If you really must know, One Life to Live is the drug of choice.

Just thought inquiring minds might like to know, I've gotten 3 billable hours in before ten. Unlike last week or the week before that... GOOOOOOOO MEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm working on updating this site right now. Originally designed circa 2000 by a talented Custom Web Employee at the time who may or may not have been my, recent-grad-looking-for-a-job-in -engineering-but-in-the-meantime-I'll-design-websites-for-my-sister's [very successful]-company, brother. Ha! See how I snuck very successful in there? Very successful indeed, that is if you define success by that ability to watch soap operas all day and make barely enough money to cover the $450 rent I had to pay my parents for the house I lived in with my cousin. Note to myself: you probably owe your parents a lot of money from that "successful" time. Note to my parents: the preceeding was what we in the industry refer to as "blog humor", just so you know.

Anyhoo, back to the present - while I realized it would be hard to top the innovative and progressive web design from that talented designer, I did finally convince my client that it was time to step up the look a bit. (I'm so 3000 and 8, you're so 2000 and late). So, finally, here's what we're working on. Only the home page and outdoor/indoor services work currently. Unfortunately, I did not have as much luck, convincing them to "update" the logo from 1946, so we're working with it and I'm trying to deal with the fact that I cannot control this however difficult that may be, and trust me it's not easy.

But, SEE?!! I still design websites everybody. It doesn't happen very often since I' m kinda busy working on things like this and this and don't even ask about this, this or this (this is still gonna happen someday A-Le, maybe for your third? :)), not to mention bigger clients like this or this or this (we're still in development), but you know, every once in a while I make time for an old friend, the good old basic small business web design that started it all. And, for the record, while I do a little better for myself than I did in 2000, I still watch soap operas all day long. Really.

That's all - Happy Weekend.

Another Friday, another VERY busy morning...

I've been working very hard again this morning, doing very important things like perpetually obsessing over the black kitty, following a developing story in my front yard concerning the reincarnation of one famous hibisucus plant and it's new role as a brothel for beatles, and lastly, reading up on Donnie Wahlberg's twitter account while searching for NKOTB tickets. Which, can I just say, THANK GOD for my parents (and me) that there was no such thing as social media back in 1990 (but I did have AOL) or I don't think I would have ever surfaced from my room/phone/Donnie Wahlberg trance.

So, I need some help internet friends, in playing around blowing off working very hard this morning, I completely on purpose accidentally stumbled across this teen mag. In fact, I'm pretty sure I owned this one at some point, oh who am I kidding, I owned EVERY SINGLE ONE EVER MADE. But, upon close examination and after an extended Google search, I could not figure out who the hell that Tommy dude is? What am I missing? I mean, obviously this guy was a major catch, what with being the marrying kind and all. I'll bet some lucky gal out there is thanking her Tommy stars right now that she landed this prize. Help me out internet! Who IS TOMMY??


*Sidenote* Check out by Jordan's face - they have a web address!! How funny is that?
hanging-tough.org. First thought, a hypen? Really?! Second thought, .org? REALLY? This coudn't have been before .com's right? And, last time I checked, the hanging-tough non for profit organization was still in development, so this address is a bit of a mystery. I did try to go to this site, but sadly it is no longer live. Even the way back machine couldn't help solve this internet mystery...

Well, guess I better do a little real work, this internet washed-up-teen-idol searching is exhausting. Happy weekend to you all - we're off to KC for our annual (last annual?!) Cards/Royals game. Since Big D/Aunt Meme/my sister in law is moving back to the good ole' lou in a few weeks, this could possibly be our last pilgrimage to the KC for this fun event, so looks like this better be a good one, albeit a hot one. Let's go REDBIRDS!

*The shirtless guy in the background downing a beer is not with us, but he totally could be.

This really should surprise noone.

It's a little before 10am on friday. I'm sitting here wondering how it's 10am and I've got no billable hours in even though I've technically been up for almost 4 hours now. Let's review:

• 6am - got Baby Shane out of crib (note to babyshane: 6am is NOT COOL) dressed, fed and handed off to tpd to drop off early today.
  
  
• 6:45am - Babygirl is up (another note: this time, while more acceptable still does not fit into my approved toddler wake up time) and I get her dressed and up.
  
  
• 7:15am -Bridget and I leave to go get donuts since today is BS's last day in the infant room (sniff, sniff) - he graduates to the toddler room on Monday! So, we decide a Friday morning teacher appreciation Krispy Kreme donut run is in order.
  
  
• 7:30 am - Krispy Kreme. They are - no lie- out of donuts. Now, to be fair, their donut making machine is on the "fritz", but still... REALLY Krispy Kreme, REALLY?! Maybe we need to call in a 911 donut machine emergency and get it the f*ck fixed, but whatever, they still had a few sprinkled donuts left so Bridget was fine and we managed to leave with enough for the teachers at school. Sorry to all the poor suckas behind us that would get NO DONUTS FROM A DONUT STORE. As we left (we had to of course sit and eat a donut) they were actually turning people away empty handed.
  
  
• 8:30am - Back home from dropping off Bridget and ready to get to work. I finally make it up to my office, sit down with my fresh KK coffee (they weren't out of coffee luckily) start checking/responding to email when a little black kitty catches my eye. Oh! Could this be the black kitty that I've seen signs for all over the area? Probably not.. but what if... it gnaws at me to the point that I can't take it anymore. I'll spare you the ridiculous details, but 45 minutes of kitty tracking and one car ride to find the sign with the owners number and I'm finally back in my office. The kitty wanted nothing to do with me so the owner was going to take over the kitty tracking even though it was hard for me not to see it through. Currently, as of press time there is still no reunion, but I'll keep you posted.
  
  
• 9:25am -Back in the office ready to work. I hear a truck coming up the street (insert lightbulb) "shit, shit, the kidney foundation - I'm supposed to have had my stuff out by 6am... shit" Sprint down to the basement randomly start going through 85 boxes for anything I can donate. Grab two random bags of clothes and a basketball hoop thingy (?!) run up the driveway only to see that's not the right truck. Phew. Cut to me on my porch going through bags of clothes (I realize one of the bags is actually my summer clothes from the summer before I had Bridget) and I start saving random *still good* items just as a hear another truck and sure enough that's the Kidney foundation. The guy catches me hunched over pulling clothes out of my donation bags. The worst part is, there was still more good stuff in there, but I was too embarrassed to let him watch me pull crap out so I only made off with one jean skirt and red cardinals shirt.
  
  
• 9:55am - Brings us to now - instead of going back to work, I just spent another 15 minutes telling you all how I've frittered my morning away and, oh! Black kitty ALERT! She's back on my neighbor's doorstep. Gotta run....

Should I ask for my Cascading Style Sheets back?

I've tried to write this post 10 times now and keep going back, not even knowing where to start. Today was one of the hardest days I've had over the course of my professional career. None of had to do with too many deadlines or 8 different clients needing something right THIS second (the usual hard days like, oh you know, every third day) - this was different. This was all about being treated with respect, fairness and professionalism. The interesting thing is, while I keep replaying the events of the meeting where things went so horribly wrong over and over like some bad loopy old time movie the ending is the same: I did good. I should be proud.

I was completely railroaded today, thrown under the bus for completely bogus and unfair reasons, the likes of which I don't even want to get into, but it was awful. I was talked down to, yelled at and even had the worst analogy known to man thrown in my face. We're talking Apples to Volkswagens here, people. You see it's like this, friends - imagine that Pujols is the client and I'm -shit I can't even think of a Cardinal pitcher right now -but I'm the pitcher and I throw a slider to him and he swings and doesn't even hit the pitch ANYWHERE NEAR OR IN THE ANALOGY BALLPARK - that is how bad this analogy was! Ah! See how I just used a terrible analogy to describe the worst analogy ever - I'm so crafty like that - who wouldn't hire me?!

Basically, today I went toe to toe with a man with over 40 years experience in business, apparently none of them in professionalism or honorable business, BUT, 40 years nonetheless and I DID NOT let him steamroll me. I was caught somewhat off guard, but I had that little gut feeling this might be coming. Like when a girl is starting to realize that he just may not be that into you, but you keep coming up with reasons why it's still ok. The fact is, I had learned of some circumstances that might lead to him trying to get out of a contract with me. But, here's the thing, I probably would have understood. Be honest, be upfront with me - give me the same professional respect I've always given you. Tell me the real deal. But, DO NOT make me feel like I'm not doing my job so you can slink away under the table and give someone else (who may or may not happen to be your son) business.

I've been lucky. My clients are awesome. I've created lasting personal relationships with the majority of them and I will miss two of the people at this company more than I should in a client/service provider relationship, but that's how I roll. I invest personally in these businesses, I watch out for them, I get involved, I know their kids, their grandkids, what college so and so just graduated from. So, a day like this was more disheartening than anything today. I've been with them for almost 10 years and I walked away, I said I couldn't work with someone that would talk to me and treat me like that. 10 YEARS and I've never broken up with a client like I did today and it seems all too familiar to other personal past breakups. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm sitting here at 11:30pm, listening to sad songs on pandora, blogging about something people don't care about, eating snacks and drinking a beer. What is wrong with me?! I'm full of ickiness (yeah, that's right - ickiness) and all I keep doing is trying to remind myself that I did absolutely nothing wrong and everything right by this company. But, the sadness is still there - the ladies cried when they hugged me (twice each) and walked me out - CRIED, asked me not to go. It was really very awful and yet if I separate myself from it, it's almost laughable. I didn't make much money from this client, I worked with them MAYBE once a month, but that is how much I care about these businesses I work for.

I'm trying to remind myself of the strength and confidence I had today, something the Custom Web Erin of 10 years ago couldn't have even fathomed, but no matter which way I cut it, today was painful and unfair and I think I better go eat some bon-bons now, cause dumping one of my clients has turned out to be a little harder than it should be.

So, internet peeps, got advice? A good therapist? Gallons of wine? What do I need to do to feel better about this?

I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

These case studies were conducted on one of my biggest clients, Sydney's Closet, by one of our vendors, Sitebrand. So, I know it's not totally impartial journalism here, but I still think they did a good job (as did Phyllis and I) about tooting our horn, right Mary Jane? :)

I'm a social networking and internet marketing junkie these days (read: BIG TIME DORK) so this was fun to talk about and get involved in. Plus, simply by posting this here, I'm helping our SEO inbound link score, so more power to me.

Interview from Internet Retailer / Blog entry

PDF case study about us

PS - I don't really have an apartment or leather-bound books for that matter, however,
I am kind of a big deal.

A real client letter word for word (I only wish it could be read in the dramatic breakup letter fashion)

I love this client... a lot, but I just had to share part of the email I received from her this morning:

Hi Erin, was wondering if you have time to come by when you’re in the neighborhood? We have been testing the internet and want to work on it. If I just Google – designer – we don’t come up.

Whew, thankfully someone is testing and working on the internet these days - especially since Al Gore is spending all his time spinning his wheels about the environment.

I do appreciate the vote of confidence that I could just buzz in while in the neighborhood, waive my magic fingers over the keys and "work on the internet', thus making everything in Google land exactly the way they would like it to be.

*Stress* - I really like them, I'm not totally being a hater, just thought the way that was worded was humorous.

This ones for you, Steve Jobs.

Hmmm... this looks like very interesting reading material.

Nope, I was wrong, it's about Vista and it just flat out sucks.

I finally know what DROP SHIP means..Aka - you might as well just skip this post it's so boring.

I've been working at Sydney's Closet as a consultant for almost two years now - no wait, over two years now and everyone throws around that term so much and with such obviousness that I never wanted to ask exactly what it meant. Plus, when they would use it, the context was always different so I was having a hard time pinpointing exactly what that meant, I had my theories, but I always thought there was more to that term. Keep in mind, though, I didn't care enough to oh, say... google it and find out what it was... so it really didn't bother me that much.

Well, just today, as I was fixing an order for my own site, I called Cafepress and asked if they could "drop ship" the items. Ding! I knew what drop ship meant. It was like it secretly snuck into my brain and burrowed a little home there without my recognition.

Anyway, that's my exciting Thursday update for you all - big day here at CWC - stressing about drop shipping and watching the new women on "the view".

Drop ship: An arrangement whereby a mail-order or Internet merchant accepts orders for products, and then pays a manufacturer or distributor to ship the product to the customer.

Now, if my brain could only learn that "snuck" is not a word, we'd be in good shape.

Bad Asses are not for Church Meetings Client Services Lesson #1

When going to meet with a church about designing their website, it's best not to bring the laptop that you've chosen to name "Bad Ass Erin Delanty" as the adminstrator login name (you know the name and image that pop up as soon as the computer fires up, the one that everyone can see right there in the middle of the screen as they're all waiting anxiously to discuss their website options...you know, that one.)

It can easily seem like a good idea: a newly purchased laptop, giddy with new laptop excitement, sitting in your living room in comfy pants, and the first question your shiny new piece of hardware asks you is what name you would like for your administrator account. You think pensively for a second....hmm...the perfect name for the login screen.... and then it just becomes obvious - BAD ASS! Of course! That's it! How obvious, how magnificent, how perfect, because, after all, you are a bad ass...

Friends, don't let this happen to you - don't let that little manipulative perfect piece of HP innovation fool you... friends don't let friends name their computers "Bad Ass". Let this be my lesson to you for the day - you are not as bad ass as you think you are.


So, to sum it all up:

ps - Aimee, I bet I have a SERIOUS PG-13 rating now - ass, ass, ass....

pps - I'm sorry to anyone I may have offended by using the word ass over and over again in this post, though not nearly as sorry as I was to the 4 women and one pastor who undoubtedly saw this word on their *professional* (I'm using that word loosely now) web designer's laptop.

I don't think you can search iStockPhoto for a landlord hat. (AKA - Why client services can really SUCK sometimes.)

Some humorous web design client quotes I gathered from personal experience. In the interest of full disclosure, I did steal that hilarious one about the landlord hat. I can totally see a client saying something like that and me just shaking my head like I know exactly what they mean but simultaneously thinking to myself, "what? what the hell is a landlord hat?" P.S. The rest all really did happen to me, even the last one, you just can't make that stuff up.

• "We love it like this! Oh, we were wondering if we could change the font, the color the images, and can we move a few things around?
  
  
• "Please put a landlord hat on the landlord."
  
  
• "Oh yeah, one more thing, will you also make sure that we appear at the top of Google when someone searches for 'interior design', I want us to be in the top three..."
  
  
• "Can you make it more like a power-point presentation, you know, with the sliding text stuff and all?"
  
  
• "Well, I don't think we really want it to look too much like a Web site. You know what I mean?"
  
  
• "Please send me all the site files, my nephew just started taking a class in HTML and he's going to be maintaining the website from now on..."
  
  
• "The website does not print out in color. Please fix."

---

Follow up - Apparently you can search iStock for a landlord hat - this is the one single image that you get - personally, I think more Homer Simpson maintenance man, but that's just me...

I guarantee you ARE not the most important person EVER

When in a Starbucks alone, it must be an unwritten requirement that you talk VERY loudly on your cellphone in some sort of effort to prove that you are the most important person in Starbucks at that very moment. There is definitely an "i'm big-time" person complex in that place. They are all trying to out do each other in importance level. Here is what the three people sitting in too close proximity to me might as well have been saying:

"I must be a VIP because I am talking very loudly and very sternly on my cellphone right now and saying things like 'now, right now - get him on the phone' ."

"No, I must be the most important person in here because I have one of those phones that makes that annoying beeping sound and then someone says my name as if paging me for everyone in the store to hear, then I answer them loudly and wait for them to reply all the while leaving the whole thing on that annoying beeping speakerphone."

"Well I have you all beat because I am talking on the phone VERY loudly with that ultra-yuppy Bluetooth thingy in my ear and simultaneously typing with such intensity and fervor that obviously this email must be sent immediately or my entire company's existence is at stake"

I, on the other hand, sit at my little table, drinking my delicious coffee*, typing emails (and blog entries) and cussing out Starbucks for making me pay $10 for internet access while just two doors down I could get this for free at bread company.

I watch 5 (yes, 5) people in a row exit Starbucks, piping hot coffee in one hand, cellphone attached to the ear with the other hand and not ONE single one stops to hold the door for the one behind them. It was really quite unbelievable. Not ONE person held the door often making the door close rapidly on said Starbucker (copyright eej 2007) with hands full. Yet that was not enough to make that person hold the door for the one behind them. It was probably one of the saddest commentaries on humanity that I've seen in a while. I'm sure I can't capture the real rudeness of it in a blog and had I had my cell phone this morning (another long story adding to my bad monday morning) I surely would have videotaped this just to document on youtube or something.

Well, I am off to another client site as the client that insisted we meet at Starbucks, thereby making me waste $10 on internet access and get a lesson in human indecency decided not to show... happy freaking monday.


*Regardless of the selfishness and rudeness that I often encounter in Starbucks (not to say that all Starbuckers are this way), this post is in no way meant to reflect the true love I have for a Grande (sometimes Venti) non-fat no whip Mocha and should not discourage anyone from drinking their lovely beverages (lord knows I don't need any bad Starbucks karma.)

Friday's Baby Fashion Trend: Little baby sombrero

Look mom, I'm pretty proud of what I did when you weren't paying attention to me...

Of course, now that I have your attention, you have to put a big stupid hat on me?

Did you slip some tequila in my bottle, mom? My teeth sure feel better now.

Happy Friday & Memorial Day Weekend!

Diversity Training Day at the [CWC] office

Come on everyone, gather around, you too Blue Octopus, we need to address the comments you made toward Yellow-Orange Fish on Wheels last week.

Wait, I have a question... if I know Pink Puppy is socializing outside of the workplace with Green Frog Lily - is it my responsibility to pass this on to corporate?

Okay, let's say there is a certain colorful male giraffe who happens to sport a lot of bling - if he doesn't tell, we shouldn't ask, right?

Diversity training is fun - let's all celebrate diversity!

PALTSKKJ

Oh hi - we're vaccuuming, yeah that's fine

I've discovered something about myself that I find either interesting and a sign of high intelligence or disturbing and weird so since I have about 10 minutes for something to finish copying I thought I would share... I just opened up an older client file of mine to check a password and written in close proximity to the client's all important username and password was the following three lines: oh hi, we're vacuuming, yeah that's fine. You see, almost everytime I open up an old client file or thumb through some notes or project lists I've joted down, I will find these little areas on the page where I have written down aspects of a conversation. It then makes me wonder what the context of that conversation was and I'll spend too much trying to remember who I was talking to and about what. Seriously, why did I even need to tell the caller I was vacuuming in the first place?

You can always tell if I've been on the phone and there was paper and pen nearby because you can pretty much surmise what the conversation was and in a lot of cases who I was talking to - actually at times this is a borderline dangerous habit. Just last night I found the following chicken scratch at Tim's desk on the back of an envelope:

"annoying, so annoying...
irritating - why does he think that is funny?"

- now, to give you the full effect, picture the above text bordered with little hand drawn daisies and hearts and sprinkled around were my initials and full signature both Delanty and Jones versions ... am I ten? It took me a while but I remembered the conversation with Molly last week about how Tim annoys us when he says "get off my back jack"... funny now, but that little chicken scratch could have implied something much more sinister and my unconscious writing could definitely get me in trouble some day.

Anyway, without making this too long of a boring post about my idiosyncracies (some of you are already thinking "too late"), I was just wondering if everyone does that or that makes me odd in some way?

I am in the midst of some very exciting stuff right now and I really have so much to blog about that it's pretty ridiculous that I just took up some blogging time writing about my weird habits... but you'll have to stay tuned to find out what I (err...we... I guess Bridget is kind of helping) have got cooking up for Custom Web this week! BTW, that's called "pulling a Preszler" - when you lead someone on just to make them keep tuning back into you. Cindy Preszler that is - for those of you saying what the hell is she talking about now?

Happy Tuesday

PALTSKKJ

Just call me Miss Fancy Pants from now on.

Yup, we're big time now! We made it - two featured dresses and a GREAT mention from Phyllis' contact Katherine who did the segment. It was awesome. I can't even believe we just had two of our dresses on TODAY!! Well, lots of work to do on the website to promote this!

That Moulin Rouge one looked awesome on her! It was so funny they were playing that Moulin Rouge song in the background... the gitch gitchy ya ya da da. (I can't believe I just wrote that and this post has nothing to do with babygirl)... anyway, it's just funny cause we just picked that name for the dress and that's what influenced what they played in the background - after typing all that I think it probably only makes sense to me, but whatever I am so darn excited right now I think TPD would call this "typing outloud".

Here are the two dresses that were featured on the TODAY show:

https://www.sydneyscloset.com/asp/product.asp?categoryid=&catalogid=1083
Moulin Rouge

https://www.sydneyscloset.com/asp/product.asp?categoryid=&catalogid=970
Sea Goddess

I'll let you know if this translated into any sales for us soon! :)


PALTSKKJ

Custom Web Connections

  Meet our latest web designer, Bridget Ainsley. She's pretty good at it already, but seems only mostly interested in the Similac and Huggies websites at this point. Now if I could only get some work done around here, that would be great. Maybe I should stop blogging and start working... at least that's what Tim would say.

Anyway, a quick week seven report finds us doing well. Bridget is sleeping well at night, although still having some issues during the day. For the most part, she is a very good baby, but she definitely likes to be entertained and will let you know about it when she's had enough of you or whatever activity you are trying to engage her in. We call her the "screecher" at times, because she doesn't really cry, it's more like screeching... almost like a cat or injured animal (and I mean that in the most loving, motherly way possible).

Well, that's all for the evening. Tonight is game 6 of the NLCS - Cards are up 3-2 over the Mets. GO CARDS!!!