Category Archives: Maintenance

Related to site maintenance and changes

Hopefully This Will Help Spruce My Den Up

As part of my studies for my MLIS degree I am taking a course on website design. This should force me to take the time to learn HTML5 and CSS, which might help with actually putting the round tuit I have to use in getting my den’s appearance more the way I want it.
:D

I will still have to learn PHP without the external motivator of grades, which may or may not be a good thing. We shall see if I can manage that in addition to my other classes and all the writing I hope to do.

You will probably hear from me a bit more in part because I’ll have to be rambling as part of my assignments for this class. But also because I feel confident that I have developed enough of a routine to start up being a bit more regular about when I ramble.
:creative:

The Return of the Kitsune

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Direlda has returned to his den in an attempt to rescue his ramblings from the clutches of Jabber the Procrastinator.

Little does Direlda know that the MUNDANE EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new ironclad routine even more powerful than the first dreaded Class Schedule.

When completed, this ultimate program will spell certain doom for the small band of storytellers struggling to restore insanity to the Library…

What that tells you is true, from a certain point of view. :p

For today does mark the return of this kitsune to his den. :D   It has been a long while, but I have grown in my time wandering.  I am armed now with a cork board, index cards, pushpins, and pens and markers of various colours.  So I should be able to work out a system and hold myself to it.

Today also marks the completion of another orientation session for the Master in Library and Information Science program that I have started.  The Chair of the department said, “You’re all going to be librarians, but you’re not all going to work in a library” and that part of my job is to “make humanity more human.”  I think I’m going to like it here.

This program may also give me the tools needed to finally get my den looking the way I want it to.  Or at least give enough of a kick to the tail to send my scampering to the resources to teach myself how.  The Chair made a spontaneous example for how career paths change of a person who wanted to do storytelling ending up in web design.  And that has got me thinking on how to integrate the two.  Because I do want the appearance of my den to convey a story as much as my ramblings do.  Stories are everywhere.

Speaking of stories, I have a short story being published in the Rainfurrest 2014 convention anthology! Whooo! :D   One of my artist friends, NovaWuff, did an illustration to go along with it that should also be in the anthology.

My story is called Neural Enrichment.  Here is a blurb-in-progress:

After saving for months on his hagwon English teacher’s salary, John finally had enough to afford a cybernetic implant.  He had hoped that his new Rycorp implant would allow him to fully enjoy all that the Korean Technocracy had to offer.  Instead it turned him into an anthropomorphic fox and now bombards his mind with adverts.  John is desperate to shut the world out of his head and is willing to seize any opportunity to do so even if it risks what humanity he has left.

I don’t know the cost of the anthology, but I do know that all proceeds will be going towards a charity of sorts (I think it’s the Clouded Leopard Project, but it could be the Cougar Mountain Zoo).  I also don’t know the content of the other stories aside from all being cyberpunk, but I do know that the anthology I’m in has a content rating of G to PG-13.  Come the evening of September 25 I will be able to give you more information.

That is all the exciting news I have for you today!  But I will be around more now. :)

Count the shadows.

What Does the Fox Say?

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Well, if you go by my rambling habits, apparently not much.  I’ve had plenty of adventures since the last time I rambled at you and yet I haven’t said anything.  Partly because of the move back to the US from South Korea (with a decent vacation in Japan), but also due to procrastination and working on other things.

But I’m back to rambling now, really.  May or may not catch you up on my adventures.  Really need to hang up the whiteboard, procure and hang a corkboard, put up the calendar, and have organized creative chaos.

Plenty of pictures and video to go through from my adventures.  But first to finish the story that I am going to submit to the Rainfurrest 2014 conbook and finish up a draft of my novel in time for my vixen’s birthday.

And I need to get back to work on the aesthetics of my den, since its current look isn’t that appealing.  I should make a to-do list so that it can be “signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters” (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

So I’ll leave you with the song that gave this rambling its name, since I like the song and haven’t been on the internet enough to grow sick of it (the benefit of not going online often). :p

P.S. Foxes gekker, in addition to barking, screaming, and such.

Finally Pics!

I’m getting around to putting some of my pictures up on deviantArt.  You can go check out my pictures of Korea, if you feel like it!

I also should be getting around to talking about my Jeju adventures and there will be pictures in those posts not found on my dA.

Yay for being more active! :D

I Dropped the Ball and the Ball Won: Or How I Learned to Stop Rambling and Love the Distractions

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I tried to be on top of things this month.  There was so much I had intended to do… ^_^; :doh:

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

(Robert Burns, To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough)

The schemes of this here fox are no different, it would seem.  Not all of my distractions were necessarily bad, though.  For instance, I spent a lot of time doing things with my wife, such as playing games and watching Castle, since she was still on vacation for the first week of January and then had a week of inservice.  And I’m glad I did.  It just means that I wasn’t spending that time working on what I had said I would write.

^_^;

I also need to devise a way to make my personal deadlines mean something.  Having a teacher, professor, colleague, or boss set a deadline ensures that I do all I can to make that deadline.  But when the deadline maker is myself…  You’ve seen what happens.  Now that I have a calendar again, perhaps I’ll get better at deadlines (since now they will have a physical existence).

I’ve also realized how integral having a hard copy is to my writing process.  For something like this rambling, which doesn’t represent much of an intellectual effort, I don’t need to look over a hard copy for editing and revising.  But for poems, stories, essays, and the like I do need a hard copy.  There’s just something about being able to feel my words with my fingers that helps me revise them.  And to be able to see multiple pages at once, something my netbook’s screen doesn’t really facilitate.  So let me rage here against my current lack of printing machinery! RAWR!!  >.<   In any case, I will be having my “essay” on story adaptations printed so that I can revise it to actually make sense and have an organization to it. (yay)

:creative:

All of which to say, yes, indeed, I dropped the ball here and let it bounce away.  Further away than it should have gone.  Over the fence and down the road that took me to the Lonely Mountain following the scent of Thorin and Company.  (You do also realize that there is a fox in The Lord of the Rings, right?)  But I’ve gone bounding after it.  And I should have what I promised to have for you last month by the end of this month.  Which, if you think about it, isn’t too far off…  And if George R.R. Martin can be long overdue on his books, then I can be somewhat overdue…?  Maybe…?  Oh, alright, I’ll make it my impossible task to improve on my timeliness when it comes to self-imposed deadlines.  I hope you’re happy, inner-critic.  Because if by the end of this year I haven’t improved, then I may just toss you out the window of your tower.

:evil:

Are There Posts Ahead?

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If there are, we’ll all be dead.  But only if you collide head-on. For then your life would be gone.  I’ll stop this rhyming, I mean it.  Could you interest me in a peanut?

:p

Anyways… Riffing off a favorite movie aside, I am here to inform you of the many ramblings I have planned.  Inconceivable, right?  Rest assured, there will be R.O.U.S.’s (Ramblings Of Unusual Size) aplenty in the days ahead.

:o

First up on the course of ramblings shall be my thoughts on the movie adaptions of The Hobbit and Les Miserables.  I enjoyed them, but… I’ll leave that for my rambling.  In conjunction with this I shall be uploading a piece to dA concerning my thoughts on adaptations.  Rather inconceivable that I should do so, I know.

:D

Following that shall be a look back at 2012.  I’ve had quite the year from food poisoning to a friend’s mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam.  I’ve been through heat and cold with some typhoons for good measure.  So you are welcome to join me in my reminiscing on the eve of a new year.  Expect some mention of hopes for the new year.

And then shall follow a six-fingered rambling.  Or is it six ramblings–one for each of the days of my recent adventure?  Either way writing them will take a miracle!  Such things as eating spicy fried chicken wings with chopsticks, Spain’s anvitions, climbing up the Winding Stair into Narnia, magnetic soap, “escaping” the rain in a lava tube, and a dragon trying to eat a Ramada Hotel will be presented for your enjoyment! Inconceivable?  I think not!

After that I shall work on resuming a regular schedule and sticking to it.  I may finally use my round tuit to talk about my novel progress or do some more re-imagining. :creative:

As a parting gift, I leave you with a link to The Red Wheelbarrow, the poem my friends in high school used to send me over the edge of the cliffs of insanity (and yes, I’ve been to the actual cliffs, but it was foggy that day, so that’s one more reason to return to Ireland).  So much depends… ;)

Blessings and peace!
~Direlda

Direlda, the Handyfox

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So I spent a lot of time this past week working on my den.  It’s not quite finished, but now I’m mainly held up by content that either has disappeared or needs to be created.

Things I’ve done:

  • Rambled! :D   September has seen me stay more active!
  • Organized the Scriptorium enough that a all the areas in it can be accessed. Two are basically done and the others have some content to them.
  • Modified what I tell you upon reaching the front door of my den (aka homepage text) to reflect changes in the den.
  • Dug up the guidebook to the meadow paths, which will allow you to know what lies down various paths in the meadow (aka outgoing links).  The guidebook, however, requires some coaxing from me because it doesn’t really want to let others read it yet (aka I have to write the content).
  • Added a means for you to share certain areas of my den elsewhere in the vast internet.  Pay attention to the tail end of my rambling to see!
  • Created a kit theme for my decorating needs (aka child theme), which means changes I make won’t disappear following updates to the parent theme.
  • Learned a little more about PHP and spent a lot of time with the Codex of WordPress.
  • Played around more with Akismet to help me with spam (I can’t eat all that I’ve gotten).  My inbox of comments is now manageable. Which means if you comment, I’ll be able to get around to it better! :)
  • Harnessed the power of Google’s analysts for understanding where everyone who visits my den hails from.
  • And in case you weren’t aware of a previous month’s fix: Adjusted what you see when you get lost.  As the 404 did when they wandered in error. Just try going to a part of my den that doesn’t exist to see it (so replace a page name that does exist with one that doesn’t).

As you can see, I had quite the productive week. :creative:

Things on my to-do list:

  • Get the meadow guidebook to be more responsive!  Just because it isn’t used to other people, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t let you see what’s in it.
  • Find, digitize, and present you with some of my doodles and/or drawings for the illumination desk.
  • Finish editing a bit of background on the Fox Dreams universe to put as the first piece on the reading desk.
  • Decide on how I want to present my library of books to you for the shelves.
  • Keep rambling on a regular basis. :D
  • Work on my writing and exploring so that I have new things to share!
  • This is a more long-term goal: decide how I want to go about setting up the writing desk.  Eventually I want to be able to give people the opportunity to submit pieces of writing (sort of like fan art pages on webcomics).  This might not happen until I have more of my own stories available.  Or I may have some sort of contest and use the writing desk as the place to submit contest entries (though I’d have to figure out what sort of contest and what sort of prizes…).   I think suggestions on this one would be most beneficial.

And on other fronts, I’ve been doing a lot more cooking.  So I’ll have to share with you something delicious (and spicy :D ) that I made.  But I’ll save that for later this week, after I get my wife’s opinion on it!

Blessings and peace!
~Direlda

Guidebook Introduction

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There are multitudes of other lands, realms, and worlds that can be reached from the meadow outside my den.  I have prepared this handy guidebook just in case you want to know where a certain path will take you.  It is always nice to know that someone has ventured that way before and survived to tell of it.

Of course,whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger…

In any case, within these pages you will find my thoughts on the places I have reached from my door.

Suggestions?

I realize that it has taken me a rather long time to re-imagine my den.   You can thank MarkyD for pointing that out to me (or give yourself a reward of some sort if you are MarkyD).  So I will be spending this week working on finalizing my den.

However, I would like you, my silent and loyal audience (and visitors, too!) to look around and tell me if there is any functionality I am missing that you think I should have.  This, of course, means you’ll have to speak up.  I don’t have the means of gleaming thoughts straight from the mind of anyone who visits here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do! :creative:

Stay on Target…

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This week is promising to be quite the good week.  I just need to make sure I don’t veer into the walls of the trench…

I finally got to wear the full kumdo armor, aka bogu, yesterday.  My ears hurt a lot, but it was good to finally be able to practice and make connections between what I was learning and actual bouts.  I also have a set of bogu that might arrive by this weekend!

Using the very small Lego collection I have here, I made a few MOCs (My Own Creation) to tell a small story.  I’m hoping to make that story the first thing I put into the scriptorium, as a way of testing it’s layout.  :creative:

Thanks to Flechmen, the ability to bring images (and other media) into my den has been restored. :D   So the map I drew for your benefit is now here.  All that remains is to make an image map so that it can be an interactive map!

Finally, with the advent of finals, I find the amount of work I have to do winding down.  Hooray for having assigned a writing project for the creative writing final as opposed to making a test and review guide.

This is a small update to let you know what has been going on – Lord willing I will be able to give you a better report during the weekend.  Now to sleep…  z.z