June 9th, 2012 3:28pm

#65

Blog still works
by: daniel

If this is still working, I might be using this old thing rather than moving to wordpress or joomla... yet. now to get the comments working again... UPDATE: the comments work, but with no anti-spam measures we got... well, spam. So they are disabled once again until I have the time or inclination to fix that.

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October 26th, 2005 12:10pm

#64

You bet your Coulo
by: daniel

After several months of completely ignoring this site, I was reminded of it's existence about a week ago and decided to see how the old thing was holding up.

Turns out we got hit with a bunch of spammers for a bunch of different online casino sites, a number of them in spanish it seems. Sorry for those of you who would have found them entertaining, but I've already removed them.

They were quite polite, though. Kept heaping innocuous praise on my site, mentioning how "informative" it was, and so forth. That was about the time I realized they were full of crap.

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May 3rd, 2005 2:07pm

#63

Urge to redesign... rising
by: daniel

What can I say? I have neglected the website. So much so that I feel like paying for the domainname and the hosting is a waste of money. The only thing anyone ever uses is the webmail. Sure it's cool to have an e-mail address with your last name in it, but due to our last name being so easily mispelled the ease of being able to tell people "my e-mail is really easy, it's just my first name at my lastname dot com!" is countered by the immediate need to spell out our lastname to make sure they get it right.

But I suppose that is true of any e-mail address. It just seems like more people pay attention to the spelling of the name and not the server. Anyways, I feel a redesign coming on for this site. I have no real ideas for said redesign, but I am getting sick of looking at the state the current site is in. I tried before to come up with a redesign using mostly CSS (go to vanhiel.com/weblog.php for a peek), but I found out rather quickly that Mac's webrowser Safari handles CSS layout much different from Internet Explorer: so even if I use the things I did in that redesign, I'd still have to redesign the redesign in order to get it to work in IE. Plus, it would really help if I had my computer within 20 miles of where I am living.

I am also considering purging this blog and starting over, but I see no real reason to. Having all this in the blog doesn't hinder anything, and with the latest expansion of the server space for the site from 100MB to 300MB, there is plenty of room on the server for the old blog entries.

Who knows? perhaps working on brian's productforge site may inspire me to really make this site here smashing... even if nobody ever looks at it.

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April 1st, 2005 9:17am

#62

Buzz-Kill
by: daniel

Comedian and Actor Mitch Hedberg, 37, Dies

Please please please please PLEASE let this be an April Fool's Day gag..... please?

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December 11th, 2004 11:21am

#61

This should be Brian\'s List...
by: daniel

Brian’s Xmas Wish List

-($50) Halo 2

-($20) “Freakonomics” by Levitt and Dubner (pre-order, it’s not published
‘til May)

-($50) Really cool bottle opener like this one:
http://www.mossonline.com/product-exec/product_id/29081/category_id/376

-($80-$100) Bluetooth Headset: Sony Ericsson HBH-300 Akono Headset or the
Sony Ericsson HBH-660 Bluetooth Headset

-($350-$400) Handheld VOR Transceiver: ICOM IC-A23 or Vertex Standard
VXA-700 Spirit.

-($20-$40) Alkaline battery case for whichever Transceiver.

-($50) Nice Screwdriver Set

-($60) MS Flight Sim 2004

-($400) Used/Refurbished Viewsonic Airpanel 110 or 150

-($50+) Wireless networking stuff

-($400?)Used Aeron Chair or a Allsteel Model #19 Chair

-($400) 19\\\" Flat Screen LCD Monitor

-($200?) Small touch screen monitor

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December 11th, 2004 11:18am

#60

Not-so-secret Santa
by: Donald

My Christmas wish list

The Lord of the Rings - Three parts: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two
Towers & The Return of the King

Tools from Amazon.com

- Delta ½ HP hollow chisel mortise #14-651 $230

- Porter Cable 12” dove tail machine #4112 $110
¼” jig for above #4114 $43

- Bessey Angle clamps WS-6 $50

- Fast Hand 3rd Hand support jacks 3Hand5 $70

- Porter Cable Narrow Crown Stapler #NS150A $150

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September 20th, 2004 5:00pm

#59

D.A.N. phone new
by: daniel

Well, I finally got fed up enough about my cellphone never working in the house and got myself a new one. YAY! I don't have to go outside anymore to get my voicemail! As many of you readers (the both of ya) may know, my use of the cellphone dropped off dramatically when I moved because the blasted thing wouldn't get a signal unless you were a good 20 feet outside in the backyard. So my use of the phone faded and I started giving people Brian's home phone# as my main contact. Well, what made you finally do something about this? you may ask. You can thank Ivan for that one.

There I was, Thursday afternoon and working on my freelance project when the power gets knocked out. So there I am, in an electrically-challenged abode, looking after a couple of cats who seem to regard the hurricane remnant outside as just another loud TV show, and I start getting calls on my cellphone. I also discovered that Brian has no regular phone lying about. He has these new-fangled cordless jobs that need electricity for the base-station (and all his old phones piled up in the basement have the same problem). So I got no landline, and i am not about to step outside in the Tempest. So hours go by with me just twiddling my thumbs in the candlelight (if there's one thing Brian & Leslie do have is candles) wondering who could have called.

And there you have it. The proverbial last straw. So yesterday, I dropped by the cingular store, and after a brisk 45 minute wait (well, brisk for a cingular store) I told the guy behind the counter my tale of woe, and he set me up with this nifty little marvel of modern technology you see before you.

Trouble is, now I have to rewrite my custom ringstyles again... Oh well, small price to pay for a usable phone.

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September 2nd, 2004 3:53pm

#58

Outdated
by: daniel

Seems the code I changed only affected the date in the blogger display, not the stuff that ends up on the page. But, I discovered, whilst flipping through the code, that I can put images in here!... I think.

I'm testing it with this post.

Behold: a jpg!

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September 2nd, 2004 12:59pm

#57

I can change baby!
by: daniel

Bought a CSS book and a PHP book and have been boning up on how I can redesign the website. So expect to see some random changes popping up here and there for a bit. Yes, I can field-test most this stuff on my home computer (even the php), but there's something to be said for checking it against the real thing, as it were. Also, I'm having fun going through the structure of the PHP this blog application is written in.

Check out the new format for the post-date.

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August 19th, 2004 9:43am

#56

Hurry up and wait
by: daniel

Three up, three down.

The last of my potential employment prospects went down the tubes monday when Datalex decided to outsource Ed rather than rehire me. On the what-sounds-like-a-bright-side they will be outsourcing him on a trial basis. Trouble is, their trial period is 3 months, and as far as I'm concerned, it might as well be 3 years. Actually, considering that I've been looking for a steady job for more than a year now, 3 months is actually doable. Which only serves to get me more depressed.

On a good note though, Jen Wilkerson has been giving me some freelance work to do in the meantime. First one was a little flash animation, but this next one is a 30 minute presentation. If anything, it has renewed my hopes in actually doing real freelance work, real meaning I can actually make a living off of it.

Anywho, back to redesigning my website again.

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August 6th, 2004 10:26am

#55

Watch the fro--*splat*... nevermind
by: daniel

Thought I'd let everyone know about my wednesday this week. Lots of stuff went down, so I'll just keep it in chronological order. First off, I've been waiting to hear back about a certain job opening all week and wednesday was going to be the day I found out for sure. I also had seen adverts on TV for the WB casting call (essentially, a 1-day-only talent search for Georgians only) that was going on that day too, so I figured tha since I'll be a nervous wreck all day anyhow waiting to hear back about the job, and since my phone works better outside, I decided to go to this thing.

It was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. and run till 3:00 p.m. so I got up bright and early at 7 and actually made it down there by 8. When I got there, the line to register was already 300 people strong. So I settled in, pulled out the application form I had printed out the night before and started to fill it out when I got to the section marked "acting partner". Needless to say I didn't have an acting partner, since I didn't know anyone who could have taken all of wednesday off work to do this anyway, but it just so happens that the girl directly behind me in line was also flying solo, so we paired up.

Fast forward about 3 hours: we are still in line, about 150 people between us and the registration table, we're ducking between cars for shade because there isn't a cloud in the sky and the sun is beating down on us like a... um, like a...thing...that beats you down... and I get a call on my cell.

It isn't the job calling me, it isn't any family or friends, it's my old boss from Datalex! Turns out Eric (our webmaster) is planning on moving to Miami to be closer to his aging parents, and they need someone to fill the position. Now the reason I never really took over for Jen when she left was because they needed someone who had experience working with security software and the like, and I was a graphic designer, not an IT guy. But it looks like IT will be taking over the technical bits, leaving me to just take a few courses in administration and I'd be all set for the job.

Not the job call I was expecting, but hey...

So after containing my astonishment at getting that call the day I expected to hear back from another company, I set up a lunch for the next day with him and got back in line. The real trouble was I was trying to explain to anyone in line that would listen just how out-of-the-blue wierd that call was, but it required so much back story that I just let it slide.

Fast forward another 30 minutes, and my dad calls. They're planning on getting mom a new car and wanted to know if I was interested in getting the honda. "Hell yes", it has air-conditioning, so of course I'm interested... not to mention my jeep started leaking oil like the exxon valdez. Before I move out of Brian's place, I'll need to powerwash the gigantic oil stain in the driveway.. which kinda looks like Guam if you stand on the left side of it...

Then the odd part, or at least the part I don't get: another hour goes by, Popeye's sets up a booth and we all get free chicken and rice, and after the meal, I go to get back in line, and as everyone is regrouping, I find out that a couple of the girls near us who we'd been hanging out with in our line... LEFT! Who the hell waits 6 hours in line (they got there at 7ish) endure blistering heat and constant sun only to abandon you spot in line when you're 30 people away from registering?! Insane.

So, I get up there and when I sign in, they give me a little portfolio with copies of all the stuff I had printed out before. So that was a waste of paper. And of course they weren't accepting headshots or résumés either, so I could've shown up with nothing.

So after my partner and I get our stuff, she decides to move her car (they had been announcing what areas were being towed over the PA). She has AC, so we crash in the car until they call our number.

Actually, the rest of it was rather uneventful: went inside in groups of 12, sat in zee lobbee for a few minutes, sat in a conference room filling out surveys and finishing up the paperwork for another few minutes, waited in line to sit in the studio for another few minutes, and then finally got to get up there and run through one of the three 2-minute scenes given to us, then out the door.

The eventful part was that we got to sit in the studio and watch about 5 pairs go up and do their thing before our turn. Man, talk about H.S. level melodrama. And it really was remeniscent of H.S. auditions. In theatre auditions they give you a heafty chunk to act through, and they want to see you with other people and see it multiple times. This was one-shot, no real preparation, do the scene and buh-bye kinda thing you get in H.S. I don't blame them or anything, I mean it is hard enough having to sit through 250+ pairs (and if the group I saw was in any way indicitive of the average acting ability, 250+ gut-wrenching performances), but I really don't see how on earth they are going to be able to get a good measure of your talent by just seeing you once. And what if your partners stinks it up? I didn't happen to me, thankfully. Sherry was nice, had never done anything like this but held her own pretty good. But one of the pairs that went before us, the girl did a rather interesting...um... interpretation of the character: a combination of drunk, good witch of the north, yodelling, and a sprinkling of überdiva for color. I felt bad for her partner, I mean it is ok to do that if you think you aren't going to make it and just want to goof off, but what about her partner? How the hell do you play off someone who is reading her lines falsetto?

Anywho, I'm just glad I didn't get sunburned too badly.

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August 1st, 2004 11:56am

#54

Free the radicals!!
by: daniel

Just a quick test to see if Kanji will post in this thing. I've been reading up on Japanese language and have the fonts on my Mac, so I thought it might look cool to have them as an option.

fade to ??...

well that didn't work. eh, it was worth a shot.

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July 22nd, 2004 9:02am

#53

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
by: daniel

Since this weblog is open to the public, and since I send links to this website to potential employers, and since the last interview I had mentioned they looked at it, and since my dad mentioned that I should... I'll be doing a bit of selective editing to this rather personal blog.

So you might notice a few edited or completely missing posts. I've never bothered to completely delete stuff before (seeing as how I don't know how glitchy this weblog code really is) so I'll probably just stick to editing rather than deleting stuff. Frankly, I don't trust the coding on this page all that much, and am not going to be rewriting it all anytime soon.

Personally, I doubt anything on this blog would adversly effect my chances of getting employed. But, just in case someone out there actually does bother to read this thing, I'll go ahead and take my dad's advice on this one.

anywho, onto the slicing & dicing!!!

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April 9th, 2004 8:15am

#52

King of infinite space
by: daniel

Okay, so I've been derelict in my blogging duties for....2 and a half months. Time for a review:

Living at Brian's place
Most of my stuff is living at the Parent's place
Oh, they moved too, same week I did
They're now up near Canton
Got some Interviews, but they were in Gainesville and (ack) Hartwell
Did some more filming for "A Peasant's Hope" (Formerly "The Quest")
Got talked into a production of Romeo & Juliet at Cobb Playhouse
Got back with the Philco. Radio Players (just in time to be in the production at the FOX ;) )

Annnnnd, that's about up to speed now. I've been keeping busy helping out with odds and ends here at Brian and Leslie's pad. Got their computers (and mine) all networked now, and have done a little work on the Jeep (or at least got Brian to do something). I'm getting the feeling that if I stay too long, I'll get spoiled. They have a projection screen moniter downstairs. Good thing I've already seen most of their movies, otherwise I'd still be watching them now. I wont even mention the XBOX... oops, mentioned it. Never had the feeling that I need to get out because I was too comfortable before, but the Italians have a saying: What starts as temporary quickly becomes permanent.


What is really frustrating is that Brian and Leslie live in Smyrna, a few miles from where Matt & Jen were but they moved on me. Grrrrrrr. But Seth & Jenn are only a mile away, so once I get my ducks in a row and have a free weekend (how the hell did I get talked into this play again? I must be a pushover) we need to hang out. Or at least jam a little in Brian's basement: Leslie has a drum set down here dude! And I got my electric piano, and bass guitar, aaaand my acoustic guitar, aaaaaand my trumpet. C'mon dude!

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January 19th, 2004 11:21pm

#51

location, location, location
by: daniel

Finished up our run for Philco.RadioPlayers at the not-so-fabulous Marietta Star Cinema. Now my weekends will consist of apartment hunting, or at least this weekend will consist of that. I wanna move closer to my friends. I'm sick of being out away from everyone I know and there are nearly half a dozen apartment complexes within half a mile from them to choose from.

I've been trying to keep between $600-700 for rent, but there is a sweet 1200 square foot 1b1b pad going for $760. I'm still pokin' around since $760 is a bit steeper than what I was willing to pay, but it is a niiiiiice place.

Take a gander at the floorplan.

C'mon people, convince me to move there. It'll be sweet. And I am definitely planning a house-warming party after this move, since it is a 15 minute drive tops, even for Seth and Jenn!!

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January 14th, 2004 4:30pm

#50

yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
by: daniel

GET A JOB!!!!!
I have discovered during my months of unemployment that I just don't function well when I am left to my own devices. I need something to keep me busy, but if I know it's busywork it just doesn't seem to have the same effect as real work.

Perhaps it's that whole "getting paid" thing...

There's always the freelancing though.

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