payne’s

I’ve spent the day (as I do every other day or so) at this little coffee shop in Gas City called Payne’s. It’s great… They serve both frozen custard and specialty coffees, so they’re in business all year ’round, and they have free wi-fi. Which is why I’m here all the time.

We can’t get high-speed internet at our apartment (well, we can, but it’s ridiculous to do it that way – we’d have to pay for both a phone line AND unreasonably-priced DSL) and though I have a friend who has a wireless router at his house and has offered me free run of the place, I am allergic to his house. Literally. Two cats make a lot of dander and stir up a lot of dust – the second I walk in, I’m sneezing and wheezing. So I only go there every other day. =)

Today’s my coffee shop day, which means I have to (feel bad for me, don’t you?) buy something. Today’s choice is the “Mocha Frappe” – I felt the need to pretend it was hot out (it’s currently 43°). I like it here – it’s quiet during the day, and I tend to get a lot of work done.

Yesterday was my day at Steve’s, and he (for kicks, I guess) Google’d my name. Turns out there are like 75,000 results for me (not someone else with my name, he searched for “Tara Aukerman”)… All are a result of this theme that I “ported”.

I found this html theme at an open source website (a site that posts themes people create for anyone to use) and made it into a Wordpress theme – just to see if I had the skills. It was done specifically for my website (so it had a lot of personal extras I wouldn’t have put in if I was doing it for anyone else) and I really didn’t know what I was doing.

When I finished with my version, I asked Andreas if I could post it so other people could download it – I had seen many, many people asking for it. He said, “Sure, but let me look at it first.” He’d done this with several of his other designs with other people, and knew what needed to be done to release it.

Well, someone found my site before he got back to me and downloaded it (who knows why I put it out there? I don’t!) and told someone else… Now there are thousands of people using it in its crappy form. Then, Andreas contacted me and told me that Wordpress.com has included it in their list of themes for people to choose from…

Ugh. I wish that Andreas had had time to look over it – it sure would have been a better theme. So, to anyone here because of the theme, sorry it’s not in perfect condition. If I can help, let me know.