welcome

Welcome to fixed address, your source for all the latest information on our cross-continental adventures.

The site is just barely, ever so tentatively taking its first wee steps into being. Right now I'm plodding along working on the basic layout of the site and damn is it ever taking a loooong time. I started out figuring I'd set this up on Dreamweaver, but then after going through the rigamarole of buying the name of the site, and then getting a host (having compared, like, oh 6 of the top hosts of all time and having, like, no idea what I was looking for), and having found out that the host had free downloadable Word Press (a blog software) I decided I'd try that out.

Strike 1. I had thought, ooh, goody, a blog program would have a bazillion and one templates to choose from, and all I'd have to do is start typing away and ta dah it would all be exactly as I wanted. Nope. They had ONE template, and it was an ugly one at that. And then I didn't really want to have to learn ALL their programming just to layout my site. Yah, of course, maybe I'm wrong, but so it appeared to me, and after forcing Phet to help me download all the files and orgamize everything, I thought, ah, better do this an easier way.

So, I tried to figure out Movable Type.

That turned out to be Strike 2. The files were STUPENDOUSLY hard to download, and the list of instructions were, omigod, about 4000 lines long. Like, I have a busy life. I don't have time to reset all the signals and bylines and doodads on a program I can't even preview! But we perservered and Phet finally -- after, oh, about 5 hours of work, this after his usual 12 hour long day plogging away at his own work on the computer -- got the files onto the host. I tried signing in, but the login failed. And failed. And failed again. About 15 times. Phet re-set everything, but to no avail. The next day we tried again. Natch. Zero.

This is when I start thinking to meself, hm, self, how about just EMAILING. Poor Ji, I had barely looked at him for a week, let alone had any fun or in-depth discussions with him about chicken gizzards or the likelihood of death by dengue. But no: I would NOT give up. Not me.

Back to Dreamweaver. I'd used Dreamweaver back in the days of yore at UN Volunteers and under Phet's rigorous tutelage (very similar to what Uma went through the Kung Fu instructor in Kill Bill 2: painful, challenging, but ulimately equipping me with the ability to stop the heart of a living website). We've bought ourselves the latest knockoff, and it is pretty handy dandy.

Last night I spent about 6 hours putting together a basic (even basicker than this!) site, and although there were some snags, it looked pretty cool. Phet helped me put it online. Huzzah us, right? Oh no, not so fast. I checked the site out from the school's computer this morning and GACK: all colours wrong! The nice beige was highlighter yellow! The cool brown was poopy! And all the buttons were splorged way out of proportion. My site was leperous. Strike 3.

Now, as y'all know, I am a stubborn and pig headed person who must ALWAYS BE RIGHT. No way would I admit that my enterprise had been foolishly undertaken. I sucked it up and went back to the begining.

So: after something like NINETY TRILLION person-hours of work, I have accomplished this and this only! A nice table and now finally something inside it. Do stay tuned for more. I assure you, I gaaarawwnteee there will be more. Oh yes. Planned upcoming items include: all the party info you could want on the countryside page, Phet's tales from Tehran in on the road, Ji's latest utterances here on page one, and some prime retro stories in all the other sections. Bear with me, and please, please drop me a line with advice or comments. I am now refusing to deal with any colour-related issues until the pages are fleshed out a bit more, but let me know about font readability and navigation (once there's actually something to navigate!).

Naturally there will one day be photo albums and nice little logos and trimmings. All good things come to those who wait, right? [Bangkok-27-May-2005]