The Scrolls

Forms Fixed

For whatever reason, my form plugin had stopped working so I had to reinstall it. Forms on the Error, Contact and Pop3 pages under Site are all working now.

Wordpress Sucks as a CMS

No, really, it does. And here’s why:

Page management is horrible if you have more than 20 pages on your site (and I realize that Wordpress is normally used solely for blogging and most bloggers don’t have more than 20 pages). There is no way to easily import pages – copy pasta, it is. The “Edit Pages” section within the dashboard becomes useless because you have to click from one page to the next, without being able to change the order of your pages (by name or date would be nice, for example) or how many pages you see listed. It’s always 20.

And if you’re wondering how order is determined, drafts and private pages are listed first then publish pages are listed by “Order” which you can specify on the individual pages. This also determines how pages show up in your page list on the site. For instance, I have ordered my pages in this sequence: Me, Content, Site, Links, Joined. So the pages show up in that order in the dashboard which kind of makes sense – until you add in the subpages. So after my drafts, I see “Me” then all of its subpages, then “Content”, then all of its subpages so on and so forth. The problem is that each of my parent pages has as least 20 subpages and some of my subpages have subpages (up to 3 deep!) and since there is no way to view only one parent and its subpages, the list is broken up over several pages. Finding a specific page in that mess? Means paging through the list until I get lucky.

So if I add or edit a page and forget to do something, finding it in the list is horrible. I could use the “Search” bar in the dashboard but it’s really weak. I can view the live page and edit from there, if it’s published but it definitely takes more time. In matters of converting and editing pages, it’s definitely easier to have hard coded pages and use FTP, even if it takes a little longer to navigate through the directories.

Of course, you can’t use widgets that way. Or apply plug-ins. So while I might have a plug-in for forms with Wordpress, I need another script to do the same thing with hard coded pages. You start to feel like you have a lot of duplicate scripts running. Furthermore, sometimes Wordpress plugins do things that is much harder to automated with hard coded pages (I’m thinking of an SEO plugin I have). And the dynamics of Wordpress are really nice when working with pages. Being able to edit pages from anywhere, without needing an FTP client installed is awesome, too. Wordpress has made it possible to do things I never would have considered before and easier to do things that have always been a page – just not with pages.

And that is why Wordpress sucks as a CMS. I still love it for blogging, though.

Leaving Well Enough Alone

Of course, this post on my shopping blog would be one that Ashe disagrees with. Of course, I had to post it when I was already annoyed with her. Of course, it kind of has to do with one of the reasons I am frustrated with her. Of course, we had to talk about it. Had to. How could we not?! Of course, I couldn’t stop when she said she was getting angry because, by that time, I was, too, and I wanted to be.

The result of all this?

I now realize I don’t believe in dating as a ‘permanent’ station in life. I simply view it as a temporary move between singledom and marriage – neither of which are any better than the other, by the way. It’s generally necessary (unless you’re Dharma and Greg) and, hopefully, enjoyable but it’s not a place I ever desired to stay in for more than a couple of years because, at that point, dating becomes a road block on my journey to marriage. I view dating as something you do until you figure out whether or not you can marry this person and then you stop. You either stop dating and become engaged or stop dating a douche and become single again. If I were to date for years and my partner were unable to show me commitment, I would feel strung along angry, if you couldn’t tell.

It just reeks of indecision to me. Indecision wastes time. Indecision goes hand in hand with confusion. Grey areas in relationships are never a good sign. If you can’t at least loosely define what the hell it is you’re doing, then I think you need to reconsider. It’s not that I think people should push for marriage to the point of being miserable but if that’s what you want, then you should go for it sooner rather than later. Because marriage is clearly defined. Singledom is clearly defined. Dating is not. I thrive on that definition. I have even less respect for casual dating, for the same reasons, but casual sex is A-okay by me.

This all really exemplifies my dislike for wasting time and not knowing where I stand, so if the goal of dating is marriage, then dating for an extended length of time is wasting it. Of course, I realize that not everyone dates for reasons of getting married but I honestly don’t understand other purposes. You may date many people in the search of someone but once you do find that person, shouldn’t you make the next logical step sooner rather than later? It’s just that, if you love someone and you’re happy with them and you want to be with them for a good long time and you can see that happening, why wouldn’t you get married? Why wouldn’t you want to show that to the world? And if you’re not all of those things, why are you still in the relaitonship? Furthermore, while it may never ne an issue, as soon it becomes one being married in the eyes of the law becomes a huge issue.

I’m bad

And not like Michael Jackson – may he RIP. (Somehow I think it will be the first time he’s found peace). But bad at updating. I don’t to be one of those people who apologizes, whose only posts on their blog are about their lack of blogging. So I won’t. Instead I’ll talk about my last blog post.

It came on the heals of news that several of my friends are abroad for various reasons and, admittedly, I felt a rather sharp pang of jealousy. The idea of heading into the real world once more is frightening, especially in the current economic conditions. I worry that the Air Force is the only chance we’ll ever have to do anything and I don’t want to throw that chance away. Despite the fact that we lived in Japan, it wasn’t something I wanted to do or someplace I wanted to be.

In some ways I feel like my life plans are even further behind and/or unattainable because I married so young. All these friends of mine have graduated within the last year or so and are still single and that makes things so much easier. Of course, I would likely feel the same regret had Ryan and I not married. I guess there’s just not helping that but it still sucks sometimes to think about it.

Anyway, after discussing things with Ryan, we decided to stay the course of the plan we chose. It won’t be the life I left, but that doesn’t have to be bad, either. It’s a risk to take but it would also be a risk of he stayed in and we have no guarantee that any of the things which are causing us misery now would change. In my head, the idea of him staying in mostly sounded good only if certain things happen and, in reality, we just can’t control those things.

I don’t know if I feel any better but at least we’ve made our decision and I have a goal, of sorts. And if things really go bad, he can always reenlist and then we can say we tried, at least.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Life changes. Can’t help it. Can fight it. I do. I fight everything.

Am so looking forward to heading back home – to my home state, at least. At being able to see friends and family more than twice a year (or less). Even looking forward to school and working (but praying I won’t have to work anyplace like Wal-mart again).

But it still won’t be the same and, in some ways, it kills me. Ashley might even be gone by the time I get to Wisconsin and while Milwaukee is much closer to home than San Antonio, it’s still not Wausau. For better or worse. I enjoyed the city a lot when I was there. To tell the truth, I don’t know if I ever want to return to Wausau; I just don’t want to be as far away, at least, not if I’m going to hate it.

And I don’t know how life will feel without the Air Force always fucking Ryan over. We’re both nervous about job and finance issues but I’m sure it will be okay in the end. Can’t help but worry, of course.

I just worry that if everything is different, maybe it’s not worth going back to. Maybe I’m trying to reclaim a life I left behind when I should be forging a new one instead?

I dunno.

Honest Scrap Award

What is an “honest scrap?”

“The HonestScrap award comes with a caveat or two. Firstly, you have to tell your readers ten things about you they may not know, but that are true. Secondly, you have to tag 10 people with the award.”

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Me:

1. I named my sister, after Samantha Mulder.
2. I met some of my closest friends in middle school.
3. I call my mother almost every day.
4. I met my husband online.
5. Cole is short for Nicole.
6. I think of myself as Cole, not Nicole.
7. I’ve only ever felt the desire to have children twice in my life.
8. When I was younger, we lived in the country and sometimes I want to go back.
9. During my teens, all I wanted was to get away from home but now that I’m away, all I want is to go back.
10. I give good advice. Really, I do. So you should take it.

I present this award to the following ten people:

• Karen
• Anna
• Terri
• Nik
• Fruity
• Ashe
• Angela
• Helen
• Ashley
• Shelly

My mother’s daughter

I am. For a long time I didn’t want to be, couldn’t believe I was but I am. I turn more into my mother’s daughter every day it seems. I fought her music; it’s mine now. I play her card games, her board games. I watch her television shows. I call her on nearly a daily basis and even though she may not understand, she listens to my problems big and small. I laugh at her expense and she at mine. I am selfish, in part, because she was. I am a product of her and I can accept that now, maybe even embrace it.