Today! Today was one of those times.

I was driving back from a doc’s appointment and saw one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile. I was passing one of the ridiculous numbers of funeral homes in my neighborhood. Now, funeral home directors are some snappily dressed dudes. Two of them were out on the side porch doing some work on the ceiling (not sure what) and dressed in tuxes. They had their coats off, so you just saw the dress shirt, vest, and tie.

Damn, what a cool picture that would’ve made.

Augh, I’ve got to carry my camera everywhere, I swear. I’ve noticed that I’d feel weird about it in my hometown, or anywhere, really. People thinking things, like “What the hell are they doing?” or what I always thought when in the tourist trap of where I grew up, “Effing tourists.”

However, what’s wrong with being a tourist? Nothing, really. Appreciating things you don’t have where you live yourself. There’s a nice spot down on the Merrimack river that I should go photograph later today–the lighting is fantastic.

I believe I will. Tourism be damned.

That was fun. We need to go again, and stay for longer. Ate at this place named Goten. Very good Japanese steakhouse. They ALSO had very cool old-school table video games out in the waiting area.

Our first stop was actually the Yankee Candle flagship store. Sweet crap, they have giant lego men! GIANT LEGO MEN! Knights, even. They had the original castle set for sale, they original pirate ship set for sale. I refuse to buy these myself. I want to open them on Christmas one day in my life, dammit. That’s a hint for those of you who’ll get me a Christmas present: the original castle set and the original pirate ship set. I asked for those every Christmas since my early childhood years. Every Christmas my parents would tell me it got more expensive.

Well, if you’d gotten it the FIRST time I asked…

Anyway. It’s still on my list if you haven’t picked up on that. The Yankee Candle store is fantastically huge (I mean, they have a directory inside to tell you where to go). It’s got a home goods store, general store, three restaurant-y type areas, a museum, a make your own candles, a toy store, a Bavarian Christmas walk through, two candy shops, HUGE candle store display (all the housewarmers and votive candles you’ll ever need). It’s a very smelly (good and bad) place. It can get overwhelming for the olefactory sensitive. Worth the trip though.

We also made a pit stop at a game store and picked up Munchkin a very funny, sarcastic card game.

I also ended up writing up a thread in the forum about low-light photography, shutter speed settings, and using flash. It’s neat to look at, I’ve got examples using pictures I took last night. Give it a look-see.

Okay, I think I’ve got this thing pretty much tweaked out. I need feedback from folks about keeping the shopping cart or jettisoning it. I CAN still tweak the buttons and make them more “mine” if those are a problem.

I also tweaked the banner for the forum again. Now you can see the nav links at the top much easier.

I’m still tweaking the Gallery settings with this shopping cart option. Not sure if I like it yet, but I’d like to get it fully customized before I take it or leave it. So the Gallery will look odd for a few days.

My brain hurts.

Thus far I’ve managed to fix the borked php. My server did a good thing and disabled the ability to use PHP to open a url (now, that’s how the random images showing up on the right side of the page worked). I had to find a replacement. Finally found the curl command tutorial and now the random images are back up and working. Huzzah! Next came enabling comments again. Actually, they’ve been enabled the entire time. I’m just an idiot and forgot to include the form and tags on the individual entries.

I swear, I’m smarter than I act.

Really.

Stop giving me that look.

Anyrate, next is the forum skin, because it’s awfully bright.

I’m so busy right now my head could explode. Well, it would explode, but then I’d have to clean up the mess. Sunday I got up and planned on spending the morning tweaking the website so it looks more polished and getting it all over onto Movable Type so it’s easier for me to maintain and update. HAHAHAHAHA. Just the morning? Forget THAT. More like from 8 in the morning until about midnight. Stupid brain had to learn how the template system worked. Anyway, it’s about done. Somehow I ended up breaking the skin template for my forum and had to give up and upload a new one. I’m not too happy with it, but it’ll work for now because I’ve got SO many other things to do.

Like…

Enter all this data for the research contract.

Do more research.

Write backgrounds.

Finish things for BobnDana.

Finish doing up a MadOwlPhotography business plan.

Get business cards.

Finish tweaking the site.

Fence.

Finish the fencing website.

Write.

Take more pictures.

Tomorrow morning I have to go to the dentist.

*sigh*

Back to work.