BBM Connection

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

I’ve been slowly working on the site for the past two months, and I’ve finally gotten it to a state that I’m pretty satisfied with. Most of the changes have been pretty minor, at least in terms of outside appearance. I may work on the site design itself at some point, but haven’t yet felt inspired to do that. Overall, I’ve attempted to make things a little more accessible, menus more intuitive, and maintain valid xhtml. Behind the scenes, I’ve tried to clean up my MT templates, reduce build time, and create human-readable source pages. Although I’m not sure if that’s all that important… I don’t know if anyone besides me ever views the source pages, anyway.
So, on to the changes. I added category archives a while ago, but they were pretty basic. They pretty much mimicked the main page, except with all of the entries for the one category. I’ve customized them somewhat now, with an archive drop down menu that links to each entry on the category archive page itself, which is the same style that I was using for the monthly archives. I modified the author archives for everyone besides myself to actually have all the entries for that author, in the style of the category or monthly archives. I made this decision based on the fact that the other authors haven’t been authoring anything, and so I’m not concerned about the size of the pages getting out of hand. I’m considering changing my own archive to have something like the last 25 entries, and then have the rest accessible via the drop down menu linking to the individual archives. Or perhaps merging the current style with that. Related to the lack of other people posting, I removed the secondary navigation bar from the individual archive pages. I was primarily using it to be able to easily read through all the entries by a particular author, but since I can now do that from their master archive page, it doesn’t seem necessary to have that ability from the individual archives. Perhaps one day it will become useful again, but until then, I think this method is cleaner. Also on the individual archive pages, I upgraded the comments area to the new style for MT3, which loads much faster than the old style did.
On the main page, I finally linked in my about page. Most of the content for that page was written two years ago or so, but I never got the page into a state I liked until recently. I modified the archives drop down for the monthly archives to break down by year, and then month, because the list of monthly archives was getting too long. Now I’m sure I’ll never have more than 12 in a division. The last time I wrote about changes I was making, I had made it so that you could access every entry in the blog from that menu. That worked fine at that time, when the blog only had about 150 entries, but it started taking a really long time to build and creating an immense file once the blog was up to 400 entries or so, so I was forced to move away from that. Invisible to the common user, I’ve added an “Edit Entry” link to every location that an entry is displayed, so that I can have one click edit access for correcting typos and the like. And finally, I’ve created a link on every page in the blog that shows it to be valid XHTML 1.1, with a link to the validation result for that particular page.
There are still a few things that I’d like to work on… I’d like to do a redesign of the master archives, I think. I’ll probably change the format of my own archives as well, but I already have ideas on that. I need to add a little more content to the workouts page, and update some of the existing content. I should also update the content of the about page, since now that I’ve finally linked it in, some of the other changes I’ve made have rendered parts of the information obsolete. On the back end, I’d like to try and optimize my templates just a little more, although I’m not sure how much more I can get. I would like to cut down on the build time if I can, but we’ll see how difficult that will be. There’s not much, if anything, that I’d be willing to sacrifice content-wise, so I’d have to figure out more efficient ways of generating the same content. I should really clean up my CSS, but realistically speaking, that’s not going to happen until I do a visual redesign. And I’d still like to make the menu bar on the master archives page start with January each year, but perhaps the eventual redesign of that entire page will render that point moot. Altogether, though, I’m pretty satisfied with the state of things, and will probably take a break from working on the site for a while.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

I’ve been doing some more tinkering with the site design for the past couple of weeks, and I think I’ve finally put things in a state that I’m mostly satisfied with. There are still a few things that I’d like to do something a little more with, but I’m mostly content for now.
I’ve been working on my ">master archives for quite a while now, and have finally linked them into my main pages. I’d like to change the order of months at the top, and have January first in the list, but to do so definitely would require a plugin, and even then I’m not sure how easy it would be. I may or may not get around to fixing that.
I’ve added a menu bar at the bottom of the monthly archives pages to match the top bar, and theoretically aid navigation through the monthly archives. I’ve also made it so that if you’re working backwards through the archives, you automatically start at the bottom of the page. My theory for this was that in general, someone reading through archives in a consistent manner will want to read the entries chronologically. So someone reading forward in time (past to present) will start at the beginning, read down a page, and go to the top of the next page. Someone reading backwards in time will do the opposite… start at the bottom of a page, read up, and then go to the bottom of the next page. I’m not sure most people actually read through in that way, so perhaps it’s just an annoyance, but it seems useful to me.
I’ve changed the middle option on the menu bar in the individual archive pages to jump into the current month, rather than back to main. The reason for this is that the monthly archives then become easily accessed from the individual archives, and since the main page can always be accessed either by clicking the banner or using access key 1, it seemed redundant to have the link in the menu bar.
On the main page, I’ve added a link to the master archive page, and made the dropdown menu for that dual level, so that it is possible to jump to any entry in my archives from there. I currently have it set to locate the entry within my monthly archives, because the only advantage to jumping to the individual entry is that comments can only be posted from there. However, the individual archive is accessible from the monthly archive, and going into the monthly archive allows for easier reading in context by having the surrounding entries readily available. I may change it back to linking directly to the individual archives if there are user complaints, but I don’t sense that happening.
Most of the rest of the things I’ve been working on have been “behind the scenes” stuff, as it were. I’ve made all of the pages on the site XHTML 1.0 Strict, which you can check with the W3C Validator. I did a lot of cleaning on my Movable Type templates, which will hopefully make things easier to manage and change in the future. I’m working on an about page, which will primarily feature such exciting information as the validations for the site as well as the plugins that I’m using. In terms of upcoming changes, I need to finish the about page, update my ">workouts page, and potentially change the color scheme around. I’d also like to clean up my CSS a little bit, and perhaps make a few more changes in the menu bar. Overall, though, I’m fairly happy with the site as it is, and probably won’t be making any major changes for a while.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

Taking my cues (as usual) from yukino and after having talked with Scott, I decided to go ahead and work on future-proofing the site. Using the resources that yukino linked to, particularly the ones by Már Örlygsson and Mark Pilgrim, I think I’ve managed to remove all of the implementation dependent references in the site. Overall, it was fairly simple… the resulting URLs don’t look the prettiest, but they are effective, and unlikely to need to change.
Additionally, I’ve converted all of the dates and times on the site to conform to the ISO 8601 standard, as recommended in this note to the World Wide Web Consortium. I enjoy the simplicity of the solution, even if the date and time as one long string isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing.
Other than that, I fixed the size of the sidebar, hopefully so that nothing overflows the edges on any clients. I’m not sure how likely that is, given the difference I saw between the Windows and Linux sides using Firebird, but I don’t have a lot else to work with, so maybe it looks okay. If you can’t see the sidebar, it’s because older clients that don’t support CSS2 are trying to display it… somewhere else, I think. I know it doesn’t show up in IE6.1, at any rate. Anyway, just a note on some of the changes I’ve made in the past few weeks. I might implement menus for the sidebar sometime soon, but I haven’t felt inspired to work on them in the last week, so they might end up waiting until the next time I start tinkering with the site design.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

After two more workouts in the last three days, I feel that I may have successfully kicked off on my return to yoga. Have been experiencing a bit of tightness, particularly in the hamstrings, but have managed to work through that, thus far. I have to confess that I’ll be happy when I finally get to the point where I’m not sore on a daily basis, though. I would guess that it probably won’t take more than a few weeks, as long as I continue on a consistent schedule.
Progress continues to be mostly mental, working on the subtle adjustments necessary to achieve the full benefits of the workout. I think part of the benefit is that when you start focusing on all the little details, it takes your mind away from everything else, at least while you’re doing poses, which enhances the relaxation experience. A mental rejuvenation, as it were.
I’m hoping to do a redesign of the blog sometime soon, or at least to change the color scheme somewhat. However, I haven’t yet felt like dedicating the time that I’d need to effectively do that, so for now I’ll continue to just create new entries, and hopefully be inspired for some design work not too far in the future.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

Wow. Just read through my previous entries. I found the last sentence of the previous entry to be quite humorous, all things considered.
Anyway, I’ve returned to this forum after a long sojourn. There are a number of reasons for that absence, including the primary server being down for a few weeks, packing the computer, being on the road for two months, moving into the new apartment, and general laziness, but the last one is, as always, the most important one.
Fortunately, it hasn’t been that long of an absence from the yoga practice. I’ve managed to keep it up, for the most part, although there was a long period of neglect recently. However, that’s over now, and I expect to be continuing on with my practice in a regular, near-daily fashion.
The biggest development was the arrival of the Power Yoga DVD, an event which caused me to focus almost exclusively on said DVD for the past number of months. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it focuses more on incorporating yoga into an aerobic workout than on the slow, more pose-oriented Yoga for Strength set, and yet it still builds strength and allows you to get into the yoga mindset. The summary of all this, however, is that I haven’t made any significant development in my practice, but I also haven’t really lost anything. Overall, considering the travel of the summer, that feels like a success.
In other news, I finally went full vegetarian a few weeks ago. It was pretty much my plan to do so after the traveling was done, and that’s pretty much the way it went. I can’t say that I’ve noticed any health differences since finally giving up seafood, but it’s only been a few weeks.
Anyway, just a small entry to note my return, and perhaps get me back into the habit of writing here, so that it becomes a yoga journal of sorts, for now. I have to admit that I found my early entries to be intriguing upon reading through them, since I know I would have forgotten pretty much all of that without having a reminder here. So hopefully this will once again become a tool by which I help myself stay motivated, and a way to track my progress.

Update: This entry made more sense when I originally wrote it. I later went back and filled in a few entries for June, to record a bit of how my practice went over vacation. So the “previous entry” originally referred to was the last one in April, not June.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

Yesterday was a very good day. Started out the day by waking up and lounging around for an hour or so. Then went out for a six mile hike with a few friends. After that, we all went and grabbed some dinner, then got some ice cream and headed back to make milkshakes. Then we played spades for a number of hours before calling it a night. A quite satisfying day of pleasant and easy companionship, overall. The only downside was that I didn’t do any yoga, but that was probably for the best.

And the reason it was probably for the best is because today has been time for muscles to protest yesterday’s hike. Started off a little sore, but not too bad. Went and ran some errands, the best one being managing to acquire a copy of the Yoga for Strength video that we’ve been borrowing. This means that I’ll have at least another month before having to even be inconvenienced in my practice, and by then I should have done it enough to be at the point where I can work just off of the audio cues. That’s the current plan, anyway.
Getting a little later in the day, soreness has started increasing in the past few hours. Hoping to get through my yoga workout tonight, but I’m not overly optimistic. I’ll do as much as I can, though, unless I just decide to wait and do the full workout tomorrow. It’s too easy to start skipping days that way, though, so I’ll probably go ahead with it tonight. Other than that, about to fix dinner and spend the evening with some music. Another satisfying day, even if movement is a bit painful.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

Apparently IE doesn’t like the default MT layout. How stupid is that? So if you’re viewing this with IE, no, it’s not actually supposed to have to scroll like that. I’ll probably fix it at some point, unless I decide I don’t care enough.
Taking the night off from yoga. Worked on it for the last four nights, so I think my body wants a break. I was thinking about going running today, but I didn’t really get up in time. Oh well. I could have gone before going to bed, but it was only around 50 then, and I wasn’t feeling that inspired. I’m not entirely certain how to incorporate other exercising in with the yoga training, or if I even really need to. I don’t think I have to worry about it too much right now, besides possibly getting some running in. Frankly, the yoga is still kicking my ass in the strength department, so I don’t really think I need to go out of my way to do other weightlifting type exercises right now. I’m doing some crunches and pushups in addition to the yoga, which I think will suffice until the yoga stops kicking my ass.
Unfortunately, the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show that we were going to go see tomorrow is sold out. Apparently I should have gotten off my lazy ass and purchased tickets in advance. Oh well. Perhaps I’ll do that for Yo La Tengo next week. Or perhaps I’ll just wait to see if it sells out, too. Motivation for leaving the apartment is certainly not my strong suit.
It seems to be raining outside. That will probably be detrimental to any thoughts of going running tomorrow. But that’s probably okay, since I probably won’t bother waking up in time tomorrow, either.
Anyway. It occurs to me that I don’t really know how to terminate entries. I always feel like I should end them like a conversation, which doesn’t really translate all that well in this format. Maybe I’ll get it down, maybe I won’t. Regardless, I’m done for now.

Workout: No workout
Author: chaos

Well, I’m probably going to delete this in a few weeks anyway, but for the moment, I’ll run with it. I suppose in the end I’ll feel better about having done it, whether or not I delete the whole thing. Besides, if I do keep it around, it gives me a whole new site to play with. Twice the mucking around! Twice the fun! That’s what I’m telling myself at the moment, anyway.
…And already I’m running out of steam. This thing is going to be so short-lived. Regardless. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, when I can hold my mind on a subject for long enough to call it that. Haven’t really gotten anywhere, but I guess I’m at least making some sort of effort.
I’ve also been doing a lot of yoga. Yoga for strength (beginner’s practice), with Rodney Yee. I’d like to think that I’m making progress. I’m more flexible now than when I started ~2 months ago. My strength has increased, and my sense of balance has improved. I’m doing a better job of listening to my body. Like right now, when it told me to stop slouching in my chair. If I take care of my body, maybe I can convince it to forgive me for the rest of the abuse I’ve heaped upon it until now.
As an aside, what comes first, discipline of the mind, or discipline of the body? Or should they come together? Or should neither come, and both the body and the mind be left in a state of undetermined flux? These are the types of questions that I could be pondering, except I can’t keep track of anything for that long.
I’m thinking about starting up running again. I shouldn’t have stopped in the first place, but I blame bad weather and the fact that I’m really lazy. However, my running partner should be returning soon, and I don’t want to be too dead the first day back out. If I go for a few sessions by myself in advance, then I can probably force myself into at least a semblance of still being able to run. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned, and all that jazz.
I think that’s about all the random stuff I can think of for this entry. As I stated earlier, I’m expecting that I’ll probably delete the entire thing in a few weeks, but it’s possible that I’ll grow attached to it. On that note… “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll probably kill you in the morning.”