Implementing a really cool new theme on the site today, a very different look and feel for LowGenius.Net, and hopefully the kind of thing that will increase usability and interest in the site. It’ll also force me to start using more images, since it automatically tries to thumbnail all the articles. Really an excellent theme. I still have to customize it – those aren’t my Google ads – and do a bunch of tweaking…I really dig the transparency thing, and want to play with modifying this theme to use transparent container background and other nifty lil tricks. Change the social bookmarking stuff, add a few bits and pieces here and there. Maybe one day I’ll have time to post something other than myself bitching.
[Edit: One glaring issue I’ve noticed: no search box on the front page. Also, of course, the whole problem with the ads, and no Amazon search, and no PayPal donation links, etc. I’ve a great deal of work to do here, and that’s before I start picking apart all of my other online assets. Wish I had time to get started on it.]
Unfortunately, as usual, I have to go to work in like two hours, I need a shower, and then I’m shot in the butt again for five days. And if I don’t, I’m broke. And of course AGAIN I couldn’t get out to Guitar Center (sorry Shawn) because I have no car of my own and getting a ride is drama and money, one of which I don’t have and the other I absolutely don’t want.
This is driving me absolutely nucking futs. I need cash. Enough cash to get my car legal and keep alive long enough to find a job that DOESN’T suck up my entire life for little to no monetary reward. I don’t HAVE sixty hours a week to drive a damn taxi. I was just hitting a nice stride at thur-fri-saturday nights, my customers knew when I was available, I had enough money coming in to get by on, and things were looking up. Now I’m generally *paying* to work two extra days a week, every damn thing I have is falling apart, my family’s about ready to throw me out on the streets, my health is declining, I need to see a doctor – and a lawyer – about the lingering back injury I suffered being rear-ended in an UNINSURED (unbeknownst to me) taxi courtesy of Kay’s and I don’t have time for THAT, every time I leave my room I feel like I’m intruding and every time I stay in it I feel like I’m intruding, and I can’t get the time or energy to do anything but sleep and drive and if I’m really lucky about once a week I make time to shower and use the commode.
I’ve told my bosses this repeatedly, and they keep scheduling me. Not enough warm bodies, well I guess you’ll just have to eat it. And if I don’t come in, I get written up and eventually fired. If I call in sick, I get told that I can’t be spared. Sorry, bud, guess you’ll just have to take the short end of the stick this time.
No.
And no.
I’ve had it up to my ever-loving eyeballs with being the guy who cheerfully takes one for the team. The team isn’t doing jack shit for me, never has, and never will. Every “team” I’ve ever been on has been a “team” of people leaning on me to work miracles and then inviting me to find a new team when I stop, all the while treating me like I’m a blithering idiot, a curious new toy, or a two-headed kitten – something to be marveled at and if possible exploited, until it is forgotten and discarded. It’s constantly bear with us until and wait until this happens and wait until that happens and in the meantime my g-ddamned life is going by faster and faster and things aren’t getting done that need doing, and it’s frustrating as hell and I’m sick of it. I’m sleeping on a bathtowel over a thin carpet on a concrete floor in a room I’m borrowing and should have been able to get out of months ago, except I keep playing nice guy and I keep holding off and trying to do the right thing and trying to make sure everyone’s ass is covered and in the mean time mine is hanging out in the wind. I’ve lost a half-dozen domains, closed my web design business, and am barely making the payments to keep this site online, but I’m bumming smokes out to people I work for and pulling 24-hour shifts to come home without enough cash to live through three days not working.
The worst part is that I’m on a huge creative burst right now – I can’t tear myself away from playing with this new layout long enough to get ready for work – and all that energy is going to be wasted because I won’t have time to do anything productive with it before I have to leave for another 60+ hour week. If I’m really, really lucky I’ll average $3 an hour take-home and have $20 left over next Tuesday morning to keep me going for another two days off and then do it all over again.
Is my current situation far better than the situations others are in? Of course. It’s certainly better than sleeping in my van in a Wal-Mart parking lot in northern California, I can tell you that.
But “better” is not “good,” let alone good enough. I’ve got things to do and reasons to do them and I really believe I can help put a whole lot of people back to work and my hometown back on the map – permanently this time – but I’m not going to do it by continuing to be the hamster in someone else’s cage.
I have things to do.
Anyway, this wasn’t intended to be another bitch session but it is. C’est la vie. Let me know what you think of the new layout, and hopefully I’ll find time to improve on the basic design soon.
Best,
-jh