December 31, 2008-
Ha, yes, well, that went brilliantly, didn't it? I apologize profusely about the lack of updates over the past year. I can't just let 2008 slip away with only the one news update on the FIRST DAY OF THE YEAR, so here's why I've been so scarce around these parts:

1. While Adobe GoLive is a great program (much better than my previous editor), it's a real resource hog, especially on my rapidly aging and nearly-full laptop, so much so that it can take a very long time to make even simple updates, such as this one. I'd like to get a new computer in the not-too-distant future, but more pressing financial matters (such as another new apartment soon) may take precedence.

2. I got rather discouraged at how poorly my calendar did. I know, I know, I wasn't expecting to make hundreds or even really tens of sales, but I thought maybe I'd do better than seven copies sold to three people. Also, the store (wherein I attempted to sell framed prints for around $50) was just a bad idea. I'm gonna work on selling personally-printed photos on Etsy for significantly less.

3. This is the big one. I want to completely redo the site, from the ground up. No, even more than I did when I switched over to GoLive. See, that just took the existing design and pictures and changed around all the behind-the-scenes stuff to make it easier for me to work on. I want change the site itself. Meaning eliminate many of the old, bad pictures I've got laying around here, change how they're presented somehow, and generally make the place a little more professional-looking with an eye to maybe getting some sort of real work out of this. To help, I want to port everything over to a server-side site creator called Gallery, that will let me quickly and easily update via a wizard, while putting everything into templates that I can tinker with to my heart's content, combining what I liked best about Fusion and GoLive without problem number one, above. I've long been testing this in the Balloons section (always my beta), with an eye to making it completely independent of and equal to the photo sections. I've nearly got it where I want it, with just a little more fine-tuning left (such as restoring the rollover and alternate view features I added last year).

Needless to say, this is a big job, to sort through the seven hundred some-odd pictures up on the site, not to mention the hundreds more piled up over the last year and a half, to figure out which are worthy. I also want to add different sections, beyond just photos and balloons, but I'm still thinking of how and what, exactly. Basically, I've always been bugged that this site wasn't the type of place I'd really want to come visit regularly, and I want to change that for obvious reasons.

I have, however, let this sit fallow for far too long. Please bear with me just a little bit longer, all seven of you who check here regularly bugging me for updates, while I get things how I want them.

OLD NEWS

January 1, 2008-
A new year. One that hopefully will be full of updates for this site, and I don't just mean in terms of pictures (though yes, I want to get back to updating fairly regularly now that I'm settling into my new apartment and -- let's face it -- new life. The first major update the more detail-oriented of you might notice is a link at the top of the page for my Lulu storefront, where I am selling not only my 2008 calendar (whoever just bought four of these, bringing the total up to seven, you're awesome and I love you), but also framed prints of some of my pictures. There's only one print up at the moment ("Scarves," featured in the calendar), but I plan on adding many more soon. If there are any in particular you'd like me to put up for sale, let me know and I'll get them right up.

More updates -- including many, many more pictures and yes, that will eventually include pictures from Sicily -- to come.

Back to 2007