lately i’ve been trying to figure out how to make drop shadows with just some css and only the main image. i think i’ve come up with something, but i’m not sure how well it will work out. you can see a few examples here.

as you’ll notice, i’ve also worked on getting a slick-looking gradient in place. (why? no idea. also, don’t bother clicking the links on that page.)

and that’s that. fairly basic, but has the overall impression.

i’ve also had some breakthroughs in my personal situation, but i’m not up to posting them right now. i’ll summarize my thoughts and vomit them profusely unto you, dear reader, at a later time.

i’ve struggled with this issue before. i still don’t know how personal this is supposed to be. i didn’t know how personal i wanted my previous blog to be. my old blog fell apart because i wasn’t sure what i wanted to omit or include. you’ll note the last post was (i think) 040406, a few days before things started to go bad.

i read one or two blogs regularly, and appreciate that there are accounts of some personal issues (it’s amazing how the second and third paragraphs of this post almost perfectly echo my recent situation) in there, as they seem surprisingly similar to my own recent experiences. in the course of the last few weeks, i’ve tried something new-complete and total honest at all possible times. it may sound either weird, or like common sense, but i figured that i’d try it. so with that in mind, i’m going to continue to post, and relate what’s going on with me. i think that’s kind of the point of writing regularly.

i am not prepared to share all the details yet (or maybe even at all) but i will say that i’ve recently had a large shift in my personal situation. it’s made me realize that i need to be more open, and that i ruined things that had the potential to be even more amazing that i ever thought i would get to be a part of. i’m not ready yet to look back and see this as a lesson learned or another past experience-i’m still processing this and trying to figure out what (if anything!) is supposed to come next, so i won’t go in to more detail. i guess my point is that i’m not going to be a reclusive as i have been in the past, both here and in real life, and i’m going to be more willing to share what’s going on.

and now, back to the bottle.

in continuation of a previous post (01.06.06), i am taking more steps towards reaching my ultimate goal for the layout and “behind the scenes” functioning of this site. i tried to validate all the (x)html and css both here and at my other mini-site. it wasn’t as daunting of a task as i assumed it would be, thanks in part to my recent test drive of Dreamweaver.

I’ve switched my scripting style from tables and font tags to divs and classes. It seems to have paid off as far as validation is concerned, as i only had to make a few changes to get things in order. The css for miniondesign.com is still off, but i excuse that as it’s also an experiment and because i’m trying to figure out how to make some decent drop shadows.

the main reason that i validated the code was to make sure that when the time came, i wouldn’t have any problems if this site had to interact with anything. i was thinking that i could either continue as i was going (slowly but surely) and figure out how the hell to make this thing work, or i could opt to tweak a wordpress theme to make it work and act like i envision this site once finished.

for now, this site will remain fairly “static”. i don’t have much more to do here until i get the “backend” things together.

what a day to start a new job. technically, it’s not “starting” a new job because i just went in for one shift and still have to finalize this with the person in charge. it’s potential employment nonetheless, and a fitting day for me to start working again.

surprisingly enough, i’ve been working on the next phase of the site. what i plan to do from here is automate a few things. i’d like to have a form that i can fill out and submit that will handle and post it automatically. after i hit submit, the script(s) will generate a filename, send it to the right category, “label” it as the most recent, and display it at the top of its category page. also, the bottom prev/next buttons on the new page will point to the correct file (as they are coming from the default and most recent post). i realize this isn’t the most challenging or original (wordpress, etc…) idea, but it should prove to be challenging enough at this phase as it requires use of javascript and php to get all this together and running smoothly.

in other news…

it’s bedtime, and then off to quit a job in the morning. that’s going to feel really good.