Spent most of the day comparing HTML and CSS between my MT install and some WordPress templates, trying to figure out where I’ll have to make changes. Right now, I’m using a poorly-kludged three-column layout (check out the source and you’ll see the ugly trick I use to keep the right column at the same height as the weblog entries); when I move over to WordPress (sorry, Charlie and Clancy, but Drupal’s a bit more than I need for a weblog, like the equivalent of giving tactical nukes to a leg infantry platoon), I’m planning on switching to a more elegant CSS-based semi-fluid three-column plus top banner layout. I’m thinking about being a little more ornamental, too; a little less spartan, a little less All That White Space. Patterns and borders, mostly. And since MSIE makes dotted borders into hideous coupon-cut-here dashed borders, I’ll probably switch to solid single-pixel borders.
Yes, I know: yawn. Fascinating stuff, Mike. It’s just that I’m not a tech type, so figuring this stuff out for myself takes a lot of intellectual labor, and I’m usually all talkative when I do this much intellectual labor for my dissertation.
And so one obvious conclusion might be that my dissertation research isn’t much more interesting than my navel-gazing noodling about figuring out how to format my weblog.
Which is a pretty sucky epiphany.
It was heartening to read the sad stories of people trying to deal with T-Netix because I realized that I am not the only one. I live in Texas and my son is incarcerated in North Carolina. We pay $45 for three 10-minute calls. My main problem with Correctional Billing Services is that they told me I could go to the web site at any time and pay my bill in order to keep the line open, but when I do try to go to the web site, the web site won’t allow any computer to connect with it if the computer has pop-up blockers. Now I ask you, who does not have pop=up blockers. Also I was informed that to make an instant payment over the phone or by internet would cost an additional $6.25 per payment. The only “free” payment is by check. Since I have a $100 credit limit, that basically means 6 calls a month. I have had a phone with AT& T or one of its subsidiaries since 1966. As far as I know, they have never done a credit check on me or limited my credit; so why does this company? I guess after reading all the stories on your blog site my real question is whether the harrassment I have been experiencing is due to incompetence or graft. My next letter will be to one of my U.S. Senators. Since my son and I are in different states, I don’t know which official agency might have jurisdiction. A class action law suit sounds good to me, but I don’t know where to start. Those of you who pray, start now to ask God to intervene on our behalf. He may be the only one who is willing to champion us, but the good news is that God never fails……….