the database. At least it would only be the dev/test database and not the live one.

I just wish I had the extra money so that I could start taking classes like I want to. Kelly did tell me that the company could pay for some classes … if they’re approved. That would be nice, but I want to pay for them myself. Maybe in the spring or next fall.

Mood: blah

Yep … I’m a sell-out. I’ve placed Google ads on my Dale Jr and Chance 2 websites. I don’t know if I get enough traffic to actually make any money off of the ads, but it doesn’t hurt to try. So far, I’ve just got it on the main page and in the forum of both sites. I need to add it to the other pages yet. I’ll probably do that this weekend.

Right now, I’ve got the ads at the bottom of the pages. I don’t want them to interfere with the rest of the site. I may move them up in the forums, but I’m not sure. I’m definitely gonna keep them at the bottom of the rest of the pages of the site.

I’ll leave ‘em up for a while and see if I get any click-throughs and make any money. If they slow down my site, I’m gonna remove them. And I’m only displaying text ads. I don’t want any image ads. I’m sure those would slow down the site.

Does anyone out there reading this have the Google ads on their website(s)? How are they working for you? I’m just curious. I hope no one has any horror stories … LOL.

Mood: tired

I was checking on the referrers to my blog tonite, and decided to play around with Google. I was curious to see if I could get my websites to come up in the first few pages of searches. 2 results suprised me …

search 1: dale earnhardt jr fan site

search 2: chance 2 fan page

My site came up 2nd for search 1 and 1st for search 2 (at least they did tonite when I checked). How cool is that? I have no idea how my sites are there. Maybe I get more traffic on my sites than I think I do. Maybe putting Google AdWords on those sites might bring in a little bit of extra cash.

Mood: amused

We went out to lunch today at work … almost all of us. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I guess they had a wing eating contest before I started. They wanted to have a rematch today. Only 2 people competed, but we all went. And work paid for it. That was nice. I don’t know of that many companies that would do that. Maybe it’s ‘cuz we’re small.

Anyways … I ran into people there that I didn’t expect to. Our waitress was Liz, the keyboard player from Avalanche. She recognized me too. The ironic part of it is that there were some people from my old job at the table next to us. I know they could see me. I’m not sure if they recognized me or not (they should though … I worked there for 4 1/2 years!). Not like I would have talked to them anyways. I just wanted them to see me with the people from my new job and how I fit in. I wonder …

Mood: tired

Well, I didn’t actually do it. My sister did. She turned on the heat after she got up this morning. I’m glad she did. I would have turned it on when I got home if she hadn’t. It was damn chilly today. Right now it’s 37°F out with a 26° wind chill. The wind is from the NW at 23 gusting to 32 mph. And there’s a light rain too. Just crappy weather. I guess summer really is finally gone for good. I was holding out hope that it might get warm again … but NOOOO. Oh well. What can I expect … I do live in North Dakota.

Mood: happy