June 29, 2015

 Last night I went to bed kind of late and this morning I woke up kind of early. Somehow I managed to avoid taking a nap. I spent a large chunk of my day scanning my grandma's old photographs. I need to get back into that because it is going to take me a really long time just to scan them. Then I'll have to edit them, which will take even longer. And then I'll have to organize them. While researching stuff for my website I got a lot of ideas for organizing the pictures on a website, so that is what I'm leaning toward right now. That's still a long way off though so we'll see what happens.

Today I watched two movies. The first was The Judge. It was an emotional movie but it was also a really good movie. Robert Downey Jr. is always good and his quick talking witty dialogue fit perfectly in the role of a lawyer. My only real gripe with the movie was him unknowingly making out with his niece. That didn't really seem like it was necessary.

The second movie I watched was John Wick. When it was in theaters I think I saw all of the action scenes several times, and I knew the basic plot of the movie. This was the first time I got a chance to see the whole thing all the way through and it is one of my new favorite movies. Everyone loves a good revenge movie, and John Wick is definitely that. I would like to have the reputation of Wick without having to do all the horrible things to earn it. It would just be nice to have people fear/respect me because they knew I meant business and I wasn't someone to mess with. I don't actually get messed with now but it would still be cool to have that persona.

The last few days I've been trying to imagine how the world would change if we were to discover the remains of another civilization on another planet. Like a passing satellite snaps a couple pictures and one of them shows the unmistakable ruins of buildings and monuments. There would be non-believers but screw them. I can only believe that that our world would change instantly. Plans would obviously be drawn up to send more probes and eventually humans to wherever this planet was but in the meantime, the world would be entirely different. Scientists have always been searching for life outside our planet, and I think a lot of people kind of believe that it is maybe a possibility, but how many people actually expect it? I'd say not a lot. It would be incredible and it is kind of hard to wrap my head around. It would be a paradigm-shifting, fundamental change in our existence. Not only in how we view our universe but also our place in it. Fingers crossed I get to experience this in my lifetime because I am really curious how things would play out.

Tomorrow, I will hopefully be able to scan more photographs, keep that ball rolling. I will also probably check and see what reading I have for this week. And maybe look into the grant project so I can get a better idea of what's going on with that. Today I sent out an email to my website group to see if they have ideas for a website that we can work on. So far I've gotten one response, and the website suggestion has a lot of potential, which is good. So tomorrow I might start looking into that more as well. If I can accomplish just one of those things I will be happy. It doesn't take much.

June 28, 2015

 I woke up early but stayed in bed until I fell back to sleep. Multiple times. My only real accomplishment for the day was finishing my website. I messed around with the print options in CSS to make the print version of my site look better. Most of my time was probably spent figuring out how to put a QR code on the site when it was printed. I found a code that would automatically generate the code and put it on there but it was based on a Google thing that was no longer supported and I'm thinking that is why I couldn't get it to work. I wasted so much time trying to figure it out. In the end it turned out there was a much easier way. I made the QR codes, saved them as pictures, put them at the bottom of each page, used CSS to not display them on the website, and then more CSS to show them when a page was printed. Each QR code is for the web address of the printed page. That way if someone had the printed page and didn't want to type in the address to view it online, they could just scan the QR code. Pretty cool. I finished that up tonight and posted it to the discussion thread. I also remembered to submit it as an assignment. A whole day early. Tomorrow I'll start commenting on other people's pages.

Tonight I watched Charlie St. Cloud and Pleasantville. Two movies I have previously seen parts of but never the whole thing. I liked both of them for the most part. In Charlie St. Cloud I was a little annoyed that he picked the girl over his brother. To be fair, he was saving her life and his brother was already dead, but did he really have to pick one over the other. It wasn't as bad as About Time when the guy gave up the ability to travel back in time and visit his father because his wife wanted a third child. Two is enough. If I had the ability to go back in time and visit with someone who had passed away, I would not give that up so I could have a third child. I really liked that movie, despite the sadness, but I think they made a mistake with the third child. First child, maybe (although adoption is a thing), but a third child, screw that. Anyway, Charlie St. Cloud was good. And it was probably good that he saved the girl because because his younger brother died, his mom moved away, his two best friends from high school died in the military, his dad ran away when he was a kid, the paramedic who saved his life was died of cancer, and he gave up a college scholarship to become a groundskeeper. So he needed a win.

Pleasantville was also good. Strange but good. The love triangle was a little odd, as was painting a naked lady on the diner window. And the mean high school boys swarming the mom like a bunch of creeps. I'm also not a big fan of Tobey Maguire's little smile, which he did constantly. So overall it was good but also really strange, with an interesting concept.

I didn't mention it but a couple days ago the supreme court legalized gay marriage in all fifty states. It seems like an understatement to say it was a monumental decision. One of those things that will definitely end up in the history books and people will remember where they were when they heard the news. It will also be one of those things that people look back on years from now and wonder why it took so long. Because it is ridiculous that it did take so long. It's ridiculous that it was ever a thing to begin with. Kind of like racism, which is also a thing that we have “fixed” and is in our past but isn't really. It will be the same for gay people. Things are getting better but there will always be assholes. And those assholes will indoctrinate their children and the cycle will continue. Ignorance can be fixed but there will always be assholes.

June 27, 2015

 Despite feeling tired it took me forever to fall asleep. And then I was wide awake at five o'clock in the morning. That made getting up at 7:00AM a lot harder. Sleeping in the giant bed was as comfortable as ever. I was also worried about all the people at the hotel keeping me up but the lady at the desk did a good job keeping me away from the wedding party and the baseball team and whatever the other large group was. I was impressed.

Class today was fun and educational, as it should be. We had two group activities, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, both with the same group. Last night we signed our names on the board under the category of library we were interested in. I went with academic and I was paired up with two people that also chose that. Or maybe not paired because there were three of us. Anyway, the first time we picked one library and did a SWOT analysis and a brief PEST analysis. This afternoon we picked a couple libraries and evaluated their marketing and branding. Neither were very good but we were assigned to look at libraries in Colorado and I think it would be cool to live there so it was interesting getting to see some of the options.

When we weren't doing group stuff there was a tiny bit of lecture and a lot of real life discussion. I really like that the professor speaks from his personal experience and tells it like it is out in the real world, not just giving up theories or case studies. He also threw out the idea that with my marketing background I could do a practicum at his library and develop a marketing plan. That is tempting. The marketing plan I did in college was huge, over sixty pages, but we were creating a product from the ground up, which is way more involved than a marketing plan for a library. So I might get back to him on that.

Oh, and for the group project I'll be working on my own. Eight people decided to work in pairs and the other twelve of us are going solo. I was kind of surprised by that. I figured there would have been far more people working in groups. I guess I'm not the only one who has been burned in the past. The professor elaborated a little bit more today on one of the bad group projects last semester that lead to this trial of giving students the option to work alone. I think it was the group in my class that consisted of the two loudest extroverts and the biggest introvert. Where they picked the topic and immediately hated her because she didn't immediately love it. If it was that group, they apparently not only got the professor involved but also the program director and other people outside of the program. I also had a bad experience but we managed to keep it between us, minus the evaluation. Either way, I will be working alone to write a grant proposal. Not sure what area I'm going to pick yet but I might look at it tomorrow. It isn't the kind of thing I can put off until the last minutes. Especially because I have to make a poster presentation, which will involve me buying a poster, at the very least.

We got out around 4:30PM because we finished everything and the professor had to catch his flight. I could have listened to his stories for a lot longer but I had no problem leaving early. The Spangles fries and orange juice slush were delicious as always. As far as driving, I had a large truck pull onto the road in front of me before reaching the halfway point, just before entering a small town. It didn't necessarily cut me off but the speed limit was 60mph and he never made it above 40mph, so I had to hit my brakes. On the second half of my journey I had to pass one slow moving vehicle, which ended up turning shortly after I passed them, so they were apparently telegraphing their turn for several miles. After that it was smooth sailing. I was all by myself until I made it back to town. I'm really glad that I'm not one of the guys that have a four hour trip, or the professor who had an hour and a half trip to the airport, a long wait, a two and a half hour flight, and I think an hour drive home. I'm jealous of the people who live in the same town as the university but I've definitely got it better than some.

When I got home I ate dinner, or half a dinner to go along with the fries I ate earlier, and watched YouTube videos, which included a few episodes of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. This afternoon during a break I remembered that I wanted to make a print layout for my website using CSS. I had completely forgotten about that, so I'm glad I hadn't turned in my website yet. It shouldn't take very long so I'll work on that tomorrow.

Now, I'm going to continue watching a livestream for a little bit and then go to bed. And I'm going to sleep in, hopefully, because I feel like I deserve it. Then I can work on school stuff. Or put it off for awhile and get lost on the internet. I kind of want to just look at possible jobs out there. Get a better idea of what I might be doing in the near future.

June 26, 2015

 This morning I didn't wake up as early as I would have liked but I did get up early enough to read two textbook chapters before lunch. I started reading the third chapter during lunch and finished it up after. Then I had a little bit of time to check some things online before getting ready. And then I packed up, made a sandwich for my eventual dinner, and hit the road.

The first half of the trip was a little rough because I got stuck behind a couple slow vehicles and the one in front didn't seem to know how to use cruise control. We fluctuated between 55mph and 65mph and I couldn't get around them because the distance between the two cars kept changing and there was never an opening long enough to get around both of them. It was annoying. Thankfully the second half went much better and I didn't have anyone in front of me until the very end.

Class tonight was pretty good. The professor is really funny and engaging which made the time fly by. We did one activity near the end where we lined up based on the level of introversion or extroversion we got on the personality tests we took at the beginning of the semester. The highest 'I' was on one end and the highest 'E' was on the other and then it counted down to the middle. I had it easy because I got 100% introversion so I didn't have to worry about finding my spot in line. Then we were supposed to pair up with our opposite, which worked out well for me because I was paired up with the highest extrovert. There are only four extroverts in the class so after that it was just pairs of introverts. I think it was basically just a smalltalk exercise and it was pretty interesting. I learned a lot about my partner and found out we had a lot in common. It was interesting when she told her friends and family that she was going to become a librarian everyone immediately thought it made a lot of sense. That is the exact same reaction I got when I told people. I took it as a good sign that I had picked the right path and she did too.

We got out of class at nine o'clock, which seemed early. I thought class usually got out at ten o'clock but I could be wrong. I'm also not going to go back and check. It could just be that it is summer and still light outside or that this was the first time I wasn't coming down directly from work so I wasn't as tired. Either way, we got out at nine o'clock.

I came to the hotel, checked in, changed into my pjs, and started watching livestreams while eating the rest of my dinner that I didn't have with my sandwich before class. And now I think I'm going to go to bed, even though it isn't even 11:30PM, which means it is super early for my current sleep schedule. But I'm kind of tired, probably helped along by the drive today.

Tomorrow class starts at nine o'clock and we're going to talk about things and have two group activities. We also have to decide if we're going to work on the main project for the class on our own or with a partner. We are apparently an experiment because there have been a couple bad group projects in the past and the faculty are wanting to see what happens if people are given the option to work alone. After last semester when I did an entire group project by myself, I am incredibly tempted. But having a partner would be really nice if they are actually a partner. If I go alone I will be guaranteed 100% of the work and with a partner, the chances of that are lower. Maybe not much lower but there is certainly a greater chance that I won't have to do all the work. We'll see. If someone needs a partner (and it isn't someone that has already failed me as a partner) I'll probably go for it. If not, I'll survive. At least I have more time this summer to work on school work.

June 25, 2015

I ended up staying up later than I thought I would last night so I added in the 'float' element before I went to bed. It ended up working out just how I wanted it to, I just had to adjust the margins a little. And today, I think I finished my website. I added a web font because we needed to use '@font-face' in our CSS but using Google Fonts, it doesn't require the use of '@font-face', so yeah. The element is used but it is hidden. I emailed the professor about it and she said it should be fine, but I might add another font, not from Google Fonts, just to be safe. Other fonts require you to download a font and put it in your website folders, and then reference it using the '@font-face', which calls it up whenever someone visits your page so you can make sure the font shows up even if it isn't installed on the user's computer. Google Fonts has the same idea but the font is installed on their server, so it pulls the font from there, rather than our website folder. And if someone is accessing my website, they are online, so pulling the font from Google shouldn't be an issue. If it is, I have a backup font that should be installed on Mac and Windows computers, and another backup font that will just use whatever generic Serif font is installed on a computer. I should be good.

After a few other minor tweaks (I think), I uploaded my website to the school server to get it online so I could see what it looks like in different browsers and on my phone. I also had my friend send me screenshots from her iPhone and iPad so I could see what it looks like on Mac. And in all the various browsers and devices and operating systems, it looked the same. Job accomplished. I also ran it through an HTML validator again because I added a bunch of stuff since the last time, and it passed. I also ran it through a CSS validator and fixed the only real issue, which was having units of measurement on elements that had a value of zero, so I took off all the 'px' and 'em' units I had on zeroes. There were a couple other things but when I tried changing them it broke stuff, so I left that stuff alone.

Overall, I am really happy with how my website turned out. I was really not impressed with the plain HTML stuff because I could have done a better job with a Word document. It felt weird completely avoiding all the aesthetic and visual stuff I remember doing with HTML years ago. It was all for the best though because CSS knows what's up when it comes to visual things and now my site looks really freaking good, to me at least, especially considering what it looked like without the CSS. I would like to keep it up and add more content to it but it will probably have to wait until I'm finished with school.

I did laundry tonight and was almost defeated by the washer. I started a load, ate dinner, and checked back when the washer should have been done, but it was just sitting there full of water. Normally that happens when I forget to put the lid down but this time the lid was definitely down. So I lifted it up, put it down, and it turned on again, so I walked away. I came back a second time when it should have been done, and it was just sitting there full of water. I put the lid back down, it started up again for a few seconds, and then turned off, leaving only a faint clicking sound. Apparently it wasn't balanced. Ridiculous. It's hard to tell if something is unbalanced when it is completely covered in water. After some shifting, everything was good. I'll have to remember that for next time.

Tomorrow I go down for class and late tonight I had the brilliant idea to check the class schedule for this week. Turns out I needed to read four chapters. Whoops. I read one of them awhile ago so I can skim that, but tomorrow morning I will need to wake up early so I can get through the other ones. I also need to look over all the other stuff that we're going to cover this weekend, like the group project. The professor said we would have the option to do it alone or have a partner. Going alone is incredibly tempting considering the trouble I have had with partners in the past. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll be near someone that wants a partner. And if that person is someone that was a bad partner in the past, I'll go it alone.

June 24, 2015

 I spent so many hours working on my website today. It was pretty much my entire day and I lost track of everything I worked on but I made a lot of progress. The thing I am proudest of is getting my three menu buttons to highlight the current page. I could get it to change color when I hovered the mouse over the buttons but it wouldn't stay that color to show the current page. I tried so many different things and finally got one of them to work, and it almost didn't because I had a few extra commas in the code. But it works now and it is glorious. I also put a slight delay on the color change with the mouse hovering, so there is the briefest fade in and fade out, which makes it look way better somehow. I also gave up on trying to make the embedded YouTube video small, centered, and responsive. I could make it small and centered but not responsive, no matter what I tried. Now it is centered and fills the whole main area and it is responsive, which means it will grow and shrink when the browser is resized. And that is really what I wanted. I also made my headers look nice, adjusted font sizes and spacing, and rounded some corners.

When I had finished all of that stuff I looked through the requirements for the assignment and it looks like all I'm really missing is using the 'float' element in CSS. I don't really have any need to use that so that is annoying. I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with an idea and I think I finally have one but I'm not going to mess with it until tomorrow in case it becomes more involved than it should.

I got so caught up in working on my website that I not only lost track of time, I also kind of forgot what day it was. When I finally noticed the clock it was 4:30PM and my initial thought was that I should probably run on the elliptical so I would still have time for a shower before dinner. And the thought of dinner made me pause for a split second before remembering that today was Wednesday and it was Chipotle night. So I skipped the elliptical, hopped in the shower, and went to get Chipotle (after stopping to get a Powerball ticket at one gas station and gas at another gas station, because that's what I do).

My burrito tonight was pretty good. It helped that I was really hungry. My mom didn't really participate in Chipotle night because she was feeling like crap. It started last night and she assumed it was food poisoning. This morning she was feeling better but throughout the day she started feeling bad again. So tonight she sat in the recliner while my sister and I ate Chipotle. Rather than playing videos after dinner like I normally do I played a single episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown while we ate. That is one of my new favorite British shows that I randomly found online and now I have seen so many episodes of it.

After dinner I worked on my website and watched YouTube videos. A little after eleven o'clock I decided to run on the elliptical so I wouldn't miss a day and ruin my streak. Today was the 31^st day, which is really surprising. For one, it doesn't seem like it has been that long, and two, it might be my longest streak of exercising. I usually crap out way before this. Tonight I only ran for forty-one minutes, and I say only because I could have gone longer but it was almost midnight. Originally I had planned to only run for thirty minutes but at that point I didn't feel like it was enough so I decided to finish out the CD I was listening to, which is around forty-one minutes long. When I was done I took my second shower of the day, which was weird because I can't remember the last time I took two showers in one day. Or took one at midnight. It's definitely been awhile.

My goals for tomorrow are to figure out the 'float' element for my website and then upload everything to the school server so I can get it online and check it for responsiveness and accessibility and errors. I'm really hoping I haven't totally screwed something up. I get a lot of the CSS code but there is also a lot of it that I understand just long enough to get it working and then immediately forget it when I move onto the next thing. It takes a surprising amount of code to make a site look clean and simple.

June 23, 2015

 Today I had to wake up much earlier than I would have liked after only about six hours of sleep. Then I had to convince myself to get out of bed so I could run on the elliptical for thirty minutes before taking a shower and getting ready. A little taste of what life will be like if I'm still doing the elliptical thing when the summer is over.

The need to get up early was for the mini family vacation of antiquing. We ended up going to two different nearby towns because my mom wanted to find a little table for the entryway. She had seen one she liked a couple years ago but that was before the new house and she didn't have anywhere to put it. There was also another one that a lady ended up taking when my mom went to find someone to help her. There was a lot of cool stuff at the first place we went but no tables. I was tempted by several things but not enough to buy them. We walked down the street to another place but the door was locked and my guess is they were on a lunch break, which is a shame because they lost out on potential sales.

Due to the lack of success in the first town, we hopped over to the next one. The first place consists of three or four old buildings that are connected. It would be badass if it was all one big house, especially with the cool basement. And speaking of cool, in one of the big rooms they had an old bar, inlcuding the main bar and the back bar with the wall mirror. I don't know that I've ever seen a single mirror that was bigger than that bar mirror. It was amazing. But they didn't have any small tables and most of their stuff was really expensive.

So we went to the next place, which is the place I got the Prince Albert can the last time we were there. I ended up getting a book, Bomba the Jungle Boy on Terror Trail, mainly because the title amused me. And I also hit the jackpot. While we were walking around the previous places I had the fleeting thought that it would be cool to find something related to Laurel & Hardy. I think that is always in the back of my mind when in an antique shop because they are pretty much my favorite thing ever. Well, in the very last area I looked at in that final shop, I found a Laurel & Hardy board game from 1962. I opened it up just to see what it looked like and make sure it wasn't totally beaten up, but I would have bought it regardless. So it was a plus that it was in good condition. When I got home I went through it and learned that not only was the board in good condition, it had all the playing cards (which was shocking), and it had the cutout cardboard pieces. The only thing missing were the slider pieces that are used to determine what a player does on their turn. I looked online and they kind of look like Smarties, so I'm assuming any small round disc thing will work. And as luck would have it, I have all the old board games from my grandma's house and in the giant box of games there is a small bag with random game pieces, including a bunch of small round disc pieces. It finally pays off to keep the random bits.

It is kind of hard to describe how happy finding this board game made me. I don't really show excitement outwardly but I am capable of feeling it, and I know this because I felt it when I saw the game sitting there. And now when I think of it, or turn my head from where I'm sitting now and look at it, I can feel the happiness. It's like a little giddy twinge in my chest. I like it.

My mom also managed to find a small table in the same shop. She struggled over the decision to buy it but we finally convinced her that she would probably regret it if she didn't get it. And she would have because she still regrets past choices not to buy antique furniture. No regrets this time.

When we got back into town we stopped and got lunch. We went to the same place my sister and I went to the other day with our dad and brother. They have a big menu but the vegetarian options are fairly narrow so I ended up getting the same veggie sandwich. Something I don't have a problem with because it is a really good sandwich.

I didn't really accomplish anything when we got back but after dinner I buckled down and put some major work into the CSS for my website. I read my textbook and took notes during the drive today so that came in handy. I didn't actually end up doing anything related to what I read about in the book today but doing the reading gave me confidence to just start doing stuff. Normally I would have felt the need to keep reading the textbook instead of actually starting.

Yesterday I think all I managed was changing the color of links depending on certain variables (hover, active, visited, etc.), messed with fonts, and added the banner image. Tonight I added a background image, a container around my content so I could separate it from the background, centered my pictures and videos, and turned my list of three navigation links into a horizontal menu across the top of the page. It really starting to look like a website now and I like it. I still have a lot to do but I've definitely made progress. I ended up getting completely sucked in and lost track of time, which is why it is after two o'clock in the morning right now.

I like what I have done with the menu but I still need to figure out how to make the active page show up as a different color. That is what I spent the end of my time tonight working on. I've seen several different techniques, none of which worked, but I feel that I'm close. I also need to work on the font sizes and line spacing, which is what I read about in the book today. I actually need to make a list of all the things I have left to do so I don't forget anything, which I definitely will if I don't make a list because I'm kind of just making stuff up as I go, working on whatever pops into my head.

So my tomorrow will hopefully be filled with CSS, with a break for Chipotle night. I just hope I don't end up sleeping through my entire morning. It would be nice if I could finish most if not all of the CSS stuff before I go down for class this weekend.

June 22, 2015

 I slept in today but I eventually managed to accomplish some things. Those things included editing and submitting my first five reflective journal entries. I also learned about a discussion post for my web design class that was due today so I also posted an entry there. That was about the challenges experienced with learning CSS, and because I haven't gone too deep in it yet it took me a bit to come up with some stuff to write about. The hardest part at the moment is deciding what I want my site to look like. I am looking forward to learning more about CSS though because the examples I have seen of what it is capable of are pretty amazing. And speaking of, I continued to work on adding CSS to my website. My main accomplishment was adding a banner image and making it responsive so that it resizes with the size of the window. Simple but cool.

A dude came and got the electric fireplace in the basement working. It only took almost a year to get that done because contractors get a bit flaky once you've moved in, even though they're obligated to fix things during the first year. Good people. But we've got a fireplace now. Not so great on days like today when it's around 108 degrees outside, but Winter will be here soon enough.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and some livestreams while working on my website. Not a bad evening. Tomorrow I believe we are going to take a mini family vacation to go look at antiques in a town not too far away. We did it maybe two years ago and it was pretty fun. It's also nice to get out of the house every now and then.

June 21, 2015

 I read a textbook chapter today and did a little bit of CSS. Sort of. I made a file, added in a link to that file on the three webpages, and briefly added a few things to the file just to see what it would look like on my webpages. I am excited for the possibilities.

That was after lunch because I stayed in bed until almost lunch time. Sometimes it is just super nice to lay in bed. But I got up, had lunch, did the CSS stuff, and then ran on the elliptical before taking a shower and heading over to my dad's for Father's Day. He was finishing up the grilling of hamburgers and hot dogs so I went out and stood on the deck with him. The hamburgers smelled so good. I ended up having a couple fake hot dogs, a baked potato with salsa, a little macaroni and cheese, and salad. And a brownie with a little ice cream for dessert. So I did alright for myself, even without that delicious hamburger.

We were over there for around four hours and then I came home and watched the last couple of hours of Doraleous' livestream. They were playing Organ Trail, deciding to switch to a more modern game after the troubles they had trying to play Oregon Trail. It was pretty fun to watch and they actually managed to finish the game. There was only one survivor but that still counts.

After the stream I read through and edited by reflective journal entries before watching some YouTube videos. And now that I have written this, I'll probably watch a few more YouTube videos before going to bed. I would like to not sleep so late tomorrow. I go down for class next weekend and I'll have to wake up relatively early for class on Saturday so it would be nice to be back on a somewhat decent schedule so it isn't a struggle waking up. We'll see how I manage that.

June 20, 2015

 Today I read three articles and one textbook chapter. Not nearly as productive as I could have been but not bad. I've certainly done a lot worse. One of the articles I read was about the importance of play in the workplace. The author is a library director and he implemented a half hour of non-mandatory play a day, which could take the form of video games or board games or whatever else. As pointed out by the author, it is pretty much the exact opposite of Henry Ford's outlook on work, and the Industrial Revolution as a whole, that was more about turning workers into cogs in a machine. One of the examples given in the article was how successful Google is and they go above and beyond to make a fun work environment. So we'll say there is something to the idea. It was a pretty interesting article. Makes me hope I end up at a job with the same philosophy. Or end up in a position where I can implement such a policy.

Tonight I watched Jupiter Ascending. It kind of reminded me of John Carter. When it came to that movie, I thought it was good but the title was awful because it sounded like a Denzel Washington movie, not a movie about Mars. I would say the title alone was a big reason for that flop, and of course the marketing budget of an indie film. But I enjoyed the movie, probably because I read the book. I also enjoyed Jupiter Ascending, but not necessarily because it was a good movie. It seemed to be all over the place and lacking in explanations at times. I think the story and plot would have been better in book form. It kind of felt like a book story that had been taken literally, rather than being adapted to make sense in movie. And they didn't really wrap up the loose ends of the two other siblings, maybe in the hope of sequels, but that doesn't seem very likely. Anyway, the action was good and it was a fun movie.

Tomorrow will involve more reading. Those are the only plans so far. Hopefully I can be a little better about that. It would also be nice start working on the CSS for my website but I've only read one chapter so far and I doubt I have the motivation after reading a few more tomorrow. But it also might be a good idea to start writing the CSS as I go, so we'll see.

June 19, 2015

 There was a word I was trying to think of yesterday and it wouldn't come to me. I even looked back through old text messages and journal entries because I was convinced I had mentioned it somewhere before but couldn't find it. And then I typed my vague memory into Google and found it. The word is 'anhedonia' which is the inability to experience pleasure from activities that are usually enjoyable. More specifically there is motivational anhedonia, which is the trouble finding the motivation or desire to engage in an activity. That describes me to a 'T'. Sometimes it feels like my inability to get motivated to do anything, whether it is school work or partake in one of my many hobbies, is more than just a lack of motivation. That just doesn't sound like a strong enough phrase. Anhedonia gets closer though.

Today I didn't accomplish a thing, which was the plan. I woke up after about four hours of sleep, which was annoying. I then messed around on the internet for a couple hours before crawling under my desk and going back to sleep for another three hours, waking up in time to eat lunch. And then I went back to doing nothing. Again that motivation thing comes into play. I wanted to do stuff, not school stuff but fun stuff, but the motivation was lacking, so I just watched YouTube videos and clicked around the internet. I did run on the elliptical for 35 minutes, so that is a plus. I also hooked up some more speakers to my computer, which took me awhile to figure out because I couldn't get the rear ones to make sound. I have them under my desk, not behind me, but it was still annoying. I eventually got it though, so if I ever watch some with surround sound, I'm ready.

Tonight we went to the Chinese buffet for dinner. Delicious as always. I got the same old stuff and I'd do it again because I mentioned not too long ago, it was delicious. And I only got two plates of food this time, so I didn't feel completely terrible afterward.

The dogs killed a bunny tonight. More specifically, Alfie killed a bunny. She's always on the lookout when she goes outside because the bunnies come in through the holes under the fence. My mom makes noise and tries to make sure she scares all the bunnies away before she lets the dogs out but this time there was a bunny that didn't get the message and wasn't quite fast enough. It was pretty horrible. Alfie got a solid bite and tore it open but it was on the back half so it didn't die instantly, it took awhile. I don't get hunting. I'm not judging dogs because they're dogs, and I'm not judging humans who hunt, because that's their choice, but I don't get it. I have no problem never seeing a dead animal again, let alone purposefully causing that death.

I watched Furious 7 tonight. It reminded me that I had only seen parts of Fast and Furious 6, so I need to go back and watch that. As for Furious 7, I liked it. I think at one point maybe they were making fun of themselves for past movies when Paul's son throws his toy car out of the van and Paul says that cars don't fly. And they have definitely defied the laws of gravity in the past, so it would be great if they were making fun of themselves. Although it could have also just been foreshadowing because they had a couple flying cars in this movie as well. I also think they did a good job with the CGI of Paul Walker. I was also doing other things while watching the movie so I may have missed it earlier in the film but I didn't really notice it until the end, mostly because I knew the final scene was CGI. That stuff has come a long way in the last few years.

June 18, 2015

 Holy cow, things were done today. I was determined to start/finish my reflective journal entries today and I did just that. It took me all day, and I lost focus a few times, but for the most part I managed to stay on task and sometime after midnight, probably closer to one o'clock, I finished the final entry. The most surprising thing is that it isn't due until Monday. That gives me plenty of time to read over everything before I turn it in. I've gotta say, it feels kind of weird.

Thanks to all the schoolwork work, I really don't have much else to write about today. I wrote almost 2500 words for my reflective journal entries, and I could cut and paste some of that stuff in here, and I might do that at some point, but for now I'll save it. Just call this good at yet another incredibly short entry.

Tomorrow, I want to take a break from school stuff. I might read some chapters or articles, because I'm never quite caught up with that stuff, but I'm going to try not to think too hard. After today I need a break.

June 17, 2015

 Today was mildly better in terms of productivity. I woke up well before noon and read a couple textbook chapters. Then I quickly ran on the elliptical because I got a late invite to go to lunch with my dad, brother, and sister. That was good times. We had good conversations, I had a tasty veggie sandwich, and I was able to give my dad back his bar clamps. On the way home from lunch I stopped and got my Powerball ticket so I wouldn't have to worry about getting it before Chipotle.

And it felt like not too long after getting home I needed to head back out to get Chipotle. It ended up being pretty darn good tonight. I think it was in the beans. They actually had flavor, and that seems to be lacking more often than not. Also, even though we ate right after I got home, I put the burrito in the microwave for fifteen seconds. I get cheese and the corn salsa, both of which are kept pretty cold, and that makes the rest of burrito cold. And cold shredded cheese is kind of gross when it is in a Chipotle burrito. Much better after fifteen seconds in the microwave.

Tonight the only productive thing I got done was replying to a couple discussion posts. I also watched some YouTube videos. And the movie Kingsman, which I have wanted to see since I saw the first trailer, and then read the graphic novel. I was a little worried but it did not disappoint. I enjoyed the action and I wouldn't mind it becoming a series of movies. Prequels and sequels.

Tomorrow, I swear, will consist of reflective journal writing. And maybe some textbook chapter reading. All of the things. They need to be done.

Finally, last night I read a bit from the introduction to The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The complete First Edition translated by Jack Zipes. In it there was a quote from the Brothers that I liked. It was in response to readers and critics at the time not thinking some of the stories were appropriate for children. I also think it can be interpreted more broadly and applied to a variety of things, even in the modern world.

“Nothing can better defend us than nature itself, which has let certain flowers and leaves grow in a particular color and shape. People who do not find them beneficial, suitable for their special needs, which cannot be known, can easily walk right by them. But they cannot demand that the flowers and leaves be colored and cut in another way.”

June 16, 2015

 I slept until noon today. Well, not quite, but I laid in been until almost noon. So a little over nine hours of sleep again. I'm assuming that is due to the lack of sleep I got the night before but still. My sleep schedule sucks. Seriously.

Partially thanks to not having a morning, my day wasn't that productive. I read a textbook chapter and responded to a couple discussion posts. We had a class meeting tonight so I'll also count that as being kind of productive. I still need to read all the CSS chapters so I can get started on that.

Other than that stuff, there wasn't a lot going on. I ran for forty minutes on the elliptical, ate a couple meals, and watched some YouTube videos. A super eventful day.

Tomorrow will be better only because it will be impossible for it not to.

June 15, 2015

 Shortly after I wrote my post last night the base of the main ARK streamers that I watch was raided by a couple other tribes. They came in with several T-Rexes and killed almost all of the dinosaurs and I don't even want to guess how many hours it took to tame all of those things. Then they went after the base and leveled all the top floors and looted all of the stuff. So many hours of work. Some of them at least were the ones who's base was leveled the other day because they were capturing people and messing with them. There are strong accusations that the other guys were stream sniping, meaning they not only gathered intel by watching the other streams to plan the attack and were also watching the streams during the attack so they knew where people were and what was happening. It is also speculated that one of the guys gave out the server password to several of his friends (because it is a private server mostly for streamers) and they helped him build up his army. All of it is still based on speculation and rumors but apparently one of them has a history of doing this so who knows. The raid lasted a long time because the raiders were trying to track everyone down. Thanks to the possible stream sniping it also looks like they knew where all the beds were so they went around destroying those along with a couple other personal bases belonging to the tribe members.

This morning a couple of the streamers I watch were still on. A few had been working all night and managed to rebuild the first floor of the main base all in metal along with one of the personal bases all in metal. When I started watching one of them was floating high over the raider's base, which he said he had been doing for the past six hours. Whenever the raiders left to go collect resources he would go down and mess with their base. Eventually there were only two people left defending the base and the guy went down to talk to them. One of them had only recently joined the tribe and was role-playing as a mercenary. He also possibly has the highest ranked T-Rex on the server. The guy I was watching did a lot of talking and managed to convince the mercenary to leave the tribe because all he cared about was his T-Rex and didn't want it killed. The other defender was a “friend” of the guy I was watching and she eventually flew off, after the guy took some shots at her with his rifle. And that is when the fun began.

At this point another tribe member was online. He got on his bird and destroyed the roof of the raider base because it had a metal first floor but the second floor was wood. Then he went in, killed all the offline raiders and went around destroying all the cabinets and looting all the stuff (a lot of which was probably the tribe's already). He took trips back up and loaded up the birds and the first guy flew them back to the base, offloaded them, and came back for another trip. After that they blew a hole in the outer fence before the first guy had to get offline because he had been streaming all night. And was kind of drunk because he had also been slowly drinking beer throughout the night (“Am I drinking beer at 7:00AM? It is 7:20AM and I have been drinking beer for 8 hours. So yes, I am drinking beer.”)

For the next several hours the remaining tribe member systematically lead all of the raider's dinosaurs, one by one, out through the hole in the fence and into the ocean so they would drown. He originally tried to kill them with his T-Rex but ended up getting completely dominated by one of the raider's T-Rexes, which killed his. So he went back to his bird and slowly lured them out into the ocean, occasionally aggroing a megalodon to attack the dinosaurs in the water and speed up the process. It was a little sad for the dinosaurs but also funny because as he was luring them out of the base he was using that baby-talk kind of voice that people use to talk to dogs when they have done something good. People in his chat were giving him crap for doing it when the raiders were offline but he was offline during the attack last night and some of his dinosaurs were killed, and the raiders have come across as dicks so far, so he had no remorse. The raiders brought six T-Rexes and a few other dinosaurs to wreck the base and kill all the dinosaurs. Today, pretty much one man stole all the raiders loot and killed all of their dinosaurs. At least the loot and dinosaurs at that base. They are rumored to have at least one more.

I only slept about five hours last night because it took forever to fall asleep and then I woke up really early and said screw it. I made a few tweaks to my website and finally submitted it to the discussion post. And I just now remembered that I was also supposed to submit the website link separately on the assignment page. So that was 36 minutes late. Hopefully I don't get too much taken off. There is at least evidence that I was done with it because of the time stamp on my discussion post and one of my classmates commented on it earlier tonight. Too late to worry about it now, though.

Tonight I read a textbook chapter and several articles for class. That is still from last week's reading. I need to read the chapters on CSS so I can start adding that to my website and I need to start writing my reflective journal entries because that is due on Monday. It won't take much to do but I will of course drag it out until at least Sunday night because I suck.

It is now closing in on one o'clock in the morning and I am hoping I will be able to sleep tonight. I have been tired all day and managed to avoid taking a nap, surprisingly, but now I'm not feeling it. Again, because I suck. But I'm hoping for good things when my head hits the pillow.

June 14, 2015

 I managed to sleep through my morning so I didn't get any work done before lunch. This afternoon I was able to finish my website and get it uploaded to my school drive. I also ran accessibility tests and changed a few things to make everything kosher. The only warning left is for a link to a PDF, but I explicitly stated it is a PDF link so that makes it good. It also works out pretty well with a screenreader. The only thing that annoys me now is that the YouTube video is a little wide for a phone screen in portrait mode. There is a way to fix it with CSS, which we will add into our websites after this, so I will be able to fix it in the near future. Although the site technically is live now I didn't actually submit the link to the discussion thread so I can look things over one more time. But that was my afternoon.

After dinner I could have read stuff but I had a headache and needed a break. So I watched the Doraleous livestream until Bethesda's E3 showcase livestream started. I'm not really interested in Battlecry because it looks like TF2, which I've never gotten into, or the card game, because I've never gotten into card games. I do want to play the new Doom, Dishonored 2 (although I never played the first one), and of course Fallout 4, which looks like it will suck people in for years. That is a series that I have always liked but only briefly dabbled in because it is such a time-sink. Hopefully sometime in my near future I will be free of homework and have copious amounts of free time to play video games after work. Once again I would like the ability to live multiple lives. One of them would be a normal boring one, one would be spent as a monk on some remote mountaintop, and one would be devoted to playing all the video games I want to play but always feel bad about wasting time on.

Tomorrow I need to submit my website and read a bunch. And write my reflective journals for my management class. I think those need to be done by Friday. So those are my goals. I need to accomplish at least some of those things.

June 13, 2015

 In all of my excitement talking about the thrilling endeavor of planning a three-page website, I forgot to mention I played a bit of ARK last night. I couldn't get into the server I played on the last two times, the one with my character and the small thatch building I made, so I had to join another server and create a new character. It was not a very productive time spent in the world but I did walk around a lot. At one point I stopped to tame a dodo. After successfully taming it I was looking through the different commands and accidentally set the bird, which I had named Nono, to aggressive. She immediately locked onto the nearby Brontosaurus and charged toward it. I tried whistling and running up and changing the the command to all of the other ones but nothing worked. It took awhile but she eventually managed to nip the Bronto's foot and without a second thought it killed the bird and knocked me pretty good. I didn't expect to have the dodo very long but I didn't think it would only be five seconds. I need to find a better server that I can get on more reliably and just pick a spot and start building. I need more of a focus instead of all the wandering.

I have a memory of turning off my alarm this morning but I still didn't get up until half an hour after it first went off. And the rest of my day was spent working on my website. Most of the time anyway. There were a lot of mini breaks mixed in. I had the idea for my second page but kind of hit a wall, mostly because I didn't want to take content from another website and I also didn't want to read a bunch of stuff in order to pick out my own content while also properly citing where I got the content. I ended up figuring it out. At least good enough for me. I found a bunch of sites that I want to use for the third page but I will probably save those for tomorrow. So much for finishing everything today.

After lunch today I took a nap under my desk. It was mainly because I was avoiding work, but also a little bit because I was still tired, and a lot because it is fun to take a nap under a desk. It's kind of like a fort. I also like sleeping in enclosed places.

I ran for 37 minutes on the elliptical today. My goal was 35 minutes but I zoned out and lost track of time so I decided to finish the song I was on, which took me up to 37 minutes. Twenty days ago I started running on the elliptical and made it a whole ten minutes. Not bad progress. I think I need to start running faster, though, just to get it over with quicker. Not that I'm impatient or anything but 37 minutes is a long time to be running.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish my website for real. My goal is to finish it so I can upload it to the school server and make sure all my links are correct. Let's hope I don't drag that process out the entire day because I still have other stuff to read and assignments to work on.

June 12, 2015

 I managed to completely ignore my alarm clock this morning but I got up thirty minutes later, so not bad. I worked on my website and I'm going to say I'm done with the homepage. I finished all three entries and did a bunch of small edits. I also made a favicon using a website that in theory turned it into a bunch of different icons for all the different platforms, mobile and desktop. It isn't a big deal if it doesn't work but at some point I'll need to test it out.

The website stuff took up a good majority of my day because I was bullshitting some great content for my entries. The rest of my time was spent on random stuff, like watching YouTube videos and watching livestreams, but not while writing website content because I wanted to stay focused. And I was pretty successful with that. I still surprise myself sometimes.

Tomorrow, more webpage stuff. I would like to get the second page done tomorrow, which should be doable because I just want to have a list of facts about amnesia, and possibly nostalgia. The part that is hanging me up is figuring out where to get my facts and how to cite them. For the third page I just want a list resources for further reading. I think that will include websites along with any scholarly articles I can find. Stylistically I figured I would put everything into Zotero and have it spit out an APA bibliography. So the whole thing is there in my head I just need to get it done. Soon.

June 11, 2015

 I slept through a good chunk of the day again. I'm generally sleep about seven hours a night but recently that has jumped up to around nine hours. That just seems a bit crazy. I don't know if it is because I have started running on the elliptical everyday or if it is related to the late nights I have been having. Either way, it's kind of annoying. I think tomorrow I'm going to set an alarm and try my best not to ignore it.

Before lunch I managed to finish the article I started yesterday. After lunch I worked on my website. I wrote the entry for learning to ride a bike and got it put into the code with all the appropriate links and whatnot. That leaves two more entries, which I hope to finish tomorrow. I might actually start one of them after I finish writing this. But probably not because it will be even later than it already is.

I avoided watching streams during the day so I could focus on reading and working on my website. Tonight I made up for that by watching the Neebs stream along with two of the guys I've been watching play ARK. I jumped into the game for a little bit today, mainly just to mess with my settings. I had to restart because when the game crashed last time I probably ended up just passing out on the beach. Thankfully I didn't really having anything on me after fifteen minutes of playing. Today I stuck around long enough to find a quite place and I built a small thatch house with a sleeping bag, so hopefully if my character randomly dies in my passed out sleep I can at least respawn at the sleeping bag and not have to randomly spawn on a beach somewhere. I'm on a PvE server so I shouldn't have to worry about other players killing me, and my ultimate goal is to find a secluded place to build a cool house. While watching streams I have seen some cool places but I don't really have any idea where they actually are, so I'm going to just keep wandering around until I find a place that looks neat and doesn't have any other players nearby. That is kind of hard at this point with so many people playing the game but it's worth a shot.

And now it is after one o'clock so I'm probably not going to try and write that website entry. Tomorrow is the day for all of that. I'm going to wake up semi-early, probably still groggy, and get stuff done. Fingers crossed.

June 10, 2015

I'm a little disappointed with the amount of schoolwork I got done today. It was pretty much a fail. I read one textbook chapter and part of an article and that was it. I might try to finish the article before I go to bed. This day just got away from me. And I didn't really do much with my day other than avoid schoolwork.

I watched a lot of a stream where the streamer was interviewing one of the ARK developers which was really interesting. The developer was able to dispel a lot of theories that people have had about game mechanics and set things straight. Several other things were brought to his attention that people assumed were game mechanics but it turns out they are bugs so he made note of them so he could look into them. He also talked a lot about future aspects of the game. Already the developers of the game have been really active in fixing bugs, often releasing multiple patches every day. And it is cool seeing how interested they are in getting community feedback. Even if I never get around to playing much of the game I am glad I can at least support them with my purchase of the game. The developer said they have plans to support it for at least the next three years so I have plenty of time to find some time to play it.

Tonight was Chipotle night and my burrito was decent. I opted for sour cream as well as cheese and it seemed unnecessary. I haven't gotten it sour cream it quite awhile and I'll probably go back to that next week. I don't need any extra dairy in my life.

After dinner I had the multi-stream up because they were collecting the final artifact so they could summon the end-game boss. They have spent days going through caves to collect the artifacts and the boss fight was underwhelming to say the least. The boss was summoned on a platform that dropped off to water far below, and the whole thing was surrounded by a cliff. A lot of people on the server showed up to watch the fight and they lined up on the surrounding cliffs. It took forever to summon the boss only because they were missing a few of the items and some of the tribe had to go back to various bases to pick stuff up. When the boss, which is a giant spider, was finally summoned, they all started firing arrows at it and the little spiders that it spawned. And then one of the guys road up on his T-Rex and completely demolished everything. With every attack it destroyed all the little spiders as they spawned while also doing damage to the boss. It was all over in a matter of a few minutes and the T-Rex didn't even take any damage. So the boss fight isn't really balanced yet, but to be fair to the developers, they probably didn't expect people to get to the boss in less than a week. Also, despite all the work that went into getting the artifacts and other items to summon the boss, the only reward for defeating the boss was a banner. A little blue flag to plant outside your base. And to add a bit of insult to that, all the people who came to watch were apparently within range of the fight so they also got the banners. Whoops.

The dude with the T-Rex has been streaming for almost 30 hours at this point. I was watching his stream last night before I went to bed and throughout most of today. It's impressive. I think he's getting close to wrapping up but his group is working on taming a T-Rex right now and he's also looking for a raptor to tame, so who knows how long he'll go.

It doesn't really matter though because I should probably go to bed. After reading that article, maybe. Probably not. My goals for tomorrow will be the same as whatever I had for today seeing as how I didn't really get around to much. I need to read and write things as well as work on my website. I believe it is due on Monday and I've got a lot of work to do. Tomorrow, no distractions. Hopefully.

June 9, 2015

I ended up staying up way too late last night. Like 4:30AM late. I was using a multi-stream site to watch four streams at once because they were all in the same tribe and they were doing a dungeon run through a cave in ARK. It was very entertaining to watch and I kind of lost track of time. The best part was when they came to this spot where they needed to make a couple jumps across lava in order to reach the loot, which had several bats hanging out nearby. Most of the group was on one side because they had gone around but one guy, the main one I watch for this game, was on the other side because he had just died and run back into the cave. They were all trying to figure out a strategy to some how aggro the bats away so the one guy could jump across and get the loot. And then he basically just said screw it, yelled “LEROY JENKINS” (which was entirely appropriate for the situation), jumped across, grabbed the loot, jumped back, and they all ran for it. There were several instances in the gave where they just had to make a run for it and it was funny every time. There were two loot spawns in the gave and unfortunately an asshole had been in the cave before them and abused a glitch. After the loot has been taken the container is supposed to de-spawn and then come back after five minutes or so. Well, the asshole had replaced the loot with just a random thing from their inventory so the container didn't de-spawn. This meant that their original effort to get the loot was for naught because they just got the crappy thing, not the loot. For both they were able to wait around for the loot to respawn without too much trouble. As an added level of difficulty, because the game isn't that optimized yet, the amount of crap going on in the cave completely tanked all of their computers. They were all getting single digit framerates, maybe low teens at best, even though they all have beast computers and had all the settings turned all the way down.

But while I was watching that and staying awake way too long, I also did a little work on my website, so I was kind of productive. Slightly.

I ended up sleeping until 11:30AM, maybe a little later, and although it felt great to just lay in bed, it kind of sucked losing so much of my day. Needless to say, I did not really accomplish much before lunch. This afternoon I did a little textbook reading and made a logo for my website. I might decide to change it at some point but probably not because it is simple and I like it. And I can worry about the look of things after I get all the content figured out. I did add in the second and third pages today, and I didn't really do anything to them, but it's a start.

After dinner I hunkered down and read two and a half textbook chapters, the half being the one I started this afternoon but didn't manage to finish. When I finished that I worked on my website a little bit and solved an issue with the logo I made not showing up on the second two pages. Turns out I needed to add two periods in from of the images link so it would move up a level in the directory where the images folder is located. Two little periods. It reminds me of all my experiences with programming languages where a missing bracket or semicolon or parenthesis was enough to break everything.

I did a rough summer budget tonight and used that to decide and finally buy ARK. I still can't sink loads of time into it because I have a lot of school stuff to keep up with but I figure I can run around and check things out. Which is what I did tonight for little bit before the game crashed. I probably spent more time creating my character than I actually spent in the game. I was running along the beach collecting stuff when everything froze, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes into the game. I had read earlier in the patch notes about them coming out with an option to launch the game with that should fix the crashing option that I experienced. I didn't actually try it out though because I took it as a sign to stop for the night and write this so I could go to bed. It's already after two o'clock in the morning. I have done very poorly at getting back to a decent sleep schedule.

Tomorrow I need to read a bunch for school, work on my website, and probably write some stuff as well. So hopefully I can wake up at a decent time and not get too distracted by other things, which will inevitably happen.

June 8, 2015

Today went by really fast. When I woke up I read a couple more chapters in my HTML book. I worked very briefly on my website. Very briefly. I added one image to my page, I need to find two more and add the appropriate citations and attributions. I would like to get that done tomorrow and maybe start working on the entry for each thing. I also want to layout the basic code for the other two pages just so I can finish the links I have on the first page that will link to those pages.

I found out shortly after noon that I had a haircut scheduled for noon. I think that makes the second time I have forgotten my haircut. I kind of remembered near the end of last week but had obviously completely forgotten by today, which I think makes the second time I have forgotten. At least in the last several months. I have such a skewed sense of the days of the week during the summer when I'm not at work Monday through Friday. Thankfully she had an opening at 4:30PM this afternoon so I was able to get my haircut today. She told me when I got there that this morning she thought about texting me and acting like a smartass by making sure I remembered my appointment. Turns out she should have got the smartass route.

After dinner I went and hung out with my friend. It has been quite awhile since we've been able to hang out and we want to finish watching Dexter before she moves. We started watching the show quite awhile ago and have yet to finish it. It's been slow going for awhile now. And that didn't change tonight because we never got around to watching the show. I would say due to not hanging out in so long we ended up talking for the entire five hours I was at her house. Her boyfriend showed up for the last hour or two and we spent the last however long talking about video games. I very rarely get to have conversations with people outside of my family so it is nice when the opportunity presents itself. We did make the rule next time that we have to watch at least one episode next time before we're allowed to talk.

It was late when I got home and it is even later now because I got distracted by more ARK livestreams. I missed it but the guys I watch went back to the one base from yesterday where they knock people out and drag them back and mess with them. Yesterday they tried to do that to one of the guys but the main guy I watch came with a pterodactyl and another guy came on a raptor and they killed all of them multiple times. It sounded like today they went back and not only killed the guys but they also destroyed their base. I'll need to watch the recording tomorrow because it sounds like it was pretty entertaining. And you've gotta be a bit of an asshole to make your whole goal in a game to trick people and trap them in your base, so they deserved whatever happened to them.

Tomorrow, I need to work on my website, read some textbooks, and maybe start on my reflective journal. We need to be doing that every week apparently and I just found the assignment instructions today, and this is week four, so I'm a little behind. I would like to not save it until the last minute. But I know myself so I won't be holding my breath.

June 7, 2015

I actually accomplished things today. When I woke up a read a chapter in my HTML book, all about text. Way back in the day when I was learning HTML it seemed like all the different tags for text were mainly there for formatting purposes. Now that CSS is an established thing, that pretty much covers all of the formatting. That leaves HTML tags to cover the semantics of text, not necessarily the look of it. And a lot of the semantics seem to be subjective at times, which makes it all the more interesting to try and wrap my head around. But I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Throughout the day I made my discussion post for my web design class and responded to a post for my management class. I also made a decent amount of progress on my website. I finally decided on a topic for the website, which is an idea I had for a blog awhile ago but never really had the time or the motivation, and then I forgot about it. Now I have a little more time and the motivation of a grade. The first page will cover my list of amnesia things, I think the second page will cover actual facts about amnesia, and I'm not sure about the third page yet. I had a vague idea but it never really came into focus so I lost it. Maybe just have a list of references to more information about amnesia and nostalgia. I should probably write that idea down somewhere, other than here, so I remember it tomorrow. Currently, the site looks pretty boring because we're not supposed to do any formatting in terms of the visuals, that will happen when we get to CSS. I've never messed with CSS so I am looking forward to getting to that step and seeing what I can do.

Obviously, I watched more ARK streams today. At one point I had three going because they were all playing together and it was nice being able to see everyone's point of view. The guy I have been watching has been wanting to get PvP started on the server and today he mostly unintentionally started a pretty expensive battle. He went over to show someone his T-Rex saddle and before he got over to their base he came across a base and wanted to play a joke by eating one of their tamed dodo birds. The owners took offense to this and chased him down to the river on a raptor and saber-toothed tiger. He managed to kill the tiger but they killed him and his T-Rex. Then mini-skirmishes ensued, including a guy sneaking into the dodo base with grenades in an attempt to kill a T-Rex. The T-Rex didn't die but he blew a wall off a building that was housing another saber-toothed tiger, a pterodactyl, and maybe a raptor, all of which were set to passive mode so he was able to kill all of them. At some point the dodo base also lost one or two T-Rexes, and the guy's tribe who I watch lost an eagle and a few other dinosaurs. And at some point during all of that the guy realized that he was in fact at his friend's base, although she was offline at the time. Whoops.

After all of the killing they decided to call a halt in the fighting and meet to discuss some rules for engagement. They met by a lake between their bases and it didn't go very well. It was only supposed to be one person from each tribe but it ended up being a few from each. Someone was getting annoyed at the owner of the dodos because he was obsessed with the dodos and felt that killing a T-Rex was a justified retaliation for killing a tiny bird. When the girl voiced her opinion that it was ridiculous, the guy shot her in the face with a tranquilizer arrow. The guy I watch was standing right in front of him and immediately pulled out his rifle and shot him in the face. So there was that.

Not too long after that the server went down because the password had been leaked and they needed to reset it. The guy who got shot in the face got back in before the guy I watch and he was going to steal the gun and bullets but when he was seen by one of the other guys I was watching he put it back. When the original guy came back, he heard about the potential theft, he didn't see the stuff in his hotbar (because after the guy took it and put it back it went into the inventory, not the hotbar), so he punched the dude in the face and asked for his stuff back. Well, one of the raptors (which was a somewhat rare albino one and belonged to the friend of the guy I watch) wasn't set to passive so it started attacking the guy I watch. There was a T-Rex in his tribe nearby that started going after the raptor so he jumped up on it to move it away and stop it from attacking the raptor but the raptor died anyway. And that was when they all kind of went into “oh shit” mode. Kind of like when you're a kid and you break something when your parents aren't home and you try to come up with a solution. Do you tell them or try to hide it. It was a pretty interesting interaction to watch. A truce was eventually called, there were a few exchanges of items, and promises were made. The two tribes will eventually meet again to actually set up some rules for how to handle PvP in the future.

More recently tonight, while I was working on my website, I was again watching streams, and one of the other streamers I watch had just spawned into the world and was completely naked and devoid of any supplies, when he came across a base on the server which is apparently known for knocking people out and holding them captive in their base. They chased the guy down, shot him with a tranquilizer arrow, and fed him some narcoberries to keep him knocked out, all the while he was shouting threats at them. They quickly let him go but it wasn't enough because when he was attacked he was on his way to meet up with the main guy I watch and another one, both of whom are high level. Those two weren't having it so they came over on a pterodactyl and raptor and obliterated everyone, twice because they came back to get their stuff. They also killed a two or three dinosaurs and looted the dead bodies of the players. It was pretty good.

It is more and more tempting to buy ARK. I feel a little better about the idea now that I have an idea for my website but it won't be long before this summer semester really starts to pick up steam so at this point I really can't justify the risk of getting sucked into the time-sink that is ARK. Which is unfortunate. But oh well.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is two o'clock and I did not intend to stay up this late. I woke up too early to be up this late.

June 6, 2015

I forgot to mention that last night after dinner we went to Dairy Queen for dessert and I got a small blizzard. On top of all the Chinese food I ate for dinner. Some may say it was a mistake. And for a few hours I was one of those people. It was way too much food. I'm just glad I've been running on the elliptical recently so I don't feel completely horrible about my gluttony.

Today I read a couple chapters in my HTML textbook and figured out my three page website isn't due for another week, not on Monday like I thought. That is a relief because I still have no idea what I want to do. I did add some more basic stuff to the beginning of my page, like all the basic stuff that I will then need to fill with content once I figure out what that content is. I switched from using Notepad++ to Brackets as my HTML editor. It has the option of opening up your page in a web browser and it updates in real time based on the changes you make to the code. Also, whatever you click on in the code will be highlighted on the webpage, so if you click on a paragraph tag, that paragraph will be outlined on the page. You can also hover over picture links or color codes in the code and a preview will pop up. And it looks really cool with the dark color scheme. It just makes me want to type some badass HTML, and eventually CSS.

I replied to a discussion post for my management class and I also responded to one for my web design class, which I didn't really know existed until I was looking for information regarding the website assignment. So I still need to write my actual post for that thread, which I will do tomorrow.

I ran for half an hour on the elliptical today. The last few days I made it up to twenty-five minutes and today I decided to just go for it. My legs were still feeling it from yesterday and my lower back started hurting but I made it. I think I might go back to twenty or twenty-five minutes tomorrow, take it easy.

Other than that, the day went by pretty fast, most of it was spent reading and messing around with HTML. I continued watching livestreams for ARK. There have been several survival games in the past year or two but they almost always involve some sort of zombie or mutant human, which doesn't really do much for me. Zombies are a little boring at this point. But dinosaurs are cool. And the ability to tame them and ride them around is even cooler. I also kind of have a thing for games where I can just zone out and farm and harvest stuff, like Minecraft, and this game is all about farming and harvesting resources, at least in the beginning. Thankfully I can''t afford the amount of time investment this game requires because I could get sucked in. Just watching the streams is surprisingly enthralling, and admittedly it is a whole bunch of not a lot going on.

Tomorrow will involve a discussion post, a reply to a discussion post, more HTML stuff, probably more ARK livestreams, and tomorrow night is Doraleous' livestream, which I already have open in a tab so when I inevitably forget about it, the sound of it starting will remind me. Fingers crossed I don't sleep through half of the day.

June 5, 2015

Last night the weather was ridiculous. There was a whole bunch of rain and a crazy amount of wind, which was blowing stuff around on the deck and slowly blowing a couple deck chairs across the patio under the deck, right outside my window. It was interesting to watch and listen to.

This morning I woke up and actually wrote my discussion post for my management class. And I referenced both textbooks and one of the articles we read this week. I was impressed with myself. Later in the day, after dinner, I got back on and posted a response to someone else's post. Tomorrow I'd like to respond to a couple more and at least one more on Sunday.

I put some work in on the layout of my desks. I stayed away from the cable management but I hooked up my third monitor, fixed my speakers, got my headphones setup, and brought in my printer and the old Apple computer that was our first family computer way back in the day, a Performa 631CD. At some point in the move I put the power cord somewhere. Probably close. I didn't actually look. But the computer itself is currently sitting on my desk.

Tonight we had a family dinner at the Chinese buffet for no other reason than my mom thought it sounded good. And the Chinese buffet is always good. I ate way too much food, as you should do at a buffet. My first plate was piled high with the roasted potatoes I discovered last time and a bunch of green beans. My second plate was fried rice and macaroni and cheese. And my third and final plate had rice noodles and more roasted potatoes. More often than not I'm kind of over food and the fact that I have to eat in order to live is annoying. I like the idea of just popping a single pill that would cover me for the entire day. That needs to be a thing. Except for when we go to the Chinese buffett. That will always be a good thing, even if I'm just eating a giant plate of fried rice. Their fried rice is so good.

After dinner I replied to the discussion post, as I mentioned earlier, watched some livestreams for Ark, and did a little reading about, and messed around with, HTML. I still have no idea what I want to do for my website. Tomorrow I'm going to catch up on the reading in the HTML book and hopefully figure out a website idea. I also did laundry and tried to figure out how to change the light bulb that is on our mailbox. It is a riddle I could not solve. I took the little thing off the top of the lid, along with a couple washers but the lid wouldn't budge. And the screws around the base were just holding the whole enclosure to the base, they had nothing to do with getting at the light bulb. It seems like the lid should pop off but it wouldn't move an inch and I was afraid I was going to break the glass enclosure so I gave up. I was bested by a lamp.

So tomorrow the goal is HTML. As far as I know I don't have anything else on my plate. Having an idea for a website would make things a lot easier but much like everything else school related, forcing it isn't going to work so I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope something comes to me.

June 4, 2015

I posted several times to the two discussion threads for my web design class but I never managed to read the articles or make my post for my management class. Well, I glanced through one of the articles. And I watched the video we were supposed to watch this week. So there's that. But I really don't have any excuse for not writing that post other than being unable to convince myself to start writing. Only having one week off between semesters was not enough time to get my head to a better place when it comes to schoolwork. I need to step up, the semester has barely started.

So most of my day was filled with a whole bunch of nothing. Just wasting time and occasionally writing replying to a discussion post. I'm disappointed with myself but that's pretty normal when it comes to me trying to be productive, especially school-related productivity. I watched a lot of the Ark: Survival Evolved livestream that I was watching last night. The day before the guy streamed for 25 hours and the stream that started yesterday ended up going for around 20 hours. That is dedication. He got up to over 23,000 viewers at one point, which is really high for someone not in the top one percent of streamers. He's played the game so much that he was one of the first people to tame a T-Rex (which ended up drowning at the end of his stream, unfortunately) and he was working on being one of the first people to tame one of the flying dinosaurs modeled after the pterodactyl, but then he got killed in the middle of it. Taming the flying dinosaur just wasn't meant to be for him today because he attempted it several times and ridiculous things happened every time. Maybe in his next stream.

Tonight we had our class meeting for my web design class and she covered basic HTML stuff and how to set up our first three-page website. Which is something I need to get started on because I think it is due on Monday. I haven't even opened the HTML and CSS textbook yet. And I have no idea what to make my website about. A webpage would be easy enough but coming up with three is a bit more involved. It's going to look pretty sparse. And it looks like we're supposed to keep it super basic because the next assignment is making it look better using CSS. So it shouldn't be too hard if I can come up with an idea. In the meeting tonight I did learn how to add the little icon, which is called a favicon, to a tab in a browser, which I'm assuming is also the icon that shows up in the bookmarks bar of a browser. I've always wondered about that, and been annoyed when websites don't have one.

After the meeting I replied to another discussion post and watched the Neebs livestream. Still couldn't bring myself to write my management post. Then around ten o'clock I finally accepted that the discussion post wasn't going to happen and I wanted to feel at least somewhat productive today, so I put my tables together. That took about an hour and forty-five minutes, including moving stuff around so I could get them in place. At some point I will need to unplug all of my computer stuff and organize all the cords a little better, because right now it is a complete mess. I also need to decide on the final layout of everything. I have some ideas but right now I'm just glad to have the tables in place. It makes the room look smaller but so does the massive amount of stuff in the room that I still need to figure out what I'm going to with. Right around the time I get everything figure out I'll probably be moving, but I'm going to try and not let that prevent me from getting things sorted.

Tomorrow, priority one is writing my discussion post. That will be done before lunch. If I don't sleep in until lunch, which I might do just to avoid writing that discussion post. My brain is ridiculous. I also need to start looking through the HTML and CSS book and I want to start making my website. Even if I don't come up with an actual idea for the website I can layout the basic code and start playing around, because I haven't actually used HTML in years, and it has changed a little. So I have goals for my day. Much like every day. Only time will tell if I allow myself to reach them.

June 3, 2015

Today was eventually productive but a lot of it was a bit pointless. I just don't do well when I give myself too much time to do things and I had absolutely no motivation today. I didn't read anything but I did eventually manage to post replies on the two discussion threads for my web design class. I post two or three on each and I'll try to do the same tomorrow just to show that they are spread out a bit. It looks like the professor will grade the discussions similar to one of my classes last semester that required posts throughout the week in order to get full credit. For these discussions it will only be over the course of three days but that's better than nothing. I'll do better in the future. My management class has the same rules so I need to post to make my first post on that one tomorrow. After reading the articles for this week and probably looking over the chapters again to pull out some references.

When I wasn't working, I was doing nothing. I know YouTube videos were involved but other than that the day just kind of disappeared. I decided not to add another clear coat to my table tops and ended up bringing those in the house tonight because there is the potential for storms and I wanted to park in the garage. If I have time tomorrow, either as an excuse for not doing school stuff or a reward for getting school stuff done, I might get around to putting both tables together. We'll see how early I wake up.

Tonight was Chipotle night and I got a PowerBall ticket on my way to get the food. I'm still not a millionaire but I matched a single number, so that's good for nothing but it's better than zero numbers I guess. Maybe. My burrito was good tonight but not anything to write home about. But apparently good enough to write in my journal about. After dinner I showed several videos, ending on two videos that had to be synchronized. The goal of the videos was to finally put to rest the often mentioned phenomenon of toilet water swirling in the opposite direction in the Southern hemisphere. Both videos conducted the same experiment but each covered a different hemisphere, and the guys in the videos took turns talking, so it would go back and forth across the videos. And at the end they were each standing in their own video and then switched places, so they were on each others' YouTube channel telling people to subscribe. It was really cool and I imagine took an incredible amount of work to get everything synched up, but they're both geniuses so it's not surprising that they were able to handle it. I don't know how often the syncing of multiple videos has happened before but I can definitely see it becoming a thing.

Tonight while working on replying to discussion posts I also watched a livestream for the game ARK: Survival Evolved. It's an early access game and I don't know the story behind it but I think the basic idea is that you're dropped onto a prehistoric planet covered in dinosaurs and you have to survive. It does look like a lot of fun, minus having to beat dinosaurs to death, but you can tame them and ride them, which is cool. There are a lot of games like this out now, having to survive in a multiplayer world, not only against the elements but other players, but this is the first one I've seen that has dinosaurs, which makes it unique and interesting. There is very little chance I'll ever buy the game though, or any of the other ones like it, because so much time is required to level up and at any time there is the chance that you'll die and lose all of your stuff. I'm not a fan of that. And it's still in early access, like a lot of the games it is like, so it is still a bit glitchy and not optimized and there is the chance that it will never be fully released, just forever updated. Maybe someday when it is on sale and I have a lot more time on my hands.

It is now one o'clock in the morning and I'm considering going to bed. My sleep schedule hasn't really gotten any better. Soon, hopefully. I like getting up early and having a whole day (even if I don't utilize it) but I also like sleeping in and staying up late. There's no winning.