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CSS Positioning Brain Fart

I think I'm having a brain fart of some kind. Have a look at this page: http://nslog.com/_space.html (which may not exist after I solve the problem) and maybe you'll see what I'm apparently too mentally gassy to get: what can I do to make the "Signature" align with the bottom of the blue frame it's in?

The red div is fine. The green div is fine. Blue and yellow are okay as well. I just need teal to go to the bottom of the blue div.

Postbit can change its height a little bit, but it'll have a min-height of 250px or so. Post content can be as short as one line or as long as you want it to be… and the signature area can be one line of text, six lines of text plus an additional 50px for a row of images, or non-existent.

So, what's up? What am I not seeing or getting?

Shelfari

I've joined Shelfari and, though it's still too early to tell if I'm going to use it frequently, I plan to and hope you'll sign up and be a friend.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Wife’s New CR-V

So despite what some people seemed to think based on this post :-), the Honda CR-V was the clear-cut winner. The main reason? We prefer to keep our cars for about eight years, and in eight years someone who lives in our house will be 16, so we bought her a car too. The Kia hasn't had anywhere near enough years of "good reliability" to trust it. I'm not sure I'd even buy it if it was for me with no back-end gifting… (Then again, I'm not sure I'd be comparing it to a CR-V, either.)

Honda CR-V

When Safari Crashes…

… and it doesn't happen frequently, mind you, but when it does, why does it often take minutes for it to be able to reconnect to websites?

Other things can connect - I can ping sites in Terminal - but Safari sputters and refuses to connect to even apple.com for seconds or even minutes sometimes.

Defence

Defence

So many things wrong here, not the least of which is the sign, of course.

This woman apparently doesn't know that people only hold up cut-outs of the letter "D" and a picture of a "fence" because "D""fence" is a homophone of "defense."

Or maybe she really does need someone to de-fence her yard. Or she thought she was going to a swordsman competition, and she's encouraging the Colts to "do fence!"

Honda CR-V vs. Kia Sorento

Top models - leather, navigation, Bluetooth, etc. for both - is what it's come down to for Carey.

Sorento Plusses
---------------
- keyless entry/ignition
- V6 engine
- third row of seats
- included roof rack
- Sportmatic shifting
- panoramic sunroof
- longer warranty

CR-V Plusses
------------
- less expensive (~$1600)
- voice-activated commands for more than nav
- Honda reliability/resale

Decision mostly made. Still a small possibility it could change, though. Both local, which is a first for us.

Car Research

Today's a car research day for me. I'm plotting charts showing the business hours that car dealers are open today and tomorrow. I'm writing down reviews and safety ratings. I'm printing PDFs of invoice cost charts.

It's Carey's decision in the end and as I said, she can't go wrong with any of the four models she's narrowed it down to, which is nice.

WordLens

Amazing (if true, and it seems to be):

Visited Some Car Dealers

As Carey is in need of a new car, we spent a little time today driving around to visit some local car dealers to sit in some cars (no test drives yet!!!) after we revisited D'Amico to retrieve our forgotten garage door opener.

At the Kia dealership we looked at the Sorento. We'd later add the Sportage as something to consider later on. They've changed the look of these two models from their 2005-2010 lines and they look a LOT nicer. The Sorento is built in Georgia and comes with a LOT of features. The Sportage does as well (but is still made in Korea, I think). Incentives are $1000/$500 cash back and a $1500 competitor reward because we have a Forester (even in its current state).

We stopped in at the Nissan dealership because the Rogue was next on the list. A neighbor recently purchased a Rogue and loves it, and it comes in at a little less than the price and with similar features as the Sorento. Incentives are $500.

Then we looked at the CR-V, which we had ruled out last year because it felt clunky, didn't look very good. You still seem to pay about $3000 because the car says "Honda" on it, so that makes it cost similar to the other cars while not being as fully equipped. No incentives or cash back, but the salesman said he'd yet to have anyone walk away ((I joked he'd only been working a week and a half.)).

We stopped at Toyota, but the RAV4 still looks ugly to us, inside and out, and seems roughly as "overpriced" as the Honda without quite the same "reliability" and "safety" ratings to back them up.

Picking Up the Pieces

Following yesterday's crash, Carey spoke with our insurance company and the police and several other people. After one false start, we located our car at D'Amico. This image says a lot, I think, about not only the damage the car sustained but also how fortunate we are that Carey seems to be major-injury free:

Carey's Subaru Forester Totaled

We picked up the things that were sitting in the car ((We'd have to go back the next day to pick up the garage door opener - we never thought to look up at the shades.)) like Nat's inline skates, a coupon book, mugs, an iPod, a pair of shoes, jumper cables from the back, etc. We took what was salvageable as well - the floor mats and the trunk cargo netting.

Crash Boom Bang

I spoke to Carey as she was leaving school today, and then she called again at about 3:26, crying and sobbing and screaming. I couldn't understand most of what she said, but I did hear "Nat" and "bus" and "hit me" and "my car" and perhaps "obliterated ((I love that my wife uses the word "obliterated" even when she's just been in a car accident.))."

I called back in a few minutes and Carey was calmer. She'd been in a car accident near our house (on Zimmerly Road) because an oncoming car was sliding sideways on the street and hit her. We later discovered that the oncoming car, a Buick Lesabre driven by an 18-year-old who had been driving for only three months in her "new" car, had spun once or twice after plowing into the front of Carey's Subary Forester ((Impact was slightly towards the driver's side of Carey's car and on the passenger side of the oncoming car.)), clipping the driver's side rear of Carey's car and then hitting the side of the car behind Carey.

Contracts

This seems to be a consistent problem with a certain portion of white collar (or perhaps no-collar) work force: an inability to think rationally, honor your word, and to not break the contract they propose and to which they agree.

It's simply ridiculous how much time and energy I've wasted, my partners have wasted, and the "workers" have wasted simply because the worker is, well, a flake.

You know who I respect? People who honor their commitments, even if it comes at some sacrifice. I'm far more likely to not only use them again down the road, but to reward them, cut them some slack, and to listen to their ideas.

Skating, Scoring, and Scrapping

Nat and I went skating at JMC today. She still has the adjustable skates (single blade - none of that "training" nonsense) and though we eventually moved them from 9 to 10 (they go up to 12) to give her a bit more wiggle room, they worked out well.

Nat did incredibly awesome for her first time on ice in so long. Her instructions were to turn her toes out and to bend her knees. Turning her toes out allowed her to get more traction when she'd push backwards and keeping her knees bent (or, what worked better - "sticking her butt out") kept her a bit lower to the ice and also let her push off with longer strokes.

Beginners, if you've ever noticed, all tend to try to skate standing straight up. Bent knees not only help your balance, people, but they let you actually push so you can get around the rink in less than ten minutes.

Streakin’ Pens

The Penguins have won 12 games in a row and are 13-0-1 in their last 14 games.

That said, I think they face a stiff challenge against the Flyers tomorrow night. It's in Philly (though they're 0-2 against the Flyers in Pittsburgh and 1-0 in Philly), their play has gotten a little tired lately, and the Flyers have a solid team that's taking less penalties than they usually do. If the Flyers act like it's any time from 1970 to 2009, then the Pens win another easily. But if I had to bet, I'd say 13 is unlucky…

But congrats for the streak. It helps to build a nice cushion, and is fun to watch, but having been through two runs to the Finals in the past three years, Crosby and the Pens ((… unlike some people…)) know that the streak is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Analyzr Coming Along

Still set for an early January 2011 release, Analyzr is coming along quite nicely.

Within the next few weeks we'll have the website finished (it's started as a Photoshop document at this point), we'll figure out what we want to do with our licensing scheme, we'll set up our FastSpring store, we'll set up an LLC, and we'll ship the darn thing.

Feedback from testers continues to be really positive. A few have found bugs (all fixed, and there have only really been about three) and many have written to say specifically how awesome they think the app is and how glad they are that someone's doing something for Mac owners.

We're going to put a good amount of energy into converting Windows owners, too. After all, for many pros their computer is simply a "device." They don't care about the underlying OS so much as they care about the software they run on it. Safari and Mail will cover 90% or so of their "non-video-analysis" time, and Analyzr will cost several hundred dollars less than the "other" software for Windows.