Benjamin Clark

I'm just not good at this three blog thing. I apologize for not updating this one much lately.

We are now in the month of August, so allow me to quickly hit all the marks for July:

I saw Pirates of the Carribean 2, and hated it.

My grandfather came to visit in July. It was really nice to see him, and I hope he can return again soon and/or that I can go up to Virginia to visit.

I helped my brother move into his new apartment. Later in August, I'll be helping my sister, too. Having a pickup -- and generally just being a nice guy -- makes me the go-to guy for your moving experience. Call today.

I finally upgraded my sleeping arrangements by buying a Simmons Beautyrest mattress set. I had been sleeping on a Coleman air mattress for about a month and a half--and this was after two weeks sleeping on my brother's living room couch. Although anything would have felt comfortable compared to what I had been sleeping on previously, this new mattress should remain empirically comfortable for many years.

I received an invite to the Vox preview. Vox is a new online community similar to LiveJournal (and owned by the same parent company, Six Apart), with an emphasis on WYSIWYG access to media. Photos, audio/video clips, and links to Amazon consumables are easily manipulated in the Vox compose-a-post form. This multimedia approach may not be revolutionary, but it certainly is fun. My only concern is that Vox really hasn't articulated what they're doing to set themselves apart from competing services, which, in time, will hinder the impact of their public rollout.

I bought into a program that allows me to unobtrusively track my credit score, which is good because it's almost the time for me to start thinking about trading in my leased vehicle. Although I've got a specific model picked out, this time around I want to investigate financing a used car (rather than leasing yet again). My concern is that since I no longer have someone I can turn to for a co-sign, I need to make sure my credit is satisfactory.

I started using gnucash for my personal finance needs. This is a recent development (within the last week or so), so I'll hit on this in a dedicated entry sometime soon, probably after I adapt to its quirks. Compiling version 2.0.0 on my PowerBook was a real pain, but I eventually got it to work using a guide written for Intel Macs.

And that just about summarizes my month. In the coming weeks of August, I will be driving down to Orlando to help a friend move a mattress (once again with the moving), then the following weekend driving down to Venice to visit with my mom. I'm not claiming it'll be a busy month, but it'll be the most travelling I've done since I moved back to Florida.

Goals for the coming month:

I'd really like to learn Python. I'm experimenting with the Django Web framework right now, but since my exposure to Python has been limited to the Django tutorial, I'm not entirely capable of rolling out an entire web project just yet. Nevertheless, provided that I can learn it quickly enough, I'd like to get the Collins Institute project working under Django. Otherwise, my fallback position has been experimenting with Perl web frameworks, namely Catalyst. I'm not crazy about it, but it does allow me to work with the code I've already written for generating graphs (using GD::Graph).

This may be far fetched, but I'd also like to start looking a bit more seriously at my vehicle financing options. As good as I am for sticking to my budget, the budget itself is fundamentally unbalanced. If I can find a way to reduce my car payments, or my insurance payments, or both, I can actually start making some headway on my personal debts. (A raise and/or salaried appointment at my job would be nice as well, but that's a post for another day.)