Buster Benson

Lazy LJ: social winter gym attendance game

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:36:40 GMT

I wish there was a social game that involved going to the gym during the dark winter evenings. I know joshc thinks the Gym Rat badge on foursquare is the lamest thing in the world, even beating Love, Actually and 20 questions games where the answer is a spontaneously invented object, but so far that's about as close to social winter gym attendance game as it gets.

Ideas?

16 years ago

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:03:02 GMT

Cross-posted on Zero to baby:

------

My father passed away from complications from lung cancer 16 years and 2 days ago. Here he is...

One year, five months, and one day from now will be the point in my life where I have been without him as long as I was with him. In my literary mind, it makes sense to me that I’ll be at the very beginning of my own fatherhood at that point.

He was a great father. I miss him.

------

And, over here...

Every year, on the anniversary of my father's death, I usually go back and read all the things I've written about him in the past, and soak up the feeling of missing, of sadness, of the temporary nature of life, etc. At one point I wrote a long essay on my father, but I don't know where that essay is anymore. Probably on one of those floppy disks in storage... hmm... seems strangely appropriate to the topic. There are also several posts from the last few years (and an Amazon occasion reminder).

It's always weird going back and reading old writing. Now that I've got posts going 10 years back (here's the oldest one I have, from October 3rd, 1999) (the ones from 1998 got deleted when I got kicked off diaryland). Of course, all the links are broken, and the site that the posts were originally on is also broken. I've just been archiving each site since 1999, and am curious how long it'll be before it all gets neglected or lost or deleted accidentally.

All is vain, my pinwheel's name. Nothing is new under the sun. From dust to dust, etc.

And on the flipside, enjoy the sun, sweep the dust, appreciate the moments.

State of the Buster address

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:29:14 GMT

Sometimes I gotta brain dump just to clear things out a little.

So, yeah, last October I got married, and McLeod closed shortly thereafter. I spent a couple months figuring out how to get out of leases, handle the pesky IRS, collection agencies, etc that were after me. I built an iPhone app that had surprising success and helped pay off the most urgent of my debts, miraculously. I quit my job at a company that I helped start 5 years ago due to differences of vision, and decided to strike out on my own (3rd time's a charm right?). Figured out how to reduce our costs, get private health insurance, and attempt to live within our means... barely.

The iPhone app, while successful, wasn't going to be able to pay the bills ongoing, so I had to find other work. Found a cool gig building something awesome for bars and restaurants that I think could be really successful, but is also a HUGE amount of work. Meanwhile, Kellianne gets pregnant, and we decide to try to sell our house and move to a new neighborhood and a house with a bit more space while hopefully also costing less (see pesky debts). Selling the house has proven to be a little trickier than it should, since it's basically the worst time ever to be selling a house.

Found a great business to partner with that will invest in the product while also giving us good contacts for future business. I'm the only developer, and it's about 10 months of work to get to a point that we feel we can say we really have something. Of course, that lines us up perfectly with the baby's due date, since everything needs to happen at once.

Already noticing that the impending adventure of fatherhood is taking root in my brain and trying to take over as much space as possible. How will I be as good of a father to my child as my father was to me? Am I being responsible enough? What do I need to learn in the meantime? How should I change and improve in order to meet the challenges with my best self? Of course, having only one brain, this has made the HUGE amount of work I need to do a little more difficult. I've found myself a couple times sitting at my desk facing this huge task and being unable to type the magic code words that equal work in my profession... because I can't stop researching brain development or parenting tricks, or thinking about where we will live, whether it will work for our family, social life, and work lives. Brain is sometimes maxed out with merely trying to remember everything it should be thinking about, much less thinking about them.

Which led to my conversation with my work-mate today about trying to launch our work stuff earlier, with less functionality, than we were originally planning. Launch something now, and build on that. Seems to go more along with my general philosophy for how things should be done. Get it out there, learn, keep going.

Basically, get out of the woods. The woods, to me, are the woods of uncertainty. The woods of plans unrealized, ideas unmaterialized. Those woods are no good. Run as fast as you can into your unavoidable fears, catch them off-guard, tackle them.

billetdoux made a comment at one point at the end of a night in NYC that he probably doesn't remember about how I must be happy to have all of my ducks lined up: married, about to have a baby, off the ground with a new business, etc. I sort of brushed it off, but have been thinking about it because having ducks in a line is something that, 5 years ago, I would have said I never wanted. Of course, now, it is something that I not only want very badly, but pretty much have. And I don't take that for granted. It is a testament to the infinite variety of life that it can change so quickly, and not only change itself but change me too. Priorities are so difficult to change, but then one day they have been changed for you. Why is that?

Time seems to be moving quickly, maybe because things are changing. And they're always changing. And that's a good thing, but it also causes me to think back on all the things that have changed, and how each still moment between all of the changing things has been a thing in itself. Something to appreciate, something to learn from, something awesome, beautiful, terrible, scary, whatever it was. I am not one for much nostalgia but sometimes I feel a glimpse of it when it comes to this feeling that we're all just planets in the same orbit and sometimes those orbits intersect for a while, and then the orbits move away, or just change angles, like Pluto, and it feels like we should all be appreciating every moment more than we are. Being real in every friendship, trading war stories, sharing the same cup, highs and lows, swearing to die for each other, so that it's apparent that we are all really on the same ship together, and we know it, and will never forget. That's how I feel about people, even if we don't feel that close all the time, I know that at the core of each of the people in my life is this shared boat that we're all on and it's too cheesy and idealistic to mention it unless you're going through really tough times or just really drunk, but it's there and it's something worth writing songs about and embarking on adventures for and howling for as you leave the shore.

So there's that.

Clues about the thing we weren't talking about until now

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:05:41 GMT

Looking for a bigger house:

Non-alcoholic beer:

Boobs:

Feeling woozy at various place:

Puking:

"Talking about the thing I'm not talking about"

"Trying to figure out what to do about the fact that all I want to do is nest."

Yup, it's no big secret if you're paying attention to the random occasional titles of your friends' flickr photos and comments for the last 8 or so weeks. :) For those who figured out that Kellianne is indeed pregnant again (YAY!), thank you for letting us keep the story out of the official narrative of our lives until we felt safe enough to make it public. Luckily, that day was yesterday, as yesterday was Kellianne's official first day of the 2nd trimester of her pregnancy and chances of things going smoothly are apparently magically altered in our favor. Bad things can still happen, but bad things can always still happen, it's just that now the bad things would be as likely to happen as all other bad things are likely, and therefore we can't live our lives in a constant state of worry.

We have of course been thinking about what all of this means to us and our future, and in my case I like to compensate for the unknown by reading lots of books and researching a lot of random, conflicting, statistics on the internet. We've taken on pseudonyms and have started a maybe too verbose report of our spring into parenthood here:

Zero to baby (rss feed) (livejournal syndicated feed so entries show up on your LJ friends page)

Of course, this may all be of no interest to those who are not thinking about and/or procreating anytime in the near future, and I apologize in advance for putting a picture of a baby up as my profile picture on Facebook, diluting my LJ, Flickr, and Twitter streams with random nonsense about the brain development of little humans, pseudo-science, and controversial parenting techniques, and generally falling off the social wagon for a while. You have been warned and might as well unfriend me now if this unnerves you. Cause I'm totally into this new chapter of adventure, and it's gonna be awesome.

Help us raise money for highschool kids...

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:12:48 GMT

We're trying to raise some money to give to tarvie's high school class for field trips to colleges, pay college application fees (even the reduced fees are too much for them), and pay SAT tutors, among other college-preppy things.

About 8 of us are running together and will be doing a bunch of ridiculous things during the 13.1 mile half-marathon in 24 days. It's gonna be lots of fun and if you could support us by donating $5/$10/$100/your kidney to rally us, that would be awesome!

Rendezvous is one of our official sponsors so far, and someone will be wearing an animal costume.

Learn more and donate here!
http://krunkingnumbkits.com

At least watch the video, that's pretty funny.

Taking navel-gazing to the next level

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:47:04 GMT

I've written 513 entries mentioning love over the last 10 years:

Only 78 entries about hate:

Talking about foxes spiked at about 10 mentions a month in late 2005:

343 posts about McLeod Residence had a good run, but are now trailing off:

Looks like I've been talking more and more about being drunk over the last couple years:

Could be because of my growing appreciation of champagne:

Here's when I met Kellianne:

I'm an early adopter of Flickr:

And Twitter:

And the iPhone:

But my paranoia of asteroids and super volcanoes seems to have passed for the most part:

Adding a Lucene search engine to all 12,388 entries from the last 10 years is pretty interesting. Mixing the data with Google's chart API makes it even more interesting (to me at least). Now I just have to create more content for it to eat up.

Suggest other ways to mess with all of this.

just cause it's saved doesn't mean it has value

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:42:50 GMT

I've been archiving my Internet activity on my own server for a while now. I think I was one of the first blogs that aggregated data from all over the internet into one spot, but now it's all over the place. Today, the server that was collecting and storing all this information seemed to have disappeared due to a forgotten username, password, and a long expired credit card. Through some magic, I got it back, but I think I'm gonna take the sign as a reason to move it all to a bigger better happier server that will be up more often than not.

In the process, I've moved the database and cron script with all of my entries from the last almost 10 years (1st entry is from December 3rd, 1999). I lost my first year of activity from Diaryland because I got kicked off and it was all deleted. But, in hindsight, I think that's okay. Cause my early activity on the Internet was pretty angry and mean.

In any case, here's a breakdown of everything I've got saved so far:

+-----------------------------+-------+
| title                       | count |
+-----------------------------+-------+
| Flickr                      |  3809 | 
| Twitter                     |  1312 | 
| People Who've Found Me      |  1304 | 
| Typepad                     |  1288 | 
| Flickr Faves                |   576 | 
| 43 Things                   |   575 | 
| Live Journal                |   494 | 
| 43 Places                   |   426 | 
| All Consuming               |   372 | 
| Dodgeball                   |   314 | 
| The Robot Co-op             |   234 | 
| Del.icio.us                 |   195 | 
| Netflix                     |   183 | 
| Morale-O-Meter              |   167 | 
| Brightkite                  |   148 | 
| 43 People                   |   116 | 
| McLeod Residence Blog       |   115 | 
| Mutual Improvement          |    91 | 
| Upcoming                    |    67 | 
| Enjoymentland               |    65 | 
| Vox                         |    55 | 
| Should Do This              |    53 | 
| Vimeo Likes                 |    52 | 
| Tada List                   |    40 | 
| Facebook                    |    38 | 
| Space Tag                   |    34 | 
| Lists of Bests (incomplete) |    33 | 
| Vimeo                       |    21 | 
| Tumblr                      |    21 | 
| Good Ideas                  |    20 | 
| Odeo                        |    20 | 
| Tumblr                      |    15 | 
| Lists of Bests (complete)   |    15 | 
| One Offs                    |    15 | 
| Seattle Public Library      |    11 | 
| 30 Boxes                    |     8 | 
| Yahoo Answers               |     7 | 
| Yelp                        |     6 | 
| iLike                       |     5 | 
| Myspace                     |     1 | 
+-----------------------------+-------+

Now I gotta think about what I want to do with all this information. People don't even really read this stuff anymore. A lot of it is so old that there's no reason to really keep it around. What should I do? What's the future of all of our digitally stored ramblings?

Whatever the fate of my own crap, it's gonna go here:
http://busterbenson.com

Kellianne sneaks up on parsley dude

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:00:24 GMT

Katie's Visit, Part 1 - 62
Originally uploaded by Buster McLeod

I think this is my favorite picture of the night. Possibly ever.

Rest of the pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikbenson/sets/72157616650328157/detail/

Featured on the iTunes App Store homepage!

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:29:21 GMT

Featured on the iTunes App Store homepage!
Originally uploaded by Buster McLeod

I just happened to see this when I went to the app store today... I knew they were considering something like this but they never confirmed that it was actually happening. I'm totally stoked!

My goals right now...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:18:15 GMT

My nebulous confused what do I do now phase is slowly spinning into something of a plan. Mostly in the form that all of this began a few years ago... a maintained list of goals that I try to make progress on while continuing to revisit to make sure that each of the goals is something I still want to do. This process is pretty much the only process that really seems to work for me.

My current list of goals is:

Have a baby
Start a fruit and vegetable garden
Run a half-marathon for charity
Make a top 100 iPhone app
Write a Facebook app
Build a better photobooth
Go camping this summer
Do the "Eat Local Challenge" for 30 days
Get out of credit card debt
Do 100 pushups
Write a manifesto
Organize an exciting activity this summer for my friends

I guess that's all I've got right now. I don't like being sick. One down one down. And so I wait until the morale market recovers a bit so I can get to work on these things.

What are your goals right now?

First run of the year...

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:18:04 GMT

I guess I'm running again. Even though I'm sick and coughing up a storm now, it felt great to get real air in my lungs. Myrtle Edwards Park is so beautiful today.

Our running team for the June 27th half-marathon is building. If you want to be a part of it, and don't mind being part of a crazy team that is both going to take it seriously AND be completely ridiculous with costumes, challenges, and cheers, then you know where to look.

Calling bullshit on the 4 noble truths

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:50:39 GMT

I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time.

The 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism are bullshit:
http://enjoymentland.com/2009/03/15/my-honest-take-on-the-4-noble-truths/

Life is not suffering. Life is not joy. Life is just life, and the 4 noble truths are just melodramatic whining.

I guess I'm in a weird mood today when I feel like picking on Buddhism.

Update: And why not, a quick response to the Ten Commandments for good measure:
http://enjoymentland.com/2009/03/15/my-quick-take-on-the-ten-commandments/

calm

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:39:35 GMT

Now that the storm is over, there's an interesting calm. I can feel it, even though I still feel crazy in the head. But it's slowly spreading its feathery wings over me.

And maybe it's because I've been watching Six Feet Under from the beginning with Kellianne (we are almost through the first season in less than a week... she's seen it before, I haven't) or maybe it's because I just sat through the second half of Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (I love the last line about humans being the way the universe witnesses itself) or maybe it's because this calm after the storm has released my traumatized brain to seek out a new existential worry to ground it a bit, but I've been thinking a lot about death and dying and my own mortality this last week.

No matter how many times I have the mortal realization that we're all going to die, it always startles me and sends me into a bit of a minor panic. It makes me realize that there is no time to waste. We need to make our meaning now. We need to enjoy the fruits of our labor now. We need to tell people we love them now. These are the only links that vibrate with their own existence, and will leave the lightest trace on this light moment in time.

I liked Herzog's leading question of the divers who had discovered 3 new species of something or other under the ice that day. They didn't seem all that excited, but he asked them, "Is this a great moment?" And they lifted their spirits a little bit and said that yes, it was. And as soon as they did that, it became a great moment, even though it wasn't before.

And so I think about what holds me back from appreciating the greatness in every moment? Is it my blood sugar level? Is it the fact that I'm slightly hung over? Did I not drink enough water? Did I not get enough sleep? Is the perfectly healthy and balanced person able to better appreciate the greatness in each moment?

Or is it because in order to appreciate the greatness in each moment, we have to contribute a bit of our own souls to the moment. And our own souls get tired easily and quickly run out of stuff to contribute. We can only contribute to the appreciation of great moments when we are 1-up (my definition of 1-up). And yet, perhaps the greatness of a moment pulls us back to the center, towards the balanced point where we neither need energy nor give it off, where energy is balanced. Regression towards the mean. The hedonic treadmill. A sustainable equilibrium... but is it a place where euphoria and true connection to the universe and our place in it can be comprehended?

I like that I have friends who seem to be on the same path of finding the truly great and beautiful moments in this life. I feel like if I'm near you all, that somehow understanding will come more quickly. Not even logical understanding, but simply the kind of understanding that appears in the corner of your periphery vision and then dances away. That calming, thoughtless, groundless understanding.

For me, now, this calm time is a time to think about goals again. To move beyond the limits that hold me back. To be okay with feeling a little groundless, neither 1-up nor 1-down, with a very slow and stable momentum that doesn't necessarily dazzle, to rest, recover, and think about what's not only next, but what's right now.

Sometimes, as strong and startling as the thought of my true mortality is (when I lie in bed and peel abstractions off of abstractions until I can really have THE THOUGHT (as it was described by someone a while ago)), it stirs something up that then leads to an equally startling and strong thought of the true value of living, that we are alive, weirdly human, aliens in disguise, and it's totally amazing.

it's true

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:36:15 GMT

Haiku² for bustermcleod
projects a little host healthy potluck since we had a sweet moment
@

Created by Grahame

rock and roll half-marathon

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:15:29 GMT

Chris Jones, Sean Lowry, Brandon Madsen, Megan Welling, Paco, and possibly Tara the bartender at Rob Roy have all committed to running this Rock & Roll half-marathon on June 27th.

Rock & Roll Seattle: A Running Nirvana (yes, that's really the name)

The thought is to get sponsors from local bars, and we can raise money for kids who can't drink or something, and we'd do shots at miles 4, 8, and 13.1 (though some plan on doing the old shot to the side that looks real for the camera), and generally have some fun doing something that our heavy-drinking demographic generally doesn't do (i.e. run half marathons).

I think we could raise a lot of money for some cause, but what should the cause be? And who else wants to run with us, help supply shots at mile markers, build the website, celebrate at the finish line, etc?

Weekly Review VIII Feb 23rd - Mar 1st

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:49:40 GMT

Weight: 160.2 (up a couple pounds)
Morale: 8 (down one)
Stress: 8 (same as last week)
Go to yoga at least twice: Yup, went Tuesday and Thursday
Do 100 Pushup Challenge: Nope... maybe I should remove this... my wrist is not liking pushups these days
Add to Friendsheet: Nope
Work on Friendlington: Nope
Stick to financial budget: Yeah, more or less.
Participate in a healthy potluck: I'm counting my cooking class as a healthy potluck, since we had 6 groups of 2 making different dishes which we all shared at the end.
Read: Reading a lot about pregnancy
Change name: We were going to do this on Friday, but then got too busy... we'll try again after Florida
Stay off Internet: Nope... way too much Internet, don't know what to do about that
Work on McLeod: Yeah, negotiations continued
Write daily on Enjoymentland: I actually lost some momentum this week. Tried to work on Locavore detail page but had trouble finding the right words
Work on Locavore: Yup, got more integration with Get Satisfaction, removed a couple unstable features, resubmitted to app store
Zero hangovers: Had one yesterday after Kindra's wedding
Cook a new meal: Cooked a broccoli orecchiette for Kellianne, and a clam chowder at the cooking class
Do meaningful work: Yeah, Locavore is my new life calling.
Work on wedding album: I started, but stalled when the software slowed to a crawl

Weekly Review VII Feb 16th-22nd

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:18:49 GMT

Weight: 157.8 (down about 2 lbs from last week)
Morale: 9 (same as last week)
Stress: 8 (same as last week)
Go to yoga at least twice: Nope, just once
Do 100 Pushup Challenge: Nope
Add to Friendsheet: Nope
Work on Friendlington: Nope
Stick to financial budget: Yeah
Participate in a healthy potluck: Nope
Read: Yeah, started a couple new books of interest
Change name: Nope... gotta do this!
Stay off Internet: Nope
Work on McLeod: Yep
Write on Enjoymentland: Yep
Work on Currently In Season: Yep, once again, this work nearly consumed me this week. I ended up submitting it to the App Store last Friday, and then updating it again last night.
Zero hangovers: Actually, I think I did survive the week without any hangovers.
Cook a new meal: Yep, made a Chicken Farfalle recipe I found on Epicurious
Do meaningful work: Yeah, I am feeling very productive, and learning a lot about a couple different topics
Make wedding album: Nope... just added this this week, cause I gotta get on it

Weekly Review part 6

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:23:05 GMT

7 pts. Didn't do so great last week on my scores. But I got a lot of work done on my Locavore app (that's the new name for it), and hope to be submitting it this week to the store.

Weight: 160.2 (up .2 from last week)
Morale: 9 (up 1 last week)
Stress: 8 (same last last couple weeks)
Go to yoga at least twice: Only once
Do 100 Pushup Challenge: Yup
Add to Friendsheet: Nope
Work on Friendlington: Nope (though Kindra and I talked about working on it... does that count?)
Stick to financial budget: Not really (Valentines and all)
Participate in a healthy potluck: Not this week
Read: Didn't read a lick
Frame and hang art: Nope
Change name: Nope
Stay off Internet: Nope
Work on McLeod: Yeah, sorta... simply waiting is working right?
Write on Enjoymentland: Yup, and got my first bit of traffic from some friendly people
Work on Currently In Season: YES. This is the reason I got nothing else done this week
Zero hangovers: That one after Valentines was totally worth it
Cook a new meal: Cooked some Rainbow trout with herbs

potential meme: try to explain something difficult that you're familiar with in simple terms

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:50:33 GMT

In my campaign to get everyone to start more official websites about their passions, professions, and interests, I've had a couple conversations in the last week about how websites work. I remember when I bought my first domain in 2000 (ianomalous.com) it took me a long time to wrap my head around how websites worked, and since I'm not really that technically talented in my core, I feel like I eventually ended up understanding this only after a lot of effort.

It's a topic that is never explained in simple terms. Here's my best attempt at explaining it.

The big picture

All of this works together something like this:

A browser requests a domain (like, say, bustermcleod.com)
The browser checks to see where that domain is hosted (by asking one of repositories of domain information that are saved around the internet). Those repositories then tell it to check a certain particular computer that's sitting somewhere in the world, always on, always waiting.
That computer sitting somewhere in the world then notices that someone wants a certain page (specified by the URL) and checks its own internal settings to see where on the computer that page lives. Depending on the settings, that page may have to be interpreted before being served. For example, if the file is written in Perl, or Java, or Ruby, it will first interpret the code and then return the result in text or HTML format.
Your browser then takes that HTML, CSS, javascript, etc and translates it into the visual elements that you are used to seeing as a web page

That's basically how it works.

Here are the steps you would need to take in order to buy and host your own website.

1. Register a domain at a registrar (like joker.com)

Anyone can register a domain for somewhere between $5-$20/year. I recommend Joker.com (and really like services like Eric Case and Cameron Walter's domai.nr to help pick a domain) because they're not too expensive, and their interface is really simple to use. These places that you buy domains are called registrars and often also come with tools to host your website, though, in order to keep things simple, I generally register my domains in a place that is best at registering domains and host my websites at places best for hosting websites. Places that try to do both usually do one better than the other.

2. Find a web hosting service (like site5.com)

So, you've got a domain, and you're not sure what to do with it. The next step is to find somewhere that you want to host it. Hosting a website usually costs between $3-$100 a month, depending on how much you want to do with it, and how much power that requires. For most people, a $5/month hosting service is more than enough. I currently really like site5.com's service, since they're cheap, have good customer service, a well-designed set of tools, and can handle more than one domain at a time without charging you more. If you want to host a website, you can try asking me too...

To make your domain point to the web host of your selecting, you often have to change its "nameservers". When you find somewhere to host your site, they will usually give you instructions something like "change your nameservers to point to DNS.SITE5.COM and DNS2.SITE5.COM". At which point, you'll need to go back to the place that you registered your domain, and figure out how to do that. When I logged in to godaddy.com yesterday (where Brian bought his domain) (and where nobody should buy their domains) it wasn't easy to figure out how to change the nameserver, and there were no obvious helpful signs explaining that you might want to do so (mostly because they will try to host the site for you and take more of your money). But, if you hunt for help docs on changing nameservers, most likely you'll be able to find a way.

Oh, and changing nameservers isn't the only way to host a domain, it's just my prefered method. Most webhosting services seem to support this way, and since I have like 3 different webhosts and 12 different domains, I just go with this method.

3. Find an FTP program (like Transmit or SmartFTP)

Once you have a domain, a web host, and are pointing the domain at the web host, you can now probably access your website through a browser after a few hours (information about your domain has to spread out across the internet, which takes a few hours). You'll probably get a blank page, a directory listing, or some other placeholder page.

The next step is to figure out how to edit files on your web host. Your web host will have information on how to connect to it through what they call an FTP program. FTP stands for file transfer protocol, and is just a way to move files from your computer to the web host. This is the most common way to edit files on your web site. If you're on a Mac, Transmit is awesome and easy to use (and worth the money). If you're on a PC, I don't know what the best program to use is.... SmartFTP seems to be good.

An FTP client usually has two windows, one with files on your computer, and another with files on the server. You can move them back and forth by hitting upload or download.

4. Find a text editor (like SubEthaEdit)

If you're going to be writing your site in HTML, you just need to find a text editor that will help you do this. You can use something as simple as Notepad on the Mac or Textpad (or whatever it's called) on a PC. Write html, save, upload, check it in your browser. That's the cycle that everyone who works on websites is very familiar with. Some FTP programs (like Transmit) will let you edit the files directly on the server, thus eliminating the need to upload files, but having a good text editor is still required.

This explanation isn't perfect, and far from complete, but I think it's all you really need to know to get a sense of the general way that sites are hosted.

Now, if everyone explained one topic that they were familiar with (but that people outside of their area of expertise didn't really ever bother trying to fully understand) we'd all reach our quota to learn something new every day pretty easily!

Enjoymentland's first fumbling week

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:44:31 GMT

I'm moving most posts that aren't explicitly about my life, friends, etc to enjoymentland.com. It's interesting how the mere act of creating a space for learning and studying things I'm interested in has increased my actual commitment to the topics of interest. See the links in the sidebar to see where I'm getting inspiration from.

I changed the design because the lovely yellow and black Neutica theme that I was using was just a little too impractical. I always go back to the simple designs in the end.

It's interesting to me to try to earn new readers and subscribers to something again. The internet world changes so much, and so quickly, and ways of gaining readers a year ago may not work this time around. But, in the end, I'm doing this for myself so I don't really mind writing into a void as much as I probably did a few years ago. As long as the void is my void.

In case you're at all interested, here are a few of the posts I wrote last week:

Progress on the currently in season app: The design is getting a lot better this week, thanks to the help from a friend.
My new morning routine: This is a lot more difficult than I thought. Need to keep trying this week though.
9 kinds of enjoyment: I think I'm going to remove mood-altering from the list though, due to ingopixel 's comment.
Description of my 8:36pm project: I want to write a stub like this for each of my little projects.
History of my self-tracking: Mostly trying to get the attention of other self-tracking blogs out there.
Distribution of characteristics amongst my friends: First attempt at visualizing some of the data from my Friendsheet.

Weekly Review part 5

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:22:09 GMT

I'm shifting from Health Month-related reviews to personal goal reviews. The scoring is a little different, it takes into account whether or not I'm in my goal weight range, whether or not I keep stress below a certain level and morale above a certain level. It also tracks large bad experiences and large good experiences, which are also tracked in the spreadsheet. I talk about it a bit more at the end of this post.

This week's score: 9 (no change from last week)

Here's the graph so far:

Weight: I gained 3.5 lbs this week, as it marked the end of my 4-week no-alcohol, no-processed foods, no-dairy Health Month experiment.
Morale: 8 (up from 7) Felt productive, made progress on stressful business things, got our damn dryer finally, enjoyed friends.
Stress: 8 (same) Still a lot of things unresolved.
Yoga 2 times: 0. I'm horrible. My two days to go were trumped by a trip to Ballard for Kellianne's first day at Vain over there, and a movie (Frost/Nixon).
Do 100 Pushup Challenge: Yup. Got my record so far, tracked over on daytum.
Add to Friendsheet: Made a lot of progress on this. Added a couple columns (seen in last year, have phone number), created some new stats about how much overlap there is between different sets of people, and thinking about better ways to chart this data.
Work on Friendlington: No progress. :(
Stick to financial budget: Yup. Still within our weekly budget for, though I suspect that our date night will put us over the limit once it is processed by the bank.
Participate in a healthy potluck: We didn't do this, though we did have the Pixels over for unhealthy dinner last night.
Read: I'm reading "The Creative Habit" now. It's good.
Frame and hang art: No progress.
Change name: No progress. Next Friday is the day though.
Stay off Internet: Nope. Spent too much time on the Internet, trying to get Enjoymentland off the ground.
Work on McLeod: Yes, made some progress here. More this week.
Write daily on Enjoymentland: Yup. Technically only 6 posts, but some of them were long so count as 2. :)
Work on Currently In Season: Yup, working on designs and on maps.
Zero hangovers: Unfortunately, I had a hangover after Thursday's movie and rock show (Ghost of Kyle Bradford, Hallways, Kate Tucker, Ships... all awesome!). Hangovers also tracked here.
Cook a new meal: Didn't cook anything new this week. Too much socializing I think.

things I like part 10

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:45:36 GMT

enjoysthin.gs: It's a beautiful site, with a simple and fun focus on enjoying things. I'm here. It would be more fun if I had friends over there.
Sweet delicious black coffee.
Sweet delicious red wine.
Helping people set up blogs (not sure why I enjoy this)
Enjoymentland (my new barely started blog for talking about my various projects and things I'm learning about)

Emoticon Personality Quiz

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:36:29 GMT

What does this emoticon mean to you?

;(

Weekly Review part 4

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:46:05 GMT

Got 9/13 on my personal goals.

Got 14/16 on my Health Month goals.

Weight: 156.2 (down 1.4 lbs since last week, down 9 lbs from 1 month ago, but more like 6 lbs from avg pre-Health Month weight)
Morale: 7 (up 1)
Stress: 8 (same)
Yoga: 2 times
100-pushup challenge: nope
Add to Friendsheet: I added a column for "vacationed with"
Friendlington: nope
Financial budget: We did stay on budget this week, and for the whole of Health Month. We came in more than 10% under our total "Restaurants, Shopping, and Cash" budget.
Read: Read a little. Didn't finish the book this month though. I'm gonna say fail.
Frame and hang art: Kellianne hung some new stuff in the stairwell, our bedroom, and the bathroom. Now we gotta frame the rest.
Change name: nope
Stay off Internet: nope
Work on McLeod: Paid more taxes and bills. But I have a meeting with a lawyer today.
Professional blog: Yeah, made some good progress. Launching it this week. More people should do this!
Currently In Season: Lots of good progress. Found a designer.
Cook a new meal: Cool chana dal with lamb and brown rice last night. Was delicious!

As for Health Month, I had another drinking night, and also cheated with some delicious coffee yesterday. I think I got 14/16. But, going forward into non-health month, I'm mostly taking away a newfound enjoyment cooking delicious healthy meals, a budding yoga practice, and the hope that 2 drinks on school nights and 3 drinks on weekends can be a new interesting game to play. The last will be the most difficult, as desire to have restraint often fades after a couple drinks.

My weight over the last 4 weeks (though the trending line seems to be way behind), since I have a fun app to keep track of it for me:

wanna go pro?

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:08:53 GMT

I helped Kellianne set up her new hair blog (check it out!) yesterday and in all my fiddling with Wordpress I decided I wanted a professional blog too! It's fun because I sort of realized what my profession is. I always have such a difficult time when people ask me what I do. Well, I'm an entrepreneur sorta, and a software developer sorta, and a bar owner sorta, but I don't identify even a little bit with any of those professions. At heart, I think my "profession" is a doer of social learning projects. A certain class of projects in particular.

43 Things
McLeod Residence
Office Hours
8:36pm
Moby Dick Book Club
Credit Card Roulette
Friendlington
Currently In Season
Health Month
Healthy potluck nights
Morale-O-Meter
etc

I think they can all be said to have a few things in common. A lot of them are about bringing people together, or sharing something with others. Most of them involve learning something new or paying attention to something that I haven't paid much attention to before. Appreciating something new, discovering something new, etc.

So, today, I decided to be a little more official in my own head about it. I'll start a blog separate from this one (as I've done unsuccessfully a few times before, most notably my Radical Mutual-Improvement blog). So I'm not going to make any big promises with this one either until I'm a few weeks or months into it. I'm a little hesitant to even link to it yet... maybe after I get a couple more posts up. But considering I've been relatively successful learning how to cook Indian food and going to yoga and doing Health Month (except for last night) I think I may be getting a little better at starting things and continuing them. My weekly review is helping me too, as I get to think about all of the projects I'm working on every week, and won't just forget let something fall off the radar accidentally.

I think it would be fun if other people wanted to explore this idea of feeling a bit more intentional about our "professions" (whether or not they are related to actual jobs at the moment) and start up Wordpress sites with me. I have room on my server if you need a host. And I can also handle all of the set up and stuff if you're not terribly technical. All that is required is that you have a desire to take on the experiment with a bit of energy and inspiration. Ingo's already getting set up. Who's next!

Also, if you're already doing this somewhere, let me know!