A Conundrum

This post represents a bit of an enigma. I got an email from Lujza saying she hasn't been able to read the blog here since the redesign and the move to the cool background. I have checked the site via Internet Explorer on the PC side and it rendered nicely so I'm curious as to what the problem is.

So this post is sort of a test post to see if she (and others presumably) are able to access the site properly.

So here is the paradoxical directive of the day. If you can't see this and can't read the site then drop me an email. And have yourself a Hoppy Wednesday.

Dagnabbit!

I thought Disqus comments were fully working properly but there's some kind of a wacky disconnect between main page posts and the post pages where the comments would actually be entered.

Will have to keep working on it.

Sorry if you've been itching to leave a comment about how awesome the blog looks.

Update: The problem has been resolved. I tried hand coding it but since it had partially completed before it was making my brain hurt so I did the easy thing, I chose another template, published to that one and then went back to the set I'd used before. I downloaded that xml file and then uploaded it to Disqus' wizard and badda-bing, we're rolling.

Now if I could only find a Twitter widget/badge that I liked and provided most of the functionality I'm looking for...

Progress Report

It would seem that I'm having much more fun fiddling with the controls on this redesign than getting any real work done today. Which would be true to a certain degree but I'm actually still being pretty productive amid the tweaks.

But, as I've been staring at this site for a few days and it looks pretty good to me, I thought I'd ask my readers what they think. How's the readability of the site now? Are the links legible? What about the spacing? What about the cool background image? Is the tumbling Flickr widget cool or distracting or annoying?

What would you change if you could change anything?

There are still a few things left to finish up but I really am pretty pleased with how things have come out.

Left To Do:
Add in Share This code for posts - Done
Fix the missing favicon - Done
Repost the disclaimer
Twitter feed
More to come, I'm sure.

Keep Moving Forward

We are continuing to push through the redesign in small steps. This morning I hand coded in Disqus comments again after the wizard cheesed the process partway through.

I'm not wholly sold on the new background, I'm not unsold on it either, I think I need to let it settle in for a day. And I will also need to check it at different screen resolutions like my MacBook Pro's 13.3" screen and on my desktop's 20" screen. And a few stops in between.

I'm not sure about dropping the second column yet either as the sidebar data I like to display usually takes up a good bit of vertical space and I don't know if going to the single column is going to work for me. But the push right now is to re-incorporate the data I had before into the new widgets universe the blog has grown into.

Of course, all of this is done in between other projects so it may take a few days to fully finish up.

Please Stand By

As you can probably tell, Intellectual Poison is undergoing some changes presently. Things will probably look a little wacky for most of today until I can complete the upgrade to the new design. The nice thing is that, moving forward, site redesigns will be all easy-peasy!

But its this first move into the new Blogger in Draft custom template system that will require lots of micro-fixes and cutting and pasting.

I should bullet out a list of changes still pending but I've got so much work to get down right now (real work that someone else pays me to do so it moves ahead of blog redesign fun).

In the meantime, you are invited to peruse my photos from yesterday's Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California as it wound up down along West Cliff in Santa Cruz. We were able to get into town, get parked and find a great spot to enjoy the really impressive spectacle of a top road race featuring some of the world's best cyclists in one of the world's most beautiful settings. Sometimes I feel truly blessed to reside in an area as stunningly awesome as Santa Cruz. And it makes me want to relocate back into town much sooner rather than much later.

Some Program Notes

For anyone interested, I've started (yet) another new blog. This one is called The Kyani Dream and is focused on our Kyani business, it is not all about selling though there is some encouragement to try out the products. It is more about sharing information, knowledge, health issues, thoughts about network marketing and our growing success which will lead to posts about our free vacations and, eventually, our free Cadillac Escalade Hybrid when we get there.

If you have any interest in learning about network marketing or the opportunities presented by Kyani then I strongly encourage you to check out the new blog and let me know what you think or what kind of posts you'd be most interested in reading.

Also, if you are in need of some miniature awesomeness then you should check out Plastic Life. Very, very well done miniature photography. I'd love to give some of this stuff a shot.

In other news, I took the Learning Styles Inventory Test after seeing at Where's My Plan and found out that I am...

The Great Communicator

75% Visual, 75% Musical, 88% Linguistic, 75% Kinesthetic, 75% Logical, 63% Interpersonal and 67% Intrapersonal!

Want to give the test a try? Take Your personal Learning Styles Inventory Test at HelloQuizzy

And, finally, check out some pretty awesome photos of nature's fury in full force.

That's all for now, I've got some other things I'm working on but they aren't ready for primetime just yet.

What's The Haps

After a day and a half of four kids (my two boys and their two cousins), two big dogs (my Nande and their Murphy) and my wife's brother staying with us, this morning is calm and mostly peaceful. Even with Murphy still staying with us, he's a great big, sweet and goofy black lab/New Foundland mix.

My cold sore is about 75% healed up now, which is good because it was a really bad one while it was settling in. Probably the worst I've had in five years. But, through a combination of yogurt, lysine, Abreva and Kyani Nitro FX, it has eased up considerably and should be completely gone in another day or two at the most.

And that's a good thing because I need to get back to working out and riding my bikes. I can feel some pent up energy that could really use a release.

We took several steps forward with our Kyani business this week. Say hello to our newest distributor, WindBlossom! We also spoke for the first time the other day as I helped walk her through the sign up process. With her joining our Kyani team, we will start to farm and own Canada because there is little to no presence there as of right now. And virgin territory is huge, huge, huge in this early land grab phase of the game.

If you are looking for an amazingly good Plan B that could easily turn into a Plan A then drop me an email, leave a comment or otherwise get in touch. Kyani is our future and our future looks fantastic! There is no obligation whatsoever to check it out and, if you happen to have sick people in your network of friends, you can make a substantial improvement in their lives.

I had to do a little creative organization in my office to get my computer to be Skype-ready so that WindBlossom and I could video conference but its worked out well, I'm ready and my office is even a little bit sleeker than before!

I've been putting in quite a fair amount of work on websites. I've purchased a new domain for my photography business, used iWeb to create the new site, set up an entirely new account with Backprint and done a pretty ridiculous amount of trouble shooting to make Intellectual Poison work properly again as I'd busted one of the pipes in the process. I'm also starting to lay the groundwork for our as yet unlaunched new bicycling website.

And I've also been tending to several auctions on Ebay to help clear out some valuable but unneeded stuff in the office. Nothing like converting goodies into cash even if I seem to be spending too much time at the Post Office lately.

One big event on the near horizon is Graydon's fifth birthday this Friday! It is hard to believe that he's turning five already but he is. I'm excited for him because I know he's going to absolutely love his main present, a limited edition Automoblox race car. Oh yeah! If you've got young kids, especially car crazy boys (or girls) then you should definitely look into these beautiful toys. We've already got a bunch of the mini cars but the big ones are even more awesome.

The other big events on my horizon are two weddings that I'm going to be photographing the weekend after next. I'm excited, busy with preparations and a little bit anxious about not screwing anything up too badly. Once the weddings are behind us, we'll all be able to breathe a little easier, maybe take a camping trip to Big Sur or somewhere else and start to really enjoy the summer awesomeness out here on the coast. But, until then, there's a ton of things to work on and get ready. My tasklist is just as long, if not longer, than it was when I was working as a computer tech for four schools.

And, lastly, I'm saving my pennies to buy myself a long, long, long wanted goodie, the ContourHD high def helmet cam. Just thinking about my video capabilities with this thing makes me giddy!

So, I may not be quite as crazy busy as WindBlossom but yeah, there's alot going on right now.

How'd I Do That Again?

So, it seems that I've busted some part of my publishing pipes for this here blog again. It happened while I was getting my photography site up and running and, for the life of me, I can't remember how I fixed it the first time.

Which means that, currently, publishing to Intellectual Poison is an annoying multi-step process. I publish here, I go to BlueHost, I log in and then go to the File Manager, navigate to the sub-sub-menu, copy the just published index and then paste it into the top directory where it should have gone the first time.

Annoying but I don't really have the bandwidth to dedicate to getting it fixed right this minute. Soon but not right now, I hope.

Update: Ahh, now I remember. And, if I got it right, this should work properly again.

Still Not Quite Right

So yeah, I spent way too many hours trying to get Intellectual Poison right again after the move to BlueHost. But there are some issues that are not easy to figure out, the "help" files are as obtuse as reading sanskrit in a sandstorm and I just don't get why the system is doing what its doing. It makes no sense to me.

But I will continue to battle the forces of confusing coding until a resolution is found. In the meantime, whenever I publish the blog, I need to go into my cpanel and copy the updated index from a buried subdirectory and move it into the top directory. Loads of fun. No, not really. But at least it works. Sort of.

Anyway, lots to update, lots to pontificate and lots of insights to relate. So much pending its like sitting below a thought cornice.

What is Success Anyway?

As this blog's 7th birthday approaches in May, I find myself wondering if there's any point to continuing to devote so much time to its care and feeding. Which makes me think about how I am measuring its relative success.

I started blogging with an idea that I would tap out a few posts, the world would glom onto my brilliance and duckets would fall from the sky. Of course, that hasn't happened and many would say that blogging's heyday has come and gone, replaced by Facebook, Twitter and probably something even newer and cooler.

But what is success? Can I think of this blog as a success despite its inability to pay my mortgage or enable me to go buy a Mercedes Benz with all the Google Ad bucks?

Part of this investigation is the result of my recent realizations about facets of my personality and character that set me up for frustration when my expectations aren't met. So I am hoping that, in the addressing of them, I will be able to alleviate some of the build up of angst and frustration.

So, again, what is success? Is it finding new people I like to read and interact with, is it gaining some measure of exposure or notoriety, is it making a witty post that demonstrates how funny I can be (or not as the case sometimes is)? Or is success having a running log of events in my life so that I can return to this at some point and remember what was happening with my family, my work, my dog and what have you? Is success having a platform to inform my extended family of what's happening in my life in an unobtrusive way?

Success is all of these things. And, to some degree, I feel that this blog has been a success. I've developed friendships with some of my readers over the years, I've found myself entertained by the other blogs I read and link to, I have initiated conversations with my family that have arisen out of blog posts (though, for some reason, my family doesn't like to comment directly on the blog very much, my sister being excepted).

How has this blog failed? I still have to go to work at a regular job everyday. I've sometimes alienated and driven off regular readers for various reasons. I sometimes navel-gaze too much. I sometimes veer off into what I think might be funny but comes off as offensive humor tangents. I have a hard time keeping on a topic and definitely have an annoying tendency to post serious stuff amid not-so-serious stuff which can make it difficult to follow along with.

In the end, I'll likely keep posting here because I like the soapbox, no matter how wee it is. It makes me feel better because I'm doing something to draw attention to the things that bug me, infuriate me or otherwise elicit a strong reaction. Plus, I need a place to post pics of beautiful dog and awesome kids.

Linky Fun, Bit.ly Style

I've been using bit.ly to shorter URLs for use on Twitter for the last couple of weeks after Leo Laporte mentioned they have a solid tracking mechanism. And, being a number geek, I glommed right on and haven't deglommed.

Here's a rundown of URLs I've shortened recently.
Octuplets mother offered $1M porn contract
Saving Money: The 10 Most and Least Affordable Cities in the US
#247 Know When to Give Up
Carnival - The Big Picture - Boston.com
Initial Impressions from the Canon SX110
UFC 95 Predictions
A Short Tour of California Video
NWoTD - Asspersion
The Pornificator Goes to the Movies
The Nadya Suleman Octomom
Wife Swap: Stephen Fowler
NWoTD - Douchebattery
Facebook backtracks on terms of use after protests

I'm looking into a way to add my bit.ly shortened URLs to the blog automatically.

The Continuing (and Incredibly Aggravating) Saga of Domains By Proxy

I have been trying, on and off for a couple of years now, to get the privacy listing removed from my domain. I usually start the effort at the 90 days out from renewal mark and am so deeply frustrated and pissed off that I give up and suck up the extra yearly cost.

But not this year. This year I've been doggedly pursuing the company, Domains by Proxy, to get my login information (which is old and completely lost) so that I can finally cancel the unnecessary and unwanted service.

Domains by Proxy, by the way, is owned by the asshats of the internet, GoDaddy.com led by asshat extraordinaire, Bob Parsons. GoDaddy's claim to "fame" is the use of big breasted women in their Super Bowl commercials.

Everytime I finish jumping through one of their annoying hoops, they put up another one. Because they need to verify my identity, I had to send them a scanned copy of my license. Only they rejected it the first three times because they claimed the resolution wasn't high enough. I ended up emailing them a full color hi-res copy. Keep in mind that I wasn't able to actually fax this stuff from my house since we no longer have long distance on our POTS line which added a whole other level of complexity to this hassle.

Once that hurdle was cleared, they set up another one. This time I had to try to remember the fake company name I'd registered the site with originally. I had no idea so I took a couple of wild stabs in the dark and got it on my second try. I was thinking the path to access was almost complete but I was very wrong.

Now they needed me to send them a copy of the business license for the fake company. But fake companies don't have business licenses and I was and am unable to provide them one. Which meant more emails, more negotiating and more forms to fill out and fax back.

Just this morning I sent them the declaration that the company is not a valid company. And, like every other correspondence, they can take up to three business days to respond which inches us ever closer to the renewal date for the domain.

But I am going to be dogged about it this time. Primarily because I found out that Domains by Proxy is a GoDaddy company and it bothers the hell out of me to know I'm putting money in an asshat's pocket.

You will not win this time, Domains by Proxy! I will defeat you. And the reason I will not give up is because of Bob Parsons specifically.

De-Lurking Day

Today is, according to Rude Cactus, De-Lurking Day. The day of the year when readers who read but don't comment de-lurk momentarily to leave a comment and then can go back to lurking (and probably smirking at my low-brow attempts at humor).

So, if there are any lurkers out there reading me, why not de-lurk for a few minutes and say hi? Yes, that does include family members.

Go Read This

This is my brother's blog of his year off traveling around the world with his wife and two kids, Change in Plans.

I make no attempt to hide my struggles with his ability to take an entire year off to travel while my own family is struggling to make ends meet (and failing). But he is my brother and, regardless of my personal issues, I am deeply proud of his accomplishments.

How to Improve Intellectual Poison

Its time to get some input from readers about how to make Intellectual Poison a better, more entertaining, more informative, less annoying, less whatever or more whatever else.

If you were me, how would you improve this site?

Blog Slogans

Because Ryan's been changing the name of his blog about as often as he changes his underwear, I thought I'd have a little fun with some blogans (that's blog slogan).

Anyway, here we go, better ones closer to the top:
Read my pucker!
If only sexist were the same as sexy. (Edit: thanks, Amy)
I'm smiling because I just farted.
Monkey see, monkey do, monkey write, monkey poo.
I can shout louder than you so that makes me right.
I'm thinking the turnip truck stopped, backed up and ran over you after you fell off.
Just a beautiful assortment of letters in a pretty format.
Two and two may equal four but you're still wrong and I'm still right.
I don't like you. Or me, for that matter.
Flicking digital boogers at the internet.
This is what I do when I'm not masturbating.
Making out with lipsticked pigs.
Quiet down and bask in the glory of my intellect.
Like the back of the hand for all the internet's backtalk.
If I were any pithier, I'd be a cherry.
You can't even begin to understand my rage.

Got other blogans that you like? Leave a comment and let me know.
Want to use one of these? That's totally cool, leave a comment and I'll come visit.

New Background

There's a new background, aside from being too big (I mean in kb, not in size on the page but let me know if that's a problem) let me know if there are any problems with it. The best thing about it is that I took it.

I suppose it'd be possible to make an assortment of images like these to rotate through as backgrounds.

Test Tweak

In case you hadn't noticed yet, there's a third column over there on the far right. Let me know if you experience wonkiness, bad rendering or other notable phenomena. Or let me know what you think. It looks busy right now but that's because its new. And maybe its a little busy.

Anyway, I'm off to MacWorld tomorrow. My first time and I'm rather looking forward to it. With a stop at Ikea on the way home, the wootiness is crazy.

Bad Word But A Neat Service

Widgetbox has a cool new tool to allow the easy addition of a blog's feed into another blog. As in, on this page, down below everything else on the right, is my What Not To Do feed. Its a blog that highlights the idiotic and sad ways that people screw things up, either intentionally or accidentally. I think it is, occasionally, pretty funny.

They call it a blidget (blog widget) and I wholly agree that it is a painful word to look at it or sound out. But the service is pretty sweet. I'd like to shorten the box some to make it easier to add more than one, like the feed from NorCal Bikers which has been getting better and better posting (maybe good enough to actually repair the wonky posting code).

Let me know if you like it, hate it or if it makes the page load hang.

What I've Learned By Surfing BlogExplosion Blogs

Every so often, I'll surf member blogs via BlogExplosion

There are alot of really bad blogs. And there are alot of really religious blogs. Some of the really bad blogs are also really religious blogs.

Also, spelling seems to be optional. Same goes for coherent design and readability.