Post XXV

Twenty-five is one of those things that just looks good in Roman numerals. There's a fair amount of geeky yuks and thrills going on at Ye Old Secret Underground Lair, so I thought an update was appropriate.

So, I guess starting with last night... well, actually, early Friday morning... yup. Friday morning. I've got this quote (I think it's from Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space), "HTML, good buddy!" At the beginning of this particular VeggieTales episode, we find Bob the Cucumber trying to explain some fairly ordinary technology to Bob the Tomato. Bob, of course, is a technophobe, and Larry is trying to encourage him to get with the program and stuff. In the course of the conversation, Larry spouts off some geek terminology, and "HTML good buddy!" has ever since stuck in my mind. And this, one may wonder, has just exactly what to do with a blog which has the unifying theme of a database?

Well, while data is certainly the muscle and substance of the internet, HTML and a few other languages are its skeleton. I finally took the plunge, at around 0230 Friday 12 Apr 2013, into HTML. I'm starting at the very beginning of HTML 5- the moral equivalent of "HELLO WORLD". And this starting point is somewhat humorous, because for the relative briefest of moments- sometime between 2000-2002 - I was a webmaster. I'm not going to mention the firm, but it was small and privately held, and dead set on NOT doing business on the internet. I think they still are, as even though the information on the site is up to date, it still has the same pre-2000, very non-interactive design that it had while I maintained it.

So, I'm starting from scratch. After a fair amount of casual research over the past few weeks, I sat down last night at the laptop and started going through the first tutorial on htmldog.com. I also have a book in my tech library HTML5 for Masterminds by J.D. Gauchat. I skimmed the first chapter of the book, and it looks like it will be helpful.

Next news is that Big Kitty (officially known as Schwarz) breached the defenses of the Secret Underground Lair on two fronts. The second will be dealt with this weekend, but the first, main breech was the door. The door is old, and the door knob is also old. Some inner part gave up the ghost earlier this week, and the door would no longer stay shut. Fortunately Wonderwoman (officially known as Jennifer by most and Mom to a select few) removed the defective workings and put in a gently used but functional new latch-thingey.

And finally, as I've mentioned that XXV is something of a special number, I'd like to take a moment to thank my world-wide audience for virtually hanging out with me for a bit and taking the time to read my meandering musings. Although I know very few of my readers by name, I hope that a shout out to your country will suffice as far as thanks goes. After all, readers are the driving force of blogs.

Thanks to the kind folks of: Australia, Austria, China, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. I guess I'm a bit naive at times, but having readers in seventeen countries is pretty cool- and a bit humbling. So thanks again, everyone! I promise not to go all maudlin again until post fifty.