1/4/01

Yes, it's me. It really is.

Anne's Journal of Minutiae

Thursday
January 4, 2001

Well, I guess we can (officially) lay to rest the "true start of the millennium" debate. Yes, folks, I'm sure that we can all agree that we have now entered the 21st century. I know, I know -- many of you feel that last year was the start of the millennium. But hey -- it's all moot, isn't it? Onto bigger and better things...

Fellow WebRat, Julia, was concerned about my proximity to the recent fires in Viejas (East of San Diego). Well, lucky for me I live about five miles from the coast -- but that hasn't stopped sheets of ash from settling over every surface near my home. For the last couple of days I've found my Jeep completely covered in ash after I've parked it at school or the gym for a few hours. The air has been thick with smoke and flying ash (which has an irritating way of sailing right into one's partially opened mouth). Plus, we're experiencing dry Santa Ana winds -- my sinuses feel like they've been sandblasted (I've now gone through four boxes of Sudafed in the last couple of months).

The truly sad thing is that people have lost homes -- thankfully, however, no deaths have occurred. The truly disgusting thing about this is that the fires may have been caused by a discarded cigarette. Some a**hole carelessly tossed a lit ciggie into the brush. Just like the a**holes who toss their ciggies from moving vehicles instead of grinding them into their car's friggin' ashtray. Just like the stoopid f**kwit who tossed her ciggie out the window of her crapmobile just in front of me on I-5 -- the lit stub striking my Jeep's windshield and rolling along the plastic "tray" in front of the windshield. Lucky for me, it rolled onto the freeway before it could set the plastic on fire.

Yes, truly sad -- and truly disgusting.

Still working and reworking at a frenetic pace on my portfolio site. I have yet to put up my "pricing page." I've been doing a bit of research, checking other sites to get an idea of what other designers charge. Of course, I'll have to set my own prices a tad lower.

I've discovered some really good Web designers -- many with cleanly rendered sites. Like this one, for instance. She uses Dreamweaver (and has listed some really good Dreamweaver resources on her personal site). Then, of course, there are my fellow WebRats -- who have some pretty nicely-designed sites. I have to tell you, Sam's redesign is awesome. Jeez, that woman sure knows her way around Photoshop.

Then, of course, there are the...ummm...bad, cheesy ones. Well, like this one. Check out her "samples." I mean, that's how I kinda designed my first website...oh...about four and half years ago. Anyway, sites like those make me feel a little better...