Blog: Latest Postings

New look for nathandial.com

Well, I just kicked in the DNS change that should shake down to mark the official launch of this, my new website. My old site was old -- originally built in '01 (or earlier?) while I was still in school, unmarried, and starting to do useful things in PHP. I built this new site with the django framework and pulled in some of my old Pleonast entries to have some test data. Then I liked the test data ...

The ultimate SEO

There's an old saying, typically shared by the successful to the less-fortunate: "Living well is the best revenge." If you've been shot down, disenfranchised, or otherwise rejected, the best way to respond is by simply punching on despite the consequences, and showing the world (including those who may have wronged you) that you can succeed anyway. There is a similar truism when it comes to optimizing your page for better search engine placement: The long-term winning Search Engine Optimization strategy ...

Better, and bread-er

This week, on Ward's inspiration, I went on a quest to find the elusive salt-rising bread. My first stop was to look on the internet for a recipe so Sarah and/or her mom (who is still around) could possibly cook it. Well ... according to the recipe, "THIS IS NOT AN EASY BREAD TO MAKE!" Having never tasted it, and not having anybody else around who had tasted it it, how was I to know if a ...

Warning: Contains Furry little animals

Let me start this post by making something clear. I enjoy eating beans. It has become something of a family tradition for Sarah to prepare a delicious meal of beans and rice with cornbread (or sometimes biscuits) on Monday, and then to make enchiladas with them on Tuesday of every week. I love both of these days because I know that it costs a dollar or two to feed my whole family both days (maybe $3 or $4 if we ...

sing song about ....

Yesterday after Sarah put Joseph down for a nap, she came out to Lydia. Lydia was proud of herself, telling Mommy, "I was quiet." Without being told, she knew that it was good to be quiet when Joseph's going to bed. She likes us to make up songs for her. Sometimes we play a game where Lydia says, "Sing song about ...." and names something, usually in the room, which we have to remember or make up a song about. ...

bologna biscuit

I was running late for work today, so I didn't make any breakfast, and then I went through Jacks drive-through (which probably took as long anyway) "Welcome to Jacks, would you like to try two [garbled] biscuits for two dollars?" "what???" "would you like to try two [garbled] biscuits for two dollars?" "Sure. and an orange juice." "That'll be three fifty-five, drive around." Yes, it is an odd combination, but the biscuit was good, and the bologna was fried (the ...

Don't make resolutions, make changes

Here's an idea (not necessarily the best, just something to consider) if you're thinking of making changes in the coming year: Don't talk about it, just do it. We're all in our 20's or so now, which means that we've all had several good years of experience watching people make resolutions and blow them in the first few weeks of January. And by "people" I don't just mean Mom and Dad and your brother-in-law's aunt. I'm talking about you and ...

wedding / iron bowl

Today is my two year wedding anniversary! Congratulate me! I have to say something about how we picked our wedding dates. Me and Sarah both tried to be ready spiritually, emotionally, and financially (as much as we could!) before we started exploring romantic possibilities with each other. So when we decided to get married, we didn't have anything to wait for. Neither of us liked long engagements, so we figured we'd take about 3 months just to make it long ...

a trip to "Bud's"

There's a sort of mini-farmer's market up here called Bud's corner market. This place is funny becuase it's been in business since ... I don't know how long, but since I've been in high school 10 years ago at least. (That's longer than Wal-Mart in this area.) And it has been in 5 different places over about 15 miles of Gardendale and Fultondale since I've been aware of it. So today we went to Bud's to pick up some fall ...

Why I don't click when someone tells me "do NOT click this link"

One time someone posted a link on a discussion board as an example of a very bad link for someone to post. He followed up by saying DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK. I then read somebody's response to that, which said something to the effect of, "seriously, don't." Well I (stupid) had to see what could be so bad that people would seriously tell me not to click it, right? The link contained an image, and the image was the ...