Shedding the Weight

It's fall here and the Indian Summer has ended. I dread the noise of the gardeners even more now, knowing the epic leaf blowing job they have. Each cool night I burn a log made of recycled coffee grounds, or the other kind that makes crackling sounds and is probably made of woodchips and wax. I wish I had a real woodstove, but Gypsy likes the fire and doesn't notice the difference.

My one hobby these days is getting rid of stuff. I've sold 29 books and comic books on eBay. Actually more than that since several auctions had multiple items. I've made enough to pay for all the expenses of doing it, plus maybe a total of 10-20 bucks. Not glamorous but it feels good. Most of the time. There's been a couple frustrating buyers. One guy who insisted on picking up the comics and I made the mistake of giving him my cell number before changing my mind and telling him driving up from the city would cost him more in gas than the shipping would and I was too busy to deal with him. He emailed and called a dozen times over the weekend. Sunday he left some more barely decipherable messages, I realized he was here in town that day, and I sent D down to Starfucks to deliver. I was too creeped out and annoyed.

I'm looking around my house finding more stuff to sell. Came up with another stack of books, they're the easiest target. Easiest to scan, stick up on eBay, and package for shipping. I think I may be able to get rid of all my magazine back-issues this way.

Other than that, I've been working on a frustrating project. Converting a large, maze-like website to MovableType to make it 1) easier to maintain 2) possible for the owner to maintain and 3) much easier to maintain. There's just nothing better than having a few templates that will create hundreds of pages and the ability to include in the templates a single line of code that will write at build-time a file containing the navigation code. That's hundreds of pages that don't need to be changed any time there is a navigation change. That means one change to that one file changes all the pages. I know DreamWeaver, and probably other programs that let you work with templates can do similar things, but I don't like programs that write code for me. They write ugly code.

And MovableType can be used by him (or I) from his house, or anywhere over the internet. It's easy enough that I could probably train him, or someone else of his choosing, to use. I think I was struck by fear when he told me the other week that I can never leave him. I don't like that kind of dependence on me, it's why I contract.

Posted by Ari at 18:47:56