Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

If only I had a bit more under my belt

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Anil’s post about moving from New York to the Bay area for Six Apart prompted me to go take a curious look at the Six Apart jobs listings.

As much as I enjoy being something of a “jack-of-all-trades” in my computer experience — lots of experience across a wide range of fields — the downside is a lack of comprehensive knowledge in nearly any field. It’s a shame, too, because I think I’m about 80% qualified for a job at Six Apart.

Web Designer/Developer

Terms: Salaried Employee with benefits (Medical, Vision, Dental and Vacation)
Hours: Full Time
Onsite: Yes, required. (San Mateo, CA)
Reports to: Lead Designer

Description:
Six Apart (http://www.sixapart.com/), the company behind the Movable Type and TypePad weblogging systems/services, is growing and we’re looking for a Web Designer/Developer with a combination of strong HTML and CSS abilities and graphic design skills. You will be asked to design and implement elements into existing web applications and websites while maintaining existing UI branding.

The ideal candidate will be hardworking, with a willingness to learn and understands the importance of user experience and brand consistency.

An online portfolio of work is required for consideration.

Whoops, there’s one problem — I don’t exactly have an online portfolio. Only two of my current four stylesheets are mine (and one is really no stylesheet), and my only other “live” design work is the remnants of an old design on my DJ Wüdi propaganda page and a circa-1995 frames-based site for Gig’s Music Theatre left online as a memorial.

What You’ll Be Doing:

  • Design and implement elements into existing web applications and websites while maintaining existing UI branding
  • Work with other members of the Six Apart team to develop solutions to a variety of design-related projects
  • Work with the Six Apart team to help evolve Six Apart’s weblogging products based on user experience and market demands

I think I’m good on all of those. I don’t have any “official” design experience, really, but it’s something I’ve tinkered with from time to time in everything from my websites to a few custom FileMaker Pro databases at my old print shop in Anchorage to redesigning an internal Xerox/Microsoft website for the MSCopy printshop (which, unfortunately, had its plug pulled by the Powers That Be when they decided to move to a .NET based solution rather than a Java based solution), and I’ve generally received good remarks on how things end up being put together.

Requirements:

  • Strong knowledge of basic design principles: page layout, typography, color theory as it applies to the web

Two out of three I think I’m okay on: page layout (dating back to my days as Layout Editor for my High School yearbook) and typography (again, no real training, but I think I’ve got a decent feel for it — though at the same time, I’m sure I could learn a lot). Color theory, though…as is evidenced by my last few site designs, to paraphrase Henry Ford, I’ll do any color you like, so long as it’s grey. ;)

  • Expert-level experience in coding HTML and CSS is required

Hmm. I’d rate myself as extremely good, possibly even approaching expert with my HTML skills. CSS, though, I’m still very much learning, and it would be foolish for me to try to pass myself off as an expert.

  • Mastery and understanding of Web standards a requirement
  • Proven design skills for developing web interfaces with a focus on user experience

The first one, I can pretty confidently say I’m solid on. The design skills…as I mentioned above, I’m untrained, but have generally received compliments.

  • Thorough knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, Powerpoint

I’ve been dabbling in Photoshop for years, but that’s it. Illustrator I can muddle my way through simple stuff, but bezier curves have always confused me. PowerPoint I had to fight with when I was working at MSCopy, and was never very fond of it. With all three, though, I’m pretty confident that I could dramatically increase my skill level if I was using them on a regular basis — I just wouldn’t be coming in with the highest level of expertise.

  • Excellent organizational and communication skills, works well with a team
  • Independent problem solving skills; flexibility to meet tight deadlines
  • The ideal candidate will possess excellent attention to detail and a positive attitude and strong interpersonal skills

I have no doubts about my abilities here. Over a decade of customer service in high-volume, quick-turnaround print shops requires all of those points, and I’ve always gotten consistently good remarks during my personnel reviews. At least there’s something I can be confident about! ;)

Desired Skills:

  • Experience in JavaScript and DHTML a plus
  • Knowledge of Flash is a plus
  • Working knowledge of CVS a plus
  • Familiarity with weblogs a plus

Ouch. Of those four, the only one I can rightfully claim is the last one. The first three — sorry, but those are just not in my skill set. As with my comments above regarding Photoshop, Illustrator, and PowerPoint, I’m fairly confident that given the opportunity, I could come up to speed fairly quickly, but I’d definitely be coming in on the ground level, if that.

Contact Information:

Please apply with cover letter (plain text) and résumé to jobs@sixapart.com.

Please include a resume and link to online portfolio and/or recent work. If providing list of sites that you have worked on, you must include an explanation about your role on that project. Online portfolios are preferred.

Please also include salary requirements.

Much as I’d love to apply, I’m afraid that my limitations — which I try to be aware of and realistic about, without exaggerating them to the point of talking myself out of good opportunities — are enough of a hindrance that I’d easily fall by the wayside to other, more experienced applicants.

A shame, too. While I was also swept up in the recent licensing controversy, I’ve been using either MovableType or TypePad for two and a half years now (since Dec. 21st, 2003, in fact), have no intentions of leaving TypePad anytime soon, and have generally liked what I’ve seen of the folks at Six Apart. Heck, they even put up with me triggering TypePad’s first Slashdotting! From everything I’ve seen, the chance to work with the Six Apart crew could be quite enjoyable, certainly a lot more so than my current job, and quite possibly well worth uprooting myself and moving down the West Coast a bit to the Bay area.

Ah, well. For now, I suppose I’ll just keep tinkering around, and see if I can’t increase the sphere of my “jack-of-all-trades” knowledge to include some more of the skills listed above that I’m lacking. Maybe they’ll still be hiring in a year or so…

Battling the blahs

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There’s a certain odd irony in that spring, when the days are getting longer, temperatures are getting warmer, and the world is getting greener also tends to be something of a difficult time for me–something of an inverse take on Seasonal Affective Disorder, I suppose.

This spring, it seems to be hitting me especially hard. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been battling a bout of depression, with all the usual symptoms. General listlessness, apathy, lack of motivation, etc., etc., yadda yadda, and so on. Not to the point of becoming self-destructive or suicidal by any means–in all seriousness, I honestly can’t envision getting that depressed–but definitely fairly far removed from my usual fairly chipper self.

The causes (or, at least, some of them) are easy enough to pinpoint, especially as I’ve gone through this for the past few years: the combination of my birthday and my anniversary of escaping Alaska and moving down to Seattle fall just about a month and a half apart (May 3rd and June 16th, respectively), and each trigger the yearly “and just what have I done with myself?” question (I had the same thing going on before I left Alaska too, only with the single trigger event of my birthday). This year, it seems to be harder than usual to come up with a satisfactory answer to that question.

(Warning: long, rambling, self-indulgent, and quite possibly slightly whiny babbling follows. You’ve been warned….)

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Manly Pink: The photos

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I got my friend Jessica to wander around with me today and play photographer so that I could fulfill my earlier promise of posing in pink t-shirts, kilt, and boots in return for assistance with the redesign of my website.

So, without further ado: me in pink!

Pink is the New Black

My least favorite of the three shirts — “Pink is the New Black”. Clever, but I’m not overly fond of the typestyle or the primarily white lettering.

Tough Guys Wear Pink

My second favorite of the three — “Tough Guys Wear Pink”. While it’s a bit too pink for me to wear on a regular basis (though I will be wearing it to the Vogue tonight), I do like it, and it will definitely get worn from time to time.

Skull and Crossbones

Definitely my favorite of the three, quite possibly because it’s the one with the least overall amount of pink. I’m just not much of a pink person most of the time — heck, it’s rare for my wardrobe to have much of any color in it at all! Still, even aside from that, this one just makes me laugh…something about the juxtaposition of the black shirt, the skull and crossbones, and the cute bright pink coloring.

After we’d finished shooting these shots in Freeway Park, we decided to continue the experiment. I changed back into the “Tough Guys Wear Pink” shirt and we went wandering through downtown Seattle. I have to admit, the outfit got some wonderful reactions from people — grins and laughs from some people, some appreciative whoops from some girls out with their dates for prom, and a “Hell yeah!” from a guy on his way to prom who was dressed in an all-white suit with a pink tie.

All in all, a very successful outing.

Mojo needed

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I’m not going to link to her out of respect for her privacy, but a good friend of mine could really use some good mojo and wishes sent her way right now.

Last month, her father was diagnosed with leukemia, and was flown to Seattle for treatment. Unfortunately, by the time he was diagnosed things had moved pretty far along, and he died just a few days later.

This morning, her younger brother was killed in a car accident.

I hate seeing friends go through hard times, and this has got to rank right up there with the worst of them.

Few if any of you know her, but any kind thoughts, words, prayers, good mojo, or anything else that could be sent her way would certainly be appreciated.

I just wish there were more I could do to help.

Should’ve bought a new printer

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Well, this is frustrating: after grumbling last night about the high cost of ink vs. the low cost of printers, I’ve since found out that my printer is apparently broken in some way. No matter how many times I reset it, run the diagnostic routines, clean the print heads, or do any of the other little things to coax it into life, it won’t print.

So I go to the Epson website to see if I can get tech support, and see this next to the tech support phone number:

Before you call, be near your computer and printer and have ready your product name, serial number and proof of purchase information.

Me being me, I have every single one of those bits of information except the proof of purchase. I can’t find a receipt anywhere, and probably tossed it along with the packaging after setting up the printer.

So now I’ve blown \$70 on ink, and if I actually want to print anything at home, I need to buy a new printer. I really should have skipped the whole buying ink stage, and just treated it as a “disposable.”

What a waste.

iTunes: “One Good Man” by Joplin, Janis and the Kozmic Blues Band from the album Janis (1969, 4:11).

We need pink! Manly pink!

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Anybody want to redesign my site for me?

It’s gonna need pink. Lots of pink. And big, hard, nippleless breasts.

What in the world am I babbling about? Well, quite simply, I think that Shelley has a good point about some aspects of the Blogger redesign…

Speaking of looks, if you read Phil’s comments, you’ll see I was not happy about Zeldman’s Ms. Moto and Mr. Moto templates. The one for Mr. Moto shows a classic gray, very professional looking weblog with a photo of a building in one of the posts. However, the one for Ms. Moto is all in purple/pinks, and shows a photo of a Barbie doll in the example post.

What is the message from these templates? That men have professional looking sites, while women favor pink and dolls? I am surprised at an experienced man like Zeldman perpetuating this type of stereotype.

As Mark Pilgrim said in Phil’s post, yes men and women may both like pink sites. I don’t have a problem with pink; it was the gender association (not to mention the doll–was that an accident?) that grabbed me. There were other templates that also featured pink, or rose, but none of them made an association with a gender through the name.

No big deal you say? By itself, no. But after three years of girlism and baring breasts as fund raisers, not to mention being told time and again how ladies are supposed to act in this environment, and how women webloggers only write about home while men write about politics and tech–I am weary of how much weblogging promotes stereotypes. I stopped pointing out how woman don’t seem to get the same notice as men in weblogging when it comes to writing in order not to perpetuate a stereotype; the least others can do is not make associations between female bloggers and Barbie dolls.

Mark “The Pink” Pilgrim has hinted that he’ll probably do a redesign, perhaps based on pink and dolls. Dolls with big, hard nippleless breasts. If so, and I see several men sporting the new Ms. Moto look, I will be less inclined to be critical.

So, guys show me that Ms. Moto is genderless and protect Zeldman’s honor at the same time. If you have Blogger, pick that template, but don’t forget to add in a doll or two. If not, then do something comparable in your own toolset. Then I’ll know pink and dolls aren’t just ‘girly’ things, they’re also for manly mans. We’ll have a contest. Maybe Mark and Zeldman will judge.

I am so up for this. However, I’m not really that much of a designer (especially when it comes to using graphics or color), and I just dealt with the frustration of a mere tweak of this design, and I’m not terribly sure I want to start from scratch again.

So, a challenge.

If anyone out there is crazy enough to give me a design to use, I’ll use it. In fact, if I even get people telling me that they’ll work on it, I’ll go down to the local Hot Topic, blow a little money, and then send the prospective designers pictures of me to incorporate in the design (even though I’m conspicuously missing the big, hard nippleless breasts) in my 14-eye Doc Marten boots, black Utilikilt, and each of the following three shirts: the pink skull, “Pink is the new black“, and “Tough guys wear pink“.

Anybody up to this? Should anyone actually want to tackle this, I only have a few simple requests:

  1. I’d like to keep the basic structure I have set up right now: two columns, main content on the left, sidebar on the right, main content appearing first in the HTML, post metadata just underneath the title, etc.
  2. Take a look at my current source code and CSS to see how I’ve been doing things so far — while that shouldn’t limit what you come up with, it’ll at least give you a good idea of how I think when I piece things together.
  3. [Update:]{.underline} Now that new designs have started to appear, here’s my original stylesheet: styles-default.css.

And really, that’s about it. I’m up for just about anything, and I’ll gladly work with someone to make sure that their ideas and design drop in here without too many issues.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can offer for compensation, other than the general fun of doing it. If you come up with something that might work as repayment, though (aside from the obligatory “Design by…” link on the page), feel free to suggest it, and we’ll see what can be worked out.

iTunes: “Got Me Wrong” by Alice in Chains from the album Sap (1992, 4:12).

Dull isn’t always bad

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Last night while up at the local grocery store, I was looking for clothespins — an item which, unfortunately, QFC doesn’t carry. All I needed them for was to help dry my Utilikilt after washing it, as rather than running it through an electric dryer, they recommend hanging it so that the pleats don’t get goofed up.

Meanwhile, for the past couple of days, I’d been trying to arrange the delivery of a package from UPS which was consistently showing up at my apartment between five and six in the evening, when I’m at work. I redirected the package to work, and it showed up sometime this morning.

Turns out the package was my birthday present from mom: a set of skirt hangers, along with a note written on a printout of the Utilikilt washing and drying instructions.

Look: a gift that doesn’t annoy or make noise or anything! How dull. Mom.

I think that’s great. Dull? Perhaps — but just what I needed.

Thanks mom!

Kilts, not skirts!

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Brad, Brad, Brad — so close, and yet so far away.

Actor Brad Pitt said Sunday that fashion-conscious men may be wearing Greek-style skirts soon after his big-budget film about the Trojan War opens this week.

“Men will be wearing skirts by next summer. That’s my prediction and proclamation,” he said with a laugh. “The film answers to both genders. We were going for realism and Greeks wore skirts all the time then.”

Some of us don’t need to see Brad Pitt running around in a Greek-style skirt to be comfortable enough with our masculinity to wear something other than pants…and look damn good while doing it! ;)

iTunes: “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies from the album Natural Born Killers (1988, 3:23).

Ack! I almost forgot…

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Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

Y’know, one of these days I’m going to remember early enough to actually call, rather than spending the day wandering around in the sun, then remembering Mother’s Day when I start going through my daily reads when I get home in the evening.

On the bright side, I did clue in before midnight, which is better than I’ve done some years…

(Sheepish grin)