It’s Thursday again, so I guess that means it’s time for another weekly update. Yeah, why the heck not?

If you are assisting me in checking out the new setup and format for the business site, please be patient. I have another wedding this weekend, then I’m off of weddings for a month, but right smack dab in the middle of that is our High School soccer tournament and I’ll be out of town for three days. With all the shenanigans that took place this summer, I am thus still going to be in a bit of crunch finishing client proof sites and album design. And since I’m behind, the likelihood of pre-Thanksgiving (and certainly pre-Christmas) print orders is very high as well. So, just please bear with me. As much as I liked the work the young lady in Germany did for us, I’m going to use that template for the fine-art site (synthaetica) because I can afford for it to be that ‘edgy’ but not the business site. I would gladly pay her more money to finalize the business site, but I don’t even need to ask the Spouse Unit whether or not she would come unglued if I did so. As a result, I am slowly hand-tweaking one of the more elegant wordpress templates (hemingwayEX, if you’re interested) to meet our needs (which basically means more imagery) for the business site—something I was desperately trying to avoid in the first place, but we all know what my karma is like, so go figure. I am currently stuck on having a background div semi-transparent but the overlay (content) div fully opaque, is the trouble I’m having. it’s probably something simple, but after working on it for several hours, I gave up, and I really shouldn’t have spent that long on it to begin with.

I made some formative changes behind-the-scenes to the otherwhirled over the past couple of days as well. They’re little things. First, I finally found the Sociable plugin (i didn’t know what it’s called, and these plugin developers do a relatively crappy job of describing what their plugins do, so finding the right one ultimately requires a lot of clicking and a lot of reading that a responsible person doesn’t really have the time to give to it). Anyway, I found it and got it installed, only to discover that the pHp call to the html header information needed to be in the header.php file, which is not how the theme I’m using over there works. So, I had to tweak the index.php and and the header.php files to make them compatible with Sociable. Luckily, that worked on the first swipe. I also changed my post template over there so that photo credits would appear directly below the photos, which is a relatively common expectation. I also added the Earth As Art gadget to both blogs, partly because I think it’s cool, and partly because the Spouse Unit had something to do with it. It changes with every page load, and it’s pretty easy to add to your own site as well, which I recommend doing, because, isn’t it rather nice to see our government doing something beneficial for the public for once? I think so.

No technological changes (except for the Earth As Art thing) over here for the time-being. Bigger fish to fry. Glub-glub. Sizzle.

I had a wedding last Saturday morning up in Brookings. I mentioned this in that other blog, but that’s not the place to go into detail on what is essentially personal stuff. I started off the morning, after the drive to Brookings, with coffee at Cottonwood Coffee with Rachel (tramplingrose) and her husband Jay (who I assumed is the trampled rose). Here’s a funny thing. Run this Google search and notice that Cottonwood Coffee is outclassed in search statistics by one of its own employees. Pretty funny. Said employee wasn’t there that morning, though, much to her personal sadness at not having been able to meet me, I’m sure. Anyway, Rachel and Jay and I had a nice conversation which ranged from blogging to family (with a smile) to family (with a wry grin) to work. I only had about an hour to spend with them, but would have enjoyed more time. They be nice people, and it was very enjoyable to get to know the personality behind tramplingrose, whom I’ve been reading pretty much since she started blogging.

After that, it was off to shoot me some wedding people over at First Lutheran Church. As I was driving up to it, I quickly understood why the locals refer to the church as “Touchdown Jesus”. Jesus Christ on a football, that’s a hell of a religious mural, isn’t it? (My apologies to all those I just offended, but you should have known to expect this from me by now). The church is a lot more boring on the inside, and dark, too. Ceremony pictures were kind of tough to pull off, but the portraits were done early enough that the sunlight coming through the east windows was a big help. The wedding went well, if a bit longer than expected (go figure), and I wish Kyleigh and John the very best. Sorry I’m a bit behind on proofs processing, kids.

If I’m not mistaken, that’s the first time I’ve ever linked to a church website before. My good deed for the day, I guess. I have to admit it’s kind of a cool place, and it was very nice that they have that mission coffeehouse there (eek….I did it again, no less!) , especially since I didn’t plan ahead for lunch despite the fact that we were doing portraits over the lunch hour. The sandwich and smoothie that I got there were quite yummy.

Back to the technical side of things, with all the links in this post, you may notice something that I do as a standard because I’m still kind of a geek at heart. Links to images will always open in the same window or tab (depending on your browser configuration), no matter what post or page they’re linked from. Links to websites or blog home pages open in their own window or tab, links to specific internal web pages or posts open in their own window or tab, and links between my blogs and websites keep to their own tab or window as well. This should help keep your browser clutter and open tabs to a minimum. If you don’t like that, just Ctrl-click (Command-click for you Macintosh nerds) the link and it’ll always open in a unique tab or window. I do that across all my blogs, by the way, and I’m trying to write a plugin that will handle uniquely-named tabs or windows for the blogroll links as well. Anyway, take it or leave it, that’s how I do it, because I absolutely hate having a bazillion tabs open at once, especially for something that I look at once and then don’t return to.

It’s nineteen days until I can contact the Elder and Unknown directly. I’m still undecided on what to do there, but the consensus from my personal friends is that I should just call her. I dunno about that, because I don’t know what would be a good time for her, and I don’t want to freak her out. Maybe I’ll ask the Spouse Unit to ask her. Pfft. I just don’t know. There’s not really a need to push, either.

I have not had a good summer and early fall. Not that I mean to complain, or even excuse myself. I’m behind on work, I’m behind on some personal goals, and there were some projects that #1 Son and I had intended to complete this summer, and here it is a week after the first frost, and not only are those projects not finished, but they were never begun. Naturally, I beat myself up over this virtually all day every day, but I’ll get over it.

One of the reasons I feel like I’m riding the fine line between depression and simple angst is because I’m continually tired. I’m in pretty good physical shape (heck, thanks to taking up TaeKwonDo last winter with #1 Son, I’m in much better shape today than I was last December), but we simply don’t have enough referees out here to cover all the soccer games that are going on. As one of the instructors, I’m going to have to help come up with a way to curtail our attrition and to recruit more adults into serving The Game. For the past several weeks, I’ve averaged 13 or 14 games every six days, and most of those being High School or Men’s League.

Eh. Waaaah. I’m tired, go figure. Sorry, I don’t mean to whine. But it’s somewhat relevant to everything else that’s going on. Try as I may to get enough sleep, eat right, and stretch before and after games, I’m still getting up tired each morning. It’ll thankfully be over in a few more weeks, but in the meantime, I worry about what I’m doing to my liver with so much ibuprofen in my system, heh.

I’ve got another wedding to shoot tomorrow, and I get to meet the Power and Influence behind tramplingrose first, which is kind of cool. We’re going to do coffee together before I head over to “Touchdown Jesus” to shoot the wedding. In my previous visits to Brookings, SD, I don’t recall having seen this particular church, so I’ll make sure to get a good shot of it for all my photoshoppy friends to play with.
Which reminds me, I guess I better make sure all the camera batteries are fully charged.

I’m sorry I haven’t gotten more kitten photos uploaded. They sure are growing fast. It’s pretty hard to shoot ‘em playing when there’s not someone else around to keep them somewhat together and focused, and they have, for the most part, taken the fine advice of the older cats and pretty much snooze when it’s only me around. And in the evenings, as you know, I’m usually out refereeing, often with #1 Son, and it’s even harder to shoot then, heh.

I’m hoping that come the end of October, I’ll essentially be caught up on everything and moving forward again with some of my personal goals, which include the redo of our business site, and finishing some metaphysical studies. I really do want to incorporate the metaphysical stuff up here to a greater degree. It’s not quite what most people think it is. I’m certainly by no means one of those overtly-esoteric patchouli-smelling who does little more than philosophize on everything to the abject ignorance of reality, but I do find some interesting insights to the world we live in and life in general that aren’t really found by other means.

The photograph is from late last January, the morning after an overnight storm which rimed all the trees and plants from the south (left). I always get in these kind of moods before winter.

Anyway, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, do it well. Peace to you all.

Yesterday marked one month until I can legally talk to the Elder and Unknown, although I will ‘do the right thing’ and leave it up to her to contact me.

Only a month, already. Time has flown by this summer.

Although this is on my mind quite a bit, I haven’t written about it much in recent months, because there is, ultimately, little worth in worrying about it, obsessing about it, or in many ways even planning for it, because things rarely go as planned anyway, and I honestly possess no expectations. As far as negative potentials go, it may well be that our religious differences will limit our ability to communicate effectively, or that the distance will limit us to little more than cursory interaction. But, we’ll be here for her however she wants or needs, and even getting to know her a little bit over the past year or so has been more than I felt I had the right to hope for as it is.

We have planned for this time for several years, including making sure that #1 Daughter and #1 Son have been looking forward to it. They are excited about the prospect of meeting her, but are also aware that she has her own life and will move in her own time, and just because she turns eighteen on a certain day doesn’t mean that she’ll come flying out of the blue and plop herself in the midst of our lives. We will continue to take each day as it comes, as patiently as possible, and truly, while we are all anxious to meet her, the timeline is in the hands of the Elder and Unknown, not ours.

We have been so scattered this summer that we only just now realized that we didn’t do anything for her graduation, so the Spouse-Unit and I are trying to figure out what we can do for her eighteenth birthday. If the Elder and Unknown happens to be reading this, and has any suggestions in that regard, one hopes that she will filter such information through the Spouse-Unit or my mother. The Elder and Unknown may be intrigued to know that Internet domain names have been secured, literally, in her name in both .com and .net fashion. Such can be verified to typing the relevant domain names in her address bar. Whenever she wants to do something with them, she is most welcome to.

Ah, yes. I’m a sneaky bastard, aren’t I?

When the Elder and Unknown turns eighteen in slightly less than a month, one of the relevant factors in her life will indeed be Balance. The concept of Balance is special to me, because its number, eight, is one of my birth numbers, and it is something for which I continually strive, if not struggle from time to time. It’s one of my life-lessons, in other words. I’m trying to figure out how to put the category descriptions at the top of category pages, but in lieu of that, the description for the Balance category is this: “issues surrounding the Balance Archetype (Voyager Tarot) and its Attributes: Synthesis, Stagnation, Change, Harmony, and Guardian. also, “Justice” in traditional tarot; the general law of action and reaction; I Ching hexagram #63 ‘Chi Chi/After Completion’; the Nordic rune ‘Tiwaz’; the Kabbalah letter-word ‘Lamed’; alchemical Air; the numbers 8 and infinity; and Libra.” As you can see, Balance is a rather significant concept on many levels, and you can naturally infer a relevance far beyond the divination means I list in that description. In light of that, I sincerely hope that the upcoming year will be a good one for her. Balance is sometimes the mean of certain extremes, after all.

Come what may, #1 Son and I are still in the midst of soccer season. If the Elder and Unknown chooses to contact me on or around her birthday, such will thankfully be a few days after the South Dakota High School soccer tournament, which this year is up in Aberdeen. With only the last few recreational games ahead of us on our schedules at that point, we may even be in a state of mind that is a bit less scattered, and more conducive to her needs. We are all looking forward to that day, regardless of whether she contacts us or not. Here is hoping you the best, Elder and Unknown. May Peace stand over you in all things.

once again, without my permission, the calendar has rolled around to Thursday. i have found myself living from Wednesday to Wednesday this soccer season, because I’ve been so busy refereeing: 12 high school games and 2 men’s league games from last Thursday through this past Tuesday, for example. theoretically, i’m in better shape, but i’m tired, of course. that’s okay, though. it builds character, right?

Wednesday has become my Saturday, but this past one sped by so quickly, i don’t know that i’d have noticed it, if it hadn’t meant it was the one night this week i got to go to TaeKwonDo class.

soccer seems to have consumed my life, even though it’s by no means the only thing i do. but, i certainly do a lot of it. our COED league has started back up, which means not only more games to referee for me, but i also have several games to play this fall. #1 Son has picked up several more games as a referee than he originally had assigned, and i’m refereeing so much because of games that others had to turn back either because of injuries or “schedule conflicts”.

the photograph on the left is from an Augustana University women’s game i shot on September 1, 2007. i am now under contract with them for coverage of every home game, including an early one tomorrow. in the meantime, i’m still processing wedding shoots and trying to get all of that kind of thing off my plate before the next couple of weddings, starting on September 22. i’ve been lucky to have a couple of weekends off from shooting, but that has meant more refereeing, so it’s a bit of a trade-off.

but i wonder what it is about me that i like to be so busy. i honestly don’t like being bored. i supposed it stems at least in part from being a bit hyperactive and never medicated for it. the kids seem to be okay, but i wonder if they’re really getting the attention they deserve and need. the Spouse-Unit and i both work too much.

today i woke up with a sense of dread about the upcoming winter, and i don’t like that kind of attitude coming from myself. i like winter. i like the snow. “they” say it’s going to frost early this year. great! i hopefully won’t have to be mowing into October. and yet i woke up feeling quite uneasy about it today. either that’s just plain silly or it’s a bit of foreshadowing. i wish i spoke more plainly with myself. hrm….was it dread or uneasiness, though? i don’t know, really. maybe i’m just impatient to get through the shooting and into the album design, or to get done having to mow 2+ acres every week. that’s probably it. goodness knows i’m not exactly the most patient person in the world.

relatedly, it’s thirty-three days away from the Elder and Unknown’s eighteenth birthday. now that’s something i’m seriously looking forward to.

As you can see, “perpetual dawnne” has officially moved to its new (old) domain here at dawnne.com. The new feed address is feeds.feedburner.com/PerpetualDawnne.

I hope you like the new layout, and as you can see, I’ve did quite a bit of re-crafting of the categories into a semblance of organization that at least makes sense to me. I will be adding other sites to the blogroll as time goes on. Right now, of course, I am trying to balance time spent here and on the otherwhirled, with client work, house work, and child raising. So, we’ll see how things go. But at least I can use regular XHTML in my posts now without it having stripped by the public wordpress site.

I’ll try to have some kitten updates later this week, and I also want to get back to doing more writing in general. I can’t promise a time-frame, because the clients and family really do have to come first. I was frankly amazed I didn’t have to stay up all night just to everything finished as it was!

UPDATED 2007.09.12 22:37:15: altered feed link to properly reflect the move to feedburner, which is also updated in the sidebar widget.