The last few days haven't been too bad. The boss was away on a trip and the office has been quite busy. Today I put about 40 orders through. It was really hectic -- I had 130 emails this morning! I didn't have too many phone calls, which gave me time to work on the ads. I'm getting really close. I did have to scrap the collapsible div, though. It just wasn't working.

I am thinking we should scrap the "Related Items" and focus mainly ont he individual product. Real Estate on the ad is severely limited. Besides, we are double billing them as they show up in the check-out system. I'm thinking that we should focus the accessories in this area, anyway. I'm thinking that the current setup is pretty much useless. It points them in the general direction, but kinda shortchanges the point of additional items in the order.

This weekend was nice and quiet. I'm hoping to have another in a few weeks so I can take Kris out for a nice evening. I doubt we'll get it because we never do. If we don't I can just hope to get a nice paycheck to squirrel away some cash for an airsoft game this fall.

Almost done. I have hit a snag on the ad project for work. I have the layout set and the boss likes it. However, I need to figure out how the hell I am going to set up the Shipping and Payment tabs. These two need to link to two external files I can edit. As these are a part of the ads, they need to be present in every ad. There will be well over 1000 of them when I am done, so updating each individual ad is not an option here. I had thought about doing them as a graphic, but I want to keep bandwidth to a minimum.

I'm really at a loss for how exactly I am going to do this. It pisses me off to be this close and be stuck on something stupid like this. I guess if I ws smart, I would set all of the parts of the ad up this way so that I can run all of it modularly.

I had thought I could dissect my blog and do it that way, but it appears I can't do that. I need a way to display a text file in a page that leaves the text file able to be editted. I just am out of ideas for now.

What the hell is up with all of these new Pop Tart Flavors? A few years ago, You had cherry, apple, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and a few others. Now we have Chocolate Chip, Fudge Icecream Sundae, and Oreo. OREO-FLAVORED POPTARTS!!! A Poptart is a damned sugar cookie with fuit filling and light glaze. That's all it has ever been. But now you can get them in so many damned flavors, I think they've lost sight of perspective. It's a damned poptart. If you want a cookie, you buy a cookie.

I used to live off of Poptarts in college. I absolutely love Cherry and Blueberry PopTarts. But after three years of eating them when I was on the go, I couldn't stand them. They were cheap, and they were quick. But come on, now. Chocolate Poptarts?

And of coure, the kids just absolutely love them. They'll eat one of them and that will be it. So I either eat the rest of them or they just sit there until they rot. Anyone know the shelf life on a PopTart?

I made some salsa yesterday. Ingredients: Tomatoes, Green Bell Peppers, Cyrano Peppers, Jalpenos, Diced Green Chiles, Purple Onions, White Onions, and Diced Garlic. I made about a gallon of it, but didn't have enough tomatoes to offset the green stuff. It's very hot! So I have to wait until I have enough money to pick up about a dozen small tomatoes to add to it. I'll prolly add some more Onions, too.

The nice thing about making Salsa during the fall is that eating it helps fight sinus problems. I was eating some of the batch that had less tomato in it and it was very hot. It cleaned me out and everything was good.

I found that Mountain Dew seems to go well with really hot Salsa. It helps to lessen the burning tongue. i don't know, maybe its because Mountain Dew is basically a carbonated Margarita Mix with lots of caffein. It just seemed to work out.

Those of you who may not know, you can neutralize hot pepper with salt. It is because capsaicin, the ingredient that burns in peppers, is an acid. Salt neutralizes that particular acid. Will it make hot chiles less hot? Not exactly, but it will help if you eat something that's too hot for you.

I am still working on getting the ad template finished. I hope to have it finished soon, because Bob is getting antsy. He definitely wants it done soon, but he wants to make sure it is functional. Which gives me more time to get it finished. I have to go through and write some css and js scripting to get them finished. Right now I'm borrowing the scripts from the prototype sites. I hope to have the scripting finished quickly. I'll put a link in the notes as soon as I'm done.

Well, I finally found out what happened to Rob, at work. Apparently, he quit. That left me to have to deal with many of his clients, some of which had some "special" deals with him. I wish he had stayed longer, because I really could have used some help with this stuff. I guess he had his reasons.

I'm still working on the eBay ads. I have my layou finished, but I need to go back through and rewrite the entire code from scratch -- FUN! I had been using flash for navigation,but now I'm moving towards multiple javascript tags. It's a real mess right now. I'm trying to figure out how to use xml to post text on the pages. I'm still working on that one.

I'm really worn out today, so I'm gonna have to cut this one short.

Today was a rough day. Thank god it was Friday! Rob was still gone from work for whatever reason, so I started taking Rob's orders. Quite a few of his customers were pissed that he has been gone for 4 days -- a fact they enlightened me on throughout the day.

I am toying with some new Javascript for work. I want to set the shipping and payment bars up in collapsible text boxes that fold up beneath the ad. This will make the entire ad smaller, but allow the user the option to open or close it. I'm not entirely sure if I can get it to work, but I have seen it on a few other sites. If I could remember which, I would have bookmarked them and snagged the source. It's something to work towards. Right now, I need to find a new ad interface that will sell items. I'd like to find something snazzy that looks cool, but I can't think of what to use. Something to keep their attention that is user friendly. Bob gave me an open canvas here, so I just need to figure out something to plug in there.

I'm really working my tail off with orders and returning emails. Somehow, I have to get all of the new ads updated. Bob said we could drop Channel Advisor, which would suit me just fine. I appreciate the fact that it schedules everything for you, but I get lost trying to track some of the ads. I haven't spent enough time learning it because I have been really busy trying to learn the other end of the job.

Andrea came home demanding that Kris fork over some spending money for her so she could go shopping with her friend, Heather. We couldn't make her understand that we were completely broke. She demanded Kris hand over cash. We had all of $10 in cash to survive the next week. Then the little snit wanted her to write her a check.

This would be fine if it weren't for the fact that neither of the kids ever ask permission for anything. They demand we hand over money or demand that we drive them around to whereever they want to go. They never ask persmission, they tell us they are gonna do it and expect us to just cowtow. When we tell them "NO," they throw their little crying fits or get angry.

Andrea is really bad about throwing a temper tantraum when she is told "no." She is always trying to get around our rules by telling us in advance that before we try to tell her this or that, she is doing this. I held my tongue tonight because I knew exactly what would happen. I would tell her she was grounded, which she is, and then she would throw a screaming fit. So when she comes back from her fun time, she is going to be grounded for this next week. I'm sure she will screech and bitch, but that's just too damned bad for her.

Agh! I had 135 emails when I went in to work this morning! About 50 of those were just stupid questions. I worked about an hour getting them answered and deleting the worthless ones.

I have the preliminary layout for the new auctions completed. It looks better, but it still sucks. I want something that looks much better, but am still looking at ideas. I spent six hours writing the tag lines on the damned thing. The better part of my Laboir Day holiday was spent Laboring... how urbane...

Andrea was grounded and had her CD player taken away, again. She was given two jobs to do, which, as usual, she refused to do and then tried to argue that she didn't have to do them. So, she was grounded and lost her phone priveleges for the day.

She started in with the "Dad's right, I should go live with him" - crap. I offered to pack her bags and open the door for her. I don't know why she thinks that leaving us would make me one bit upset - as if suddenly not having to deal with her or her nasty room would be a tremendous burden on me! I hope the little brat does move out.

She then started in with the "well Candy is coming over tomorrow" - nope! She's grounded for the remainder of the week - no company. Boohoo! She also wanted me to help her with her homework, which means "I don't want to do it, you need to do it for me" -- nope. All she had to do is look at one notated diagram and answer questions. Too much effort for Annie, I'm sure.

I get really irritated by her. Is it really too much to ask that she try harder to get her chores done? She puts so little effort into work that it would almost be better if she didn't do it at all. But when shes asks for something, she expects the very best. She demands this and that and then gives us absolute hell to get anything out of her worth a damn.

I'm sure the fact that I don't like her makes me a bad step-father. But honestly, she doesn't feel at all bad for crapping all over anything and everything I do. She can lie to me with a straight face and see nothing wrong with screwing people over to get what she wants. Andrea is a manipulative little bitch. And as much as I used to want to make her a better person, I just don't care anymore.

Andrea is determined to be a fat, stupid slob - a Faanes. And who the hell am I to try to stop her? She's my step daughter. Which means I don't have to care. All I have to do is keep her out of my stuff until she leaves home. And as much as it sucks for me to have that attitude for my wife's daughter, I find it easier to just let Andrea be the stupid moron she's trying to be.

Its not my fault my step daughter is an asshole, is it?

Hello all!

I started a blog to add to the site. I felt it might help allow me to add news updates. We'll see how it turns out.

The new job is turning out pretty well. Ebay buyers can ask some pretty rediculous questions - something my co-workers simply hated having to reply to. Its amazing how people are totally incapable of following simple instructions. Its amazing any of them have an Ebay account. I work a 9-5 schedule M-F. We use Yahoo Messenger at work, but I never turn it on.

If anyone needs to get ahold of me, you can still email me at my hotmail email. I turn AIM on in the evenings, but don't stay on too much as I spend the entire day infront of a computer at work. When I am on at home, its usually to unwind with a game, checking work emails (they're constantly coming in), or working on my pages for work.

Kids started to school this week. Jacob has been riding his bike to school. He enjoys the ride and gets up extra early to make it to school on itme. Andrea has started playing volleyball. For someone who refuses to exercise, she is trying very hard to do this. I hope she makes it, but knowing the amount of effort she puts forth in most other things, I wouldn't be surprised if she comes in and quits.

Kris is happy she finally gets to start taking weekends off, with my new job. Working 7 days a week has really taken its toll on her. SHe really needs a break and I'm glad I'll finally be abel to let her take one.