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So this was a whirlwind week in class. I didn't even go Monday (sick) and today (Friday) we just played scrabble and talked, and we still got more done this week than I think any other week I've experienced here. Hardcore reviewed las frases adverbiales and did a lot of writing for conversation. Also got a complete explanation of accent marks. A lot to study and keep track of for the test (in about 10 days), but I feel up for the challenge.

Worked more on the magic site today. Didn't do anything incredibly special, but made lots of little changes to what I have. I played with script.aculo.us (AJAX framework built upon prototype... which is another AJAX framework) for a bit to do something that I ended up solving with pure CSS. At least I got a bit of time playing with it... since I will soon be using it quite a bit I think.

Big find of the day was a group dedicated to archiving hi-res images of all magic cards. They are organized enough to release torrent files and a program to automatically update the images as new scans become available. While I have a script that is already pulling the images from another site, I queued up the torrent anyway, just to have the really hi-res ones available at some point. For now I'm not going to worry about images past the point of having something there to display.

I have a basic user login setup working (thanks to acts_as_authenticated), but it definitely will need more work at some point. As long as it works well enough so I can start (probably Sunday) on the idea of collections... which I'll just hash out enough to get to the root problem of defining shopping baskets and doing the price matching. Once I get the basic matching working to satisfaction, I get to backtrack and flesh out everything ad infinitum...

Once that basic feature set is up and running... Should be able to pretty it up with a real design and go live with first version... but I'm getting ahead of myself... we are talking months of work... especially since I'm slowed down by dividing my time with school, and the lack of internet for the majority of the day.

On that note, I will hopefully be getting a 1mb/256k connection in my apartment in about three weeks or so. I just have a feeling it won't go as smoothly as that though. It is a WiMax connection, which means a guy has to come install some kind of antenna and router in our apartment. They haven't given me an installation appointment yet, and we are never home, so hopefully they give me some notice so I can be there to let the guy in. It would be really nice to have though, as I could work at my leisure in my own place... not to mention do my AJLA work for free.

Speaking of AJLA, that is becoming a real distraction as well. I keep going back and forth about working there. On the one hand, it's easy work that pays $21/hr, with benefits (for $95/mo pretax), and they let me work 20 hrs a week telecommuting. Sounds like the perfect job. I make enough to live comfortably and devote the majority of my time to my own ideas. On the other hand, I just have no drive to actually do the work, and I feel bad being less than productive. It looms constantly in my mind because I know things need to get done, but I'd rather be working with rails. I just don't know whether improving my mental situation is worth throwing away said perfect financial situation. If I didn't work there, I'd have to work somewhere, since I, like most people, need money to eat. But, working a non-programming job has the benefits of allowing me to focus on one project... trying to continually context switch between AJLA and rails is difficult.

On the other hand, it's really only an issue because I have 6 hours of internet a day, and devoting four of them to AJLA is a downer. If I wasn't going to school in the morning, that'd free up a lot of time to devote to both... and if I had internet in my apartment, I'd likewise have more time. So, I'm hoping this lurch is a temporary one that will solve itself when I get the WiMax connection. Of course, when I get back to Kansas, it'd be nice to not have to find a job, and there I won't have school taking up time.

Anyway, that is my brain dump for now. More tomorrow I'm sure. Nos Vemos.