This is born from a homework assignment my shrink gave me to do this week. I gotta mention now that during our first meeting, she said she didn’t give out homework assignments. I wonder if I should be concerned that she lied to me and saddled me with this project on only our 3rd meeting? Naw. My feeling is she knew it’s what I needed to do. I was doing nothing but complaining, rambling and being entirely discombobulated. There was no focus. Maybe this will help me realign myself.

I Decided to make the list public by putting it here on my blog. It serves a bonus purpose of adding some interesting content to one of my websites, which I had also complained about a lack of inspiration in doing. So, let me get to it.

My Other Foot List

1.) Move into a nice house with a yard and a deck.

If I don’t get to do anything else, I would like to have a little house, where I don’t have to worry about the neighbors hearing my noises in the bathroom, or the landlord next door banging on my wall when I play my Maroon 5 CD. It doesn’t have to be big and fancy, but more than the 440 square foot apartment I have now would be nice. A little yard that my dog, Loomis, could enjoy and a small deck I could sit out on to get some sun and throw the occasional stick for Loomis.

2.) Go to a Maroon 5 concert.

Maybe you hadn’t noticed, these guys are my new favorite band. You might think going to a concert was no special thing, but it is to me. I haven’t been to a concert for many years and now that I have the time, I don’t have the money. And Maroon 5’s concerts are so far away from me that I would have to drive a long distance and do the whole lodging and restaurants thing - a lot more money. But I can see me dancing on my Segway while experiencing the magic they make with their music.

3.) Be a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Who doesn’t want to be on TV? There’s a few talk/variety shows I like and I got to wondering, if I could only be on one of them, I think it would have to be Ellen. I admire her not only for her wonderful humor, but for the adversity she has been through and her great and kind heart. I used to be able to dance pretty good and every time I see Ellen dance through her audience, I wish I could be there to experience that. And, selfishly, I want so much for my flooring website to be very popular to do-it-yourselfers and flooring professionals all over the world, I would hope for an opportunity to plug it on her show.

4.) Attend Surfaces (flooring convention) in Las Vegas.

Surfaces is one of the largest flooring conventions in the world. I have gone a number of times. The members of The Floor Pro Community sent me there a year ago and one of them arranged to have a Segway donated to me so I could traverse the miles of exhibits in an upright position. Unfortunately, the security team there decided my Segway was a danger to the visitors and made me use a sit-down cart. The cart got stuck trying to get into a restroom and I managed to run over several toes and bump into a few displays. Donations have been way down on my flooring site, but I do want to go again - this time using my Segway. I feel I need to attend to help make other flooring manufacturers and organizations aware of the support we offer to the industry.

5.) Lead a Segway tour of part of The Pacific Crest Trail.

And parts of my beautiful home town, Quincy, California. After returning from Vietnam, I worked for a short time in a training program for the U.S. Forest Service. During part of those months, we built 3 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. It was hard work, but it was a wonderful experience. I’d love to re-live part of that by taking some fellow Segway gliders, especially those who use them as mobility aides, on a trail glide. I’d like it to include a short tour of the historic and scenic areas of Quincy.

6.) Get a college degree.

In and out of college through the 70s and a couple more half-hearted attempts in the 80s, I never got so much as an AA degree. I don’t know how many credits I need, but I would like to be able to say I completed something as important as a formal education. There are some courses I might find interesting too. And, if things haven’t changed too much since my last class, them college girls are pretty damn cute.

7.) Customize my minivan and win a prize in a car show.

I’ve owned lots of vehicles over the years and have even been the proud owner of a 1965 Ford Thunderbird for the last 8 years, but my real pride and joy on 4 wheels has been my 2001 Chrysler Town and Country. I managed to do a few modifications to it, including a cat-back system, hot plugs and wires, some great wheels and tires. I even installed a beautiful, deep blue cable shag carpet throughout. But there’s so much more I would love to be able to do. Lower it a couple inches, have a flared ground effects system installed, custom grill with matching cowl work, molded in backup lights and a really sweet paint job. No, I don’t want a hot-rockin’ babe magnet van from the 70s. I want a daily driver that drives like a sports car, looks very cool, but is durable and practical - and a show winner.

8.) Do a great computer mod that is featured in a computer magazine.

I’ve actually done this and it’s a wonderful feeling. I just want to do it one more time. The thing is, most of the current crop of computer mods are gaming rigs and look like space ships or comic book super heroes. I like elegance, style - something an executive would want to put on their desk, or use as part of their home entertainment system. A little chrome, some exotic woods, subtle lighting and great performance from an easy to service platform. I kinda like a mixture of Moderne and Art Nouveau.

9.) Go to the largest computer gear exposition in the West.

My passion for computers goes back to 1992, but I have never once made it to a big computer trade show. There have been some almosts, but no been there’s and done that’s. There is a very nice one, I hear, in Las Vegas, called CES. It’s right around the time that Surfaces (flooring convention) is held. Maybe with the right kind of luck, enough money and a laptop to manage my websites, I could do an extended stay - the vacation I’ve never had.

10.) Attend the biggest and best auto exposition in the USA.

SEMA. Also in Las Vegas. Usually in November. Trouble is, it’s for the trade professionals only - or the media. I wonder if I could get in as a correspondent of some sort? I am associated with a car club. Maybe Ellen would want to send me there to do a “sneak peek” report on the great new vehicles coming. I’d settle for a really nice car show in a hot location like LA, San Francisco, even Modesto. I just love being around all those beautiful cars.

That’s my bucket list… er, My Other Foot List. Some of these aren’t so far fetched. I might be able to do some of them before my time is up here. The doc says I have a couple 2 or three years (”maybe”), so there’s certainly time enough to try to make these come true. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I get to take long, leisurely showers now… Not because I have the time or inclination, of course, but because I don’t have much choice. I get out of breath just washing my hair.

Friends and family wait on me hand and foot… Not because I am so dynamic and popular, but because I can no longer do some of the things I used to take for granted.

I got to spend a little time laying around in bed with these really cool wires attached to me after a heart attack, caused by a low level of oxygen saturation in my blood.

One of the best things of all is the really cool back pack I get to wear every day now.

Had I got interested in hiking and jogging when I was a punk kid, I coulda had one a these things filled with my favorite beverage. Which prob’ly woulda meant I mighta quit smoking sooner to devote more interest in that healthy pastime. But noooooo, I gotta wait ’til I hafta wear one of these things — with a canister of oxygen insteada water.

On top of that, I got some horse pills an’ these inhaler things (4 different ones) I have to do 4 times a day — one is Albuterol and an AeroChamber. It’s so funny that it looks like I’m taking big ol’ hits off a dope pipe, which I haven’t done in 20 years. I can hardly wait for the first time a cop sees me do it out of the corner of his eye. Talk about déjà vu.

And the pill cutter… what th’ heck is that all about? Can’t they make a smaller pill? I gotta have this guillotine type instrument - an’ I already cut my finger once!

Yeah, man, that suicide on the installment plan is really startin’ ta pay off now. They keep tellin’ me, “quality of life”. This is real quality, I tell ya. The good news is I only have to go through it for another 2 or 3 years (according to the eviction notice I got from my doctor a couple weeks ago).

Lest you think I have sunk to my lowest ebb, I am not giving up. I am still trying to be as active as I can. I am trying to lose some weight (gained 80 pounds when I quit smoking - at 258 now) so I don’t put such a strain on my Segway, which I have to use if I wanna go more than 50′ without a car. I do love building my professional and special interest websites - The Floor Pro Community, enterpriseJM and Grump’s Place among several others.

It’s not my intention to gain your sympathy here. Some people seem to be absolutely clueless about the rights of all humans to live free of unnecessary and involuntary danger. Yeah, I lived in danger for many years, but I have the right to be free of it now. My lung disease is significantly advanced compared to a lot of other people.

There’s prob’ly millions of people who recognized (or maybe not yet) that smoking was damaging their lungs and hearts and they are able to walk around without the aid of o2, inhalers and pills. But they still suffer every time some dolt blows smoke their way thinking they have the right to.

The fact is, far too many people don’t use common sense or have the slightest consideration for others. I sure didn’t as a smoker, a dope head or a selfish and self-centered punk kid. So, it’s guys like me that suffer because we don’t want the little bit of time we have left to be shortened even 2 minutes because someone else feels like havin’ a smoke. We might need laws that tell smokers when and where they can light up. It’s either that or guys like me will just bust their heads open with the ugly end of an oxygen tank. Whata they gonna do, give me free room and board in a hospital for a few more years?

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Just do it where the rest of us don’t have to breathe your left-overs.

Tonight was QUITE different. Maroon5 and It Won’t Be Soon Before Long made the difference. I’ll admit that what initially prompted me to give a listen - or at least wait to see them walk on stage - was the very stylish album cover (us old folks still call ‘em albums - they’re CDs and even smaller an’ shinier than my old 45’s) - go ‘head, give it a click to see the larger version. I know, that’s a pretty weird reason to decide to listen to a group, but I’ve made flimsier decisions than that, ya know. So, the end of the show comes around (by the way, pretty stiff and boring Katie Holmes was and that was a lousy impersonation of Letterman that Frank Caliendo did) and the Maroon 5 were introduced. Right away I noticed it: no screaming. Really, you know what I’m talkin’ about. These guys were smooth. I was tappin’ away on my computer, ferget doin’ what, and I just had to stop. It was a very fresh and clean sound.

This music coming from Maroon 5 is amazing. I know that my taste in music has always run toward pop and dance music, but lately, maybe because I’ve done more reminiscing, I’ve been listening to some of the stuff I enjoyed in my youth. That’s what old folks do, right? But ol’ Dave brought me right back to the here an’ now. Even with the poor sound equipment his producers saddle the musical talent with, these guys sounded very good. So, geek that I am (’course I waited ’til their set was over), I googled them. Yeah, that’s a verb now.

The Maroon 5 website isn’t as nice as their music. It’s Adobe Flash based and doesn’t function well - no “tool-tips” to tell you what’s what and the worst, no volume control. But the best part is their top tune, “Won’t Go Home Without You” started playin’ right away. I love DSL. It’s the same piece they played on the Letterman show and it really has a much better sound quality. This song has a crisp, but gentle beat and melodic lyrics. The chorus is smooth, so much unlike all that harsh screaming I’ve heard and stumbled over shit trying to get to the volume knob. I found myself bouncing my feet and tapping on my thigh just like I did so long, long ago.

As “…Without You” faded off, I nervously anticipated the next song. You know, you’ve been through it before… a great song turns into the only good thing that group ever did and the rest is kee-rap. Not Maroon 5. These guys got lots more music in them. Up was “Wake Up Call“, a lively tune that really had me wishin’ I could still dance. Well, I can, but only for about 20 seconds an’ then I’m grabbin’ for the rescue inhaler. This tune was one a them you just gotta move to though and I did my best. I pulled the oxygen on and kept playin’ my legs like an old drum kit.

They don’t have every song of the CD on their online player, but the five tracks they do have are enough to sell me. You can get their album through iTunes, or at Amazon.com and either place will let you listen before you buy. Of course, the best listenting is at the Maroon5 website. They have links to iTunes, Amazon.com and several other places you might find interesting (’course, I am an Amazon affiliate partner and it helps me if you buy the music - or anything - by clicking the links to Amazon I provide here). I tried to join their forum, but they don’t like me, I guess. Couldn’t get much to work there. So, I stole some graphics and high-tailed it outa there. Hope you like what I did with them.

Jim with 1 Foot OUT of the Grave tonight.

The method is called a “float.” You would think it might be called a wrap, but no, I didn’t get to be on the naming committee. I’ll describe the method of doing this so that anyone coding an HTML page can do the same. You can use this method in any HTML document, it doesn’t have to be WordPress. There is a shortcut to this method for those using WordPress, so keep reading, I’ll get to it soon.

Although you can use floats for text boxes and other things, I’m only going to be talking about images and graphics. You can code the image using in-line styling, or you can put the CSS in with the rest of your CSS file. The in-line code for the image might look something like this:

<img style=”float:left; margin:0 6px 2px 0; padding:4px;” src=”http://1footinthegrave.com/images/genesee010-tn.jpg” alt=”barn” />Blah, bla, blah…

The text you enter after that will now float to the right side of the image, beginning at the top and wrapping under it. The “float:left” attribute tells the image to go to the left side of its container. The “margin” code tells the browser how much space to put around the image to give it a little elbow room. In this case, it is telling it to display text zero pixels from the top (you do not need to use the designator “px” when the value is zero - zero is zero no matter if you’re talking about pixels or miles), 6 pixels from the right side, 2 pixels from the bottom and zero from the left side. Margin values are given clockwise - top, right, bottom and left. Think of margins as the space around the outside of the object. Padding is the space around the inside edges. The image above has a padding statement of 4px. In margins and padding, you can state one value that applies to all sides. You can adjust the spacing by changing the values to what suits you.

Here is another image that floats to the right of the text. The code still falls at the beginning of a new line and your text is still typed right after it (no space, just type). You can see the differences in the code by studying it below.

<img style=”float:right; margin:0 0 2px 6px; padding:4px;” src=”http://1footinthegrave.com/images/4goofballs-tn.jpg” alt=”friends” />Yadda yadda, blah…

Note that I changed the values of the margin so that the space would now be on the left side of the image instead of the right. You can use this styling for other things, as I mentioned. But it’s a lot simpler if you add the CSS to your CSS file instead of styling it in-line. Many WordPress themes already have this code in their CSS and all you have to do is set a class attribute in the image. The code I have in my style sheet is as follows:

img.alignright { padding: 4px; margin: 0 0 2px 6px; }
img.alignleft { padding: 4px; margin: 0 6px 2px 0; }
.alignright { float: right; }
.alignleft { float: left }

You should check your theme’s CSS file to see what you have that is similar. The image of me and my friends can now be coded like this:

<img class=”alignright” src=”http://1footinthegrave.com/images/4goofballs-tn.jpg” alt=”friends” />Yackity, yak, yak…

As you can see, there’s a lot less code to write.

For you WordPress users, posting images is much easier. There is a price, however, because you can’t choose to make your thumbnail images a different size whenever you want. Them that likes the simplicity of it though, can use the “upload” feature inside your editor. Browse to the image on your computer you want, give it a title, add a description if you want and click upload. You then select from several options, one being to display a thumbnail image, and tell it to add it to your editor. You will have to move the graphic or image to the location in your post that you want it - just a little cut & paste work. Finally, you add the float declaration to align the image on the left or right side. Here you see a graphic I designed as the logo for my flooring message board for professionals and do-it-yourselfers.

You may have already noticed that you can see larger versions of my images appear before your very eyes when you click them. That is a fancy plug-in I found at WordPress - just do a search for “Lightbox” there and you’ll find it. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, one of the nice things about that plug-in is, if it doesn’t work for the user’s browser settings, it will just link to a larger image. You can click the back button to return to the page.

I hope this tutorial has helped a few. I tried not to be so overwhelming with the technical jargon in hopes that most can understand it better. I remember what it was like when I first started to learn this kind of stuff. If you have questions or comments, just add them below.

Jim with 1 Foot in the Grave

But that isn’t what this entry is about. I only mention my case modding because it has been the kind of thing I have enjoyed doing for many years. Oh, not just computer case modding, but modding just about everything. I used to build model cars when I was a kid - customized them and even got published in a model car mag back then. I’ve tried to modify cars, my homes, hell, I even modified the way I pack this damn oxygen tank around - but more on that later. What I am taking the long way around getting to is that I spent the biggest part of this day modifying this website. I just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

The theme I chose for this site was a simple one. Casual, like me, understated colors because I like to pepper my posts with images and graphics, but with an interesting graphic that I immediately knew I was going to be able to replace. The original design looks like this: Coffee Stained Sample Site Well, it wasn’t as quick and simple as I had first thought, but I am really happy with the results. I completely re-did the page graphics, changed the color slightly and moved the column overlays a little lower on the page. I originally search the Net for graphics that I could use with a little editing here and there. But, as usual, I wasn’t satisfied.

Photography has been a hobby of mine for a long time. I have a portfolio I show prospective models - yeah, I like taking pictures of women more than anything else - and I like to think I’ve done some interesting landscapes and abstract work. But today was about the website graphics and I am real pleased (just in case by the time you have gotten around to reading this, I have changed the website again, here is a screen shot of the style I am referring to). It took hours to get the pictures just right. I use Adobe Fireworks for most of my work, but I also use Corel Paint Shop Pro - Fireworks can’t be beat for graphics, but for photo manipulation, it’s lacking and I can’t get the hang of Adobe PhotoShop.

I shot a couple dozen pictures of the oxygen tank on a couple different backgrounds. At first, I thought the tank should have no background at all (except for the graphics of the page), so I spent an hour trying to erase it from the picture. But then I thought, the picture I liked the best was on a background that was similar to the color of the page design already, so I just used the Fireworks Fade Image command and played around with the controls until it looked the way I wanted. I had to use the eraser to soften and blend the hard edges left over. The image was too bold and colorful for a page graphic, so I tried a few different things before I finally settled on the sepia-tone look.

The small drug store I have on my bedroom dresser was a bit tougher. I shot a lot of pictures of those in many different configurations. When I looked through all my shots with my favorite image management program (Thumbs Plus), I finally decided on the very first picture I took. This picture is one I had to remove all traces of the background material I used for the setup - an old flannel sheet. It took a couple of hours, but it turned out very nice, I think. Fireworks has a couple tools for removing backgrounds and I usually like the Magic Wand tool the best, but the flannel wasn’t going to go away so easy. I ended up using the Eraser tool and manually traced around every pill bottle and inhaler. My neck was sore, my back ached, my hand cramped up a couple times, but all that pain put a really big smile on my face when I saw the results.

Okay, I’m bragging. I hope you like my efforts though.

The installation couldn’t have been much easier - it really does take less than 5 minutes. The options were impressive and simple to set up. I got a couple of plugins and installed a theme I liked and I was up and running. I especially like that it’s all valid code right outa the box. I’m anal about that. The theme I chose has a 1 pixel jog in the background that I can’t seem to fix. I made a comment to the designer on the WordPress Themes page, so I hope it gets resolved.

One thing I didn’t like about the theme I chose (Coffee Stained 1.0) was the size of the graphics. There were only 3 graphics, but the total file size was over 162 KB. That’s gotta take a while to download for the poor saps still using dialup. Even for many DSL connections, that’s a bit of a wait for the page to load. So, I converted the JPG images to PNG, loaded them into Adobe Firefox and then did some optimizing. The header was originally a little over 70 KB, but I was able to reduce it to less than 19. The footer, originally 87 KB, is now just over 17. The background was a 760×155px image with a file size of almost 5 KB. I couldn’t understand why the image would be 155px high, so I cropped it down to on 10px. Some would say 1 or 2px would do just as well. Now the file size is about half a kilobyte. I saved 126 KB.

I wish I could lose some of my fat the same way. Hell, I’d be one handsome guy… nah, it’d prob’ly take a lot more’n that.

Anyway, I enjoy messing with this kind of stuff and I’m looking forward to making this site nice. Even if it doesn’t get a lot of traffic, I’d like it to be nice for myself. And who knows, it might be busy enough to help pay for itself with the advertising. It’s just one small way I hope to get out of this damn poor house and spend my last days in something a lot more comfortable.

That was in Alaska, where I was born an Army brat, and I had dived head first from the porch into the drift that settled in our front yard. The snow, stiff and crusty, held me firm and I couldn’t move. I panicked and screamed for help.

There’s no screaming now, but I am panicked. I shouldn’t be surprised, since I’ve been walking around with a hose in my nose, snorting o2, for the past two and a half years. I knew then that I wouldn’t live to the old age I had hoped for, but somehow it didn’t hit me like it did a couple of days ago.

My medical care is through the Veterans Administration. It’s all I get because I was too foolish to get insurance at any time during the last 35 years of my career in floor covering. So anyway, I go to see a pulmonary specialist on the 27th and after about 45 minutes of questions and him methodically tapping out 2 finger style on a keyboard, he tells me that the Emphysema is spread throughout my lungs so much that lung reduction surgery is out of the question. He mentions the possibility of lung transplantation, but wants me to know that it doesn’t have the long-lasting effect they had once hoped for. He talked about the danger of that kind of surgery. He said that only 50% of patients who have the surgery live 5 years.

My hopes weren’t getting up there where I thought they’d be. I asked him what kind of time I might have left without the surgery. “Two, maybe three years,” he said. I was actually surprised I didn’t cry at that news. I remember crying like a baby when they wheeled out my first oxygen tank over 2 years ago. It was a death sentence then, but the other day was the official eviction notice.

I left there thinking I have to do whatever I can to beat that 3 year mark. It was a kind of slow-burn panic. I don’t want to live the way I have been for the last year. I was evicted from a beautiful home I lived in for 17 years because I couldn’t pay the mortgage anymore. My new home is a cracker-box I really should be grateful for. The best friend I’ve ever had has been very generous and supportive, giving me a place to live, giving me an opportunity I would have never gotten to have my mobility device (a Segway) and just being a great friend. But I miss having more than 2 rooms. I miss the nicer things I enjoyed. I miss having a yard all around, fences, a workshop, lots of deck to lounge on and so much more.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time adding Adsense to all my websites (I used it on only one site previously). I set this site up, not only to do this blog, which I have wanted to do for a very long time, but to get some advertising dollars rolling in. My small military pension is less than one-fourth what I used to make and I am sick and tired of being poor. I did my time back in the old days of my youth.

But the day wasn’t only spent trying desperately to generate some income opportunity. I ate healthier. I tried breathing exercises. I walked about 3 blocks. Used considerable energy and strength to move my street tires and some other stuff into a storage unit and did 3 loads of laundry. If I’m true to my habits, I might be good for another day or so before I settle back into my “easier, softer ways.” But I don’t think I can afford that kind of attitude anymore. I think I have some hard work ahead.

We’ll see.