- John McCain is running! Yippeee! That should make Kevin a very happy man, unless he has become too jaded.
- Supernatural is on tonight! (Thursdays on The CW at 9 EST)
- After one whole day, the kitchen floor is still clean.
- It’s Thursday, which means it is almost Friday, which means it is almost the weekend.
- Sneak peek of the next Veronica Mars.
- My king-sized blanket is still cuddly and soft.
- All the preschoolers in Alabama survived the devastation of their building being destroyed by a storm.
- Max got his report card yesterday and is doing very well in school.\
What are you happy about today?
Month: November 2006
AIM Pages
We launched a metric ton of new stuff for AIM Pages yesterday morning (started at 2AM and finishing up around 10:30 with tweaks and mad dashes throughout and after). The changes are definitely noticable. If you go to aimcreate.com, you’ll no longer see the super sexy drag and drop editing interface, although it’s still available. The “wizard”, as I like to call it, is a ummm… wizard. So, if you’re not into the drag and droppyness of the other interface, you can fill out this big form, hit Save Changes and voila, you’ve got an AIM Page like mine (well, not like mine exactly, because yours should be like your page and be about you: if it was about me too, that would be creepy).\
We had no time to completely rebuild the product, faced innumerable technical problems, questions and challenges, and yet we still launched on time. The product included more than twenty-seven individual pieces of software to install, groups on three continents, in four time zones and more moving pieces than I want to remember (although I have to, because I was the tech lead for this round). So, if you were wondering why I haven’t slept in six weeks (five eighty hour weeks in a row, y’all), seemed kind of stressed out and irritable, now you know!\
It continues to amaze me that we’ve launched this product all based around a microformat, and that it works so well. There are still challenges, but everything around the microformat has been relatively smooth and stable. We even have a cool web service built around it that anyone can use to mash up their own page or other pages. More cool stuff is afoot, so keep your eyes peeled.\
It’s launched, it’s cool, there are still some issues that we’re working on, but it’s out there and I can get some sleep now.\
Oh yeah, and this year has been so crazy that I’ve only taken three vacation days so far this year. Yes, three. Since I’ve been at AOL so long, that means I have several weeks of vacation time to use up by the end of the year. Yeah, I won’t be at work much in December.
Top Coder
\
AOL is sponsoring the Top Coder Collegiate Challenge this year as part of the new Developer Network. I’ve been involved in the discussion about the network since the beginning, and it’s gratifying to see it finally bearing fruit. There is still a ton of work to do to make it into something we can all be proud of, but the seed is there, and it’s off to a good start.\
So, if you’re into watching geeks under pressure (if you live with me, you’ve seen this already this month with AIM Pages), you can watch the live cast this Friday at 4:30EST over on the Developer Network.
Three cheers for Kevin
I have the best husband ever. I would love to tell you all of the reasons why he is so wonderful, but then you might get jealous and want him for yourself. But you can’t have him. So then it would just seem like I am gloating. And gloating is rude. So, I will keep all of the reasons to myself. Just know that he is awesome and I am very appreciative of him.\
In completely unrelated news, (heh), Kevin and I have this weird dynamic where one of us will want something- a bigass diamond ring, a really expensive car, to repaint the living room, etc- and after talking about it for awhile & the other person finally agrees, the person who originally wanted the thing changes his or her mind, realizing that spending the money isn’t the best decision.
Small pleasures
The past few days have been filled with many small pleasures:
- Free lunch! I love Baja Fresh taquitos!
- Kevin and I finally put up the new curtains I bought 3 months ago!
- Taking the time to toast the bread for my turkey sandwich, because I am worth it!
- My new king-sized blanket. So soft and cuddly!
- Tivoed football games!
- Getting rid of clutter!\
What is the best thing you experienced this past week or so?
Levels of Knowledge
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the various levels of knowledge lists. I’m a:
- Level 6 CSS Dork
- Level 6 HTML Geek
- Level 5 Javascript Weenie
- Level 4 Accessibility Dork (coulnd’t think of another synonym of “dork” – it’s 2AM and I’m at work, forgive me)
- Level 7 Knowledge Sharing Nerd\
What level are you?
It Took Me a Second
But this is really funny. I couldn’t get to the original site, so BoingBoing will have to do. Doesn’t matter, it’s still extremely funny.
Speed of Sound
I love this picture. Brian sat at the top, eyeing the height carefully before he decided to go for it. This is him right before he flew off the end of the slide and onto his butt. Thankfully, the diaper took the brunt, and Brian hopped (well, I think he might have skipped one and landed on his feet) right back up and headed for another trip. My hand is only in the shot because I was trying to catch him… but I’m slow.
Playing at the Park
I didn’t have to work today (thankfully) and it was lovely, so we took the kids to the park! They had a ton of fun, and I had a ton of fun taking pictures of them having fun. The rest are up up on Flickr, but here are a couple of my favorites:
[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/kplawver/294903183/) [](http://www.flickr.com/photos/kplawver/294903970/)
Back to the Business at Hand
Supernatural is on tonight! Yippppeeeeee! Linda Blair, yes that Linda Blair, will be in tonight’s episode. Check it out! (Thursdays at 9 ET on The CW)