Yes, I'm a bit of a theme well for the lack of a better word, whore. I switch themes so much that I can't keep track of all the different versions of my website. I tend to like the newer Web 2.0'ish looking sites, nice rounded corners and other fancy CSS, but I really think I'm liking this theme I've applied today. It's called Marvin, after Drupal's Marvin, and it's quite plain but has everything that I think is necessary for a good page, a nice layout, easy navigation and it's easy on the eyes.

From now on, I think I'm going to try my hand at theme customization, and/or building my own theme. I'm sick of having a website that literally any geek with a little time can duplicate. I want something more my own, well OUR own as this site belongs to my wife and I both. I need to practice theme generation anyway as I'm hosting my friend Kyle's site and it's going to take quite a bit of work to get it looking the way he wants it. He had a site that was homegrown and extremely difficult to maintain and edit (I'm sure) and wants the new site I've setup to have a similar look/feel to his old one. The only problem is there is no way to move his old theme that was all done with HTML and Javascript to a modern CSS, XHTML compliant page.

Now with work settling down, and that's really probably not factually consistent with my actual workload (I'm busy as hell with the start of the school year). However, I do find myself with a few moments to actually sit down and express some opinion in my Blog.

First off, Blackboard support. Jeez where do I start here. They are excellent in most cases, and I do like the TSM's that I've dealt with, but the current problem that we're just in the process of resolving started on February 9, 2006. Resolved, hopefully, by the end of this week. That's 6 months. SIX FRIGGIN' MONTHS! During this time, I have jumped through several hoops, and performed several other feats of mental contortion to arrive back at the root of the problem that I (and Sam Hammond to be fair) said was the problem in late February, IT IS indeed the DATABASE that's the root of the problem. Not our network, not software running on the server, not virtual memory on the server, not any other of the 500 things that Blackboard tried to pin on US as the root of the problem. No it is in fact as we originally contended Blackboard's issue and only one that they can fix.

So I have had sleepless nights, put up with people telling me I was wrong and having to ask other departments to check and recheck things that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual problem, looking like an ass most of the way. I've endured pissed off customers, pissed off supervisors and all for what? A problem that I could have never fixed on my own.