I’ve posted June 2009 and July 2009 photos.  Highlights are Nicholas’ baptism, Premod & Ishk’s wedding, the Kurians coming to visit, and the grea inaugural Ipe BBQ.

For the uninitiated, through the years in addition to my personal ode to self-indulgence (this slice of life called joelipe.com), I have managed various websites for non-profit organizations. 

1. In the late 90′s until 2003-ish, I designed and administered a website for my church, the CSI Congregation of Hudson Valley. I got busy with life, and I stopped attending church there, so I handed off the reins.
2. I also designed and briefly administered a youth-oriented website for CSI youth in North America, but the site served an non-existent need, and it didn’t go anywhere.  URL is not important, as I don’t even think the domain is around anymore.
3. From 2002 to late 2008, I designed and administered a website for the NY Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors.  For various reasons that I shall not go into, I haven’t attended chapter meetings in more than 3 years, and been too busy to make all the regular updates.  I recently transitioned responsibility, and I’m a free man.    Looks like they’ve already redesigned it. Good for them. Seven years later, it was looking dated.

Yes, I said “a free man.”  Now I’m just challenged to continue to indulge myself here, on this website.  It didn’t last long.  At my church, they are in need of someone to take over administrative responsibility.  Long story short, I agreed to do it. Before I agreed to take it over, the lingering question was how would I avoid not getting overwhelmed with updates?

The problems with all the previous websites were performing the weekly/monthly updates.  The designs were aesthetically pleasing (yes, I can say that), but it was all manual.  The posting of content and formatting would take forever, and my old version of the joelipe.com website was no better come month-end when I had to archive the previous month. If I was going to take on another website, the update process had to be streamlined. The current website is located at www.stbarnabas-sbnj.org, and you can tell it’s a bit dated.  Callling it “dated” is okay, because everything gets dated after a while. 

My answer?  WordPress to the rescue!  I’m exploring a streamlined design, and using WordPress as the content management system.  WordPress could do for this website what it did for my personal domain:

1. Multiple users could publish updates, so one person (me) wouldn’t be the bottleneck.
2. Themes are readily available, so I don’t have to work so hard to design one from scratch.
3. Archiving, searching, etc, are all built-in. 

Me smart.  It’s not an overnight process, but I’m researching in my limited free time.  I want to put something tangible in 30 days, and move to WordPress officially in July.

BOOM! More January photos!

BOOM! More March photos here! And here! And here!

BOOM! New April photos!

Buy now! We’re practically giving them away! Operators are standing by.  What are you waiting for? Act now!!!

It’s a plethora, Jefe.

I had some time this evening, and Lily & I upgraded to WordPress 2.7. In honor, I figured why not change the theme. I’m going to try this new theme out, and kick the tires for a while. I’m having some issues with the thumbnail viewer at the moment, and I’m not sure why.

The new WordPress 2.7 is here

In the meantime, enjoy.

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I converted the April and May 2008 galleries. You know, I haven’t really heard from anyone about the redesign. If I stay up working on this site, and no one checks it anymore, does it really matter? Maybe I shooed everyone off after months of little activity or life. I know what would attract everyone back — Pictures of old men playing basketball with monkeys in dresses. Not just any types of monkeys, mind you. The skanky ones.

Thank goodness for DVRs. Whenever one of us is feeding Lily, we’ll hit the Tivo and find something to watch with one hand while we use the other to hold the bottle upright for her. There’s nothing new to watch these days, so we’re recording new-to-us stuff, or shows we haven’t watched in a long while — Friends, The Practice, etc. I’ve been watching old reruns of Quantum Leap, various Star Trek series episodes, Stargate SG-1. I’m personally looking forward the return of summer shows like Burn Notice and Stargate Atlantis.

Burn Notice

We’re thinking of getting an aquarium. My friend Doug got some deals on tanks, gravel, etc, from a pet store going out of business in his area. The big debate was freshwater vs. saltwater. I like saltwater fish, but I’ve been warned they’re very difficult to maintain. Freshwater fish are easier, but they aren’t too exciting. Hmmm, unless I get salmon. Or, seahorses. Lots of smart seahorses. Which have the ability to merge into Mega-Seahorse when the world is threatened by the evil…. geez, that would be the worst children’s animated tv show ever.

The good news is that the audit is drawing to a close. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. BTW, I’m in Pennsylvania next week, but at least it’s a short week, being that Friday is July 4th. I’m also looking forward to our annual July 4th “Yo, we’re classy. Check out our classy picnic spread.” picnic. Burgers? Hot dogs? Puh-leaze. This is the one time a year we get hoity-toity with our…. picnic cuisine.