AtomJohnson Blog

I’m up to my eyes in ham, mashed potatoes and chocolate easter candy. It all started this morning when I came downstairs to discover that the Easter Bunny (Natalie) had left an Easter Basket (popcorn bucket) full of chocolates and organic tea. Next thing I know, I’m lost in a world of CSS with cocoa and diuretics flowing through my pipes. Heaven does exist…and it falls somewhere around the end of March or beginninning of April (depending on the year).

This weekend was quite overcast. It proved the perfect opportunity to continue to train my CSS muscles. For practice, I reworked one of my old client websites with CSS. Check it out…before (http://www.banksandshane.com/old/)….after (http://www.banksandshane.com). The new site uses about 1/4 the amount of code, loads faster…and does other wonderous stuff that nobody reading this really cares about.

Happy Easter to everyone. I hope you too got a popcorn bucket full of candy and tea. I’m gonna go rest my ham and potatoes in between my 200 thread count linens.

I was not able to make it to Wednesday’s Award Ceremony at work, but I found out today that I received an award. The award reads, “In recognition of your brilliant technical solution to ensure that client deliverables are a quality product”. I blushed when I read it. The award came with a $100 American Express check as well. I’m sure I will have relatives coming out of the woodwork now to share in the winnings. This money is already been added to the pot for my ongoing research into x-ray vision goggles.

I need to find a service that mails dog poo anonymously to any address. This morning I was walking Sadie and Willow on the same route we walk every morning. About half way through the walk, we pull up to a townhouse and the owner walks out the front door, walks down his entry path, and just stands there. He just stood there staring at me and my dogs with this look of anger and disgust. My plan of action was to ignore him and walk on by. About this time, he says, “I hope you’re not going to let your dogs shit in my yard”. I was taken aback. All I could think to say was, “Are you serious?”. He responds, “Yes, my yard is not a bathroom”.

Now, I have never wanted to own a hippapotamus as a pet. There are simply too large and unwieldy. Their one positive feature is the defensive fecal splatter. In order to defend themselves, they turn hindwards toward the enemy and splatter poo all over the attacker. This is really the only response that this guy deserved. Not having a hippo handy, my only option was to keep walking and plan out a way to hide poo all over his yard by Sunday so he can have an Easter Poop hunt.

Another weekend…another shot in the face with propelled earwax and vinegar. I postponed the Willow earwax festival from Saturday to Sunday. My hopes that Nat would no longer need my full Nelson skills were dashed when she once again announced that my biohazard suit was clean. So, Willow has clean ears, I smell like an easter egg and everyone is happy.

This weekend was also sponsored by The World’s Vineyards. There has been alot of fermented grape juice flowing through my veins this weekend. My good friend George is on leave from the war in Iraq. A bunch of us met up with him on last night at the Evening Star Cafe in Del Ray. It all started out very innocently with Stella Artois. Somehow it ended up with Nat and I stumbling our way home from George’s house and passing out on the couch till 5am.

Tonight we had two of Nat’s friends and two of my friends over for dinner (Lynn, Lisa, Cindy and Meredith…one of them is a male…guess which one). Once again, being the gracious hosts that we are…we accepted the wine into our bodies. We also accepted the shrimp tostada salad, the cheese, the crackers, the chocolate cake. Meredith showed us the movie that he and his brother just made called Jesus Christ Supercop. It is the most blasphenous, yet hilarious thing I’ve seen in a while. Meredith’s father is an Episcipal priest and has several ideas for the sequel.

If you have a weak stomach, or really love kangaroors, so not look at this picture of a snake eating an entire kangaroo. Thanks to my friend Jeff Simmermon for finding such treasures.

Its Saturday morning and I must imagine that my computer is sick of looking at me by now. Its brow is furrowed as if to say, “Dude, why are you still sitting there…its the weekend…you should be hiking Pike’s Peak.” Therein lies the problem. I don’t live anywhere near Pike’s Peak. Although I realized this week that I would like to. My company has an office in Colorado Springs. The office windows look out onto Pike’s Peak. There are over 2400 miles of trails that you can run, hike and bike in the immediate area. All this and you can still get TIVO and Satellite TV. I’ll send out my new address when I get there.

I am working on a government project right now at work. The department that I’m working for has an east coast and west coast office. The east coast office is in an old office building in the middle of a concrete jungle, surrounded by other, similar-looking office buildings. The west coast office is in Monterrey, CA and each developer gets their own office with a window that looks out over the Pacific Ocean. I usually don’t subscribe to the whole “grass is greener” theory, but that grass certainly sounds green…very, very green.

29 Years Old! I’m teetering on the brink of smelling old and dusty…much like a Goodwill Store. Soon there will be teenagers sifting through my donated clothes looking for costumes to wear to parties, hoping for a giggle from friends. These same “costumes” were once the threads that I threw on with confidence, hoping for an awe-inspired head turn from the ladies.

The birthday was excellent though. I received some wonderful birthday wishes through the internet, the phone and the ear. I walked away from 28 with a trunk full of amazing birthday loot. Thank you: Scott for the soccer tix, Mom and Dad for the camera lens, Amy for the funny card, Nat for the french press, Apple iTunes gift certificate and iPod shuffle…and everyone for the birthday wishes. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. I love you all!

Another Saturday morning…another Willow ear cleaning. Sniff me now if you are going to sniff at all, because soon I will be carrying the sweet scent of earwax and vinegar. Does that make anyone else hungry for a chest hair sandwich?

Continuing on the theme of “I left my heart in San Francisco…as well as $1,000 in unpaid parking tickets”, here is another shot of that fair city.

I just installed Yahoo messenger to communicate with some people on a project at work and when I signed with my old Yahoo ID, it was already populated with all of my old contacts. These were in a folder for a project that I worked on with Deloitte 5 years ago. It is amazing how you can keep up with people simply through an instant messenging ID. So, I sent a message to my old work buddy, Raquel. Sure enough, she was still there, using the same ID as before. It got me to thinking about how much I loved living in San Francisco. The shot below is from Twin Peaks. It was a short ride on my Vespa scooter from my house in the Haight to this point. You could see from the Bay to the ocean…and I could be there from my house in 5 minutes. Sometimes it just seems like it was all a dream. Dave…I did live there?….didn’t I?

Last week they told us that we should assume position on the 2nd floor in case the snow drifts broke through our first floor windows. They even cancelled school before the first flake hit the ground. I saw alot of dissapointed kids wandering the streets with their sleds waiting for the sky to come falling down.

This morning I walked the dogs in a warm, spring-like rain. It was even so warm that I left my back window open so that Willow could listen to robins singing outside the back door.

Well…not only is the snow pouring down, but its sticking to everything. I even have ice cycles forming on my office window. I guess when I get home I’ll have to decide whether to shovel out the kitchen first or the front walkway.

As I wonder around the office, it is always interesting to see what other people have up on their computer monitor. It is especially gratifying if I happen to catch a glimpse of an amazing design that someone is in the middle of creating. It leaves so many unanswered questions in my mind that I would love to ask the designer. Cameron Moll asked the reader’s of his blog to take a screen capture of whatever they were working on at that moment and post a 320px by 320px window of their work-in-progress. The results are fascinating.