I think I might go ahead and convert the Salami Day website to Drupal. I was originally using it as my CakePHP learning experience, but since not getting the job that I originally tried to learn CakePHP to impress, I feel like Drupal is just a better direction to go in, for now at least. That was an unfortunate job experience, anyhow. It’s really crappy when you go to an interview, find out that there’s something they really want you to know that they never bothered to tell your recruiter about, or bothered to mention in the telephone interview you’ve already had with them. Then, when you mention you’ve been thinking about learning it and can pick it up in the next week, they give a dismissive comment, as if they don’t believe you. Pretty much my entire design/development career has consisted of “Hey, I need to learn this program to do this thing. Guess I better do it.” I mean, that’s how you learn, right? Mind you, I didn’t have any sort of fabulous grasp on CakePHP, but after a week I’d rebuilt Salami Day and had a decent enough understanding of it’s structure. The job looked pretty nice, too. Oh well. Considering how many applicants they might have had who actually *knew* CakePHP, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t get it. Nonetheless, I wish I could just jump up and down and flap my arms and scream that I’m a hard worker and love deadlines, and have them listen and fall in love with me and give me a bucket of dollars. If only!

In other news, I’m getting sick of ham + salad. We did Christmas with Drew’s aunt Pam, and as she was fortunate enough to get invited to a friend’s timeshare in Hawaii for the remainder of the holiday break, we got to take home all the food that Drew’s cousin Travis wasn’t going to eat. So, we have this gargantuan bag of salad, along with a nice pile of ham. Thus, ham salad! Goes great with Ken’s Steak House honey mustard dressing! Also, mmm, Christmas latkes. They went fast. We also have a metric ton of chocolate. Pacing issues with that, of course. Also, a post Christmas present – me finding a workout machine for free on Craigslist! It’s some sort of step resistance machine, nothing too fancy, but it’s free, and that’s the important part.

We leave for Nashville in two days. Drew’s family reunion and all that stuff. I get my sewing machine back, which shall be glorious. My butt will also get numb and fall off from the driving. Less glorious.

Also! On the 6th, I go in to take an application to become a Census worker. Could be fun! I have been spending waay too much time playing Oasis, which is this fabulous “Civilization meets Minesweeper” type game, which came out a few years back and I’m playing on my computer and is really cheap through the Amazon game downloads section. Andrew has been similarly productive, in that he just finished reading all of Dragonball. Which is a godawful quantity of manga.

Hmm, about time for another infamous ham salad. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

I’m still poking along, and am dealing with the slowness of people who need websites as a side thing to their real work. I’m gonna try to get a temporary job with the census, most likely as an enumerator. I can go door to door with a clipboard! I’ll need to take a test of some sort which will likely be ridiculously easy, and then see if I’m needed in my area (along with the gazillion other people who probably applied to do this as well). It would be evening and weekends mostly, so if my web work picks up, it would not interfere with potential meetings and such. Waiting to get a call back to take the application test currently.

As of right now, I’m back to learning Flash. I have high hopes for this time around, as I have an actual project I’m working on. Avocado animation ahoy! Making a video to enter to win $2,000. Going slow but steady at the moment, I’ll be sure to post it here when I’m done.

I am nauseous from mint bark. It is ridiculously easy to make, mostly involving smashing oreos and melting heaps of chocolate in the microwave. It is also ridiculously easy to eat too much of it.

Oh, and we’re apparently going to Nashville for New Years. Nice long drive, there. Drew’s got a family reunion dealio going on, and it will give me an opportunity to retrieve my sewing machine and paintbrushes, both of which I managed to leave behind in Richmond and both of which are quite necessary for my general well being. We’re taking Drew’s car, as the back seat folds down and has enough room for whoever’s not driving to nap. First, we’ve gotta get Drew’s oil changed. Looks like we’re getting about 6 inches of snow by tomorrow, so that’ll need to go away (or we’ll need to find a nice clear lot) before we can deal with the oil. I just really hope his oil filter and other bits aren’t in completely ridiculous locations. He’s always changed his oil in a shop, and I really hope they didn’t use a machine to screw and unscrew the plug (Jiffy Lube is particularly bad with that), cause that makes it a real big pain for those of us with weak arms to loosen said plug!

Anyhow, Happy/Merry/Kwazy Christmas/Yule/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/etc.!!!