nanovivid

Short and sweet: nanovivid.com user accounts are now re-enabled. However, if you have an existing account, you’ll have to reset your password before you can log in. Let me know if you have any issues.

♫ Underworld - Peach Tree

After a little over five years of using my custom blog engine, I decided that it was time to switch to something else. (Even though it never technically had a name I’ll refer to it as nvJournal for the sake of brevity here). Although I had a lot of fun writing it and adding features over the years, I felt that the time it would take me to extend it further was more than I wanted to spend. So I up and switched to WordPress. I know, right? But it’s working out pretty well so far.

One of the big reasons for switching was so I can use MarsEdit. I was getting really tired of having to write all my posts in the browser and nvJournal didn’t have any sort of API support. Thus, I either had to write an XML-RPC interface or switch to something that did. There was also the lack of support for drafts. With nvJournal it was either published or not (I could publish privately, but then I’d have to dive into the database and manually edit the date when I posted).

nvJournal’s admin interface was also slightly… limited. It worked well enough for writing new posts, but management wasn’t so hot. I only ever got around to listing the twenty most recent posts and then throwing in a box where I could enter the ID of an old post to edit it.

So a couple weeks ago, I grabbed a copy of WordPress, threw up a test domain, and started playing. Obviously the first task was to get my old blog imported. It didn’t take too long to figure out the WordPress export format, so I was able to generate a file for import pretty quickly. I had to tweak a couple of core files to get my post IDs to carry over, but after that, it was smooth sailing.

Then I needed to settle on a design. I’ve been playing with ideas for the post-Whiteroom design since, oh, July of 2005. Nothing ever quite stuck though and I let it stagnate for a couple years. I finally picked things back up last spring, but again, none of the designs felt quite right. Then I tried again in the fall but it was the same story. However, this time, the stars aligned as I hit on the idea of a dirty, worn version of the circles logo that I used in 2003. It’s always been my favorite nanovivid logo by far, so I decided it was time to bring the circles back.

After a lot of pixel pushing, I finally ended up with the design you see here. Of course, I had to go and implement it in HTML, but that surprisingly ended up being fairly easy. There really weren’t too many cross-browser issues to work around this time, largely because the design is much simpler than the last one. And hey, my site is now properly IE7 compatible, so… yay?

Please let me know what you think of the new design. I think the only outstanding issue left is user accounts, and I’ll post once I have that worked out. I’m going to do my best to migrate them over. I hope the redesign and move to WordPress will mean that I will be a bit more likely to blog than in the past couple of years. But we’ll see how that goes.

♫ Basement Jaxx - Same Old Show

This may be the last chance I get to blog from the house I grew up in, so I’m going to take advantage of it. We’re here because my dad is getting remarried this evening (congratulations, dad!).

Last night was the rehearsal, of course, followed by a delicious dinner catered by amazing caterers who must have had magic powers. There were only two of them, but somehow they were everywhere at once and managed to keep everyone’s drinks full and empty plates cleared immediately.

Now we’re at my dad’s house, enjoying the wonderful dial-up one last time. It’s weird realizing that I’ll probably never be coming back here again. Even though I haven’t lived in this house for years, there’s still part of me that is going to miss it.

♫ Tim Hecker - Rainbow Blood

Courtney and Hilary came to visit this weekend, and we had all kinds of fun. Between museums, wineries, eating, and bowling, there wasn’t a lot of time for sleep. I’ve posted some pictures of the debauchery for your enjoyment.

♫ Antony and the Johnsons - Crazy In Love

Days spent moving: 7

Hours spent shoveling on the day after we moved in thanks to a lovely April snowstorm: 4

New washers and dryers: 1 of each that are amazing and make cute noises when you turn them on

New (very cute) lawn mowers: 1 (seriously, it’s so small and awesome and battery-powered and cute)

New rugs: 2 (”Phoenix” and “Matisse“)

New vacuum cleaners (needed for cleaning said rugs because they shed like a german shepherd named Captain Sheddy): 1

Hours spent cleaning two bathrooms: 5 or 6

Fluorescent light bulbs installed: 14

Terrifyingly ugly gold chandeliers replaced: 1

Drawers/shelves re-lined with new contact paper: 8

Drawers/shelves yet to be re-lined: 18 (or maybe more)

Rooms painted: 2

Rooms left to paint: 4 (for now)

Ceilings painted by me: 1

Ceilings I hated painting: 1

Fingers mashed in windows: 1

Cuts on hands: I’ve stopped counting

Times shocked while changing outlets: 2 (damn badly-labeled breaker boxes)

Money spent at The Home Depot and Lowes: I don’t want to know

Money not yet spent on new furnace and maybe a new roof: You don’t want to know

We own a house now!

♫ Major Swellings - Flavoursaver

We close on our house tomorrow! It’s kind of crazy to think that I’m buying a house, but exciting too. Then there’s only a little over a month until the hell of moving arrives. Woo!

♫ Kasabian - Me Plus One (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)

So! Hello internet! We just freakin’ bought a house! It’s still sinking in, but I think it’s going to be cool. The house is in Lakewood, so we’re going back to the west side, which I’m a little sad about since it means a longer commute again, but I like the area better, so I think I’ll survive. Not to mention that we’ll be able to get Angelo’s again. I think that’s the main reason Bryan wants to move — we haven’t found good pizza on the east side. ;-) Anyway, the house is super nice and has had so much done to it — plumbing, electrical, insulation, waterproofing… just about everything is redone. We’re closing in February and moving in April!

Speaking of buying things, I’m getting a 15″ MacBook Pro, which should be arriving on Tuesday! I’m excited to be replacing my aging PowerBook with an ultra-fast machine.

Now we get to spend even more money on things for the house. Time to start eating Ramen? Not likely.

♫ Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4

As of this past Friday, we officially got moved into the new apartment. The chaos is actually largely under control at this point, and that’s a huge relief. Moving really took a lot out of me — I feel like all I did this past week was pack, load the car, go to sleep, get up, go to work, unpack at the new place, rinse, and repeat. If that sounds fun to you, please let me know so if I ever move again, I’ll know who to call!

The new place is very nice, though it’s almost hard to know what to do with so much space! Unlike the old apartment, where we had bedroom, kitchen, and livingroomdiningroomoffice. Now, there’s another room where all the office stuff goes. Not only that, but there’s a balcony with a cute little bistro table set (that Bryan loves). It’s a lot awesome, so you should all come visit!

♫ Underworld - Dirty Epic (Dirty Guitar Mix)

The planning monkeys have been hard at work designing the layout of our new apartment. Here’s what they came up with:

The fun part is that nothing is labeled, so you get to guess what is what. Also, none of the windows are marked because I, er, the monkeys didn’t feel like bothering.

♫ Thom Yorke - The Eraser

For those of you who haven’t been to Cleveland, there’s an ongoing rivalry between the east and west sides. Bryan and I currently live on the west side, but today we signed the lease for an apartment on the east side. Since several of our good friends live on the west side, I’m sure we’ll be in for plenty of abuse as traitors. As much as we both love Lakewood and the west side, the pros of the move just significantly outweighed the cons.

Moving to the east side will cut our commute from over half an hour to about ten minutes. Yay for saving money on gas and saving the environment! We’ll also get away from the horrid management company that owns the building where we live now. They’re just incredibly unresponsive and don’t seem to care much about their property.

The place we’re moving into is pretty cool. Bryan described it as “like a senior center, but for young people.” It’s got a fitness center, indoor/outdoor pool, a lounge with free wi-fi, a very cute mini movie theater, and community activities. There’s also an underground garage where we might get a spot once winter comes.

I’m excited about the move, and I think Bryan is too. While I do like our current apartment, the new one is bigger, newer, and all-around nicer (two bedrooms! dishwasher! garbage disposal!). Oh, and thanks, but we don’t need any help moving. Bryan’s motto is “if we ever move, I’m paying someone to move our stuff because I don’t do manual labor.” We’ll be moving at the beginning of September. Expect a housewarming party once we get settled in!

♫ DJ Koob - (This Is) The Dirty Dream Of Evan And Chan