Re- claiming my blog
Technorati Profile
UPDATE
I think thats all of my posts. Now I have to start setting up redirects. After that, I am going to try to restore my comments.
UPDATE
I've set up a few redirects, but don't have them all.
But, I think I have restored all of my comments. Unfortunately, I could not find an automated way of getting the date and times set on those. So, they all have recent dates and times.
I just couldn't bring myself to leave off the comments so, I had to move them over even if the date and times are wrong.
This was all done manually, so if your comment doesn't show, let me know. I will go back and try to find it.
UPDATE
I will be working on comments for my food site and then go back to redirects.
After that, I plan to post my entire process.
Posted by chasitymoody at 7:17 PM Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm Back - sort of
You may or may not have noticed that I have been missing. Well, its like this:
I got hosed by my hosting company. I have since moved to another company, but unfortuantely, I had not exported my entries using the Movabe Type tools before my hosting company lost my database files. So, I have been copying and pasting my entries into a newly installed Movable Type interface on my brand new host. You may still notice some weird issues as I get things back up.
I'm very grateful to the Movable Type support community for all of their help and am also extremely pleased with my new hosting company, Hostmonster.
After I get all of my posts back and some redirects in place along with all my comments, I will then have to go about doing the same for my food blog. I am not sure if I am going to put the Fluff report back online. I may simply add a category to this blog and put all of those entries there.
This has been the biggest pain and has taken so much of my time and it will continue to do so until I am finally done.
So, updates may be few and far between until I get a handle on all of this stuff.
Posted by chasitymoody at 4:18 PM Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Ass-Kicking Heroines: An Addendum
A while back, I'm not sure how long ago, I found the movie review site Pajiba. I immediately bookmarked them because I loved their their snarky and erudite take on movie reviews. While I have disagreed with their reviews in the past, I've never felt the need say anything here about one of their opinion pieces. But there is one that I feel a need to respond to.
One of their more recent writers, Agent Bedhead, wrote a guide titled Ass-Kicking Heroines as part of what they call Pajiba's Guide to What's Good for You. The guides generally get their detractors. Obviously, the writers can't please everyone since they are working from a personal bias. But this particular guide seemed to be really reaching hard for women to write about. And that made me sad. So, this is just a little addendum to her post. Obviously, I can't please everyone either, so feel free to let me know who you think should be on the list.
CAVEAT: I am going to do my best to follow her guidelines (Horror/SciFi/Fantasy/Comics)so that will leave out a few that I really like (Geena Davis as Charlie Baltimore in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Pam Greer in various roles, Gena Rowlands in Gloria, Meryl Streep in the The River Wild, and Bette Davis in almost everything- just to name a few personal favorites). Also, for the sake of brevity I am only focusing on movie characters. It sucks I know, TV and the printed word are rife with kick ass heroines (luckily for you fellow Buffy fans out there, Agent Bedhead included television and print). So, feel free to list your favorites from any genre in the comments. One more thing, this addendum makes no sense without reading the the original post
OK. Enough stalling. In no particular order, I present:
Continue reading "Ass-Kicking Heroines: An Addendum"
Posted by chasitymoody at 3:42 PM Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
Oh What a Time We had- Halloween
So, Saturday we went to Mr. Blank's Carnivale of Black Hearts hosted by a friend of ours at Tasty World. I've said before that Halloween in Athens is an experience and everyone tries to make it a party. So, I tried to remember to take pictures this time. Only of course, I didn't get pictures of all the costumes I liked. The one I really wish I had gotten a picture of was a very petit woman-I think she was a drummer for one of the bands- dressed as Hulk Hogan. She even nailed the voice and called everyone "brother" all night.
Continue reading "Oh What a Time We had- Halloween"
Posted by chasitymoody at 3:40 PM Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
What's going on
So, you may have noticed that I haven't written anything lately. It's not from lack of anything to write about. If I say I've been busy, it will sound like a cop out. But, really I have.
I have a new job. I'm kind of still in shock about it. It happened very quickly. A friend of mine told me about an open position in a different college at the university so, I applied. Because things work so slowly there, I didn't expect to even hear from anyone for at least a month. Only, they immediately contacted me about taking an aptitude test and and an interview. With very little time to prepare, I went. That night I got a call offering me the job.
I am going to be a web developer. Well, not really. That is the official job title, but really I'll be learning to be a web developer. Yes all those years of teaching myself html and cascading style sheets have finally come to fruition. I get to learn web programming as well as design.
My first day on the job will consist of my leaving for an intensive 3 day training course in Adobe Creative Suite. Their putting me up in a hotel with a pool and everything. But, here's the thing. I am really nervous. You see I have been at my current position for almost 9 years. Even though I've gotten really burnt out and over it, I'm really comfortable here. Its that whole stepping outside of your comfort zone thing.
I'm worried about the dumbest things too. Like, I worry if my brain is so set in its ways that it will refuse to learn new things. I worry that I will screw up something so major on their website that I will be fired on the spot. I worry that people will think I smell- I have begun sweating a lot more than normal this year and have been searching furiously for a clinical strength deodorant and am about to begin searching on line.
So, those are a few of my worries. Then there is the guilt. I have been where I am for so long that I feel bad about leaving. I find that there are all kinds of things that I just handled and now have to list out for the group until they get a replacement. I began packing up my things the other day and realized, I have seen 9 years worth of students graduate. I have seen and helped 9 years worth of graduate and post graduate students earn their master's and phD's. I have seen many of them go on to teach at the same college. Its been a long time. But, the thing is it IS time. Its time for me to move forward. And that is my biggest worry. What if I take this chance and move forward only to fall flat on my face?
I know thats probably a normal fear- or maybe it isn't and I am one of those people who fears success. I guess my biggest problem is that I don't feel like I can celebrate the way that I should. Different members of my family are going through hardships. They all say congratulations, but they are preoccupied. Then I feel guilty because I want them to be a little bit happier for me. Then I worry that I am not sympathetic enough to their problems.
The thing is I gave this job 6 weeks notice. So, now everyone knows I'm leaving and I have pretty much checked out and am feeling pretty isolated. I've been trying to busy myself, which has been very easy. I have inventories to take, instructions to update, student workers to train- I'm swamped.
But every time I get frustrated at work or feel like I'm moving on too soon, I think about the perks. I took my current job because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I was really interested in technical writing and training. I was also interested in networking and computer hardware. But, this college couldn't afford to train me in any of those things. I had to learn it on my own and by being willing to research until I found the right answer. And that was cool, but it did nothing to help me find a focus.
I knew I wanted to go further in technology, but never thought I had the right type of training to do anything web related. I mean I can build websites, but I never really learned anything about design. I figured as long as I kept the designs simple and clean people wouldn't notice that I wasn't a designer. And now, here I am the perfect candidate for a group looking to mentor someone. Even better, this is a college that can and will invest in training for their employees.
When I was talking to the friend who told me to apply, I told her that I really did feel like it was time for me to move on to something else. There was a pause and then she said, "Chas, you were ready to move on 3 years ago." And she was right. She IS right.
So, maybe all I'm really doing is trying to convince myself that its ok for me to be happy about this. Which is silly because- and I'm letting you in on a big secret here- I prayed for this. Not this specifically, but about 3 months ago, I started hoping and praying that I could find a way to move on before one more computer lab was added to my roster of duties. I wanted to get out before I started hating my coworkers. I wanted a job that could take me further in the things I would love to know. I always wanted to be a real geek girl. And I think I am going to finally get the chance. So every day that I walked into the building, every morning when I woke up, I would just say "please let something happen to get me out." And then this happened, and it happened so quickly that I haven't really had time to second guess it. Which is probably what I am doing now that I have all this time on my hands.
Can you picture it? Me. A maven of PHP and Java and a whole bunch of other web technologies that sound like things I should know but don't. I know nothing about what my new set up is going to be. But, I do know that the atmosphere is Macintosh friendly and I won't have to work with students anymore. I'm sure I'll still have to convince myself that I have not stepped into a zombie movie as I drive on to campus every day. I'm pretty positive that I won't be able to escape whatever office politics are waiting for me. And, there is still the chance that my new coworkers will think I smell bad, but I do think this is the luckiest thing to have happened to me in a long time.
I think the moment when things will really sink in is when I wipe my hard drive. Right now, I'm so focused on all the things I have to do before I leave. Even writing a formal letter of resignation so that my boss could post my position as being open didn't have the resonance I was expecting. Instead, that was when the feeling that I was an outcast began. Maybe I hurt myself by giving such a long period of notice. Its not like they can afford to get mopey about my leaving them just before the start of a new semester. They have to get their act together and move forward too. I wonder if they will buy me lunch as a fond fairwell. Probably not, since I was the oe who always arranged the good bye lunches for people who were moving on to other jobs. So, all I can do is wait it out. And now, that all I can do is wait it out, I am trying to hold on to that sense of excitement I had when I received the phone call telling me I got the job. Of course hubby and I are going to the mountains for our anniversary this weekend. Maybe the serenity of the place will help me get a grip on whatever this is.
Anyway, thats what's been going on with me lately. I'll be updating you guys on the book drive and letting you know about some incentives I have in place in upcoming posts. Stay tuned.
Posted by chasitymoody at 3:41 PM Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)