Month: August 2002

The Ancient of Days

John Winkelman

Today I RSVP-ed for my 15-year class reunion at Springport High School. Why? Ummm… err… why not?

Fifteen years. Egads. That means I graduated from college nine years ago. I have been out of school for almost as long as I was in school. Revelations like this make a man take stock of his life. Lessee… Since starting college I have moved around fifteen times, had over thirty room-mates, about a dozen girlfriends, four cars, four jobs (other than work-study slavery), published one poem, been to India, been to Russia, never been rich, never been married, no kids, many friends.

I am happy more often than not, and I am seldom bored. I guess I have it pretty good.

Creak

John Winkelman

Quick update today. Altered the stylesheet a little, obviously. Also changed the way the photo pages work, in order to get around some absolutely infuriating glitches in, well, every browser out there. And never the same glitch twice. All this from XHTML and CSS which conforms to all the latest standards.

Stupid browsers.

In order to make the pictures work I had to perform a (*gasp*) browser check.

if(document.all) {
 document.getElementById("picCaption").innerHTML = t.value;
 } else {
 document.getElementById("picCaption").innerHTML = t.attributes["value"].value;
 }

The first time I have had to do that on my site in seven months. The sharp-eyed of you will notice that I am using a non-standard HTML attribute, “value”, associated with an image. I figure, XHTML is just a flavor of XML, like MathML, or WDDX. Therefore, it is eXtensible! Why NOT use custom tags? Micro$oft does it all the time. That is why I made the browser-check as insulting as possible by checking for the obsolete (document.all) feature in IE6.

A Day in the Life

John Winkelman

5:45am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:00am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:15am Alarm goes off. Contemplate ceiling. Hit snooze.
6:35am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:50am Alarm goes off. Get up. Go to bathroom. Crawl back into bed. Hit snooze.
7:10am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
7:25am Alarm goes off. Listen to Grieg on radio.
7:40am Get out of bed. Get in shower.
8:05am Walk to work.
8:50am Arrive at work, by way of cafe.
9:00am – 10:00am Read email, news, etc.
10:00am – 12:00pm work on studio website.
12:00pm – 12:30pm Lunch (Tuna on whole wheat, cheddar lettuce onion tomato, pickle on the side.
12:30pm – 1:00pm Walk down by river. Watch ducks. Contemplate chaos and entropy.
1:00pm – 2:00pm XSLT, baybee!
2:00pm – 5:00pm Discuss big client. Contemplate, in no particular order, ceiling, navel, suicide, homicide, money, the client, games, magic, Magic, this, that, the other, the Other, the “other”, The Others .
5:15pm Leave for home.
5:20pm Take cool pictures of praying mantis.
6:10pm Arrive at home.
6:30pm Cook dinner (New Orleans style wild rice).
7:00pm Buy cleaning supplies.
7:30pm Mop kitchen, bathroom, hallway. Contemplate homicide.
8:00pm – 10:00pm Play Serious Sam II.
10:00pm – End of Time Get stuck in infinitely recursive loop updating website about the events of my day.

Tired…so tired…

John Winkelman

It is done.

The site is updated, everything is in working order.

New feature: The ability to browse to, and therefore link to, individual posts.

XML files are valid XHTML. If I decide to put this method together with a simple content management system, the files will be a snap to update, as long as the user has a minimal knowledge of HTML.

Alternate styles are much easier to implement, as follows:

Start looking for XSL tutorials in the upcoming weeks. As soon as I wake up.

Great Things Are Afoot

John Winkelman

Updates will be few and sparse as I recreate the server-side stuff for es.o. Shouldn’t be more than a week. SO to keep you occupied, here are some games . The guy who makes these is on the short list for Saint-hood.

The list of new es.o features will include the following:
-the option to link to, and therefore bookmark, individual entries.
-full portability to Flash MX
-web-based content management
-email-based updating
-XSL/XPath tutorials
-possible new interface
–GO!

The list goes on, and on. So until next time, keep on truckin’!

A Brief Update

John Winkelman

I have been keeping myself crazy busy with restructuring the XML/XSL back-end of es.org. Boy, this stuff isn’t as easy as you might think. Importing XML files and external stylesheets, playing with ISO/Latin characters and unparsed entities… I have begun to speak a language only comprehensible to those poor fools who work in xml and xsl and… and…

*sobs*

On a grander note, I have two personal/collaborative projects coming up soon: First, Master Lee wants a website, and I was volunteered to build it. So Mr. Timmer and I, and possible others, will be building him a site sometime this fall. Also, look for www.fromtheheartyoga.com in the upcoming months. This one I am doing in trade for free coffee.

Can life possible get any better?

Sifu Day

John Winkelman

Today is Sifu Day, a sort of Asia-wide Teacher Appreciation Day. My Kung Fu instructor, Master Ly, invited myself and the other assistant instructors over to his house for a small celebration. We lit incense in honor of his instructor, Sigong Chiu Chuk Kai, then meditated briefly, then Sifu Ly and his wife stuffed us full of the best home-cooked Chinese food on the continent.

Being a teacher on a day when I honor my teachers made me think about what it is, that makes a teacher…

A teacher imparts knowledge.
A teacher shows you a path, and lets you decide to walk it.
A teacher understands there are many paths up any mountain.
A teacher says “this is how I did it”
A teacher learns from his students as he teaches them.
A teacher criticizes students instructively, never as punishment.
A teacher takes responsibility for the ways his students use his knowledge.
A teacher will not hold your hand, but may help steady it.
A teacher rewards improvement with more instruction.

The greatest moment for a teacher is when his students take on students of their own.

Happy Sifu day, everyone!