Bush Mackel

I’ve once again hit a patch of pretty busy things for myself, and thankfully this time around it looks like those things are definitely of the positive sort.

And I’m beginning to come out of them now so I think it’s time to throw some updates up on here. Well actually… Now that I write that, I don’t know if I’m really coming out of them as much as I’m starting to see the proverbial light at the end of tunnel.

The big things on the hit list are of course the impending house purchase, finally finishing up that pesky website I’ve mentioned on here, Little Mac’s 1st birthday party, getting more business for my design company, and learning ColdFusion *bleh* at work. Why don’t we go in order of stress shall we?

Getting More Business for BWD 0 stress
Right now, my business Bethesda Web Design is doing just the right amount of business for me right now which isn’t too much. (#):) As I’ll point out in a hot minute, I’m putting the finishing touches of the company’s first real client site and I’ve had another person inquire about a new website too which I have a good feeling on. But probably the biggest thumbs up for the company in the past month was getting an old client back on board which means my hosting costs are no longer dragging me down to nearly the extent as they were before.

Finishing Up That Pesky Website 2 stress
This used to rank much higher on the stressful scale but I’ve recently put a lot of work into it addressing the harder parts of the service, and finishing up some nagging issues that I personally had a problem with. NOW the only thing I’m really waiting on is the “client” to get back to me with the rest of the text so I can put the seal of completeness on this one. And don’t worry, I’ll be talking a lot more about this project next week in a Postmordem of sorts.

Little Mac’s 1st Birthday Party 3 stress
I’ll admit it that from jump, I didn’t want to have a birthday party for the little guy. He’s not going to remember it and it’s just going to mean a lot of time commitment from me along with the whole catering thing *rolling eyes*. BUT the wife really wanted to have it so here I am, having to fire up the BarBQ (which NEVER goes smoothly) and having to figure out what food I’m going to make to feed all these people that are allegedly coming. bleh

Learning ColdFusion 4 stress
It should come as a surprise to no one that I’m more familiar with PHP for database manipulation than anything else. (See wordpress). But when I was originally propositioned at work to learn this technology I of course agreed and now I really wish I was doing something else. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m basically learning as I’m going through the joy that is the Internet Tutorial, but it really feels like ColdFusion is forcing me to learn a new scripting language that is just different enough from most standards that I have to stop and look everything up every 5 seconds. And as there’s basically only one other guy in the office with CF experience, I bet I’m gonna have to start doing this a lot more in the future.

Impending House Purchase ? stress
And finally on the pain train is the impending house purchase for which I have settlement on Monday. For some reason, it’s really not stressing me out as much as it should be. Maybe it’s the fact that I probably won’t be moving in ’till Sept or that I’m ok paying copious amounts in the way of bills. One thing is for certain though and that’s that I have very limited time to renew my real estate license if I’m going to be able to get a referral fee off the purchase. Busy weekend for sure coming up. (#):)

Anyone out there doing anything of interest?

I was so happy when I finally finished the new look of my design site last night.

Obviously this was the main project that prevented me from posting on here (or at least that’s my story) and it has been a monkey on my back for a really long time.

Of course in the grand scheme of things, getting the site up probably isn’t the biggest thing I’m going to have to do. THAT dubious honor would probably fall to attracting clients and getting work.

Bethesda Web Design
As you’re probably already aware, that’s the name of my design site/company. Recently, amongst the 3 or 4 big projects that I’m focusing on for the future I decided to make this one a priority because I thought it would be the quickest avenue for me out of the 9-5 that I could find. Additionally, I’ve had design clients in the past that I’ve had on retainer and it’s really nice to know that your hosting costs will be covered month to month without you having to go out and get people to say…

Buy ads on your site. (#);)

The Design
I’ve said it before but I think it deserves repeating, I don’t fancy myself a designer. I like art, I like design, but coming up with original work in that area is a bit of a struggle. So coming up with a look for the site that I felt good about was a very taxing endeavor. And unfortunately (or fortunately), I had to come up with something good because I couldn’t sell my company knowing that my site was utter trash. Thankfully before I started the site (and my company in earnest), I did what any upstart does and order really flashy and expensive business cards. (#):)

Sure that doesn’t sound like a good thing (buying expensive cards before you have a site or anything), but the company I went to make my cards also did free logo design and consultation. And what they came up with helped me out quite a bit. In fact, what you see on the site as far as the company’s logo is about exactly what you see on my cards. Sure it’s not super over the top, but it definitely works for what I needed.

The Main Content
Outside of the logo is the main content, and I needed to find a way to present everything in a way that was clean but still (pun not intended) flashy. What I came up with was what I think of as very clean (even if a bit too simple) layout, where my main content is presented with animation in a Flash movie and I came up with the message, “Because everyone deserves a unique home on the web”. Recently with my projects, that whole ‘message” thing has become very important for me, and I think that’s what really drove me to overhaul the site into what you see today.

What Do You Think?
I know the readers of this blog (the few of you who are left) are a very talented sort. I’m hoping that you’ll check out the site, and let me know what you think of it. What you like, what you don’t, and what I can do to improve it. Much appreciated and can’t wait to see what you have to say!