Tag: professional

Web Design

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I’ve kept myself busy lately working on learning CSS and PHP. What does this mean? It means I’m working on designing and customizing web pages. Specifically, I’m helping a friend roll out a new website for her business. If this works, I may have a career ahead of me. If it doesn’t, well, it’s been a great way to occupy my time. I get so engrossed in it, it’s like the whole world fades away. It’s pretty awesome, in fact. I love diving in headlong into a project.

I’ve selected a few books that have been helping me on my way so far, and thought I would list them here.

I bought all of these books through Amazon at a substantial savings from the brick-and-mortar shops. What all of these books have in common is that they’re not too basic for the smart and savvy web user, but they also don’t assume that you know everything, or don’t have any gaps. Some of the books I looked at before selecting these actually talked down to me, if they weren’t already distracting me with poor page lay-out.

In the next couple weeks I hope to be rolling out the new site that I’ve been working on. Stay tuned for that.

Links of Note: Pathogens, Plastics, Professionalism and Purchases

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Since I don’t have time to write a full post about these links, I thought I’d share some bits with you anyway.

E. Coli Outbreak Traced to Company That Halted Testing of Ground Beef – A great continuation on the issue of ground beef and where it comes from, and what is being done to keep it safe.

Tests Find Wide Range of Bisphenol A in Canned Soups, Juice, and More – brought to my attention by NY Times food writer Mark Bittman, BPA – the reason why you stopped drinking out of plastic bottles – is lining your food cans and getting in your food.

Media creates concept of media psychologists, encourages them to be unethical, then acts amazed when they are – a friend of mine used the magic of Google Reader to let me know of this blog post. It sums up some of my issues with credentials in the helping professions.

What We’re Eating – Mark Bittman references some interesting data and links to it about current trends in food purchases.

Coffee vs. Social Work

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Early this afternoon I was getting my Nico (a coffee drink at Vivace in Seattle) and chatting with Don, one of our usual baristas. We see Don most days he works, because we are at Vivace most every day. Somehow or another, we started talking about the new Stumptown (Portland-based coffee roasters) locations on the Hill. I mused a bit on how maybe I should quit my job and try being a barista. I told him, though, my barista training came from Starbucks (not to mention my brief time at Seattle’s Best Coffee), and I’m not sure that was adequate. Don encouraged me, reminding me that I did work at the ‘bucks before their push-button machines. Don said something about Stumptown like, “I hear they pay well and have good benefits…”

Maybe I should quit social work and try to be a Seattle barista?

He suggested us swapping jobs. I laughed.

If only!