Oh man. Kepler’s is out of business. I can’t believe it. That was a wonderful bookstore, one of the few independents in this area. (For such a literate area, we have a complete Hobson’s choice of bookstores: B&N or Borders. Whee. Ha.)

If Kepler’s couldn’t make it—whenever I went there it was packed—the independent bookstore is truly doomed.

Since an MT employee stopped by to say howdy and ask about some of the things I said in this entry, I figured it was only fair to post an entry about how MT’s been working for me since I got it, you know, working.

It’s great.

Seriously.

If you use MT, upgrade to 3.2 Especially with the licensing sale they have on. I guess I should get a license, if my brother-in-law’s singing group is still doing a blog. (Aha! They aren’t! I should get on the stick.) The integrated commenting features alone are worth it! I was very happy that MT-Blacklist gave me some control over comment spam, but MT really seems to have a handle on spam now. I haven’t seen one get in in the past couple of days, and I’ve deleted a hundred or so from the “Junk Comments” area.

I still think MT uses way too many resources building and rebuilding entries, so whenever I see the spinning wheel of doom, I do something else on the computer for a while. But I don’t think it’s that much worse than previous versions of MT. And considering the extra features? Totally worth it.

Just remember: if you do that upgrade? BACK ALL OF YOUR BLOGS UP BEFORE DOING A DARN THING. Seriously. Don’t make me cry.

Her Highness the Most Excellent Sophia started Kindergarten yesterday. Somebody tell me how a baby I just brought home from the hospital can possibly be starting Kindergarten?

I looked at the list of stuff she’s supposed to know for Kindergarten. She was well past that level about 2 years ago. I looked at the list of the stuff she’s supposed to learn this year and, well, let’s see…she does not in fact know how to tell time on an analog clock yet. So we have that to look forward to.

We walk to school in the late morning. (I signed her up for the “afternoon” kindergarten because I don’t want to have to have her out the door by 7:45am any earlier than I have to, which turns out to be 1st grade.) So far she’s not pleased at the walk—”Mommy, I get tired!” It’s 6/10 of a mile each way. I think she’ll adapt. Also, extra exercise for me.

She’s been very excited about the whole Kindergarten thing for weeks, if not months. Now that it’s started she’s a little unsure about the whole thing—while we’ve run into preschool friends at the school, none of them are in her class. She’s outgoing, though: I don’t sense that she’ll have much trouble making friends. Which, let’s face it, is what this is all about, as far as I’m concerned.

(Pssst: Can someone please tell me how to put some space between the picture up there and the text next to it? I’ve been playing with the style sheets and html for 30 minutes now and seeing no improvement. Just a little space from the text, that’s all I want!)

Like I wasn’t before. But today I have a whole new appreciation for his accomplishments.

I took some medication yesterday afternoon, which was a big mistake because it’s meant to be taken in the morning. There’s something in it that leaves you wide awake for hours, and it’s best if you’re wide awake when you’re supposed to be. I thought 3pm would be okay, but at midnight I thought: Uh oh. I have to get up at 6 to go running with Rob. So I dug into the medicine cabinet and came up with Valium, which yes, put me straight to sleep. (This is the second Valium I’ve taken in my life. I am not a closeted pill-popping housewife. A closeted bon-bon-eating housewife, perhaps. But not pills.)

I woke up before the alarm this morning, at 5:45. I got up, got dressed, drove to Rob’s house to meet up with him and our other running buds, and went for a run at Stevens Creek County Park. Rob figured it to be about 5 miles, but I think he was off by at least a mile and several hundred feet elevation. This trail kicked my butt. I was the drag on the whole group: during one ascent I finally just started walking and said, “Meet you at the top!”

Drove home. Showered. Dressed. Kissed kids goodbye. Went to go write.

And I’m sitting here unable to form much of a coherent thought besides, “Wow, Mike Oldfield’s soundtrack to The Killing Fields is totally my favorite writing music.”

Hemingway could write with what, a couple fifths of Scotch in him? Damn. One Valium and not enough sleep and I’m down for the count.

That worked.

Always back up your templates.

Clearly, I have to figure out how to use external template files with MT, because having to recreate new template files every time is very wearying.

What the hell, wanna redesign this place anyhow…

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Yeah, I’m with this guy… Sigh. I don’t know why Movable Type is such an unwieldy pig—probably for the same reason MS Word is. Because it’s all things to all people. And in the immortal words of a computer science prof from Stanford: “(Insert name here) is a power tool. And power tools can kill.” (I think he was talking about C. It’s been a while.)

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Although, I have to agree with John Scalzi on this: MT 3.2 is pretty faboo. The Junk Comments filter (much better interface that MT-Blacklist). The Junk Trackbacks filter (we can use trackbacks again!). Much better division of labor between tabs, instead of scattering it all on one page. And a way prettier layout for a lot of this stuff.

The font size they use is way too small. Not everyone lives in a 9-point world, people.

I wish MT weren’t such a resource hog. With a tendency to destroy sites when you upgrade. Other than that it’s perfect. (Just remember to back up.)

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Okay, and now I’m begging for comments, to make sure that the commenting function works for people besides me.