I'm back from Vegas. There is, of course, much to report, but you'll just have to wait. No, we didn't get married. Oh, but that's an important point: The Pennsylvania wedding will be August 18, not 25.

Fred, it occurs to me that I probably haven't informally invited you yet. That's not deliberate; I'm just flakey. No official invites have been sent yet (which is good, since we just changed the date yesterday). So, August 18, 2pm, in Nazareth, PA, which is near Allentown. Anyone who's flying should attempt to arrive at ABE (Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton), which changed its name to LVI (Lehigh Valley International) but can't get the travel agents and the airlines to acknowledge the change. Is there anyone else I haven't mentioned this to? Let me know, so I can get an accurate head-count. (This list has the potential to expand exponentially. Gad, weddings are tough. I'm only doing this once. ...er, well, okay, twice: once in PA and once in TX. But then, that's it.)

I am so there already. I can't wait to leave for Vegas. I've just got a few keep-the-lights-on-while-I'm-gone items at work, and it's rather hard to focus on them. I'm ready to be on a plane (except for having all our ICP stuff and website ready and packing).

Giddy with my own power

Holy cow. Okay, so I'm trying to develop an enhancement to an application that needs too many bug fixes to allow me to develop on it. I finally wrote an email to my business partner (the customer, representing the users), the program manager (tracker of projects and resources (like, me)), and my manager, laying out the state of the app when I came on the scene (CYA, since it was broken when I got here) and asking for a prioritization decision: Build the enhancement or fix the bugs; pick one.

Then I hid under my desk.

But my business partner, who is clearly the most reasonable person on the planet, decided to go with my third proposal: Stop this nonsense and build the thing right in the first place.

Let me just state that again for clarity: Take the time to do it right.

I did a Snoopy-dance and then sat down to sass out how long that would take. I get to first define all the steps, and then, then, decide how long those steps should take. I'm in programmer heaven.

Hey, Tameka (and anybody else). You can add comments to a post by clicking on the little spiders at the bottom of the post in question. Go on, say sumthin'.

And now... back to the continuing adventures of Useless Girl

Ever have one of those days when you just can't focus? I'd been in high-stress overdrive all last week (hence, no posts), but I got the work done and eased the next deadline. I still have an unaccomplishable amount of work to do, and I think that's what's keeping me from focusing.

I'm having more adventures with PHP and MySQL. I'm creating a wedding registry app (for my own wedding, of course. Somehow, I've convinced myself that hand-calligraphying all the invitations is ridiculous, yet I feel compelled to write a multi-tier web app. Welcome to my insanity.), and I've created most of the database tables and populated some of them. It's fun, though I have to learn more PHP before I can make it actually do anything. At work, I haven't gotten to make an app from scratch, so this is both good practice and excellent resume fodder.

Invisible City is takin' it on the road next week: We're going to Vegas! The GAMA Trade Show is a gaming industry convention for Anybody Who's Anybody in game manufacturing. We're gonna hand out business cards, distribute the meme, and learn how to talk the lingo.

And who knows? We might go visit an Elvis chapel...

Alrighty, I acknowledge it's time to get a new poll up. Based on responses to my Valentine's Day poll, I have concluded that the majority of my readers are gettin' some. Ten out of 18 indicated that Valentine's Day means to them chocolate and smooches (woo hoo!). After that, the cynics outweighed the free-lovers, three to one. ("VD Day, right..." got two votes and "Fabricated by retailers" got four, while only two opted for "Let's hug everybody today!")

So, let's pick something less timely this time, so I can leave it up longer before it gets so obviously stale.

Everyone should have the chance to make a difference in a little kid's life—especially about reading. I love tutoring my little friend! I highly recommend this kind of volunteer work. I've found reading programs through the library and through a local elementary school. You might ask at church, too.

Go out. Read to small people. Feel warm and fuzzy. Justify your education!

Best kept secret: Goodwill has big shoes! I got the sassiest pair of strappy blue heels. They are totally Modacious. They are killing my feet and spine, but, dammit, they look good.