Well, all, it's finally time for me to start doing stuff to my webpage again. I hope you like the new format. It's less flashy and more complicated than the old one, but I hope it's more interesting. Keep an eye out for changing things, and for little secrets hidden here and there. Although I'm by no means using something as impressive as flash, I'm going to be using image maps, which means you'll be able to click on things in the pictures and have things happen. This leaves lots of room for me to put in easter eggs. ;)

As per today's useful information, here goes: Get around to it. I've been putting off working on this website for nearly a year and a half. When I finally did get around to finally working on it, I put in one long night and got the basic design up. Soon, it should be looking quite a bit better than the jumbled mess I called my old website. I'm sure most of you out there have things like this in your life, things you've been putting off for a long time because you're just not sure where to start, so here's what I did. Maybe it'll help you.

1) Examine what you want to do and come up with the bare bones of what it will take to start. I had been looking at this website trying to figure out how I could convert everything from the old site over to the new format in one swift motion. It took me almost FOUR HOURS to just get the basic outline programmed. I couldn't have done everything in one night with my skills, so, I looked at what it would take to start it and went from there.

2) Get your basic outline down for what you want to do. If it's some physical activity, write out a basic plan of what you will do in what order. Be ready for things to change, but it helps to have a plan, because then you can set a goal, and goals are muy helpful. For my website, I wrote up a basic outline of The Mansion, and decided that I would use that basic skeleton to design the rooms. Then things changed when I had the idea of accounting for what room people were entering from. Sure, it meant that my dozen or so room I had to design before suddenly turned into about three times that many, but in the long run, I'd have probably had this idea later and had to convert everything old over again.

3) Accept that everything won't happen at once. Whether you're exercising, designing a webpage, or studying for a test, most things take longer than you'd like. Once you can accept that you'll have to put in extra time for extra results, the whole project can get underway better. Hang in there, though, because hard work pays off, despite what it may sometime seem like.

Well, that's about all I've got for today. Now, I'm off to redesign the pages. Wish me luck.

Today has been an okay day for me. I got up a bit too late, but went for a run anyway. It's been awhile since I've been running regularly, and it feels really good to be back in the habit. My body is somewhat disagreeing with me, but that's okay. Back in Cross Country, I'd suffer for at least the first two weeks of practice, no matter how much I'd been running over the summer.
Katie, my girlfriend, is back in the United States now. She's been in Bolivia for the past few months, and I'm glad that she's finally going to be back soon. She's returning to Iowa tomorrow, and then I'll be seeing her the day after. Even though I haven't been updating this journal on a nearly daily basis, I thought I'd let anyone interested know that I won't be updating the site for the next few days, since I'm going to be visiting Katie and my family, too. I hope everyone has a nice week, and I'll see if anyone has posted anything in the public journal when I get back.
As for useful words for today, get some exercise. Most of us don't really do enough in a day to keep as fit as it would be nice to be. A one-mile jog in the morning could do most of us some good, and it only takes ten minutes or so. Sure, it'll hurt for the first little while, but after that it might feel pretty good to wake up to a cleansing of the system as you jog through the neighborhood and wake up your body. Most of us haven't been getting the same exercise as we used to get in high school, or whenever it last was we got some exercise. I've only been doing it for awhile, and I'm already feeling a lot better. So, give it a try, and let me know how it works out for you. And don't give up after the first few times, or the first time; all that will happen is you'll be sore and upset. Stick with it, and the results may surprise you.

This message isn't so much a collection of useful words as it is a small rant about my current situation.
I think I have a cyst on my tailbone. For the past four days, I've been in pain any time I walk, sit, stand, or lie down. Basically, I haven't found a position to be in that doesn't involve pain. I have to go to the hospital to get it checked out, but if I go today I pay extra because it's a weekend. If I wait until tomorrow, I miss out on some huge tips I know are already coming, which means I'm still out money. If I wait until Tuesday, I get to enjoy this pain through 6 1/2 hours of delivering pizzas, which means lots of standing, sitting, walking, and lifting.
Speaking of work, I was all excited about this coming week of work. I've gotten scheduled for 33 1/2 hours of work this week, which is amazing, since I normally work barely enough to make my job not be a joke. Unfortunately, all these hours come at a time when it hurts to move at all, which means I may have to choose whether the pain is too much to make the work worth it. Besides, I might get told by my doctor to not work this week for some reason or another. That would mean that I'd not only lose the most hours I've had in a week since I started working here, and I'd have to find people to work a week's worth of dayshifts (which nobody likes working), but I'd also likely be seen as someone who asks for a bunch of hours and then tries to get out of them, which means I'd lose any future chance of getting lots of hours.
On a final note, I am not a taxi service. I don't know how it happened, but it seems that I am the person to ask for rides places. I give people rides to work, rides home, rides to the grocery store, and I've even gotten called at work and asked to give people rides places. There are two other people in my house that have cars, one of which hasn't been doing much during the day lately other than playing computer games, so why am I being asked to give all these rides? The obvious answer is that people have just grown to expect that I will give them rides places. Well, I hate to say it, but I'm not going to be around to give rides to anyone in a little while. Until my rear-end heals, I'm not giving people rides, and when the school year starts, I won't be around to give rides. I'll be at class, then at work, then try to spend a little time with Katie maybe, and then I'll come home to do some homework before I finally go to sleep. If people start trying to get rides from me then, I'll just start working on homework at the library so I won't be disturbed. It's not that I mind giving people rides, but I dislike it when people begin to expect things from me so much that my not doing them a favor that I won't ask for repayment on means that I'm being rude. That's not how favors work, and giving people rides all the time is definitely a favor.
All that having been said, I would like to go curl up into a ball and sleep, but my cyst won't let me sleep. Instead, I'm going to go pray and see what God has to say, and maybe call my parents and see what they have to say about me going into the hospital on the weekend. I'm not going to church, despite it meaning that I'll get in trouble with Katie, because I wouldn't be able to handle sitting through a sermon. I'll see if I can download the sermon and listen to it at home while I flip around on the bed. I think the fact that it's taken me about 30 minutes to write this little rant because I have to shift between sentences is enough on that matter.
One final note: Moving into a new place is expensive and annoying. I'm watching two friends move into a new place right now, and am worried about what will happen to them. My suggestion to anyone looking to move into a new place is to try to store up about 3 months worth of rent ahead of time, so you can cover the first months rent, a double deposit, all the extra stuff they stick you with, utilities, furnishing, etc...