Spamboy

Just a quick note to mention that this weekend I’ll be attending WordCamp 2008, the annual gathering of Wordpress Kool-Aid drinkers such as myself. This will be the first conference of this type that I’ve attended; as a result, I am simultaneously intrigued and nervous.

I’m especially excited about the opportunity to meet new people and expand my network. It’s been one of my goals for awhile to better know the blogging community in which I participate. Garnering familiarity with those sharing the same interests as myself should improve not only the quality of what I publish but also my skillsets — after all, I did my best with this site’s code, but I’m sure it’s paper mache compared to the beauty of other’s work.

There will be a number of interesting speakers, including the dude that begat Wordpress. I plan to only attend Saturday (as my garden beckons to me on Sunday). If you’ve got anything that you want me to ask or find out, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to bring it up.

Jenn and I spent most of the morning digging up our backyard, attempting to get it ready as McKinney’s number one bird attraction. Now that the soil is turned over and my arms are only 50% jelly from trying to wrestle the beastly gas-powered tiller, I took the rest of today to finish up the outstanding tasks on this website.

If you’re reading this post at my actual site (versus my RSS feed), you can plainly see that I’ve been quite busy. One of my new year’s resolutions was acknowledging that my own web design skills are a little outdated. So instead of trying to wrestle my own theme together, I co-opted a wonderful Rob Goodlatte theme and adapted it to my own needs. Thanks a million times to Rob for putting his Abstractia theme into the public domain.

For the nerds out there, my Wordpress installation is finally up-to-date, allowing me to take advantage of some nifty new features — along with some swell security updates. Because I was so behind on version numbers, a significant rework of my site’s custom code was needed. Waddling, spit, and twine were exchanged for proper PHP classes and methods, allowing my code to be future-proof and portable. This means if anyone wants to publish their own online book like I’m doing here, let me know and I can get you setup, as my custom code is now encapsulated within a custom Wordpress plugin. And just in time for the upcoming Wordcamp conference, where I hope the people I meet will help me learn more about this wonderful technology.

Sorry for my absence. Got sick wife, dumb dog, lawn full of weeds, and Guitar Hero III all vying for my attention. Oh yeah, and a much-needed site redesign, which should go live later this month. In the meantime, the untimely death of a fellow blogger’s cat reminded me of some of my own feline misadventures, which are collected in a new story arc called “The Kitty Khronicles“. Enjoy!

Better late than never comes my Super Bowl tale “I Was Sold.” A purely silly story, it details how my life changed — and how my first child may very well be named “TiVo.”

Today brings a new story, “Why Aren’t You Watchin’ the Game, Boy?” Read more of this post

“The Surprises(s)” finishes today with a brief epilogue, which will eventually lead into some tense times between me and my then-girlfriend Pam.

Part 6 of “The Surprises(s)” brings us closer to its conclusion, as an insane birthday celebration takes one more step towards Crazytown.

After a week-long break to celebrate my own birthday, Part 5 of “The Surprise(s)” continues with the story of my 18th. Learn what Micha’s friends truly think of her.

No new story parts today, but there has been a little bit of maintenance. Photos have been added for Pam and George’s character biographies.

In addition, I searched long and hard to find an image of my high-school bedroom, which was covered in Pink Floyd, Rush, and Eagles posters. I finally found it, and it’s been included in “The Surprise(s), Part 3“.

Finally, a photo of me was substituted in “Dead Man Walking, Epilogue“. It’s actually the same image that appeared there before (i.e. Skinny Spamboy), but rescanned to fix graininess.

Part 4 of “The Surprise(s)“, and with it interesting details of Pam and George, two people from my past, but only one of whom actually stayed on my friend’s list in the present day.