TJamesWhite.com

So I’ve been a bit silent lately. No particular reason other than I haven’t had an super inspiring things to write about. I haven’t made much headway with the story I began writing. I’ve read it a few times but haven’t picked a path for it to go down. I also haven’t had much time to sit and write.

Part of that is due to my usual Tuesday t’ai chi class. But last night was spent evaluating a Web site. I’ve picked up a little freelance gig for the weekend, and it could turn into something bigger and more regular. Stay tuned…

[intermission:: sorry, I had to go outside for a few minutes. Sitting hear typing I heard a familiar call - the hawk was back. I grabbed my camera and dashed outside. I manage to get a couple of long distance shots (we'll see how they turn out) and as I was setting up for another, she took off and flew right over head. What a beautiful bird.]

As for t’ai chi, I’ve got a problem. My right knee has bothered me since the beginning. Nothing harsh mind you, just slight soreness. Until last week. In my practice last Thursday I had a sharp pain and couldn’t finish the form. On Tuesday in class it was much more sore than usual and my legs don’t seem to have any strength in them, particularly the right. Again with practice tonight, sharp pains in and around the inside of the kneecap. I’m not liking this very much.

This past weekend I read Johnny Public by Sean Frost and Wendi Strang-Frost. The concept is brilliant and the art work is fantastic. Wendi’s use of negative space is (as my friend at work said) akin to Magnola‘s. And the color covers are really cool (my favorites are 3, 4 and 6).

In other words, I enjoyed reading the seven issues and am looking forward to the next. (Hurry up you guys! Oh, and now that you have a color printer I’m going to greedily suggest a color version of Mr. Public….)

For the rest of you, visit the Web site. Buy the comic. Enjoy.

That is an order.

A little photograhic fun with the cat. All photos via Herman.

OK, so I haven’t been updating daily. I’ve got the pictures, I just haven’t downloaded and sized them all. And I decided to skip the extremely bad fish one. I’ll try to repaint that in the future.

But for today, my cat. Oh, and I relocated the images higher up.

And now I’ve downloaded the rest and have the sized and ready. No more excuses, other than me just not getting to it.

Yes, we haven’t reached February and I’m already looking forward to June. But only because Sarah and I have officially booked our trip to Italy. No more talking and wishing, we are really going.

We will be gone for 12 days total, spending 3 nights in Venice, 4 in Florence and 3 in Rome (plus 2 days of travel). Airfares and hotels are booked. The train passes will get processed as we get closer to departure. All that’s left is for me to get my passport renewed. I’m planning on doing that tonight.

Some of the highlights I’m looking forward to: the Murano (small island off of Venice) glass factories; David and other works; the Coliseum, forum, et al.; and pretty much everything in between.

You’ve all read the story about the guy covering his friends apartment in tin-foil? Well, I just found an interview complete with pictures. Oy.

I began reading desiging with web standards by Jeffrey Zeldman. For being a book about web standards it really an easy read. Mr. Zeldman has a very accessible writing style that keeps the book moving along.

The first four chapters lay out the history of browsers and standards and has really helped to connect a lot of dots for me. And while I’ve been eager to build pages with proper code and standards, now I understand the ‘why’ better. I’m beginning to push for updated code at work — we’ll see how that goes.

And, in a related note, I just purchased and downloaded TopStyle 3.0. I’ve used TopSytle light in the past for CSS work, but found it a little buggy. I gave 3.0 a trial last month and was really impressed with it. The fact that it creates proper code and allows you to build HTML, XHTML and CSS pages at the same time is very cool. It also integrates them all so you can see what’s going on. And it has validation tools tied in. And (if that isn’t enough) Nick Bradbury (the man behind the program) is offering a 25% discount right now.

OK, I’m trying to get back on track with the zen images. Today: wu chi (the mother of yin & yang).