Illusions of Serenity

Okay, I guess I jumped into widgets a bit too fast. I completely destroyed the two that I was working on... So I'm going to find a much simpler widget to start on, and once I'm sure I can create a final one, then I'll rebuild my complex ones (and make backups to fall back on).

Return of the Eye-Twitching
I've got stress building up on me once again. I am expected once again to have something to show for my work on the site, and though I've finally got a great plan for the layout now, a lot of fundamental things are keeping me from setting anything in stone. I'm trying to work on it, but my time this weekend has unfortunately been heavily consumed by an event after school on Friday (I worked from 5:00pm to 1:00am) and Winter Drumline practice yesterday (10:00am to after 6:00pm). I also dealt with relationship problems throughout the event on Friday as well as for about an hour after I got home and through most of yesterday's practice. Although I was able to mend those problems a bit, and able to rest for a while last night, now I have a bunch of homework to manage, and need to friend out with a lot of schoolwork as well.

[Update] Not So Bad After All!
Okay, so I couldn't get in touch with my friend until an hour ago (9:30pm) so that didn't work out, but we're going to work tomorrow morning, which is better anyway, since we'll both be able to look at the same thing (she has my book and the work, but I have nothing).

Also, after spending a lot of time wondering what widget to make (I was seriously considering Connect 4 until I realized that anything with AI was going to be a pain), I decided I would make a weather widget. I tried one of the existing ones and it didn't work for me, plus like many others, I'd like to have some sort of forecast. I researched different weather sources heavily and finally came upon a site that would offer the most flexibility (at the expense of having sloppy code). About an hour later, I now conveniently pull all of the data I need from the page for a given location. Next I'll be working on error checking for locations that aren't found, then it'll be saving/loading/updating the data, then other configuration such as displaying in Celsius or Kelvin (why not? ), and finally, to making it a flashy, presentable widget (I've got some pretty sweet ideas). Yeah!

Alright, time for sleep now.

I saw the blog feature here at my.opera.com, and, after resisting so many opportunities to start blogs, finally gave in. I'll be sharing some details of my life for my personal record and for those who, for whatever reason, care.

Multi-tasking to the Max
So this weekend I've been doing major multi-tasking:

First, I've been trying really hard to put up a website for my high school. I'm on my third or fourth version (I lost track) now, and finally things are making sense. Of course, the biggest challenge is still that I'm designing it so that it can be managed by people who don't really understand "internet stuff". I also have to figure out what kinds of things people are going to be putting on it, and how to make whatever they want be supported without them needing to bug me (or someone else) to redo part of it. I'm currently stressing once again over how I'm going to do the layout.

Second, I'm designing a widget. I installed Opera yesterday with immediate interest in the Widgets, and I spent all afternoon through midnight browsing through the submitted widgets and studying the code of the more interesting ones. I found one chess widget which is unsatisfactory, and unfortunately was copied from another author (it was a free resource, however). I'm making my own from scratch with my own AI (that's going to be interesting). And, of course, it's actually going to follow the rules of chess (no more castling out of check). I've already attempted this in flash and C++, but I'm making the most progress with JavaScript, interestingly enough. But, hey, I'm not complaining.

Finally, I'm working on a flash animation for my girlfriend. It's sort of for Valentine's day (which we both hate, actually...), but I wanted it to be finished by tonight... Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. There's a lot more to all this than I'm telling, but let's not rush into things, shall we? Besides, it's a LONG story.


I apologize for wasting your valuable time if you happened to have chosen to read all of this. I've got to go to bed soon, but I'll be posting more updates soon.