Oh, hi everyone! What are you doing here? Blog? OH! My blog! Right… I kinda forgot about it. Sorry about that. But I do have something to write about now.

Allstate car insurance. Their catch phrase is “Are you in good hands?” implying that their customers are. Now I can’t vouch for how they treat their customers, but I can imagine that the service is amazing. I assume this because of the service I just received.

A little history: I got rear ended pretty lightly by a guy who is insured by Allstate. No one was hurt, and the only damage to my car was a small barely noticeable crack in the plastic bumper cover. The wreck was on a Friday.

The next Monday Allstate calls me (as opposed to the other way around) and has me set up an appointment to have my car looked at. The appointment was set for 8AM on the next Monday. I gave myself 30 minutes to get to the place since I hadn’t been there before, but it only took me 15, so I was 15 minutes early, and the sign on the door said the place didn’t open until 8. Well, the adjuster was there, and he told me to come in and sit down. After 15 minutes and about 3 or 4 questions and answers, I was driving away with a check for $435.57. Awesome. And if the bill for the repairs happens to be more than that for some reason, I just ask the mechanic to fill out a fax form that the Allstate guy gave me, and have them send it in, and Allstate will work it out directly with them. No hassle.

Now, I don’t plan on spending that much money to repair such a little thing, so it’s money in the bank. I was very pleased by how smooth the process was, and how quickly I got money for it. So if you want a few hundred bucks with no work or hassle, get hit by somebody who has Allstate.

Well, My wife and I have been married for a year now! That’s exciting!… Yeah, that’s all I have to say.

191

Rachel and I just got back (a few days ago) from our anniversary camping trip! It was all kinds of fun, and details and pictures are coming soon over at our private site (ask me about it if you don’t know about it). This particular post is about my new cool pan we used for the first time. It’s an 8″ cast iron skillet, and I absolutely LUFF it.

I bought it (at a garage sale for a buck) because I needed something heavy duty that would be able to easily withstand the heat of cooking over an open fire (or even ON an open fire if I have to set it right down on the wood). Little did I know that cast iron is also naturally non-stick, as long as it is seasoned and cared for properly. I’m very excited about my new toy, and have already had all kinds of fun cooking with it. I know that this pan could easily be with us for many many years.

As a side note, I learned all about how to restore and care for my new favorite pan from Linda Stradley over at WhatsCookingAmerica.net. If you ever need info on cast iron skillets, this is the place to go.

This weekend (Memorial Day Weekend), Rachel and I are hitting the tech stores in search of the perfect laptop, compliments of the US government and the all-too-exciting economic stimulus package. It’s really mainly for Rachel, so that she can do more with her pictures, and have her own computer on which to do it… although I may be borrowing it from time to time for my own devious intents.

Both of us are very excited about this… and I just had to write about it. This is the first time I’ve ever shopped for a computer without simply looking for the cheapest one that wasn’t a piece of junk. Oh, and the best part… It’s gonna have 4GB of RAM! (For those who care, that’s about 21 times the size of the hard drive of the first family computer I coded on).

I’ve been looking for a way to test my websites on several different browsers. For those of you in web design, you know that once you have one version of IE on your computer, you can forget about testing your site on any other version.

Well, I finally found a service that solves this problem. It’s called CrossBrowserTesting.com. Pretty straight forward, eh? They offer a free service, but you can only use it for 5 minutes at a time. Other than that, you can pay $1 per 5 minutes.

The service, as far as I can tell, is made up of several work stations that you can access remotely. The workstations are running on a variety of different operating systems with several different software configurations. When you use the free service, you get in line for one of the configurations and wait. If someone who is paying for it gets in the same line, they get to cut in front of you. The good side, though, is that you can see all the people who are waiting ahead of you, and whether they are paying for the service or not.

Well, for the next 48 hours, I’ll be letting it all hang out! for those of you seeing this on Xanga or facebook, come see me nekkid at Stevish.com.

So is it just me, or is it a little breezy in here?

If you read my post about CSS Naked Day, you’re probably wondering why I have all my CSS on. Well, it turns out they moved it. CSS Naked day will now be celebrated on April 9th, so come back and celebrate with me then!

My cat just freakin’ peed on the wall… that’s all I gotta say.

That’s right, it’s coming up! Annual CSS Naked Day is April 5th, and it’s almost here!

CSS Naked day is an entire day devoted to promoting good basic web design practices. So on that day, web developers are encouraged to strip their websites of all CSS styling, and let their XHTML shine! The idea is that in order to celebrate the day, you have to be able to strip your site naked and not be embarrassed about what is there.

I will be celebrating by using a simple wordpress plugin (CSS Naked Day) to strip my website bare on the international, 48-hour holiday. I encourage you to come on back to stevish.com on April 5th (of every year) to check out my <body>.

What I’m about to share may shock, or even frighten you. This post is not intended for the weak of heart, stomach, or bladder. I will not be held responsible for anyone spontaneously going into labor while reading this post, so proceed at your own risk.

I, Stephen, am attempting to become… a morning person. As of Thursday, March 6th, I have been getting up at 6:00am daily (with the exception of Saturday when I “slept in” until 8:00). and before you other morning people pipe up, 6am is early, because I typically don’t have to get up ’till 8 or later to be to work on time.

So far, it has not been easy. I still have to prop myself up in bed rubbing my eyes for about 3-5 minutes after my alarm goes off before I can get up. Also, there is not an ounce of caffeine in our entire house (not necessarily on purpose), so I have been having problems staying awake for the first hour or two.

There were several factors in my decision to become a morning person. One came a few years back when one of my professors told me that the whole morning person/night owl thing was actually a choice. To an extent, I knew he was right. Another factor was my lack of self-discipline. I figured this little exercise would help me to gain a little control over my will.

The last big factor was the fact that I’ve never had a consistent devotional life. Now I know that there are many people out there (I am one of them) who believe that devotions don’t need to be a legalistic procedure that you force yourself through every day until they become meaningless. That being said, I can’t think back to a time in my life when I was reading the bible and praying (not for school, that is) for two consecutive months. Not even once a week for two months. The problem is that with my lack of self-discipline, I will fall out of any habit that becomes slightly tiresome, if it doesn’t have an assigned time of day, or seem like it’s important. So for that reason, I have devoted a time slot in my new early-morning routine to studying God’s word and praying.

So, those of you who know me may now be wondering how it’s going? That’s a good thing. Please feel free to ask me that question any time with as much skepticism as you feel is necessary. The skepticism of others is a good incentive for me to “prove them all wrong” so to speak. But, I’m sure I’ll also need people encouraging me too. So whichever skill you’re gifted in, feel free to let loose. Oh, and to answer your question, it’s going well so far. I have a perfect record, and don’t plan on setting my alarm on a Saturday morning ever again (We’ll call it my Sabbath).

Anyways, I’ll try to keep this blog updated on my morning person status every once in a while (but most of you know how I am about keeping blog-promises).