Qnotes

seaQwa's 1st anniversary

2008-09-03T18:57:37Z

This site, seaQwa.com, has been online for just about a year. The first few posts started appearing in Qnews on Sept. 19, 2007. At the time, I was still pushing the news posts in through an RSS feed that I'd been using for over a year to build a news digest on a Squidoo gay news page.

I put up the seaQwa.com with an under-construction page in August of last year, which means that the server bill came due last month. And I stretched my too-full credit card to pay the bill even though the site doesn't come close to paying for itself.

I'll admit that in the past year I wasn't able to build the site into what I'd hoped it would become. Because it sometimes seems to me that what I'm doing here now is little more that useless web noise, I was tempted to just give it up when the server bill came due last month. But -- even though there's little evidence to support this -- I still retain some slight hope that it might be worthwhile to keep it up.

I'll admit that I've pretty much completely failed on the "sea" and "wa" part of seaQwa. I'd been doing a blog at blog.ttca.org for a couple of years that focused on local Seattle events and started this site with a plan to expand on that focus. But, just before I started this site, Bill W at what's now called SeattleGayScene started doing a better job of what I'd started at blog.ttca.org. I decided to leave the events focus to him.

Unfortunately, that left too little for this site, and I allowed the local Seattle section -- Qblog -- to wither away. Since it's extremely difficult to scare information out of Seattle organizations, I've pretty much given up on local news.

Instead, I have given increasing focus to what I'd originally thought would be a sideline of the site, the national/international gay news digest in Qnews.

The first original news item appeared in Qnews on October 14 last year, but even then, it was just a summary of a single-source news item. That part of the site has developed well (or so I tell myself) and now features multiple-source digests of MSM news items. Instead of just a link to a story or a snippet from one source, most of the summaries in Qnews are now compilations from multiple sources.

I think that what I do here when I copy edit those stories from multiple sources does, indeed, provide a unique take on gay news, especially because the links to the original source reporting is (unlike some better known gay news digests) always prominent. The links are included both above and below the digest, so those who want more information can get to it quickly.

Although I believe it's a good national gay news source, I'm less confident that it matters. The site's news summaries are carefully ignored by the uber-gay-bloggers and by Google's news search site. And that matters a whole lot since Google is the company that seeks to become the single-source of control for all things on the web. (At least, they quickly add our links to their primary search engine, but it's the news site that matter more for a site like this.)

Since I am not and will never be a dogmatist, what I offer in Qnews lacks the color and bite that is expected by most blog readers. Opinionated screeds tend to encourage comments on blogs and more links from the wide world of blogs, most of which tend to be dogmatic.

But most of the failure of this site is squarely my own fault. I would have needed to have engaged in far more self-promotion than I did to make this site into what I'd hoped a year ago it would become. Unfortunately, that kind of thing isn't in my nature. I've become too much of a hermit to do it locally and too uncomfortable with the whole process to do the kind of web-self-promotion that's required. Mea culpa.

But, despite the evidence that I should just give up on it all, I figure I'll muddle on with it. I'm working on changes to the site that might start to appear late next month. I might even shift away from the 'seaQwa.com' url to something more generic and more indicative of what the site has actually become.

When I started the site a year ago, I was still recovering from my second round of chemotherapy, and really didn't expect to be here a year hence. I was also hobbling around on crutches because of an ill-advised short-cut I'd taken while visiting Butte in late August. I used my three months on the crutches, as an excuse for my failure to get out and make the kinds of contacts I'd have needed to build the site into what I'd hoped then it would become. But, really, I'm just too much of a hermit to have done it with or without the crutches.

And so... It's a bittersweet anniversary, and not much of a cause for celebration. And now, even though I understand that doing so is part of the overall problem, I nonetheless find myself compelled to look to Beckett for guidance: "... it will be silence where I am. I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on."

Delivering dual-livery Alaska plane

2008-09-01T04:08:45Z

This is completely off-topic (but then, that's the purpose of this "Qnotes" blog, so it's on-topic in that sense)...

But the picture is just so cool to me. That's a brand-new 737-800 coming in over Seattle's Beacon Hill for a ceremony at Boeing Field during which Alaska Airlines retired the last MD-80 in its fleet and replaced it with this more fuel-efficient plane. (That's the VA hospital in the middle-right.) [I assume it's landing at Boeing Field, since this plane seems pretty low if it were heading for SeaTac.]

That makes Alaska's fleet all Boeing 737. To mark the transition, they gave this plane a dual livery (which is what airframe folks call the paint and related graphics applied to a plane). The tail is Alaska's, but the usual all-white body and large "Alaska" logotype is replaced on this on plane by the new Orca-inspired livery that Boeing adopted as its corporate livery for the 787.

But the background is also such a typical Seattle-neighborhood shot.

The press release says this plane circled Mount Rainier along with the retiring MD-80 as part of the ceremony.

You'll be glad to know, if you happen to fly on it, that the 737-800 is equipped with a system that "alerts pilots of ground obstacles" which are often better known as hillsides or mountain-sides into which an off-course plane might occasionally fly. You might be more less comfortable to know that it includes a system that allows takeoffs and landings in low-visibility conditions. I mean... yes, you're more likely to get home during one of those winter socked-in fog days, but it's just a little scary (to me) to be in a plane that's landing onto something that can't be seen by the naked eye.

Blog bites: Sullivan nails the Palin choice: 'Heckuva job, Sarah'

2008-08-31T23:49:49Z

Andrew Sullivan on McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate:

This was about marketing not governing; hiring for appearance not competence. And they did it -- without apparent irony -- on the anniversary of Katrina as another hurricane threatens. From from being a reversal of the Bush administration's worst instincts, McCain seems intent on recreating it -- as farce. Heckuva Job, Sarah.

Sullivan was initially misled by a Wikipedia article and posted that her reluctant veto of an anti-gay bill was a sign of possible gay-friendliness. It wasn't. But since that initial post, he's done a great job of finding the posts that show what a bad choice this un-vetted first "presidential decision" was.

It turns out the the Wikipedia article he quoted, in his initial post, had been scrubbed just before her appointment was announced, although the section Sullivan quoted doesn't seem to be one of the sections edited by someone with a username that includes "Trig" -- the name of Palin's reputed youngest son. The edits included one on Thursday -- the day before the announcement was made -- that called her the veep nominee.

Source: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Gay bloggers add unique take on DNC in Denver

2008-08-27T19:33:53Z

The Democratic National Convention gave what organizers said beforehand would be "unprecedented" access to the convention for bloggers.

Among the big-name LGBT bloggers taking advantage of the access: Towleroad, Pam's House Blend, and Bilerico Project. Each gives daily diaries of the affair that offer a different take on the events there than one could get from reading MSM stories or watching CNN, MSNBC, of FNC.

[See headlines from those blogs and others in the Qticker section on the right side of our home page or here with snippets.]

But "unprecedented access" isn't necessarily good access. Pam Spaulding at Houseblend:

BTW, don't get any illusions that the bloggers are being treated like rock stars here. Oh boy, you should see the crappy accommodations in the convention hall for filing. There is a section for unaffiliated media that is on the practice basketball court with long tables with monitors to view the goings-on, since there is no view of the stage or the hall. The bloggers, for no apparent reason, since we're allegedly the same as the MSM, are in this adjacent room, packed in like sardines, with no access to water. Can you say caged animals?

But, hey. Things could have been much, much worse:

I stepped into the white tent. and found myself in the midst of a lot more well-armed guys with the same earpiece. The first earpiece guy had me explain my story to another one, and then another one. And then they had me put my bag and my jacket down on a table, and directed me to sit in a chair on the other side of the tent.
One asked for my I.D., which I gave to him, while another donned a pair of gloves and began searching my backpack. At some point, I started naming the items as he pulled them out. The guy with my I.D. -- my drivers license -- looked at it and asked me if I knew how old it was I did the math, and apparently gave him the right answer.
At some point I reached for my cell phone and asked, "Is it OK if I call my boss and let him know where I am?" They said, "We'd rather you didn't." So, I didn't.
The guy with my I.D. came over and asked me if I "had any warrants out." When I said "no," he walked away and continued talking to someone on his cell phone.
After what seemed like 20 minutes of this, they determined that I wasn't a threat but just some lost, luckless sap who'd wandered into their domain. After impressing upon me how serious they were about security (something about which I had no doubt by then) they pointed me towards the exit.
Oh, and the kept the "pity credential" the guy had given me that got me there in the first place. I was glad to let them have it.
It took me a while to realized that I still had a ways to walk to get back to somewhere I could get into, or at least wouldn't get kicked out or. Nevermind the two guys who seemed to be behind me almost the whole time I was walking out of there.
I lost them after along walk down a bike trail and across a canal, when I found two police officers. I took a deep breath and asked them if they knew where I could find The Big Tent. They pointed across the street, and there it was.
I reached the Big Tent, found my pass waiting for me, and finally went in there.

A few of notable posts:
Towleroad Talks with the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart | Towleroad
Hillary Clinton Nails it at the DNC | Towleroad
although it has nothing specifically LGBT, post by fellow Montanan includes video of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer which wasn't shown by the nets
LIVEBLOG: LGBT delegate luncheon with Barney Frank | Bilerico
Mandy Carter named Obama LGBT steering committee co-chair | Houseblend
Breaking: Michelle Obama attends LGBT luncheon | Houseblend
Michelle Obama Speaks to LGBT Delegates at Convention Lunch | Towleroad
Video: Michelle Obama at the LGBT delegate luncheon | Houseblend
Video break: Alexander Robinson of the National Black Justice Coalition | Houseblend

Oh, and a must see video clip from Queerty:
Chuck Todd Calls Out Crist's "Engagement" | Queerty

Missed beefcake opportunity: Design Star

2008-08-26T17:30:05Z

Mikey Verdugo

I was out of town for most of July for my father's last days and funeral, and couldn't keep up with even the important stories for Qnews during those weeks. And so I completely missed this stilly story about HGTV star-wanna-be, Mikey Verdugo:

A local star | 411 Magazine
The South Florida bar mag interviews Verdugo, mostly about his job as a cop in Hollywood, Fla.
HGTV’s “Design Star” Stud Nailed by Gay Porn Past | GaySoFla.com
To make the story even more appealing (in a prurient sort of way), it turns out that the designer with the well-designed guns appeared in at least one gay porn flick years ago.

But, regular readers (if there are any of those) of Qnews would have guessed that the picture alone would have been enough of an excuse for me to post that item.

Manly news: Teacher quits over online profile

2008-08-26T05:33:26Z

OK, so this might deserve a post in Qnews, but even if I don't add it, it's worth noting:

Teacher sex scandal

Turns out a teacher at an elite suburban prep school used what students thought was an odd name when he logged onto a school network share while his screen was being projected for all his students to see.

Students noted the name, Googled it, and found that it was also the teacher's username for a gay hookup site. Students then logged onto the site where they found nekkid pics of their teacher.

Parents were shocked, not that their kids were looking around a gay dating site, but that the teacher should have posted such a profile.

Teacher resigned.

Parents express shock and outrage to a local paper.

And the name of the paper: The Manly Daily.

OK. Yeah. Manly is a seaside suburb of Sydney, and so that's just a name. But, still...

Gallery images to be "googied" for your "protection"

2008-05-27T05:00:00Z

A group that we'll call "Mountain View Legion of Decency" (MVLD) has decided that at least one of the images that was included in our "Shirtless Hunks" gallery was, well... not what they consider decent.

Their decisions on these matters are final and not something that can be appealed. Unfortunately for us, what they think makes a difference because the outfit has something frightfully close to monopoly control over small web sites like ours. It means they can come awfully close to shutting us down.

We doubt that anything we do will make a difference to MVLD, but -- just in case -- we've decided to do our best to satisfy the MVLD by adulterating pictures that might be deemed offensive by the non-governmental censor. We're calling the process of altering the photos "googeying" to call to mind a 1950s architectural style called "googie". MVLD seems to opporate on and seeks to impose upon the web 1950s mores that were common at the same time "googie" architectural style had become common.

It strikes us as appropriate to use the made-up term "googey" to refer to the censorship we're encouraged to undertake because that architectural style developed at a time of significant semi-official censorship, but the style saw itself as forward-looking and ultra modern.

We've so far googied only one of the pictures in the gallery, but there are several others to which we'll give the treatment during the next few weeks.

We will, however, make the original un-googied versions of the montages available in a new gallery. Images in that gallery will, however, be available after next week only to registered members of this site.

We do it that way only to avoid offending MVLD by having them on a fully public page (which MVLD doesn't like).

Membership to the site is free and easy to set up. Click the Join link in the upper right of this or any page. And don't worry about giving out your email address. We won't trade it, sell it, or use it to send ads to you. In fact, we've never yet used one of those addresses for anything at all except to maintain unique set of users.

US web censor objects to Qgallery pictures

2008-05-23T21:06:59Z

Since I don't often hear from visitors to the site, I'm not sure we have many visitors who come back often enough to notice something like this, but if we did then such an imaginary visitor, then that person would probably have noticed that the ads that used to show up on all pages of the site are now turned off.

It turns out that the company -- one which is trying its best to become the non-governmental-organization (NGO) censor of the web in the US -- decided that one of the pictures included in our gallery is "adult or mature" content.

I won't mention the company's name because they don't like to be criticized and are known to respond with even more viscous actions if a site questions the company oft-expressed and self-professed "do-good" nature.

Because of their un-appealable decision, the NGO censor canceled this site's advertising contract. (As they have with several other sites, they waited until the cash in the account technically owed to this site had risen to about $150 before canceling the account -- an action that means they'll probably keep all the accumulated funds owed to the site.)

Since those ads were the only thing that allowed me to pay for the server used for the site, I'll be faced with a tough decision in September when the bill for the server comes due again. But that's the kind of thing that the NGO censor seems to see as its duty. It wants to exercise ever-greater control over the content on the web -- just as the company's partners in the Chinese government exercise that kind of control (with this NGO censor's help) over that country's web sites.

If they reinstate the ad account (which is doubtful, since this obnoxious company doesn't like its tight control to be challenged), I might respond the way the NGO censor expects and alter the offending pictures in a way that would make them acceptable to the censor. I'll call it "googeying" the pictures (just to pick a nonsense word).

I haven't decided yet whether it's worthwhile to googey the pictures, but it's one of the alternatives, I suppose.

Display Qnews on your blog or social network page

2008-04-17T22:49:00Z

Get this widget!

The nifty little widget that you see to the right is free, and you can use it on your own blog or social network site. You can even customize it with appropriate border color for your site and adjust its size to fit perfectly in any space you have.

If you're satisfied with this size, then click the "Options" button to get the code that you can copy to your site.

If you'd like to change colors or size, click "Get this widget" at the bottom of the display. You'll be taken to the SpringWidgets site where you can specify any changes you might want to make and then generate the code to copy onto your site.

And even if you don't have your own blog, you could put it on your Windows desktop to get a quickly updated view of the day's gay news. Click the Options button and choose the first icon on the top left. (You'll have to download and install a small bit of code from SpringWidgets for it to work on your desktop.)

You can see a narrow example of the widget in a different color that displays only the headlines on any of our blog index pages (at the bottom of the right-side column). Just click "Get this widget" and you'll be able to customize it with the appropriate width and color for your site.

See another version of the wider example with both headlines and summaries on our MySpace page. [no music played] (Typical of MySpace, however, the "Get this widget" link doesn't work because it takes users away from NewsCorp/Fox sites to the actual web. Get the wide code here or click the Options button there.)

And yes, you could change the feed to something else, but we hope you'll give Qnews a try.
---
Thanks to 'N Touch News Network, a very nice website for an LGBT magazine in Arizona, for picking up the widget. Looks great! By the way, we don't really know where the widget might be, but happened to notice that because a few clicks came our way from there. (And we can tell which site clicks come from most of the time.)

Nerd notes: Site-wide tags headlines from external blogs now link directly

2008-03-23T00:10:09Z

Another step toward getting things where I'd like them to be.

A few weeks ago, I added direct links to the source blogs on blog-specific tag pages, like the tag pages for QTicker World, QTicker Seattle, and GaySeattle.

But there's a different way to access site-wide tags and I couldn't figure out how to do the direct link for technical reasons that I'll explain below. While looking for something else, I found a post on the Community Server forum that tells me exactly how to make those links.

The problem arises because the page showing sitewide tags uses CSControl:IndexPostData instead of CSBlog:WeblogPostData The trick, as explained by Kevin Harder in the forum post is to check for a property available through IndexPostData.

WeblogPostData (and List, I believe) have a property -- AuthorUrl -- that holds the link to the external source post and also expose the property IsExternal that is true for a mirrored blog. (IndexPostData doesn't expose those properties.)

Those properties allowed me to use this code to point the blog headline directly to the external source blog:

<CSBlog:WeblogPostData ID="WeblogPostData3" runat="server" Property="Subject" LinkTo="Post" Tag="h3" CssClass="BlogPostTitle" >
   <DisplayConditions>
         <CSControl:Conditions ID="Conditions1" Operator="Not" runat="server">
             <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ID="WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison1" runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsExternal" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
         </CSControl:Conditions>
     </DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>
<CSBlog:WeblogPostData ID="WeblogPostData2" Property="Subject" LinkTo="AuthorUrl" Tag="h3" CssClass="BlogPostTitle" runat="server" >
     <DisplayConditions>
         <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ID="WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison2" runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsExternal" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
     </DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>

That method doesn't work, however, on a sitewide listing that depends on IndexPostData, since the IndexPost methods don't have the IsExternal property.

The elegant (for this kind of thing) offered by Dave is to pull data from WeblogPostData after checking that the listing is, indeed, for a blog post. Harder explains:

Blog Mirroring does however set an extended property called "SubmittedUserName" to the blog post that is the name of the feed that it came from. So if you want to display that instead of the username, we'll need to modify the search results page.

It's a complicated round of checking in the two sets of <DisplayConditions>, but it works like a charm.

This is the code he offers for replacing the default "Anonymous" in the site-wide tagslist with the name of the source blog:

<CSControl:IndexPostData Property="UserName" LinkTo="Author" runat="server">
<DisplayConditions>
    <CSControl:ControlVisibilityCondition ControlId="BlogSubmittedUserName" ControlVisiblilityEquals="false" runat="server" />
</DisplayConditions>
</CSControl:IndexPostData>
<CSBlog:WeblogPostData Property="SubmittedUserName" LinkTo="authorUrl" ID="BlogSubmittedUserName" runat="server">
<DisplayConditions>
    <CSControl:IndexPostPropertyValueComparison ComparisonProperty="ApplicationType" ComparisonValue="Weblog" Operator="EqualTo" runat="server" />
    <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ComparisonProperty="SubmittedUserName" Operator="issetortrue" runat="server" />
</DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>

I used that to do exactly what he's suggesting, but also used it to make a direct link for the post title with this:

<CSControl:IndexPostData runat="server" LinkTo="Post" Property="Title" Tag="H5" CssClass="CommonSearchResultName" >
<DisplayConditions runat="server">
    <CSControl:ControlVisibilityCondition ControlId="BlogSubmittedUserName1" ControlVisiblilityEquals="false" runat="server" />
</DisplayConditions>
</CSControl:IndexPostData>
<CSBlog:WeblogPostData Property="Subject" LinkTo="authorUrl" Tag="H5" CssClass="CommonSearchResultName" ID="BlogSubmittedUserName1" runat="server">
<DisplayConditions>
    <CSControl:IndexPostPropertyValueComparison ComparisonProperty="ApplicationType" ComparisonValue="Weblog" Operator="EqualTo" runat="server" />
    <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ComparisonProperty="SubmittedUserName" Operator="issetortrue" runat="server" />
</DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>

The other great thing about this bit of code is that it shows how to use values from WeblogPostData even when most of the list is running from IndexPostData. The trick is to do the double comparison that verifies WeblogPostData will be used only if the ApplicationType is "weblog".

What surprised me is that it also shows how to use a value -- in this case the controlID "BlogSubmittedUserName1" from a control that appears later on the page as a condition.

Since I was up late doing that (and other things related to the new photo pages), I'm not sure I understand why that works, but it strikes me as somehow significant that it works.

Now, back to working on the photos sidebar.

Recovering from a severe bout of flu

2008-01-31T04:11:08Z

I guess it was the flu that's had me totally knocked out for most of the past two weeks.

The site has certainly suffered while I wandered through that odd feverish state.

Today, for the first time in almost two weeks, I'm finally starting to feel like getting back to normal is at least possible.

Even now, though, I'm a bit reluctant to post even this note. It's not just physical strength that I have to get back, but also concentration.

I think what you'll see here for the next couple of days is a slow rebuilding of the sections of the site.

And yes... It's all come along far more slowly than I would have liked.

Minor (but useful) change: Better 'ticker' links

2008-01-15T05:25:16Z

Now that all the move-out/move-in stuff is mostly behind me, I'm able to address a few beta issues that have been on my mind for all-too long.

A change just implemented should give users an easier link to the various "ticker" posts that are included here. On the front page, you'd see them under "Qdo" or "Qticker" showing only a headline that links directly to the source blog.

But a surprisingly large number of folks get directed by search engines to one of our internal pages that are mostly there just to supply the data for those home page headlines. Oddly, the search engines seem to like those internal pages and send users to them.

Unfortunately for the searcher, our pages include only a minor little excerpt from the original post. It used to be tricky to get from our pages to the source post. No longer. The headline above the "ticker" excerpt will now point directly to the source blog whether the user arrives at the single-post page or the post listing page.

This might help increase the click-through rate to the source blog. (Except, of course, users are extraordinarily wary about any kind of clicking and probably just back up to the search engine even the click would be easier.)

And for fellow Community Server geeks interested in implementing the same kind of thing, here's the conditional I use on the postlist.aspx page to make it happen there. (Essentially the same code is used on the "post" page, but without a link attribute added to the "subject" for internal posts.)

<CSBlog:WeblogPostData ID="WeblogPostData1" runat="server" Property="Subject" LinkTo="Post" Tag="h3" CssClass="BlogPostTitle" >
    <DisplayConditions>
        <CSControl:Conditions ID="Conditions1" Operator="Not" runat="server">
            <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ID="WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison1" runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsExternal" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
        </CSControl:Conditions>
    </DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>
<CSBlog:WeblogPostData ID="WeblogPostData2" Property="Subject" LinkTo="AuthorUrl" Tag="h3" CssClass="BlogPostTitle" runat="server" >
    <DisplayConditions>
        <CSBlog:WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison ID="WeblogPostPropertyValueComparison2" runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsExternal" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
    </DisplayConditions>
</CSBlog:WeblogPostData>

Close to being done with the apartment move

2008-01-09T05:13:48Z

A note about the delay that close readers of this site might have noticed.

As I hinted in my last post here, I've been going through apartment issues. I essentially had to move out of my apartment in late November and stay away from it through much of December. All that to give the landlord an opportunity to do about four days' worth of work in the place to repair some issues that they'd refused to fix when it happened.

So... In November, with very little notice, I had to move out. I spent the first two weeks of December in Montana. I've been back in Seattle since December 14, but had to do a massive amount of cleaning and rearrangement in the apartment. I was essentially moving into a new place that hadn't been cleaned up beforehand.

But Monday, I was finally able to start the last stage of this odd process. A friend helped me -- in three trips -- to move back into this place all the boxes of stuff that I'd had to oh-so-quickly move to a storage area in November. Because I'd had to move it out so quickly, I didn't have the chance to cull out any of the old papers and old photos that I no longer want. So that's what I'll be doing for the next couple of days, but then it will all be done and I'll be able to devote my full attention to this site.

And so I thank you for your patience with this. And please stick with us as we move to beta 1.1 of this site this weekend, and look toward beta 2.0 by February.

Becoming John Malkovich in an ever-shrinking apartment

2007-11-25T00:04:20Z

I hope it hasn't been too obvious from the site's contents that I've been busy with things for a couple of weeks that have forced my focus away from this site. Just in case, I posted a cryptic note on the home page:

Notice: Updates to this site will continue to be somewhat sporadic for the next several days because of an unanticipated non-web requirement.

The non-web requirement? After months of negotiation about what the management of the building I've lived in for 23 years was going to do about several items of neglected maintenance (Like, say, big cracks above windows from the Nisqually quake), I was told two weeks ago that they'd fix things in here and I could stay, but only if I removed much of my stuff and put the rest into a small stack in the center of the floor.

I've lived in the building for 23 years. I've lived in this unit for 19 years. And, uhhh... so... I have stuff -- not necessary or even useful stuff. Just stuff. A lot of it.

During the long negotiation, management had told me they'd give me two weeks notice when they decided to come in and fix things.

Two weeks ago Monday, I was given notice -- but not the two weeks notice they'd promised. They told me I had to be out with my stuff by the following Monday. I almost made it.

But not close enough.

The building manager called moments after the work crew left Monday with this pleasant greeting: "Mr. Evans, you'll have to find a new apartment."

She told me that I hadn't done enough to make the work environment (i.e. my apartment) conducive for their crew to fix the problems caused by the structural instability of their building. She went on to explain that since I hadn't gotten enough stuff out of the apartment, the building managers would refuse to fix it until I move out.

Now, of course, there are so many things wrong with this, but I decided to see if we couldn't come to some better solution. I called a negotiator into the situation who knows much more than I about these sorts of things. After a bit of hand-wringing, it was agreed that they'd be able to start work on the following Monday. That has given me the past extra week to shrink everything into a tiny square in the center of my studio apartment.

And now I'm leaving. I won't be here Monday to hear what their new excuse is for why they won't fix what it is their responsibility to fix. I'll be in Montana, visiting family while they (hopefully) work on the unit.

While I'm there, I hope to keep the blogs here up to date. I should even be able to get back to tackling the long-list of technical to-dos that have accumulated. (I've had to completely stop dev. work on the site while working through this mess.)

And on Monday, I'll go hear Montana activists talk as only activists can about a very serious issue -- hate crimes.

So... See you all soon from the cold side of the Cascades.

Rendering issue in IE 6

2007-11-11T04:19:00Z

The great resource BrowserShots tells me that there's a rendering problem with these pages in IE 6 (that last one is a link to the screenshots, but I'm not sure how long they'll stay).

Sigh.

It looks like a box-model issue with the center column running too wide. I'll see if I can tweak it into position tomorrow -- hopefully without doing rendering conditionals for IE 6.

It's odd, though, that it seems to work fine in IE 5.5, so it was some odd bug added just in 6.0.

All of the others Windows browsers that they show work fine except for the "Partners" box that slips to the top of the page on any of them that don't know what min-height means. (But I knew that would happen and it's not all that bad.)

BrowserShots isn't showing what things look like on Mac, but I've just downloaded the Windows version of Safari, so I can now be more confident that what works in IE7 and FireFox 2 is also working in Safari.

But whatever it looks like elsewhere, IE 6 is still the third most popular browser on the site after FireFox 2 and IE 7, so I must deal with this oddity.

[Update -- 11/11:] Looking at the screen shots more closely, I see that IE 5.5's expected box-model problems cause the three images in the feature boxes (under "now in Q" header to wrap. Not many users of that browser any more, but I'll try to fix it with a hidden overflow.

IE 6 issue is fixed by cutting two px off each side of the padding. That puts things a bit too close on the left, however, so I'll see if it works by cutting only two total.

The padding for the center (main content) column was 10px on both sides. I've now changed it to 10px on the left and 7px on the right, which fixes the IE 6 issue on the home page. (I haven't yet tried interior pages, but they all inherit the padding values even when they change the width of that column. I'll have to make sure they're working, however.

The IE 5.5 wrapping issue isn't worth worrying about at this point. Trying to fix it with overflow:hidden and an explicit width on the containing element causes a cascade of issues in IE 7. So, basically, I'll leave it alone. I suspect that those who still use IE 5.5 are accustomed to weird-looking pages.