I went and had the page validated at the W3C validator site. MarkRhodes.us is now officially HTML 4.01 compliant! Check out the official logo at the bottom of the page if you're interested.

What happens to all those items on eBay that the seller misspells in the description? If you're looking for a Compaq computer, what happens to all the Compac or Compact computers that are listed? Evidently, nobody bids on them because the eBay search function doesn't return them as a valid listing. People who do find and bid on these misspelled items end up getting quite a bargain in the process. Check out this article on CNET for how to profit from the spelling challenged among us.

Of course, I ran the spell check before posting this =)

your idea of an ice scraper is a jug of hot water!!

We're having a little weather down here today! I woke up this morning to a nice, thick coating of ice on my car. We had freezing rain over night down here (Augusta, GA) and the southerners have no idea how to cope. I had to help this one lady get her car de-iced even though I was running late this morning. I just couldn't sit there and let her keep at it. She was in a dress suit, heels, all made up - the whole nine yards. It's raining cats and dogs, she doesn't have any jacket on, and she's making trips back and forth from her car to her apartment to get hot water to pour over her windshield to try and get the ice off. I, of course, have a MAN'S ice scraper (you should see the thing, it's friggin' huge! I love it.) So I did the chivalrous things and scraped her windows off for her.

I get up on post, and I see people trying to clear their windows off with their nails (literally! Scraping at the ice with their nail tips). One guy had a can of something he was spraying on his car to get it de-iced, but it wasn't working. Non-scraping individuals, all of 'em!

My poor girlfriend has had the worst of this storm though. She's in the Army Reserve and had drill this weekend up in Virginia. Unfortunately her commander wouldn't let her leave early on Sunday, so she got stuck in the storm as she was driving through North Carolina. She ended up stuck in a ditch trying to drive through the ice storm. Luckily she wasn't hurt, but I guess it tore up her tires pretty good. She said two locals stopped and pulled her out of the ditch and have been helping her out since. She's still up in NC waiting for the stores to open up so she can go get her tires fixed.

Meanwhile, the power has been off at FT Gordon most of the day. When I went up there earlier tonight, they had most of the post back up and running, but our barracks are still without power. Maybe they'll call off school again!! That's what I'm hoping for. I could live with an involuntary 4 day weekend.

I redesigned the main page a little bit. Nothing too drastic, just moved the navigational links all to the left side and resized a couple of other things. My concern was that the links were using up too much space on the screen and not leaving enough space for the main element: the web log. The other issue that led to this was a realization that not everyone has their screen resolution set to 1440x900 ;-). After looking at the page at a resolution of 800x600 I realized my index page was too wide. So, I redesigned the index page to display properly for the 800x600 resolution setting. It'll be nice when most people move to at least a resolution of 1024x768. Until then, I guess we'll just have to be stuck with reduced real estate on each page.

I also ran into a neat little site which showed me a bit about how to use tables to better arrange the page. I know, you're supposed to be using CSS-P, not tables. However, at this time, I'm feeling pretty good about having anything up here at all *lol*.

I never knew soldiers were such wusses. I mean, I knew. But I'm still kinda pissed off about it.

A whole bunch of us got together several weeks ago and reserved a paint ball field for today. I get up at 9 am (9 AM ON A SUNDAY MORNING, MIND YOU!!) to get ready and out the door, and what do I discover when I get downstairs to the meeting point? A whole bunch of people decided not to go because it's rainy and cold out. *sigh* We've been issued some of the finest inclement weather gear the country can afford, but we don't want to get our little toesies wet?!?

But dammit, some of us are still playing! As Puffy said (yes, his nickname is Puffy. It's not a drug reference. He's just reeeeeeaaaaaally big. When you're that big, you can have any nickname you want and no one will say anything to you. He's so big, he even wears a fanny pack in public. 'Nuff said). Anyway, as he said, "The money is non-refundable. I'm jewish . . . I ain't losing that money!!" Well said Puffy, well said.

Let's get it ON!!

Another update. More work on the menus (much easier to work with the DHTML now that I have a little bit of a clue what I'm doing. Funny how that works.) Added a "Quote of the Day" section, so each time you visit the page you get a different quote. Have a good quote? Send it along! If I like it, I'll add it in. Oh, and I noticed Lani added me to her links section *awwwww* I'll get a link up to you one of these days Lani. Don't feel bad though, no one else has a link either.

Next up is the "fun sites" page I think. Seems to be the easiest one to throw in there quickly.

I finally got the DHTML menus working! Woo Hoo! Move your mouse over the "photos" link to the left to see what the menus look like.

Man, has this been a learning experience for me. You've gotta love the internet. All that free information out there, and all you need is the time and the desire to learn it. The menus aren't quite finished (no links yet), but they are working correctly in terms of their behavior, which was the hard part. These particular menus came from Milonic.com. Great site, I must say!

If you have thoughts on the design so far of the site (layout, color scheme, etc etc) please drop me a line. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Have you ever noticed that the grocery market will display items that really don't belong in a particular aisle, but that go well together anyway? For instance, you may be in the dry pasta aisle, and they'll have spaghetti scoops hanging there by the pasta and the sauce and what not. Really, the pasta scoop belongs in the housewares area with the other kitchen utensils, but it makes sense to put some by the pasta as well. After all, if you're buying spaghetti you may well need to get a spaghetti serving spoon as well.

Well, I'm grocery shopping last night, and I'm looking for corn bread mix. You know the aisle: flour, cake mix, baking soda, various baking supplies and baking related goods. And of course, there's the usual "not-really-for-baking-but-you-might-need-it-anyway-if-you're-baking-something" items as well. I'm looking and looking, and for the life of me I can't find the cornbread mix! But guess what I did find?

Handcuffs.

Yes. Metal die-cast, quick release handcuffs. Not cheap little plastic, kid toy, play policeman handcuffs. Real metal handcuffs with a convenient quick release lever and two sets of keys.

In the baking aisle.

I think I may do more shopping at this grocery store. I feel a need to increase the ammount of time I spend in the baking aisle. Significantly. I really want to meet some of the women who are buying handcuffs and cake mix in the the same trip.

So, I spent all day yesterday trying to put some pop-up menus on the site (with limited success, I might add). The work--which never did quite work right--was described to me as "tossed salad" by a more experienced web designer. *sigh* I guess I have a lot to learn before I can start putting together the kind of sight I would like.

Thank god for good, friendly constructive criticism though, eh? I should copy his comments here for folks to read. They're quite humorous when you get down to it =) At least I've found some good resources for learning a little more about HTML and such. On the bright side, I seem to have found a good forum for discussing issues related to web design. Check it out if you're into that sort of thing.

Well, I just learned the creator of the Teletubbies has come out with a new show featuring translucent-dancing-fish-egg-looking things.

Tubby Toast already freaked my nephew out, I can't wait to see what this does to some little kid.

Here's the article.

Well, I've been working on this site all day trying to hack my way though what I want to do (man, I hate feeling like a n00b every time I want to put something new on the site!) Alas, it's time to call it a day. I chose to skip work/school today to get this done. It's really not as bad as it sounds though, since the class was about HTML and web design, so in a sense I was working far harder than any of my other class mates who were learning how to put basic web links and graphics into a site. At least I actually made a site, right? Besides, I meant to go to class. I just never got around to it ;)

I bid you a fond adieu! I feel like getting drunk tonight. Not too much, as I want to go to the gym tomorrow and it's a bad idea to put 300 lbs of weight on your back with a hangover. But I think a nice heavy buzz is in order.

Or as the younger folks like to say, OMG!! Wait, what am I talking about, I am the younger folks ;)

It's up and working! Welcome to MarkRhodes.us, my very own cyber-home. It's early in the development of the site, so not a whole lot is functioning yet. But hey, if you have an idea for developing the site further, you can use the only link that works thus far and send me an email.