I’ve been back from New Orleans since last Sunday, where I attended my second An Event Apart conference, after attending and enjoying one last year in Seattle.
I left exactly a week ago, bright and early in the morning. Not only I couldn’t wait to go so I could absorb even more information from all the well-respected people and pioneers of this industry, like Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, but was also excited to visit New Orleans and finally see my hubby Paul after being in Georgia for past two months.
I can’t believe the day is finally here. I am leaving bright and early tomorrow morning to New Orleans to attend An Event Apart and meet up with my hubby for a weekend after not seeing each other for almost two months!
This will be nice few couples of days out of town, where it is nice and warm for a change. Have some great food, listen to some great music (this weekend is Jazz Festival as well) and learn some new tricks again from my “Yoda” of CSS, Eric Meyer and hear for the first time Andy Clarke and Cameron Moll.
I promise, I will take a lot of pictures and post them as soon as I can. I’ll be back soon.
New Orleans, are you ready for me, because here I come!
Want to know what I do for living and why? Well, watch this video!
…and I thought that I was the only one who geeks out about what I do…
Do you want to “rap” along, well here are the lyrics:
Design Coding
Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it
I must say that last week kicked my butt a little, but slowly I am recovering. I am getting better, even though I am still congested and keep coughing. We had finally at Portland one nice sunny and warm day, but I was told by a doctor to stay in bed all weekend, sleep and drink a lot of water. Pretty frustrating, especially when on Monday temperature dropped from 75F to 55F.
Anyway…
I had a “little” crazy morning today after realizing that my car battery was dead after I didn’t completely shut the door on it the night before. Ooops!
Thankfully, we still have our truck! That pile of metal actually was mobile and its engine started after sitting there for over a month in cold and rain.
I had to leave work a little earlier to go to my second dentist appointment to find out the final verdict on what other work I will need to get done and how much more broke I will be… I thought I would get some procedures done, but not till next time.
After that I had to figure out a way or find someone who would jump start my car, so I can drive it again tomorrow. I’ve tried to call people, but after waiting I figured that I will give it a try myself and learn how to do it, and hopefully nothing would blow up. I went to a AutoZone, and got myself a jump starter kit. After reading instructions and double-checking few things on lovely Google, I felt pretty confident and wen for it. And guess, first time try and there was SUCCESS!!! So, if you ever need your car to be jump started, I will be there. I have all you need, being a pro now!
Well, it is time for me to go to bed now and get my beauty sleep. I will need it, since I have my 6-month review in the morning. I can’t believe that it already has been 6 months since I joined Providence, wow!
What a gorgeous weather is in Portland today, and it is warm too. I guess it should be close to 75 F (about 24°C) as well, but I will be stuck inside!
Why? Well, like Wednesday wasn’t bad enough for me after the broken tooth and all… but on Thursday I woke up with a headache and sore throat. I still went to work, but I was miserable, I mean really miserable! I even had to sneak away for about an hour to use a “sick room” where you can lay down on a real bed and turn the lights off. It maybe helped a little, but not much. Day was just going by so slow for me, but I made it through. sadly enough, I had to cancel my usual Bunco crew, because then I knew that as soon as I will get home, I will put myself to bed and sleep through the night. And I did, since my temperature was off the roof. I slept for about 11 hours, which was nice.
I felt better in the morning, but not great. At work I found myself something to do, which kept me busy for the entire day. I pretty much build the entire site for Providence Bridge Pedal for 2008, even though design hasn’t been finalized. But I figured that at least XHTML and CSS portion of it will be done. What a trooper I am and a great employee, right?
After work, I got home, even washed the car after I got a new brand new windshield on Monday. Felt good overall. But then I woke up this morning with sore throat again and practically no voice, I knew I had to get this taken care of. Even when Paul called me, he started to laugh because I don’t think he was sure for a second whether that was me or not. Anyway, I saw the doc who pretty much said to stay in bed all weekend, drink a lot of water and sleep. How amazing, isn’t it? Outside is gorgeous, and I am stuck at home. I can’t even go see anyone, so I wouldn’t infect anyone. Well, I guess it will be just me and Kitty again.
Wow, I am glad yesterday is over. I have to admit that yesterday didn’t really go for me as I have planned it. Not much have happened, but even the one thing did, managed to mess me up some.
As I was working I started to feel some pain in my throat. So many people have been sick at work lately, and I’ve been trying to stay away from it all the best way I can, but now I feel like I am loosing the battle. While keeping busy, I was having a little healthy snack of raw almonds, I bit something hard. At first I thought that there was a rock in my almonds, but sadly I realized that it was part of my tooth.
Ironically, I already had a dentist appointment set up for Monday, but I knew immediately that I wasn’t willing to wait that long to be seen. Thankfully I was able to find someone to take me in early in the afternoon, and right by my house.
I did get my tooth fixed for the time being, but I will need to get back in for a crown. Can you see the $ signs adding up, you know I can!!! All I am hoping now, that my tooth won’t reject this filling, so I wouldn’t have to get a root canal, because that would cost even more… In the end, I am just happy that I am finally taking care of all this, and hopefully my smile would shine even brighter and healthier very soon.
Today, I feel like crap. My tooth thankfully doesn’t hurt. I just wish I could say the same about my throat. It hurts to swallow and I keep coughing… All I am hoping that I will get all better within a week, since two weeks from now I will be in New Orleans to attend “An Event Apart”.
Yesterday I made a reservation for Paul and I to have dinner at one of Emeril’s restaurant called NOLA, so we are both excited for some of his great food. No more of sitting in front of Food Network Channel and drooling over his culinary masterpieces, but let’s actually have a bite and enjoy all of it with all of our senses.
Today was another killer workout. Workout buddy Hannah was back after over one month of being busy working, so it was very nice seeing her again.
Tonight we got to do as a warm up 400m run and 200 medicine ball throws with a partner. After that it was 5 minutes of rowing, then 8 rounds of burpees for 20 seconds and 10 second rest in between, which I managed to keep doing 5 in each round. Last but not least after all that, there was 5 minutes worth of medicine ball throws against a wall getting down into a squad, and I got 96 of those.
Now, my legs are killing me, as I am still trying to recover from last week’s workouts Tomorrow, I will get a night off as I am going to another Bunco party. In fact I have two Bunco’s to go to this week. One is tomorrow, and another is on Thursday with my usual group.
Yesterday was first day when Crossfit stared their new schedule by adding Tuesday and Thursday evening classes, which are more convenient for me.
Monday was pretty rough, when we started with 400m run for a warm up. The actual workout was 400 m run, 50 pull ups, 400 m run, 50 push ups, 400 m run, 50 squats, 400 m run, and 50 sit ups. I am not going to lie that I switched the work out around a little, so by the time I was supposed to do pull ups, I just couldn’t, so instead I went ahead and ran another 400m, which made it a total of 2400 m. Pretty good, don’t you think?
Last night’s workout was a challenge as well, just look at the board:
Started with some front squats, dumbbell presses, and then went outside to do the actual workout starting with rowing 750 m, carry over head a keg for 400 m, 60 box jumps and 60 walking lunges.
I must say that last week kicked my butt a little, but slowly I am recovering. I am getting better, even though I am still congested and keep coughing. We had finally at Portland one nice sunny and warm day, but I was told by a doctor to stay in bed all weekend, sleep and drink a lot of water. Pretty frustrating, especially when on Monday temperature dropped from 75F to 55F. 
