Kevin Zak

It seems as though I have been neglecting this place a little too much. Two weeks without a blog entry is unacceptable, especially when you consider that I set a goal of two posts per week. That said, I have been busy with work and school, so I haven’t just been playing my FPS game of choice (America’s Army). I will attempt to make up for my absence by detailing the events that caused it.

Recently I have received an influx of work in my on-the-side computer repair business. I, being a lowly high school student, am struggling to find an acceptable balance between work and school. Although I’m saving for college, I do have expenses and thus value the little income I get from computer repair. However, I value school to a much larger degree for obvious reasons. The appeal of income versus the necessity of education leads me to indecision when trying to decide to work on a system or to study for a test. I have been working towards an acceptable schedule and hope to have it perfected for the future.

This leads me into my next distraction — education. While I have always valued my studies, I am also very susceptible to distraction. Computers, athletics, girls, and other more appealing areas of my life always seem to shift my priorities around. With a GPA and class rank to maintain, I need to work harder now than ever before. I recently took the ACT — as a freshman. I was the youngest person there by a wide margin. This is disconcerting. When taking an exam that a large percentage of colleges consider over the SAT (and no limit on the number of times you may take it), why are parents and guidance counselors not urging their youth to take the exam early? It was nothing like I expected it would be, and while I do not feel as though I need to do incredibly well this time around, I do feel way more prepared for the next two or three times I take it. Being more prepared for future exams is a small price to pay for the two or three times you have to explain to other examinees as to why you are taking the test so young, in my opinion. All in all, I feel I did fairly well on the test, all things considered. The beauty of this, though, is that even if I didn’t do well at all… so what? I have two, three, or even four more chances to take it if I so choose, and this way I’ll know which areas I need to improve in. While I would be ecstatic with a good score, my world will not end with a lower score, either. Obviously the test will change, but similarities will obviously exist, and the experience I received that day is enormous when compared to the discomfort of getting up early on a Saturday morning and sacrificing a few hours.

Now that I have sufficiently bored you with information pertaining to my education, I will attempt to wake you up a bit with what I consider some exciting news: I have not given up on the redesign! It has taken a considerable amount of time longer than I expected, but a new design is still in the works and I have not forgotten or otherwise abandoned it. I am attempting to embody in this design what I have learned concerning minimalism and basic typography over the last few months. You would be amazed at how significant a difference is made when choosing an apt type as opposed to using one that you simply find attractive. I am still deliberating between two forms of a similar design I am creating. One is a single column design with meta information on the side and other information at the bottom. The second is a double column design with information in a sidebar to the right. At this point I don’t have a favorite, but time will certainly tell as I grow annoyed with having to update both designs.

I have recentlry realized exactly how much I’ve been neglecting PHP. While attempting to do a basic bit of programming on a small project, I found myself utterly perplexed in areas I could recite in my sleep a few months ago. A bit of skimming over my favorite PHP book, though, and I feel like I’m back to my prime. This is a digression from my original point, though, which was that I have been collaberating with a friend on a pretty cool project. It’s relatively small-scale, but it’s a fun bit of practice for my coding and requires minimal attention, as it’s not a major priority for either of us. This is nice not because it allows me to procrastinate, but because both of us have such a heavy schedule as it is. I hope to have the first rendition of the backend done soon, but I can’t give many details as of right now. Those who follow me on Twitter will understand what type of project it is.

That about sums up what is my boring-ass life (which is a great book by Kevin Smith, writer/director of flicks such as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl) in a few paragraphs. Work and school are battling each other for my attention but both are going well, and although design and programming are getting less love than I would like, they are both slowly progressing as well. I’ll try to better keep you updated. Maybe I’ll start sticking to that twice-a-week blogging schedule.