QR code for this website.
less painful than I expected
So I run two full versions of the site, and until I take the time to get Deploy etc working, I periodically have to reset the test version as it gets absurdly out of whack with the live version.
For reasons that are too boring to get into at the moment, I had to do that earlier this week. When I did, I completely spaced on the fact that a few weeks ago I was working on a major overhaul to some of the content types. (See my comments about rate tables in the conversion post from last September.) It took me quite a while to figure out the best way — or at least a better way — to get it set up. I hadn’t yet implemented it on the live site, because I was waiting on someone else’s schedule.
Today, the meeting chime came up saying that I was supposed to show the new setup to that someone.
Oh.
Crap.
Digression: some of you are aware of the ampersand disaster of 1996. (If not, see this post from 2001.) The sense of panic, sinking OMGWTFBBQ, punch-to-the-gut that I felt when I realized was almost exactly the same as when Sandra brought me that label addressed to “S&ra”.
I postponed the meeting and immediately (ok, after taking a little break for toast) set to work. At first, I thought the best call would be to find all the references in the database backup to the node type, nodes, and views and just copy in the SQL. Yes, making a backup is an established part of my reset routine!
But ugh. It wasn’t long at all before I determined that it was just too crazy-messy to even consider, which left me feeling pretty low. (And stupid, good grief the burning stupid.)
Then I realized I’d made custom theme files for the node types in question! That gave me the names of the content fields and some information about the node type settings and how I had used taxonomy. Then I discovered that my habit of letting Firefox remember things I type into fields had left a memory of the names I used, not just for the content fields, but for the multigroups they were bundled into. I did use the SQL backup to figure out what taxonomy vocabulary I’d used and what the terms were, plus the allowed values for a couple of fields. Dreamweaver is actually not too bad for searching ginormous SQL files.
Once I had the content types set, figuring out the Views I needed was fairly obvious. (To me, anyway.) I think I even improved them over my previous attempt. All that remained was copying in a bit of CSS from the backup version of the theme, and in less than 4 hours I had it all back together!
So yay for Drupal. (It’s been a week of “Drupal hates me” vs “Yay for Drupal” — at the moment I think “yay” is winning out.)
Old School knows pizza pie
It’s the perfect Olympia place: delicious food in a funky/surly atmosphere. I can’t imagine any Olympians who have NOT been there, so for the out-of-towners:
A brick storefront between a vintage store & a beat-up parking lot; on the parking lot side, a mural of superheros (mostly). Inside, the walls are covered with posters & other random flat things from the late 70s and 80s, many with specific northwest significance; but it doesn’t have that “crazy crap on the walls” feel of a TGIFriday’s, because it’s genuinely shabby & time-worn, as are the vinyl booths & stools, the vintage video games, etc. Curiously, there’s an enormous aquarium in the front window. The queuing space is cramped and awkward, and sometimes splits off towards both of the two doors. Staff tends towards the usual Oly-style punks, so some tattoos, some oddball hair, a little short/surly but not excessively so.
The pizza itself is mostly of the thin enormous slice variety. (They added a “Sicilian style” pizza a while ago, but I don’t ever get it.) Great crust, a bit of a crunch but not too crispy. The basic varieties are rock solid, but I have a fondness for some of the oddball versions, particularly anything without sauce: the Greek (iirc), which includes spinach & feta — we usually add sausage if getting a whole pie, and the Al Green, just cheeses and broccoli. No, seriously, the broccoli is really good. Eating there, a single slice is enough to fill me up most of the time. When we get a pizza to go, I have to be careful not to scarf down WAY too much.
I just wish they delivered. (I did once bring home a pizza on the Xtracycle. In the rain. It was AWESOME.)
n’hood musing
Pondering a way to combine the Public Pathways Pilot with the Neighborhood Crossroads/Nooks Program…and wondering if there’s a way to integrate info from my sidewalk inventory map. I’ve got an image in my head of something interesting to do near Fairview & 10th, or with some of those weird creek/alley spaces down in the southeast corner. Or heck, the scenic overlook park is itself something of a public pathway. Anyway, just putting this here so I don’t forget the connections.
The bike trail is lovely in the spring
Everything wakes up after the long dark of winter.
I think this is my third spring commuting on the bike trail, and I’m getting to know the rhythm of the seasons. Right now the Indian Plums are blooming & leafing out and the flowering cherries (?) are in bloom. There’s one with astonishing white flowers that will start covering the trail in petals like snowfall or a ticker-tape parade.
Later this month and next month, nearly every other plant starts bursting into leaf, turning the trail into a glorious green tunnel — with breaks to vistas of open fields and the expanse of Chambers Lake. The lake, too, comes alive with water lilies.
Already the frogs and the birds are starting up their chatter, the birds shouting down at me from the tops of the trees now that I’m out in daylight instead of darkness. In this little sliver of time right before the switch to DST, I’m catching sunrises and sunsets both; next week morning will be back in mostly darkness, but the evening will be entirely light, and gradually the sunrise will come back.
I have yet to see any bunnies, but they’ll be back soon as well, along with the aforementioned frogs, lizards, little snakes, house cats and the occasional raccoon.
After the long dark, I find the arrival of spring an immense relief, even if it comes in fits and starts. (There’s a very slim chance of snow overnight!)
stuff
I think I’m mostly done with the basics of this redesign. What I really want is to to get the blue sidebar to look like it’s tucked under the main column, but the z-index isn’t doing quite what I wanted. 
Plus there’s lots of fiddly bits I could fiddle with if I felt like it. Among other things, I’m futzing around with Typekit. (The goal, btw, is to make the writing the focal point.) But the general feel of it is there.
I also have a redesign mostly ready for the ENA site. I’m excited: it’s not often that I get truly inspired with a design, and this one has come together quite nicely. With both my personal site and the ENA, I’m trying to expand my skillset some: more experimentation with design plus some new techniques. (Rounded corners and box-shadows and fonts, oh my!)
In other nerdiness, Tech Tuesday is ON! I haven’t figured out a program or anything yet, but I have a date and a location. I’m considering adding some content to the site: recruiting a local blogger or two to write about tech (if you’re interested just holler) and/or trying to do some tech writing of my own. There may be something hiding out in my archives that I can rework. The big Drupal post or “ampersands f*ck up everything” seem like the most likely candidates.
I’m finding myself happily (!) in the thick of a bunch of civic involvement stuff — the last ENA general meeting was fantastic, really inspiring; I’m continuing along with the Friends of the Library, and I’ve applied for a spot on the city’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee. There’s some other stuff that I’m mulling around in the back of my mind that hasn’t quite gelled yet, too.
At the same time, I’m almost done with my second read-through/revision of my NaNoWriMo project. The first time I was looking for big stuff; this time I’m being more focused: some copy-editing, some marking big passages as “wtf” or “meh” or “awk”, picking up more inconsistencies, and so on. In general, the first few paragraphs of almost every scene are pretty weak. It just takes me a bit to find my groove, I guess. So there’ll be lots of cutting or expanding. Also, I can definitely spot places where I was padding for word count. 
Plenty of strikethroughs in those sections!
Maybe it’s the impending spring, but right this moment I’m finding myself in a pretty good mood, and I hope everybody out there in the internets is getting a chance to be creative and engaged too!
