Success of successes! Exit265c.com is back! And is a real website now! I don’t feel like doing more to update this right now so … um … here it is. Although this is the beginning of a new era, we are under construction.
journal (re)design
All posts tagged journal (re)design
I just migrated this blog over from where it was hosted before and, hopefully, I’ll do something more than have it be a blog very soon.
I’m assuming almost all of you here read this in its previous location so I’m not introducing myself. I had hoped for this to be a seamless transition but I temporally lost the domain. The stupid payment page was down until the after the domain expired; it was my fault for not getting around to it till the last second. So far, accessing this site works on my phone but not on my laptop. I hope this doesn’t take the full 24 hours because I can’t really adjust how the page looks because, well, I can’t see it.
Anyway, for the first time since June 1, 2004, the viaduct is (hopefully) heading into a new and exciting direction.
When it gets fully up and running, that is.
You are seeing right: I changed the header image.
Since 2005, this site was known in part from the header image and the links involved the roadways involved in the photo.
There was a lot of symbolism in that photo and it is far too late in the night to go into that now but I officially live in Richmond now so I figured it was time for the header to match my location.
This is a railroad viaduct along Dock Street in Richmond. Actually, this viaduct starts west of Fulton Yard in Henrico County and parallels the Richmond riverfront for nearly the entire length of the city. It’s not exactly the photo I wanted but neither was the one of the Interstate 664 viaduct over 39th, Marshall and Madison.
It’ll take some getting used to. There are other viaducts in the city, thanks to the topography. This may change. I also think I need another theme for the navigation. It seems so plain now.
Overall, it’s so weird. My Richmond license is coming in the mail. I’m registered to vote here. This city is my home. This house is legally my home. This blog now reflects that RVA is my RVA.
It’s kinda funny. I can’t belive I changed it.
It’s like a mirror tunnel with new windows!
I’ve been kicking around the idea for quite a while and ended up losing out on viaduct.com because of it. For now, it just points back to here but I’m eventually going to do proper Web hosting and such and make it a real Web site!
This, of course, means I have to tweak a lot of things in this still technically Live Journal to reflect that it’s now http://exit265c.com/! I’ll do that when I get home because this computer is teh suck.
Anyway, once I get everything up and running, I’m going to have a page with my favorite photos, a bio page, a page where I plug my novel maybe, perhaps a store where I’ll sell prints of my sucky photos or mugs or T-shirts or something (I don’t know about you but I definitely want to drink liquor out of an official “the viaduct @ exit265c.com” coffee mug at a party) and, of course, the viaduct will be there in a new carnation that may or may not still be a Live Journal.
So there we have it: I told you cool things were going to happen for my fifth anniversary of keeping a Web log about my life. Stay tuned for things coming here once I figure out how to make a Web site. Because I have like no idea. But it can’t be that hard, right? Right?
I think I have exceeded my exclamation mark quota for the year.
If you actually visit my page, you have most likely noticed that I have changed the masthead. Also of note is the far left side, which states 2004 | 2009. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are less than three months away from the fifth viaversary. It’s interesting that we come to this point when I’m not only getting apparently very settled into what I want to do but also a new place in a city of 60 square miles and 200,000 people. Hence the slogan for the year.
It’s also interesting because it is going to breathe new life into this journal. As of late, I’ve been distracted by things like Twitter, facebook a stressful job, a stressful job with a 120-mile commute and then a less stressful job with a stressful 120-mile commute. That led me to contemplate exactly what the viaduct is once again. What it is is a chronicle of my new life in central Virginia in words and pictures. It is the continuing hope that the road of life isn’t a beltway.
That said, the next few entries are going to have photos and a better description of me getting here and doing stuff. My room is almost done (I still need to get my dresser, the actual shelves in some plastic shelving, a couple pieces of artwork and one more plant because I have an extra pot) and the housewarming party/my first anniversary of being named Elliott/my third anniversary of living in central Virginia is this weekend. It’s time to tell the story.
Speaking of that, there’s a story I need to write I almost forgot about. Awesome. At least it’s something I can pretty much do without a lot of effort.
Yep, I completely redid my journal. I always seem to make a big production of things before they end/change. It’s purely by accident. After using and tweaking it since the summer of 2005, I figured that I’d give my Flexible Squares layout a rest. It’s only a mouse click away.
I have been toying with a complete redesign for a while, hence the already-handy cropped version of the viaduct photo. I just had to add in “the viaduct” because the other version of that crop has the name of a Web site I had hoped to create but I never got enough disposable money to follow through with that.
Anyway, a lot of how Live Journal does the css modifications changed since the last time I commandeered a layout and made it my own. After a lot of struggling, I’ve managed to change all but one thing: some links turn/are orange for no apparent reason. Other than that, it’s good to go after about five hours or so of work.
What do you think?
First off, I deleted two entries. I know I said that was something I’d never do (except for some voice posts that have been effectively memos to myself) but I did say that, if I did, I would let you know. Basically, I deleted both because I was very angry in both. I also un-friends-locked an entry two back from this one.
Anyway, out of my brominated vegetable oil haze, I decided that I’m tired of being angry and depressed because I hate my job. So my logical first step was to literally lighten up my Live Journal.
Feel free to give feedback on the new color scheme. All I did was change the background from black to the old color of the borders, change the borders to the old color of the text, change the text to the color of the date/old color of the links and change the links to a lighter shade of yellow. The link hover color coincides with the entry or sidebar text color, depending on where it is.
Hopefully, this attempt to see the sunny side of things isn’t short lived. Or leaves me more pissed off and depressed than I was before.
Unless something absolutely horrible happens there, I think I’m done. I’m tired of complaining about it and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about it. Being depressed about this depressing job was just too depressing, knowhatimean?
You’re not seeing things: the font for entries is now green. Text that is not a link and is in Century Gothic is white. The font size for entries and the subject line have been bumped up slightly as well. I’ve had a few minor complaints about the white text on a black background (in person) but I’m not going to change the background from being black.
All links are yellow well. Exceptions are the links to communities on the friends page, the links in the image map, and the dateline, which is not a link. Otherwise, links turn white when the cursor hovers over them.
The tag list in the sidebar is now a tag cloud. The size of the text is proportional to the number of entries. They list how many entries on the hover. Speaking of that, the links in the image map tell where they go when you hover over them as well.
I think that’s it.
Check out the revamped image map. I tinted the picture a pale yellow (kinda like the album cover for “Fold You Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant”) and fixed the low resolution of the actual words “the viaduct.” I don’t know if I’ll keep the color or the refreshed font. I kinda got used to the even grittier version of Fluoxetine. As for everything else, the time and date are now in Fluoxetine, I’ve centered the sidebar headers and renamed a few, added navigation links in the event that the image map doesn’t load and tweaked the blurb at the bottom of the sidebar. Additionally, if you scroll down to the bottom of pages with 20 entries on them, there’s a link to send you back up to the top.
Welcome to Entry 600. It stops being upbeat here.
At long last, I met with my cousin who works just outside of city limits. His job is seriously like five minutes away from apartment. It was so good to see a family member and get a hug today. I miss hugs.
Alex is even more homesick that I. He hasn’t been able to physically go to Hampton Roads for a years and I’m the first person from our family he’s seen since he left. We talked for a little while about how badly we want to move back to Hampton and be with our family and friends and how it pretty much seems like we’ve been banished here. But, from where he lives, South Hill, Petersburg is the closest large town (now that’s depressing in itself) so, whenever he isn’t working some redonkulous schedule, he might bring his family up here or I’ll definitely come down and visit him.
His children are 16 and 14. I think I last saw them six years ago. He gave me a couple pictures. The look nothing like I remember. But then, then again, they were elementary school aged, meaning that they reeked of sugar, had the attention span of gnats and I, being high school aged, didn’t want to be associated with children. Almost everyone in my family is either a lot older or a lot younger than me so I pretty much grew up a little out of place there. I was too young to hang out with the old folks and too old to pretend to be a Power Ranger or whatever with the other ones.
But his kids! They make me feel old! His son is almost, if not is taller than both me and Alex and we have exactly the same look in pictures. The head tilt to the right and looking like a bad-ass motherfucker in pictures must be hereditary (just like how my niece, Shonda and I don’t eat all the bread involved in a sandwich). If I didn’t only wear slacks and button-down or polo shirts with the collar unpopped, you could definitely tell we were cousins. I can’t believe he’s so old.
His daughter … if she is not the spitting image of her mother. When they decided to name their children after themselves, they were dead on with her. I think I know how I’m going to be when Shonda gets older. I don’t like the fact that guys are looking at the little girl I remember without all of her permanent teeth and clacking beads in her hair.
Alex sounded like he wants me to come over for Thanksgiving dinner. I might do that but my mom pretty much had the menu set since June. Yes, June. We pretty much stopped giving each other gifts on Christmas so I’ll maybe head out there then.
Seeing him today has made me want to get out of here and go home even more … but, then again, I don’t want to leave him here. Sure, he’s around almost all of his wife’s family but it’s not the same. But I don’t want to get to where he is. I saw real homesickness today. Just think about it, if you’re really close to your family. Can you imagine not seeing them for years? Missing birthdays, funerals, births?
I think I’m bummed out more because I know that, about five minutes from my apartment, is someone probably looking out into the night sky, wishing the ground under his feet was sand and those cricket chips were the sound of crashing surf. Someone else who gets tempted to keep driving every time he sees the signs point to Norfolk. It’s right there but it’s just out of reach.
I’ve also resolved to call my paternal aunt tomorrow, since I haven’t talked to her since maybe 2004. I keep saying I’m going to do it but I never have. I will this time.
I guess I might as well keep talking about my family. I talk to my mom almost every day now. Since Grandma had her stroke, we call each other for absolutely no reason now. I can’t believe that, about a year ago, I let out an exasperated sigh every time my cell phone said I had a call from home. Grandma sounds so old and frail now. And her hearing’s going a lot more. Grandma thinks every man she sees is me, Ma said. Almost the only thing Grandma says to me on the phone now is “When are you coming home?”
Today, my mom, who hasn’t said that she missed me in any way since first semester freshman year at CNU, said, out of the blue, “I really do hope you get that job in Norfolk.”
I couldn’t bear to tell her that I already know that I didn’t.
Unless something else comes up before my cut off date for living here (when my lease expires on the first of April), as far as me moving back, there’s only one glimmer of hope left.
… Said I’d return if I ever cared;
But there’s no interstate I find to take me there
To take me there.
– Arcade Fire
Around 10 tonight, a 40 oz. of IBC cream soda a-sploded all over the freezer.
Yes, you can buy a 40 of cream soda.† And I was going to tear it up tonight because cream soda is the only one I love more than regular Fresca but I don’t buy it often because absence does make the heart grow fonder … that and not drinking sodas often is one of the minor things that changed about me whilst I was at CNU.
Anyway, I stuck it in the freezer because I couldn’t drink it with dinner because Grandma’s doctor basically said that she’s too old to get schnockered so she’s resorted to stealing anything that could have the smallest hint of liquor in it like a freshman at his/her first college party. I didn’t feel like trying to explain to her that I wasn’t drinking a beer and have her not belive me and be pissed off when I was telling the truth. I planned on getting it out at around 7 or so but, if you’ve seen the number of entries I’m posted and deleted here tonight, redoing my page so that my banner image became an image map (welcome to my layout 5.0 by the way … if it doesn’t work for you, let me know) took a whole lot longer than I thought it would and I forgot about it.
At about 10, Grandma yelled up the stairs about someone shooting in the backyard. Since I didn’t have any music on at the time because I was in a zone with the code writing and screwing it up (thanks for bailing me out, xtomxfallsx) and since there’s a couple open windows up here, I figured that she was hearing things again (especially after reading “A Beautiful Mind,” I think she’s really just schizophrenic) and paid her no mind. When I went down at about 12:30 to snag some food and drink my cream soda, I realized that it was in the freezer.
I’ve never understood why soda never manages to freeze fully. Even after it erupts all over a freezer and sits there for a few hours, it’s still slowly dripping and getting everywhere.
I got the majority of the bottle and soda out of the freezer (I hope no one decides to just rub their bare hands all over the inside of the freezer). I didn’t feel like truly mopping the floor so let’s hope Ma doesn’t notice if the floor is kinda sticky in front of the fridge tomorrow. Who am I kidding? If it is, she will. I could have called The Wolf from “Pulp Fiction” to help clean up the mess and she still would have known. At least I’m too old to get into major trouble for this fiasco.
* * *
So here I sit, sans cream soda. That makes me sad. But, I did prove myself wrong about thinking that there was nothing else I could possibly do to my layout without making it look as garish as it did back in June. That makes me happy. I guess that makes me mediocre right now.
Mmm … mediocre.
†Well, I’m not sure if the bottle held 40 ounces but it was definitely more than 12 … it was a double deuce at least.
