Pure Nerd
You scored higher than 99% on Nerdiness.
95 % Nerd, 21% Geek, 17% Dork

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally
smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up
all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer.
Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more
so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be
replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Thanks Again!

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

I spoke with a new guy, yesterday. A roofing guy… what letter am I on now? H? Anyhoo, Mr. H_ was a lovely, jolly man with a florid face who patted Butch when approached, openly admired the garden and giddily helped himself to Sungold 100s when invited. I suppose if I had been pressed for time, I might have been annoyed that he wasn’t all business, but after the string of all-business folks I have met I found the small talk about gardens and the appeal of older homes refreshing.

But, I digress. The purpose of this post is to mention that this fellow, Mr. H_, felt that our gutters looked fine and would not need replacing because the roofers could work around them fairly easily. Any extra time it would take to work around them would be less costly than the cost of new gutters. Hurrah! One less contractor I have to accomodate and research! I have a feeling that this roofer will be THE ONE, though I have requested bids from 3 others to be certain. Mr. H_ recommends Mr. I_ (see below) who, previously, recommended Mr. H_. There seems to be so much quid pro quo in the contracting business…

So, yes, I also met with Mr. I_, the day before last. He is a painter and also a remodeler who could potentially serve as a general contractor. I would be so happy to let someone else organize the elaborate dance that will need to happen between strippers and carpenters and painters. The current plan (have I mentioned this already?) is that we will get the roof taken care of this fall and then do the painting and stripping in the spring. There is usually a mysterious week or two in February when the temperature approaches 70º and confuses the flora and pdx populace. My hope is that a general contractor could strike while the iron is hot and coordinate the stripping, etc. during a time that is generally considered to be the off-season for exterior work (read: cheaper). By the way, Mr. I_ recommends Mr. C_ for stripping.

So, this has been my summer of post-graduate soul searching… What do I really want to do? While in school I was adamant about not wanting to get stuck doing web stuff after graduation. I wanted to design tangible, holdable things. However, it became clear at school that I had an advantage over most design folks when it came to easily comprehending software and technical issues. And what do I now find myself doing? So far this summer, I have installed Wordpress four times (for myself and others — for fun, heh!) and installed MYSQL on my home machine in order be able to serve and test WordPress locally. I am now researching sendmail on OS X so I can test cgi scripts locally (I want to be able to send formatted email via a web form, for example). I spent 3 solid weeks immersed in PHP, a language I had no familiarity with, and CSS positioning (for which I had only a passing famliarity) creating my identity-based WordPress template for www.abbylarsen.com. Yesterday I spent waaaaay to much time in PHP scripting land… Uh. For those of you who don’ t know what I’m talking about I’ll translate: Geek, Geek, Geek.

Sigh.

In my defense, I have involved myself in a number of artsy, craftsy, hands-on things, too — I’ve taken a marbling class, completed a couple of beading projects, sewn a skirt, and made an illustrative logo of which I am quite proud. I just wish I could figure out which skills would fulfill me most when employed to make a living. Economically, it’s a no brainer. The technical bits of me will always be in higher demand and, correct me if I’m wrong, technical skills are more lucrative (because they are more tangible?) than artistic ones. So, I suppose it is no mystery why I ended up in web design before — it seems the best way to marry the two. But I should also thank Mr. Guy for the sexy new computer. None of this time spent bathing in phosphors would have been as engaging if my computer didn’t KICK ASS.

Anyhoo, back to my OS X web/mail server setup…

I just completed a coat of arms on scratchboard for The College of Mythic Cartography. Check it out!

I fear that I have become a really boring conversationalist as of late due to my being so fully immersed in this topic. This will be of little/no interest to many folks - but if you are faced with painting you might glean something of use. If nothing else, this seems a good way to keep track of the project. Actual names have been omitted, but recommendations can be solicited from me.

The story so far:
Summer 2005 – The paint is falling off of our house in chunks. The gutters are sagging horribly because the wood to which they are attached is probably rotten. Mr. Guy and I reasonably suppose that we need to have the house repainted. We figure that when we have the house repainted we will have the gutters fixed simultaneously, some rotten window sills replaced and all will be dandy.

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