Remember those old Calgon ads for bath products? Well in Mexico it’s not common practice to put in bathtubs. In fact, in this house our bathrooms are small and square so there’s no room at all for a bathtub, we just have a shower in the corner. But I digress. I want to take a bath because I need to de-stress in the worst way. So I wish Calgon could take me away…

I’ve been killing myself for work lately. I’ve worked part of each day every day in the last 2 weeks, so I’m in need of a serious day off. It might happen next Sunday, but that remains to be seen.

I’m close to finishing 2 big web projects. Both projects have been difficult for me. Both have shown me exactly what parts of project management I happen to SUCK at.

One of these projects is for a non-profit in the U.S. I got the contract for it a long time ago. But I didn’t realize how much work it would be to get the client to make decisions. The work hasn’t ended up taking significantly longer than I expected. But the number of meetings and emails and conference calls it’s taken to make all the needed decisions has literally added ONE YEAR to the project. I’m dumbfounded by this.

The client has even had personnel changes since we started working on this project together. And guess what? My new contact person there seems to hate me. She knows nothing of the history of the project, just that it’s behind schedule. So I get the blame, all the blame. Today she destroyed a conference call by interrupting, being condescending (she sounded like a bratty teenager), and finally hanging up on the rest of us.

The project is finally within mere weeks of being done. And now it’s getting derailed by a bad attitude? Grow up already. Let’s just focus on getting this shit done and fucking be nice about it.

My husband is that champion of “fuck it all”. When he heard about her little snit he said “tell her to fuck off.” We are 98% done and he wants me to walk out on the project because someone treated me like shit. He has no tolerance for bullshit, and that’s what I love about him. But I won’t be taking his advice, not this time anyway.

In the world of web design the use of frames is generally considered to be a bad thing, a big no-no. For those of you who don’t know what an html frame is it’s basically a way of making separate pages appear on screen as one.

There are many reasons why this is bad which I won’t get into. But basically it’s a rare site that actually needs to be coded with frames and which uses them to the clear benefit of the site’s visitors. And often sites using frames are hard both for users to navigate and for search engines to index. In short, frames suck both for the users and for the site owner.

So imagine my surprise when I visited the famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking’s web site and found ugly, nasty, not user-friendly and most importantly NOT EVEN NEEDED frames in use (if your browser window is small enough you see scroll bars which indicate where the edges of the frames are).

One of the most intelligent men on earth has a web site with frames, what is the world coming to?

I’m a bit frazzled. I’ve got several real estate buyers in town right now, and I’ve got several web design deadlines in the next two days. Not a good mix. Real estate is this open-ended, lengthy schmooze process. While web design takes total concentration with no distractions or other appointments. I’m seriously considering pulling an all-nighter, I feel like I’m 18 again (and I mean that only in the worst possible way).

My daughter called and said that her agnostic/atheist father had just given her a 40 year old Bible and “how cool is that?” (I’m wondering if he wanted to make space on the bookshelf). And I’m thinking that it’s cool that she thinks that’s cool, because she was not raised with a religion, she was raised to choose her own religion, if she wants to. One of my recent conversations with her involved me reading long passages from the Old Testament to her over the phone and providing my ribbing commentary along the way (there was quite a bit of giggling, especially about not coveting thy neighbor’s ass). Anyway, I think it’s great that she’s think her Bible is cool. Perhaps it’s time for her that grandmother who has a Ph.D in Religious Studies to give her grand daughter a call… Oh Mom?

Meanwhile the next book my Book Club is going to read will be The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever edited by Christopher Hitchens. One member of the Book Club stated that she “didn’t believe in Atheists”, I’m pretty sure she voted against this book, but she lost (we have a very democratic voting system). Regardless of viewpoint I’m sure that book will make for a great discussion. And a great discussion is the only possible excuse for all the wine we drink at those meetings.

Besides musings on God and his lack, and real estate and my lack of focus on web stuff my big thing right now is my cats. Surprised right? Flaco’s death has made me appreciate the living. So I’m trying to actually pet each of the living breathing 9 cats every day. This is harder than it sounds, since several of them hide under beds night and day and only come out for meals. I’m kind of forcing love on them, I feel a bit odd, “you will accept my love, like it or not”. But my eldest and fattest, and probably most frail, Grace, the 17 year old cat that I rescued back in Colorado, is appreciating all the attention. She’s even waking me up at night by purring in my ear. So I think I’m on the right track.

I’ve just released a web site I’ve been working on for the last few months. It’s the web site of Henry Steele Commager who was an important American historian. I’m proud to work on projects like this one because Henry’s work was so important. And his widow is a close friend of mine, so that makes it personal.

See the Henry Steele Commager site, and be sure to buy lots of his books on Amazon from the Books In Print page…

I’ve recently released two web sites that I’m quite proud of (links are below).

The first was for Florida Public Broadcasting Service, which is a non-profit company that represents public radio and public TV stations in Florida. It was their first web site, which meant there was lots to think about, we wanted to be sure the site’s structure could grow as the site matures.

The second of my recent releases was the Vista Imagery web site. Vista Imagery is a photography studio here in Cancun. This is a redesign of her original site and is designed to be more search engine friendly than her last site, which was a Flash site. There may still be some speed issues with this site, if you see slowness please report it to me. With that many photos it’s difficult to make sure the site is lightning fast.

• Florida Public Broadcasting Service
• Vista Imagery

Enjoy!

Last week I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with the wonderful and fabulous choreographer Alison Chase. Alison was the founding director and “mother” of Pilobolus Dance Theater. If you’ve never heard of Pilobolus then you’ve missed something important and amazing in the world of dance (that’s what Google is for, right?).

Twenty years ago, when I was studying modern dance, my classmates and I were completely enamored by Pilobolus and we emulated them every chance we got.

Alison Chase is now working independently of Pilobolus Dance Theater, and seems to be pushing the boundaries of modern dance harder than ever. She showed me several videos of recent works and I can only say this: “be very jealous of me!”

You can get a taste of Alison’s work by downloading a Quicktime Video Sample of her recent choreography which resides on Alison’s temporary web site.

I am beginning development of Alison’s full web site now. And I’ll certainly post here when the site is finished; but don’t wait up, Alison is more of a perfectionist than I am, so this site could take a while to get right.

I have not been my usual quick-typing oft-blogging self lately. This is due in part to several things. One being the fact that hubby and I are still rental-condo-hunting, it takes hours and days and lots of thinking power. But we may have finally cornered the right condo in the right building in the right neighborhood at the right price with the right rental income potential. And the owner may even be capable of reaching and abiding by a sale agreement. We shall see.

Another factor is that my social life and my marriage both have been a bit taxing. I may blog about this stuff a little later, when I get some perspective. Suffice to say my loyalties to certain of my close people are being greatly taxed. In relationships and friendships there are sometimes lines that get crossed; but at some point I stop forgiving, and I don’t start again, and I walk away and don’t look back. I’m simply afraid that one of those times may be upon me. Again, we shall see.

And the final and main factor is that I’ve been (what? can it be true?) getting my WORK DONE! A couple of projects are still suffering a lack of attention. But I’m proud to say several others are in good shape, nice code and nice clients and nice work, when all is said and done. So that is very satisfying.

This morning when I checked my email there was a message from a favored client. And it said, in part:

The page looks fantastic! Nothing to comment on, it’s perfect.

That kind of comment is what keeps me slaving away in front of my computer hour after hour. Someday I will show you all this “perfect” page, but for now it’s part of a big secret project…so there!

I’ve been working too hard again. But a web site I’ve been working on for several months is finally done and released. It’s a site to advertise two condo rentals that are owned by one of my clients.

One condo is a cute 2 bedroom in Playa del Carmen, it’s in the up-and-coming Little Italy section of town. I shot all the photos for this condo and have spent several hours there. It’s a nice place and I’m sure my client won’t have trouble renting it. It’s right around the corner from Quinta Avenida (the 5th Ave. strolling mall) and is close to Playa Mamitas, which is THE BEACH in Playa del Carmen.

The other condo is at Residencial Bay View Grand here in Cancun. And this condo is over the top. It was professionally decorated by Jerry Jacobs, whose work is exceptional. It’s got 3 bedrooms and can sleep 8 comfortably. It’s located on Playa Chac Mool which is one of the best beaches in Cancun. This property is a good deal more posh than the one in Playa del Carmen, but is just as comfortable.

Bay View Grand is a really nice property and this condo is on the 6th floor with views of both the Nichupte Lagoon and the Caribbean. I haven’t seen a sunrise from there but I’m sure it’s spectacular. I did spend an entire sunset there once and that was really special. I’m certain that renters will love this property, but I do think my client is a little crazy to rent something so nice! If it were mine I wouldn’t want to share.

Here are links to the vacation rental site and also to Jerry Jacobs’ site:

• Cancun Playa Luxury Rentals
• Jerry Jacobs Design

Since I moved here from the States I’ve lamented the lack of all kinds of things. Roads without potholes, peanut butter that doesn’t have lard in it, good coffee, Target, organic vegetables and yard sales.

And I mean real yard sales, rich people yard sales, yard sales with NICE things for sale, not the junky ones you get here once every blue moon where everything is overpriced crap.

Along the line of yard sales another thing that has been lacking here is some kind of decent classified advertising web site (you know I really MUST sell that Johnson Brothers tea set that I never use but keep dragging from house to house).

Well I was just reading the DroppedIn blog, way over there in Planet Merida, and it turns out that Malcolm and Jillian have just launched a sweet little free classified advertising site for the Yucatan peninsula, it’s called Yolisto.

There’s nothing much being advertised on Yolisto yet but it’s truly just a matter of time. It’s so pleasing to the eye and so user-friendly that I’m sure it will fill up with lots of tea sets I don’t need in no time at all.

It’s not the same as a real live American-style yard sale but it’s so close that I can almost smell the bargains…sniff, sniff.

• Yolisto: Yucatan Classified Advertising
• Malcolm & Jillian’s DroppedIn Blog