Life Lesson Day 2 and the Great...whatever

A day or so ago I wrote about restructuring my day to accommodate some of the things I enjoy doing, such as reading, writing and tweaking my website. I have to admit it's going well! Granted it's only day 2 of the the restructuring, but still, that's an accomplishment. I've heard or read somewhere you have to do something 20 consecutive days in order for it to become a habit. I wonder if that is true? Certainly I've done something 20 days in a row...and if I did it wasn't habit forming, because I'm not doing it today that I'm aware of. I'll have to see how this restructuring thing feels after 3 weeks. Habit or not.

Anyway, waking and staying awake at 6am hasn't been so terribly bad. I imagined horrible things happening to me, like falling asleep at inopportune times, hallucinations, eating disorders, etc...no adverse effects at all! I actually feel a little better, but that may just be pride poking at me though. I've made some writing and reading progress. For example, this may be my 3rd or 4th blog in as many days. Unparallelled heights for me. Maybe 6am isn't the monster I once thought it was.

I even feel better about the the whole collapsible menu thing for my website. I'm not about to declare eminent victory this morning, but I did find some html/css/jquery Drop Down Menu code that worked on my dummy site. I asked myself last night what's the difference between Collapsible and Drop Down Menus and I couldn't answer myself. I bet Google can though. The DDM works and feels just as I want, so if there is a difference it's irrelevant to me at this point.

One last thing before I go...tomorrow morning is my first "How Much Weight Have I Lost This Week" weigh-in. I'm kind of excited for it. I think/hope I lost at least 3 pounds.

Until next time...Happy Blogging!!

Day 3 of the Great Collapsible Menus War

As day 3 of this epic struggle rages on, I'm comforted in knowing, victory is near! I figured out how to get the collapsible menus to appear when and where they are supposed to. Now, to force them to surrender I just need to make those dastardly things disappear when the cursor is moved away from the tabs entirely. Just a side note, over there on the right, you can see how this war has taken a toll on me.

All of the fighting has been on the ground to this point and haven't called for an air strike yet. My resources have been a couple books and too many Google searches. My situation calls for a little JavaScript and I have zero understanding of it. Most of what I found shows the script used for their example and I can't seem to insert the correct script relevant to my html.

I could call for the air strike, my brother-in-law the web designer, but it feels pretty darn good when you can figure out the winning combination yourself. Oh, sure, I used him for a couple minor skirmishes, such as an sizing error and an Internet Explorer work around. He made short work of what took me hours of patient tinkering and wasn’t able to figure out. So, maybe, just maybe, I'll give him a call tomorrow.

I know I've whined a lot on these two "365" posts, so I want you all to know that I'm pleased with what I've created. It's not stylish, it's amateurish, the coding is most likely a cobbled up mess, but it's my online home. I hope sometime when you have nothing going on and just surfing around the internet, you stop by for a quick visit. If you do, please let me know what you think. There's an email link, that works, I believe.

Until the next time, I wish you happy surfing, designing and coding.

The King's Speech and the Inspiration of Motivation

I caught The King's Speech last night at the local theatre and the damn thing floored me. Took my breath away. What an amazing movie. Simple, yet complex as we follow the Duke to the thrown he doesn't even want due to his stammering. Although it was subtley directed, passionately acted...the writing was quietly powerfull. All the explosions happened within the characters themselves or the interactions with each other, not in the fx department. As an aspiring screenwriter, every once in awhile a script comes along that gives me this feeling of awe...as is in awe shucks, I wish that was mine! David Seidler's screenplay did just that for me last night.

As I lay in front of the television pretending that watching American Idol is somehow preparing me to write, as I lay in bed reading because I need to step away from a story that I haven't even visited in days, as hold my phone trying to come up with something witty to tweet about, I could have been writing. Attempting to write a script that moves me the the way Mr. Seidler moved so many of us last night. When the "Every Once In A While" story strikes, it inspires me to move from the couch or the bed or from the phone and plop myself in front of the computer and dive into the world that exists, for me, inside. It motivates me to, allow the characters clamouring inside my head, taunting me to give them breath, to have their voices heard, put them on paper. It's the Inspiration of Motivation that has moved me to delve back into the souls of these charaters and attempt to do what David Seidler did do. I MAY never sell a screenplay I write and that's ok... but I'll NEVER sell a screenplay I never wrote.

Who The Frock Am I part 1

Who the frock am I?  Where do I begin?  Am I middle aged? Over the hill or just cresting it?  The shit caught in someone's shoe or the shoe itself?  All good questions of doubt and insecurity...wonder and denial.  I guess first and formost I'm me.  The good and the bad, the black and the white, the weak and the strong.  I love to live within the limitless worlds in my head and then try to place these worlds on a paper landscape.  They're never as rich, or with as much depth on paper as they seem in my head.  The pen and pad, for me, reduces a 3D imagination to a 2D reality.  Am I a good writer?  I would guess not.  I choose the wrong words, the wrong locations, the wrong characters, the wrong titles, I could go on an on, but is there any point to?  Writing is my mistress, my guilty pleasure, my home away from home, although I don't get to visit as often as I'd like.  As painful as it is, I wouldn't stop doing it for anything in the world.  It haunts me at night, the voices clang about in my skull, screaming to get out.  I couldn't stop if I tried. 

Who the frock am I? I'm a parent of 2 amazing children.  As characters bang about in my mind, these 2 bang around outside it.  They splash color upon my life, keep me grounded, keep me young, give me drive and ambition, a reason to believe that the world is still good.  They are the reason I write and wake up in the morning.  They are my breath and my devotion.

Who the frock am I?  I'm just a guy.

@onemundanelife