“You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.”

At what point in your life do you realize that holding on to animosity and grudges rob you every second you dwell on them? I guess everybody has to find that realization in their own time and in their own way. For me, it happened in the last two weeks. If you’d have asked me six months ago if I was aware enough to know this I’d have said yes, but I’d have been so very wrong. And in another six months I might think the same thing about this moment right now… But for right now, I’m there. I’ve chosen to not carry around those feelings like an egg on a spoon, always afraid that a gust of wind will come along and knock them off to stink up my life.

I let go. I hope others can do the same in the long run. I guess time will tell.

I’ll be back to blog soon. Once to post this in more depth but behind a protected post. I’m adding a plug in to let “select” registered users read them. I’ll let you all know more when that takes place and how to gain access.

And! Ben and I are having a little debate about how far Neo’s ability to bend the space time continuum extends and we need The Internet’s opinion to settle it.

The only reason people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.

I’m a website Nazi. I like eye candy. Web 2.0 graphics and simple design that allows content to shine while not feeling like you are being slapped in the face by a decaying trout. I like different without being tacky. I’ll close a blog simply because it’s header image is a blend of Avril Lavigne from 12 different angles in the same outfit. Even if it’s the most profound, well thought out, earth moving piece of literature, it’s just too painful to have to scroll past that image. The same image I’ve been looking at since 1995 only then it was a still innocent and cocaine free Britney.

And I feel like a hypocritical asswad for writing that given the state that aflux is in right now. There are times I come to the site and am actually a little embarrassed. It’s not that the design isn’t nice because it is. It’s a beautifully coded theme but it’s not MINE. There is nothing original about it at all. You can google the name and come up with thousands of pages of people using it. Yet I’ll sit here and judge YOU for doing the exact same thing.

I guess this is all leading up to the fact that I’ve realized this now and am ready to do something about it. I’m ready to comit more time to making it into something that you, the reader, will enjoy. Before now I’ve always been about me. I blog for me and that won’t change but in the times that I’ve let the site sit idle for weeks between posts and watched the site stats fizzle and comments come to a halt… I really miss you guys! I’m not about having the most comments, or visitors, or how little the number of my technorati score becomes… I miss YOU GUYS. I miss interacting with the people that for whatever reason, seem to want to hear what I have to say. I miss writing. I don’t expect to become the next dooce, or have the following that RSM has and honeslty, I don’t think I’d want that. I’ve only been hatemailed a handful of times and I’d like to keep it that way. I’ve seen the kind of spazzed out cocksuckers that even my tiny little corner of the web can attract and I never want to deal with ALL THAT.

I have a design started. It’s a much bigger undertaking than anything I’ve attempted before and I can’t believe how much things have changed in the world of web deign. It’s been a good two years since I’ve designed and coded something and it actually feels really good to “get my feet wet” again.

This is also me saying publicly that I’m going to try and stop the asswadishness. I’m not going to judge a site based on it’s color scheme or how painful the sting is as the trout whips across my face over and over and over again. I’m going to be better about returning comments. Because if you have taken the time to actually read and respond to me, the very least I can do is take the time to get to know you better and let you know that I care.

PS – Hopefully I’ve kissed ass enough that you don’t hate me for the new text links. I’ll be writing more about them very soon. Please don’t hate me?

Kickin’ it old school.

I’m lazy. So here ya go! I’ve a recycled theme I coded in 2005. Look at all of it’s old skoolness. The really close together white font on a black background. Hostees!! (Which I totally don’t have anymore so don’t bother clicking). That silly little stat counter… I still remember sitting in our tiny apartment creating that image. Isn’t in so 2005?! I love it.

Anyway, since I know me and it will be at LEAST a week month

before I get something completely coded I’m going to revive some old themes and throw them up for fun in the mean time. Enjoy!

go pink

Last year aflux went pink for the month of October to help promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I will be doing it again this year. Today I cruised on over to Steen’s and saw that she’s going to participate this year also. And you should to! So get to it, you have 10 days to come up with a cute theme and the crew over at Pink For October even have a few premade for you if you want to use them.

Its a worthy cause for our most body part!

I wanted to leave you tonight with some Haiku that Cassidy wrote tonight for her homework:

Dragonflies are best friends
Dragonflies drinking nectar
Playing a happy song

and

Best friends with people
Never running away when life gets bad
Don’t always close your mind

Yes, I realize they aren’t exaclty 5,7,5 but her teacher said they had to be 5 or more, 7 or more, 5 or more. *shurg* I don’t teach the class!

Redoable.

After I got the site back from being hacked, I decided to do a complete overhaul. Like, everything has been touched. I’ve updated WordPress and every single WordPress plugin. I probably dumped 100 datebase tables that hadn’t been used in AGES. Gallery, forum, guestbook, tables created from plugins that I haven’t used in over a year, it was a mess. A MESS! I’d been telling myself that I was going to do that for months and months and had I actually DONE it, the lame ass hacker wouldn’t have had a way in.

SO! The new theme I’m using is Redoable. I really, really, really tried to come up with something on my own and I’d get 75% of the way through a Photoshop mockup, then coding, then tweaking CSS and suddenly I’d hate it and delete the whole thing. Like 5 times. With 5 different themes.

I’d been watching Dean develop and update this theme for quite some time and I liked it from the very beginning. After he developed the twitter plugin I was pretty much sold but gave ONE MORE theme a try and still just wan’t feelin’ it. So I went ahead and started to manipulate Redoable to mold it to my liking. There are still some things I want to work on. I’m going to add back the recent comment plugin but I’m going to tweak the CSS first. I’m also thingking about doing some CSS work to the blogroll… just small stuff here and there.

Overall impressions of the stock theme though are that it’s fantastic. The admin interface makes customization so simple that even if you don’t know much about HTML, PHP or CSS, you can very easily add widgets, change color scheme’s, menu placement, and more.

So there ya go! I wanted to make sure to give the theme a proper plug.

DEAL!

I’m deleting/adding things all over the place to (hopefully) get the new theme up and in mostly working order before I go to bed. Hang tight, and if I don’t royally fuck things up in the next 30 minutes you will have something new to look at.

Finally.

EDIT – Okay, there’s more to do and a few things that broke between the test domain and here but, TADA! I’ve loved this theme from the first time I saw it but like every other pre-made I’ve used, I’ve changed A LOT. There are little tweaks to make here and there (like getting rid of the Firefox banner in IE because I’m sure that Julie will boycott me for life if it stays for long ) but for the most part, this is it. Enjoy!

P.S. – Don’t you love the highlight of the edit? I can make these in all different colors for different reasons. They will be abused greatly in the future.