DanRochman.com

Thanks (mostly) to the wonderful web app known simply as Gallery, I now have a Photo Gallery up on this site! I’ve actually had the Gallery app running on a test box for a little while, just experimenting with it, so there are just some older albums up right now. But I’m now ready to start uploading new photos. Well, almost ready - my digital camera (Olympus E-100RS) is in the shop. In the meantime, I intend to create a sub-gallery of pics taken with my bizarre little SiPix StyleCam Blink, or maybe still captured from my DV camcorder. Whatever - having Gallery up is half the battle. And now to bed.

I finally get a blog going, and I’m itching to update it, and here I am sneaking this update in during my (insane!) work day because I just don’t want to put it off any longer. A great deal is going on, so much so that there isn’t time to write about it - which makes me wonder if there’s any correlation between the rise of blogging and the rise in the unemployment rate…
Anyhow, this weekend was very hectic but a lot of fun. My Lady Emylene and I hosted a Dessert Party (no dinner - just dessert, we’re grown-ups and we say it’s okay, so it is) Saturday night, with most of Friday and Saturday going into the preparation. Okay, Emylene did most of the prep, but she also got most of the credit… It was great to have so many wonderful people over, and even though we couldn’t make the Peace Rally here in San Francisco (that prep work, you know), we at least got to reward our friends that went (and those that didn’t - what the heck) with yummy desserts. And if everyone in the world had lots of yummy dessert, you just know there’d be no war. Sunday saw some sleeping in, some cleaning up, some errands getting run, and then we caught The Pianist at the lovely Clay Theatre, and THEN we caught Totally False People and the Sklar Brothers at the San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival. Emylene was asleep on my shoulder by the end of the Sklar set, so we headed home and passed out.
Today’s the usual crazy work day, except I had to be up before dawn to make a meeting in the East Bay by 8:00 AM, then back home for a bunch of meetings by phone, and now heading out again to call on a prospect in San Francisco, and all the while with a bunch of other deliverables piling up on my task list. And then tomorrow, Tina and Derek (friends of ours - Tina and Em go waaaaaaaaaaay back, like Sherman & Peabody) are coming in from Toronto for a visit - YAY! But *whew*, things are just nuts around here.
And now, back to work.

Whoo-hoo!!

My first-ever entry via PocketBlog!

More cool Pocket PC links tomorrow - right now it’s time for bed…

(Update: I just updated this entry in MT after the fact, mainly because PocketBlog doesn’t allow you to set post status, specify a category, nor explicitly specify a title. But it STILL rocks. Good night.)

Two Words: GIVE BLOOD

There happens to be a critical blood shortage in the U.S. at the moment, and it also happens that January is National Volunteer Blood Donor Month, but any time is a good time to give blood.

I try to give every eight weeks (about as often as one can safely do so), and I encourage others to do the same. To find out more about blood donation:
- in the U.S., check out The American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, or America’s Blood Centers, or call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE, or go to https://www.givelife.org/
- in Canada, check out Canadian Blood Services
- elsewhere, try the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

If you think you have a reason NOT to give, check out these Top Ten Reasons for Not Giving Blood first. While some people really can’t give (under minimum age/weight, anemic, etc.), most people are eligible, and the sad fact is that most eligible people don’t donate.

If you need some reasons to give:
- blood is a precious commodity that saves lives, and it can’t be manufactured, only donated
- no one else can donate blood for you (George Soros, for example, could cover for us when it comes to donating dollars, but he can only give blood once every eight weeks, same as everyone else)
- it costs you nothing (but an hour and a bandage on your arm) to give blood, but it might be priceless to the recipient
- blood (well, the red blood cells part) has a shelf life of about 42 days, so it’s always in demand

If you’re already a donor, now is a good time to give again, and if you’ve never donated before, now is a great time to start. It’s safe, simple, convenient, (almost) painless, and it gives you an excuse to lie down, drink fluids, and eat cookies. Mmm, cookies…

More thanks to Chris P. - I just created and added my very own (growing) Blogroll. I even used PHP to include the blogroll info, so I feel particularly geeky (but in a good way). I’m okay with JavaScript in some cases, but having content depend on it is against my religion. To give you an idea, I test my sites in Lynx.

For those that don’t know, a Blogroll is a list of blogs that you visit (somewhat) regularly. The idea being that if you like what you see here, and I like what I see there, then by extension (drumroll) you might like what you’d see there, too.

So go ahead and check them out. Also check out blogrolling.com, which powers the list. I’ll be adding more as time allows, but for now I’ve got (real) work to do.

Waddayaknow? It really *is* that easy to get MovableType up and running…
Special thanks to Chris “Lockergnome” Pirillo, who inspired me (I’m *that* “blogger-wannabe”) to actually “go home and do it” - albeit not in those words. I can almost *FEEL* my personal and professional lives flourishing! Well, maybe not quite yet - but there is a tingling sensation…

Next up (tomorrow): some real content, a photo gallery, some non-default templates and style sheets, and at least one Call to Action!

[Thanks, Chris. It *was* easy, but it's also easy to find reasons *not* to do things. I owe you some Peet's.]