Well, I got back from Chicago on July 2nd. It was a blast. I ended up getting in the top 15 in the nation in web site development. I was disappointed that I didn’t make it in the top 10, but top 15 is great, too. (The kids that made it in the top 15 used fancy Flash and crap of that nature, even though Flash isn’t nearly as accessible as my all XHTML+CSS layout… but I’ll save that rant for another day.) I can still brag about being in the top 15.

So Happy 4th of July to everyone. I hope you’re having (or had) a good one. Mine’s been okay. I got to set off nearly all my family’s fireworks, as usual. Everyone else is either a) too scared, b) too lazy, c) too lazy and scared to set them off so I sort of get stuck doing it. I’m always afraid one of these times I’ll get my hand blown off, but oh well - such is the thrill, I guess.

After a very long time, I’ve finally got a new brush set in the works. As well as a new layout for At0mica.net. I haven’t updated the layout there since… well since I went to Washington D.C. for History Day in June of 2006. Wow. Anyways, I’m only using my own photography in this layout. I’ve got some lovely photos from my trip to Chicago as well as some other ones I’ve been dying to use and I believe it’s pretty good. I’ve got it all done up in Photoshop, and I’m going to sleep on it and if I still like it when I get up tomorrow I’ll code it. I’m also going to move the brushes back to At0mica.net - I’m tired of dealing with it. Despite writing a very detailed tutorial on how to use my brushes in PhotoFiltre, people are still griping and complaining, “Heather I can’t figure it out!!!1!!1!” and “Heather WTF I can’t figure out how to download the brushes!!!1!!!!3142123!” So, fine. I’ll put them up, they’ll get stolen, I’ll have to spend days tracking down the initial culprit, but at least that saves me from having to answer all these extremely stupid emails. I also apologize but I’m also not going to put forth the effort about asking for translations/coding up translations/ect. for the terms/conditions because I’m even getting complaints about the one translation I have - “Heather that’s the WRONG translation, that’s not right, you should really fix that!!” I figure if it’s not there at all, I won’t have to deal with those emails, either. I mean… I appreciate feedback… but it’s all a lot of work that I just don’t have time for. Especially when I can’t even figure out of the translation is “right” or not because I don’t even speak the languages that they’re being translated to. I’ll do away with the silly password business. I’ll do away with the having to “agree” first. Whatever, I’m tired of dealing with it. I’ll also be ‘tossing’ any sets that I originally used stock photography/other stuff to make brushes from. Just my own stuff. All mine. All original.

Jeminy, it’s late. I’m tired. Time to get back on this horse that is At0mica.net - it’s been too long. I’ll save that for tomorrow.

I’m sitting in the lower floor of our hotel (the Hyatt) leeching off the free Internet Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) set up for the competitive events. It’s wonderful to be back, my friends

I competed yesterday and today. I’ve been told that I’m in the top 15, my second presentation I did today will determine my ranking within the top 15. I really hope I make it to the top 10. I worked and tried really hard and I would be really disappointed if I didn’t make it that far. The sad thing is, within the web design/development community there are different things that matter. Some are all about accessibility and web standards while some are all about aesthetics. I know there are a group here who have a Flash-driven Web site and of course this isn’t very accessible to those with screenreaders, for instance. I heard from several people that the audience seemed very impressed with that - and I’m sure it looked cool, but then again you have to think about your visitors that have dial up and/or are disabled so that they don’t have the ability to experience the Web in the conventional way. On any corporate Web site this definitely needs to be considered. After all, nobody wants to end up like Target. Anyways, I’ll find out Sunday night.

I’ve been busy running around the city of Chicago and having a pretty fantastic time. I’ve seen all kinds of awesome things (photos have been posted on Facebook, still more to come.)

I’ll see if I can be on the Internet tonight, but who knows, this hotel and its happenings are pretty unpredictable.

We left SHS in a tiny, gold school-issued minivan and promptly proceeded to head towards the hotel where we’d be staying the night before we had our flight to Chicago. The hotel ended up being a very crappy, indeed, Comfort Inn with peeling wallpaper and poor lighting.

We got up at 3:30 AM the next morning and went to Kansas City International (KCI) Airport, which I guess is now MCI, whatever the “M” stands for I don’t know - nor do I really care. Our piece of shit (POS) “travel guide” wasn’t really living up to his name as he refused to arrive any more than an hour early to the airport, and I was severely perturbed at the idea that I would be boarding later because of it. After that whole tuberculosis scare, I think I have a right to be angered.

Oh, good lord. There’s a load of idiots out in the hallway making a ruckus. Wonder how many beers those Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) asshats have had tonight? I give them two minutes to be quiet, or I’m calling the front desk and there will be consequences.

Okay. I called front desk, who forwarded me to security, who will be sending someone up in a few minutes.

So, back on course, right. We ended up getting in Group B on Southwest Airlines, meaning we were in the second group to be boarded. I encouraged our group to get in line immediately so that we could board as soon as possible, and it’s good that we did: we barely got rows to ourselves as it was. The flight was fairly uneventful. I got quite a few photos in-flight and so I’m looking forward to those when I get back. When we got off the flight, our “travel guide” herded us all to get our luggage and then on to a tour bus. A tour bus. Then he forgot someone/something about ten minutes away and then made the tour bus go back and fix his mistake. Way to make our first twenty minutes in Chicago memorable, “travel guide”.

Despite that, I was completely excited. Chicago is very exciting and I love all the architecture here. Jake and I were taking photos from the very minute we stepped off the plane. It was a beautiful day, albeit a bit hot, and we walked up and down the Magnificient Mile - which is lots of shops that we don’t have in lil’ ol’ Kansas. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe and it was wonderful, as it always is. I was extremely, extremely pissed off however. Chicago as you may or may not know is home to my very beloved Smashing Pumpkins. They performed their last concert before they broke up here. So I figured, with guitars and memoriabilia from the likes of such greats as Shirley Manson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Jimi Hendrix here… surely somewhere they would have something from either the Smashing Pumpkins as a whole or at least one of the band members. I was disappointed, however. I was searching the walls for anything but didn’t get anything. I did get lots of pictures of Shirley Manson’s guitar, though, because she is pretty much a rock goddess to me. Oh, my, I nearly shit my pants when I saw it. I was looking at a wall of Hard Rock Pins and just happened to look up and there it was - SHIRLEY MANSON - wow. Just wow. She touched that guitar, she signed it, it was wonderful.

Now if only it would have been Corgan’s/Chamberlain’s/Wretzky’s/Iha’s………………….

I got lots of walking in and I think I plan on going back down there sometime tomorrow to look at a particular jacket I want to get. I was thinking about getting it when I went there earlier today but it was $37, which I realize is a very cheap price for such a jacket - regularly $78 - but I didn’t want to spend that much, either way. But it’s a cute jacket and it would be very nice to wear over clothes during winter as it’s both long sleeved and long in general. Not to mention it makes me look as if I was fashion conscious without me having to put out much effort. Oh, la la.

The Internet isn’t working at this hotel. Well, let me take that back. It’s working, but you have to pay $14/night/room for it. We’re staying here for six days, there’s no way I’m going to pay $14 for every night we’re here. Especially for the service we’ve been given. After we got back from shopping, we went back to the expensive hotel we were staying at, otherwise known as the Hyatt. They still did not have any of our rooms ready, despite being several hours after when they were supposed to be ready. To make it worse they apparently decided to give FBLA groups rooms with one bed. A single bed for the four people that would stay in each room. How can you expect people, especially guys, to sleep in one bed? You’re essentially making them pay to sleep on the floor which is incredibly unacceptable. Stanley bitched at them, though, and our room managed to get two double beds. We’re all okay now.

After the drama with the rooming situation we just sort of hung out in the newly acquired rooms and relaxed. It was wonderful. My feet were killing me.

There was one last event of today. We went to see “Wicked”, the musical. Not being a fan of musicals - the excessive singing bothers me like a teenybopper girl with a bag the size of a small T-Rex, low-cut clothing that barely qualifies as a wash cloth, and ten inch high heels with manufactured, torn-up jeans - I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. I have to admit I was a bit uneasy about having to walk back to our hotel from the Ford Oriental Theatre, but we made it out okay and nobody was mugged or was the victim of vehicular manslaughter.

I’m now back in the room, listening to the now nicely quiet atmosphere of the fourteenth floor (otherwise known as the thirteenth floor in disguise, as hotels generally skip the thirteenth floor for fear of bad luck). I think I’ll go to sleep now because we have to get up at 7:15AM to go on our little tour with the “tour guide” in a tour bus which is bound to be very much “exciting”.

I’m back from Orlando…

sadly…

I had such a great time. I really wish I could just do it over again or stay down there just a while longer. Something..

I’m so tired. I took a long nap earlier, both when I got home and the last hours on the bus. David makes such a comfy pillow :cheerful: It was especially comfortable the last 2 hours or whatever. I :heart: him so much. Danielle took a photo of us while we were asleep I guess. I’ll have to ask her to lemme borrow it so I can see it I miss him already. It’s so weird cuz really I’ve spent the past 5 days or whatever with him, and now I’m not. Right now I’m pretty much alone (something very rare on the trip..). So I’m lonely :blah:

I gave my sisters their presents and they liked them. Justine especially liked her thing, she was wearing the lil light up thing all day yesterday. And Apehead was wearing her necklace, too. :cheerful:

I’m really tired.. so I’m probably going to go to bed after I get done with some crap for At0mica that I’m behind on…

Plug :love: Sara and Rachel

Goin’ Home and Animal Kingdom

We got up early today, packed our crap, and put it on the bus. Before that I ate breakfast at the hotel and called my parents to tell them I wasn’t dead.

Then went to the Animal Kingdom. It was hot and humid. I wished I was wearing shorts. But anyway.. I went on 2 rides, one kinda like the Spinning Dragons at Worlds of Fun and another called Dinosaur twice. Both were fun. David was surprised that I didn’t wail on either He kept trying to make me scream on the rides. He decided to grab me on the Dinosaur ride in an attempt to do just that, but it didn’t work

More things that almost killed me…

1. Humidity
2. Heat
3. David!!! :cheerful:
4. Tickling :pfft:

And then we wandered around (the popular thing to do), ate lunch, then left the park at 1 PM.

Right now we’re currently heading home on the bus. And I’m really tired so.. yeah..

Kitty’s Note
Don’t listen to Heather when she is tired! Ticklish feet are DOOM!!! Muggers that tickle are DEATH!