Brilla.org

I worked at Jefferson National several winters and summers during school breaks in the past couple years. Recently, JeffNat launched their tax deferral comparison calculator — and just in time, too. A week ago, The Courier-Journal ran a great article on the company’s recent success.

I spent a lot of time on this project during my tenure at JeffNat. My efforts here were mostly in design and the business side of development. Originally, the calculator was presented to me as an elaborate Excel file, which needed to be translated into something more web- and user-friendly. Once these plans were laid, it was presentation time: Powerpoints and conference calls abound. Lucky me, the higher-ups would instantly recognize greatness when they see it.

From there, I crafted the inputs page to be intuitive and easy-to-use. I added a healthy dose of DOM-savvy JavaScript to validate the user’s data client-side. Try changing Portfolio Type to Custom, and enter some of your own numbers, you’ll see what I mean.

This is the second tier of Monument Advisor Xpress, the first being their annuity comparison tool. I contributed a good bit to this project as well, but also borrowed lots of elements of it for the tax deferral tool.

Admittedly, my work stands on the shoulders of giants: the Oracle & ColdFusion brilliance of Frank Wheatley and the gorgeous styles and copy by notorious ladies man Mark Forman. While it was me that coded other nice features, like the Print/Edit/Email buttons, it was entirely Mark’s genius thinking and Frank’s coding methodology that enabled such. Generous tip of the hat in their direction.

And uh.. I am no financial adviser, but from what I hear, Monument Advisor ain’t too shabby if you’re in the market for a nice annuity ;D

On the side, apologies to my visitors for the recent blankouts on here. Somewhere I’ve got a bug in my PHP that causes WordPress to run to the corner and cry. Perfect timing, too, after I’ve been showering it with praises for the past week. Talk about misbehaving in front of guests…

It’s time. It’s long been time.

I installed MovableType long ago to try something different. WordPress was something I’d used several times in the past, and generally happy with, but eager to really be wowed by something else. Plenty of sites I read use MT. Perhaps the old, more established Perl engine knew a thing or two WordPress didn’t.

Reminds me of the age old argument of Linux over Windows — XP Professional still runs on my primary computer if that tells you anything.

And it was fairly powerful, but sometimes easy things seemed more difficult than they had to be. Adding elements to the sidebar. Disabling your stylesheet for a day. It felt like MT was capable of much more than I cared to learn how to do.

So I dumped it to try out the new WordPress. Man. Talk about having power at your fingertips. Most everything has a template tag making it easy-yet-customizable to do your every bidding. Simple, semantic tags like wp_get_posts() make templating a breeze. The recent facelift for the Administrative Panel smoothed a lot of the sometimes awkward edges in running your site.

I’m also glad to be coding Brilla in PHP again. I still consider this site something of a hobby rather than a professional portfolio (though that’s slated to change before too long). So being able to learn so much in a “fun” environment provokes challenge and curiosity, rather than stress in deadlines and just getting it done. I can then take this knowledge and apply it to my jobs and gigs. We’ve installed WP on a number of sites at work, and I’m never looking back.

The layout could use some work, but it will suffice for now. Other recent additions to this site include sIFR, Twitter integration, and some other knick-knacks on the way.

Two weeks til finals! Oh man.. I’ll be home this weekend, Louisville.

Do not adjust your browser: today we celebrate CSS Naked Day (Yeah I know; I just got the memo earlier today, myself. Tip of the hat to the Baconator). We shed our stylesheets and show there’s some utilitiarian beauty beneath that stylish hood we all love to gawk at. Mine is currently Movable Type; I’ll be switching to the new WordPress 2.5 soon.

Beauty and brains. Excellent.

The mere fact that this holiday exists is a sign of a great victory for web standards. 2008 being its third year running is certainly cause for celebration.

Yay for standards. Thank you, Mr. Zeldman.

Dear <$name>,

I will be out of my office from Friday, March 14th until next Saturday, the 22nd. I’ll be spending my spring break on the gorgeous white beaches of the Gulf Coast.

Your email has been forwarded to no one. I don’t have a Blackberry. In case of emergency, you may reach me by mobile phone if it isn’t buried under twelve feet of sand.

If it seems like I’ve been on vacay for a while now, it’s because blogging has been shifted to the backburner. I’ve been busy hatching little PHP minions at the foundry, and finding gainful employment to occupy my time after graduation. These times are becoming more stressful than busy, per se which should be remedied by some time away from my LCD screen.

I’ve built lots and hope to share it with the world soon. See you on the other side of the ides of March!

Jon

Below is a paper I wrote several semesters back for my telecomm class. Our task was to pick a topic in the book — my case, of course, web design — and extend it. Half of it (well, my favorite half) deals with the philosophy of the web, and trying to tame a beast as wild & woolly beast as the Internet. It’s good for anyone who’s familiar with the web, HTML and things, but wants to know some of the inner-workings of the tubes. It also features probably my best crafted metaphor to date.

It’s a short read; four pages. I’ll get a HTML version up here soon.

DoingWebDesignWell.doc (108kb)

Today was another milestone in the quest for graduation. My final meeting with my academic counselor.

These should be terrifying times. I can’t wait! I love this place and would never think to wish my time away, but the prospect of the real world sounds way more fulfilling than the academic bubble. No more quizzes. Assignments. Papers to write. It’s the real thing, no more practice rounds. I’ve been dying for the chance (and frankly, the time) to apply my knowledge to something “real.” We got a taste of it last semester with all my projects, and I get morsels of it at work, but I’m ready to do a face-first swan dive into this web development stuff.

So that’s it. Left on my plate are the final responsibilities for me between now and May 10th:

1. Make the grades — D for Diploma Kidding, mom :D Fun fact, Johnny could rock a 2.5 this semester and still graduate cum laude. Awful tempting…
2. Savor every last drop of the Auburn Experience There’s still so much of it I haven’t seen, or even heard of. In two months, the dream expires. Enjoy it.
3. Find a job. I’m still on the hunt. Not too late to put your name in the hat…

It has absolutely FLOWN by. And it’s only going quicker by the day.

I love my logic. I can’t think of anything ever that was illogical. Even if it was really really stupid, it’s logic that makes up the giant mechanical gears that keep the Earth spinning.

So naturally when I came across this curious quote, I tried to logic it out (I would). Analyzed it. Which is exactly the reason this quote disagreed with me for a while.

I get it now. Sure… clever, calculated quips make for good comebacks and have great comedic value. But what is so much funnier is the things we don’t think about. Didn’t even mean to say; they just slipped out, like a little toot when we laugh too hard. Those natural reactions are so gruesomely genuine and such a fruitful breeding ground for comedy, creativity,… anything.

This also parallels with an old Camus quote I stayed hung up on from high school:

“You cannot create experience; you must undergo it.”

It’s like that old analogy of learning to ride a bike. You can read about it. Your daddy can tell you what that bike’s gonna be like. But until you sit up on that spongy seat and man those wobbly handlebars yourself, you’re not going to have a clue. You can’t think about not thinking, you just gotta not think! (Not unlike the game).

So that’s it. Don’t think, just do. Several connections later, I hereby declare war on logic. You won’t get it until you get it. And then you’ll get it :D

I wonder if this is what Al Gore was talking about.

The date is February 13th.

Several weeks into the new year, and high time for folks to cash in on those resolutions to get skinny again.
Spring break is just around the corner, after all.

Every third commercial is about getting healthy. Bally Total Fitness. Dan Marino eating healthy again. Have you called Jenny? Bowflex success stories. The Navy Seal-inspired Perfect Pushup. Even Subway’s trying to cash in again with a pat-on-the-back for creepy Jared.

I seem to remember a big romantic holiday just around the corner, too. Enter the bow-and-arrow-wielding cherubs.

So every second commercial is about love. It’s okay to look. Married couples from eHarmony talking about how natural it was to kiss a complete stranger for the first time. Every kiss begins with Kay. Other ads insisting you better get your lady some Russell Stover, or she’ll leave you for another bum who will.

(Lest we forget, chocoholics, that spring break is just around the corner. That’ll be my excuse)

And of course, for capital-minded men like myself, two months out is judgement day. Tax day.

Making every first commercial about doing your taxes. And except for the fat guy wearing his tax return suit of money, these commercials are unremarkable. But I am happy that H&R feels so threatened by tax software, they have to make an ad slamming “the box.” This I consider another incremental victory against the Man and his archaic institution of filing taxes.

It’s like when hate mail showed up in your inbox for the very first time. You know you’ve made it.

I can’t be an alumnus of Hugh Guffey’s marketing class and say I’m surprised to see these ads so frequently this time of year. But some of the content of them, it’s a little sickening how much they play on the fears and insecurities of consumers. I begin to wonder how many people pick up on the manipulation at work.

Then I begin to wonder why I started watching television again. :D

I am horrible at writing fiction. Always have been.

Back in grade school, fiction writing was always wide open. Any topic. Any characters. No rules. You were bound only by your imagination (which is a very big and scary space for some of us).

It was too much creative anarchy. I need a few rules. Like the rules for the 48 Hour Film Project: perfect. My paper doesn’t NEED lines and my jokes surely don’t have to make sense. But music without a beat is like running for miles in the middle of an ever-expanding desert. When do you quit? Where are you going? How do you find your way back to your car once you’re worn out?

How do you build something out of nothing? Heck, even MacGyver needs his paperclips, coconuts and things.

I bring up fiction because it’s beginning to parallel with my work in web design. I’m losing my touch. That voice in my head heckles everything I do. Every layout feels so cliche, or ugly or uninspired. From an information architecture/user interface standpoint, my designs are still organized and usable, but aesthetically, the art and colors are all complete crap.

Am I retiring? Probably not, I love it too much. I’m focusing more on development, or even being an interface guru or something slick like that. But if my life depended on it, I could still churn out a decent layout. Decent would be great.

Am I putting too much pressure on my new design job at work to turn everything around for me? Likely so.

Am I glad I didn’t stick with graphic design? Oh absolutely.

$2.23 Two dollars and twenty-three cents. All the liquid cash I have in the world right now. I have some money tied up in stocks, and of course a few debtors to hassle, but as it stands I am seriously broke.

Briefly, now. Poor College Kid’s Guide to Eating Cheap! Broken down into three sources.

1. Friends

   There’s always a friend with a padded wallet and a generous heart, willing to throw you a warm meal. Keep in mind, you owe this person big. That means you gotta be the one to stand up to get his Coke refill. Also, be ready to whip up your best conversation, and remember to get their dinner next time it comes around.

2. Strangers

   In a college town, there’s always a free dinner going on. Church groups, student political organizations, honor societies, someone is always serving food, and wishing terribly that any starving student would come rid them of their sandwiches and casseroles. Look around. I know a friend who went without buying food for two whole weeks making friends at different organizations.

3. Strangers with candy

   Rod (my father) really only stressed one piece of advice when I went off to college: Do not get a credit card. He described to me in gruesome detail the path of financial ruin followed by those who signed up for credit cards. Then come the high interest rates and the nasty phone calls and bad credit scores. It’s a mess.But! Often times, you can find offers for free things if you’ll just sign up for one little credit card. I’ve cashed in at Pita Pit, Wendy’s, and Domino’s. I even walked away from Home Depot with a sweet set of tools for the apartment. So if you see someone standing awkwardly in your path to a nearby restaurant, clipboard in hand, take them up on it. The key is to remember to CANCEL THE CREDIT CARD. It will show up at your house a week later. Call the 800 number and cancel it. Send that plastic card down the garbage disposal, or hold near open flame to induce melting. Laugh maniacally if the impulse hits.

   Also with this source comes a certain air of satisfaction, having stuck it to the Man. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back. That Wendy’s never tasted so good, did it? That’s right it didn’t!

At the end of the tunnel, there is some light shining. The good news is that debtors will soon cash in. Additionally, I got two part-time jobs yesterday. AeroWire needed someone to tweak their web site, and I said “sign me up!” I also picked up my my tenure at The Plainsman as ever-cranky Design Editor. It pays pretty bad, but the people are nice enough, and I enjoy the creative outlet a good deal. Annnnnd I’m doing some SEO for a certain convenience store equipment company. Hah :D

This weekend, I head back to bluegrass country to talk some more about getting one of those real jobs. You know, with their salaries, hawaiian shirt days, and in-house massage parlors.

They don’t have those? Damn. Maybe I should work at a spa instead.