brandiboyd.com

My personal projects are many, most of them you’ll find here.

First and Foremost, My Own Site

As you can see, I have work to do. Despite having been doing (mostly volunteer) web design for the last several years, I’ve been running up against a brick wall in trying to develop my own site for marketing and letting clients know I’m out here. The problem is that each time I get about a third of the way through a design I decide I just don’t like it, scrap it, and start from scratch. It’s resulted in having a poor or completely non existent website for far too long to admit. I was looking at the other sites I’ve worked on for personal purposes in the last few years and discovered, I don’t like to design for myself. I think it’s akin to how some clothing designers don’t wear their own clothes. I love to design; but somehow- for myself not so much. I’m this way with almost any artistic endeavor I undertake, and realizing that my approach to design was artistic rather than technical helped me finally just came to terms with it. It’s been a few years since I professionally designed full time, and between that and my artistic inability to enjoy my own work. After months of sitting uninspired in front of my screen I decided it was better to go ahead and use another developer’s opensource design than to have no site at all, or to spend hours making no progress when I could be working on things that DO inspire me.

So project number one is creating a custom ’skin’ for the Mimbo theme that I’ve decided upon, and to add to the theme for the plugins I wish to use. And updating my site’s content, which now exists in numerous text files over four hard disks and my web space. Once I’ve made some progress I’ll post about it, somewhere. And eventually I’ll release the skin, if that’s appropriate; Mimbo offers functionality I simply couldn’t code better, and considering its popularity, I can imagine other users might like a tweaked look.

Family Digital Archive Project

Two years ago my maternal grandmother and aunt passed away, leaving a sixteen room (yes, I said 16) house full to the rafters. Of collectibles, antiques, puzzles, teaching supplies, and photos and papers…lots of photos and papers. Of course my family couldn’t keep it all, although we wanted to in a way, and each of us did end up with a fair amount of the Hedges house in our own homes. Many of the papers, scrapbooks, and photos are 60 plus years old, and showing signs of age and deterioration. And there is such an abundance that it is scattered in some twenty-odd boxes in my garage, twenty more or so in my mother’s, and a few more here and there with other friends and family. In thinking about how to best save this wealth of history about my family for the future, I decided to scan and store digital copies of as much as possible, making it available to the rest of my family on the internet.

Currently the project is in beginning stages. I am deciding how best to categorize and present the information, and as other family members are finding out about it, more branches of my family tree are being added to the project. It’s grown a little faster than I’ve had time to build framework for, but my plans are to catch it up soon.

BrainBench, ExpertRating, and other Online Learning 

I admit, I’ve fallen way behind in my continuing education as a webmaster/designer/developer. In fact I stopped for a while. It’s so easy to feel like you’ll never catch up, as quickly as things change in the coding world. I’m re-learning php, I had really just started getting beyond tweaking cut and paste scripts when I took my break.  And taking some other courses as well. I’m trying hard to keep on a steady schedule and progress quickly. I’ll post more about it when I’ve reached some personal goals.

My daughter is getting ready for college.

Or, rather, I am getting my daughter ready for college. This in itself is a full time proposition, and I am a bit behind. Once I get through the spring paperwork overload, I am sure things will look much better. For now, it’s just daunting.

A garden and patio. 

I’m hoping to get a garden in this spring. Hope being the key word here. Time will be the determining factor, I am afraid. I am also collecting free bricks from Craigslist and other places for a patio. So if you have any or know someone who does, I’m happy to come get them out of your way.

A few other things… 

I’ve been researching water fluoridation, and it’s effects on thyroid disorder. That’s because I have a thyroid disorder and grew up in an area with known over fluoridation, which I believe has led to the complete deterioration of my teeth. And yes, I’m undertaking (or trying to get the financing to undergo) serious dental work, and thyroid care.
I’m trying to sound proof, or at least reduce the outside sound coming into, my bedrooms. Thin, cheaply built walls … loud, inconsiderate neighbors … and supersonic hearing combined with insomnia issues.

I’m looking for a professional reupholsterer to barter with; I have a victorian style sofa and art deco/nouveau parlor set (2 chairs and loveseat) that I can’t bear to part with, and need recovering, terribly.