Tadd Mencer

Ok, I decided to put on the brave face and update my WordPress installation. I was running 2.3.3 pretty nicely and was really worried my plugins wouldn’t work and I would lost all the ‘work’ I put into this site. But, so far - it’s still running nicely. I have to say the admin area is smoother than I anticipated. They dropped some of the ugliness of the previous design. I’m pretty happy with that.

I need to get used to this admin.

All in all I think it’s pretty nice. I’m not entirely sure what the point of the upgrade was for, but hey, I’m on it and rockin it now. All plugs are working and all is well in Tadd land.

So I had a meeting yesterday with a co-worker who is an artist type. We have a slew in common and a really cool guy. We regularly play Call of Duty 4 on the XBox 360 (booo hisss!!) and it’s a good time.

At any rate, we talked about projects that we’re both working on or would like to start working on. He mentioned some that would be totally awesome working on and I mentioned my big story I’ve been kicking around for nearly a year now in my head.

He was extremely excited about my story and we’re going to start working on it to get something rolling! I’m really stoked about it. Things are looking up in that aspect. He and I both will be learning Blender because we would like this to really embrace the open source community. Probably use PhotoShop later for the layout and effects - but otherwise we’re rockin’ Blender.  It will really be fun. We already collaborated on a sketch I started earlier today and he really fleshed it out and we talked about movements and reasons for this or that part of the beast. I won’t go into too much detail but if we can get this project rolling it’s going to REALLY kick some major butt. The title will be unleashed when time comes.

So yeah, just wanted to e-squeal in delight. I’m happy about it.

Got a nice happy cold though. YAY!

Smashing Magazine has been the single greatest find for me in a while. It always has great, inspiring posts and articles. Their theme posts are never tiresome. There are some amazing looking themes in these.

• 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes
  
• 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes
  
• 21 Fresh, Usable and Elegant Themes
  
• 10 Fresh and Clean Themes
• 20 More Free First-Class WordPress Themes

Also check out Weblog Tools Collection, who regularly post some new themes. Some are outstanding! The most recent post has some really nice layouts available.

You can find free themes all over the internet. Some are really good themes. Others are … well, let us say that there are some that are not so good.

To end the post, let me give you a slew of links to check out for your WordPress themes need. I haven’t dug through these links, so I appologize if there is anything … questionable … within.

• WordPress Themes That Don’t Suck
• BlogPerfume WordPress Themes
• 48 SEO WordPress Themes
• Skinpress.com
• WPDesigner.com
• Clazh.com
• Best WordPress Magazine Themes
• ScribbleScratch.com
• Photoblog Themes

So, here I am - reading some of the headlines via MSN and low and behold this gem jumps out at me:
“McDonald’s wrapper  trips NFLer”

I was like, “What!?” imagining some food paper floating into the stadium and a football player tripping on it. Which, in itself would be silly and not really worth reporting.

However, the news article from FOX Sports said:

The physical Denver wide out will have his arm in a cast for at least two weeks after slipping on a fast food wrapper, NFL.com reported. When he slipped, Marshall reached his arm out to brace his fall and it went through a TV entertainment center. That injury required stitches.

So, apparently if you’re a rich NFL player you get in the news for being a clumsy idiot and tripping over the crap all over your floor and falling into a television. I’m extremely clumsy and fall all the time, but I don’t make headlines.

“So for the next couple of days I’m going to take the time to build my confidence back up after allowing that McDonalds bag to take me down and send me through the entertainment center.”

14-16 hours in the car total, 4 state borders (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York) and barely any sleep will adequately describe my weekend.

We decided to visit my grandmother, who is terminal with cancers (many many cancers). She will probably be with the Lord within a month if that so we felt it would be wise to take this opportunity to go see her before it is too late. Both for her sake and my own.

So we packed up the Taurus on Friday and headed on out. It was a fairly uneventful trip and really it was nice to see family. My grandmother did not look like my grandmother and slept the entire time we were in the room. She’s in one of those … places. Not a hospital, not a retirement home. Elderly are put there basically to die I believe.

My family is taking it extremely well. Joking and laughing and such … it was both refreshing and oddly disturbing to me. I’m sure it’s my own stigma about death that made it disturbing … respecting those who are passing and all that jazz. However, they seemed happy to see me and I was happy to see them.

On my way home a movie quote came to mind.

“Death is only the beginning.” Imhotep - The Mummy

I have fond memories of my grandmother. She enjoyed painting and I have some art of hers. She was also a tough old bird and regaled stories about the old days such as duct taping a severed finger rather than going to the hospital … yes, true story.

I’ll miss her much and I wish I could have told her that I love her … but she slept. I hope she will know that we came out to see her.