Insurmountable Opportunities

  

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May 13, 2005

Two Weeks of Misery

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 2:47 pm

It think that I may hate DC. Or maybe DC hates me. For the past two weeks I’ve been nearly unable to breathe and coughing constantly. Doc has me on shitloads of medicine that doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It seems that the further I get from Oregon, the less happy my body is. Fucking East coast.

So, now I’m off to take the kids to the zoo. That oughtta finish me off.

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April 29, 2005

Ratz

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 6:00 pm

Pope Ratzinger

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April 28, 2005

Airscape

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 6:04 pm

And in the element of light
The sun reflected from the waves
Inshore it spangles

The child of air is borne upon the wind that blows across the sea

Element of LightAnd in the element of summer
The cliffs suspended in the heat
The air in columns

The tiny figures of the world are walking
Underneath your feet
And underneath your hair

Where angels wander
I’ll wander too
Where angels wander — over you
And in the element of darkness
The starlight shimmers on the spray
And falls towards you

Your perfect lover’s never there
And if she was, she wouldn’t be — and neither, though, would you

Save your illusions
For someone else
Save your illusions
For yourself

And in the element of laughter
The quick explosion and the slow
Release of heat

The tide recedes upon the bones of something beautiful and drowned
In coral and in jade

Where angels hover
I’ll hover too
Where angels hover — over you
Over you
Over you

-Robyn Hitchcock

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When is Enough Enough?

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 5:49 pm

Which reminds me…remember “Ebn-Ozn?” Just sit quitely for a minute, it’ll come to you. If not, then you may be younger than, say, 35…or maybe you were just somehow inurred to pop culture for the 30 seconds that you would have heard of them. If a tree falls in the…

Back to the subject at hand (there was a subject at hand?). I’ve got a running debate in my head. There’s this website I built a long time ago in a fit of feeling like there was noone else like me in the whole wide world and if sort of showed me that I was wrong. And right too, but that’s another story. I want to redesign the site ’cause it’s totally not accessible and uses too many tables and the CSS is soooooo ’90s. The thing is, there’s a forum that’s part of this site. Forums seem so…well…done, y’know? So do I spend the irritating ten hours it will take me to match the forum to the rest of the site, or do I put it out of it’s misery?

So that’s what I meant by “when is enough enough.”

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April 27, 2005

When a Friend Gets Laid Off

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 6:40 pm

You know, how when a friend looses their job (or funding for their job) you usually feel bad for them? Especially when they work at a pretty important, meaningful, vital, if perhaps internally flawed organization? Well…then you know how sometimes - after feeling bad for them for about a second - you are all like, “hey, my company should hire her.” You know how that sometimes is? Well that’s how I feel now.

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April 19, 2005

Who Gives a Ratzinger’s Ass?

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 2:35 pm

I know his views have huge implications on things that are important to me, but I just can’t find it within myslelf to care in the slightest which old white dude gets to be pope. And I thought the presedential election was an irritating excercise in the futility of being faced with two shitty choices.

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April 10, 2005

I don’t. I really don’t

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 8:18 pm

For years now I’ve been telling people how lucky I am that I get along so well with J’s folks. No parent-in-law stereotypes here. Nosiree-bob!

Oh well. I guess the illusion was nice while it lasted.

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April 9, 2005

Walk in the Woods

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 9:55 pm

Walk in the Woods
A child of light crossed briefly into shadow.

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April 5, 2005

Hunter S. Thompson to Be Shot from Cannon

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 8:02 pm

Damn right he is. Well, his ashes, anyway. The cannon is to be mounted in a sculpture of his “Gonzo” fist atop a 100 foot pillar. Live loud.

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Starbucks Delocator

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 7:14 am

Most people who really enjoy coffee agree that Starbuck’s has nasty, over-roasted and over-priced coffee. They sell a lifestyle and nearly everyone you know is buying. Hell, even you dear reader, are buying. I too admit to falling prey to the comforting green glow.

The problem is that the neighborhood coffee shop is being pushed out and with it, some part of community. The neighborhood coffe shop - like the neighborhood bar and, in my opinion, the neighborhood laundromat - help define a neighborhood. Starbucks doesn’t care about your neighborhood.

This site, the Starbucks Delocator, serves to help you find local coffe shops by zipcode. Odd, you say, that the words “Starbucks Delocator” don’t appear on the site? Fear of lawsuits prevented the San Francisco Art Institute from using that name. So here’s my part in Carrie McLaren’s Google campaign to get the name mentioned in as many places on the ‘net as possible, so that the Starbucks Delocator will come up in Google’s search results when you type the word “Starbucks.”

Go on over to the Starbucks Delocator and search for cafés in the zip code “45245″ to see what I’m talking about. One café, 10 Starbucks. Ugh.

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March 26, 2005

I’m an Expert?

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 7:14 am

I don’t know whether to be proud of myself, or seriously dissappointed in everyone else. I’m apparently some sort of expert in the area of Online Accessibility.

I just got back from Chicago where I presented in a couple of sessions at the 2005 NTC Conference. On Thursday, I co-presented with my awsomely talented co-worker Cara in a session called “Extreme Website Makeover” which outlined the way that Beaconfire Consulting (the company we both work for) goes about bringing non-profits through the process or redesigning their Website. Everything from assessing the current site, defining audiences and desired outcomes for those audiences, to…well, just check out the slides (4MB PDF).

I would sort of describe the concept of each step in the process and some of the reasoning behind it, and then Cara would show examples from a project she is managing right now. It was a great way to bring in concrete examples at every step of the way.

What I didn’t expect was that the part of the session talking about accessibility would generate so many questions.

The next day I did a session with some folks from Easter Seals called “Why Online Accessibility is Good Design and Business.” It also went well.

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February 7, 2005

Tedious and Brief

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 1:09 pm

I hate those line-by-line deconstructions by wisenheimer progressives of the bald-faced lies that our politicians tell us. I especially hate it when it’s the State of the Union address that is being taken apart. Even more, I hate it when the target is George W. Bush.

Oh wait…no, that’s not exactly true. Actually, it’s exactly NOT true.

And here it is…

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February 5, 2005

The Cuddly Menace

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 6:40 am

You thought the lord jesus wasn’t an alien invader, bent on the evil subjugation of humankind? You thought wrong.

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January 26, 2005

Save Eyes On The Prize

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 8:59 pm

Downhill Battle is trying to save Eyes On The Prize, and they need your help. You remember Eyes On The Prize, don’t you? For many of us it was our first introduction to the Civil Rights Movement. Well, apparently the cost of renewing rights to all the clips used in the series is prohibitive and the makers have been unable to run it on TV or sell it for nearly 10 years.

Downhill Battle to the rescue! Download your bittorrent copy now and save one of the most important documentaries ever made.

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January 24, 2005

Monday

Filed under: Opportunities by Tim @ 7:49 am

It’s Monday again. This seems to happen, like, every damn week. It’s cold. Really cold. The 8 inches of snow that were promised - nay, threatened - never happened (more like 3 maybe), but it is definitely cold. I’m in my new (soon to be old ’cause we’re moving) office with two space heaters cranking, wearing my coat, and googling for the nearest place I can go buy another heater. My toes are really, really cold.

I’m still waiting to get busy at work. It’s slow starting, but I will be taking over Client Manager duties for two of Beaconfire’s clients: Parents’ Action for Children and The AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s new community site. The PAC site is not new to me. I spent the last few months working as a freelance Interface Engineer on that project. I built the XHTML templates and did a bunch of other shit too. I think if came out very nicely, and I look forward to working on it. The AFC community site is an extremely customized implimentation of PHPNuke, and I’m still getting up to speed on what it will require.

Love the job. Love the people. Can’t wait to move to the new office and be warmer.

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