So, the job change is coming up on me fast. I’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking about where I am in my career and how I got here, what work was like when I started vs. what it’s like now vs. what I think I’m heading to at [[The MathWorks]].

I remember when I first started work… green as hell but full of energy. I became part of the recreation committee at [[LTX]], played on the softball team, joined the golf league and played bridge every day at lunch. The work itself was new and interesting…. I had never done anything like it before. It was fun, and all the recreational activities just enhanced all that making work a joy.

Over the years, all that changed…. slowly but surely all the after-work activities got cancelled, the work got to be mundane (i.e. [[SOSDD]]).

So, this job I’m going to… it sure feels like it could be a return to the good old days. I’ll be doing work I’ve never done before in an environment that’s completely unfamiliar. They have great recreational activities at this place (everything that got taken away at [[LTX]] is there!), and what sounds like a great atmosphere.

Sounds like just what I need to get reinvigorated

Yeah! I’m modifying the wordPressSuite to work on individual outlines for each day. Excellent! Now the content of the blog for each day gets saved in its own outline. This just seems better to me…. not sure though… still diggin’ (to quote Dave [[:-)]])

Does this part end up in the body?

Take a look [here](http://www.richsoil.com/lawn/index.jsp) to see the right way to deal with your lawn…. the cheap and lazy way [[:-)]]. I read this article and it sure seems to make a lot of sense. It certainly opened my eyes to how I’ve probably been destroying my yard’s ability to actually grow lawn.

I’ve always loved the idea of writing in outlines. My first exposure to them was with More on the Macintosh way back in the day. Ever since then, I always look at whatever tool I’m using to see if it understands outlining in any sort of reasonable way. None of them ever do.

I’ve done various things to maintain this blog over the years, bought various pieces of software, written some of my own. None of it has been entirely satisfying.

However, now I’m playing with the OPML editor from Dave Winer. Yup…. it’s a repackaged Frontier/Radio. Yup, it’s not what you’d call pretty by today’s standards, but it is easily more useful than just about any piece of blogging software I’ve used yet. Oh, it’ll take a bit of programming for me to make it exactly the way I want it to be, but the fact that I can change the way it behaves myself is a ***huge*** bonus.

I’m trying to find some of my old favorite Frontier scripts and can’t. Specifically, docRenderer, HALO, and metaRenderer. They must exist out there in the ether somewhere! Or, I’ll have to write a simple version myself… it should be THAT hard [[:-)]].
####Modified WordPress.root

OK… I’ve modified the renderer in wordpress.root to act more like a document renderer. This will get me started. Now, if an outline headline contains children, it is rendered as an html header (based on the level it is in the outline).

What does this mean practically? OK… the headline above “Modified WordPress.root” is a subheadline in the article, and the text for that subhead is indented on further level underneath it. It’s a very natural way to write and organize thoughts. By combining this with good use of cascading style sheets, the page can be presented in a very document-like way.

Hmmm…. I wonder why categories don’t work properly.

Well, I decided to give it a try this morning. It was a little brisk, but not too bad. It was quite nice filling the tank though… just $2.85… should last me all week!

Well, this is it. My last 4 days at my current job. I’m feeling both excited and sad. I spent a year here, and it hardly feels like enough time to really come to terms with the job itself. But life, as they say, goes on.

Time to start cleaning the office.

So, I’m playing around more with the OPML Editor using it to outline the writing in this blog, and I’m really liking the experience of using it to maintain the blog. There’s just a couple of things that are bugging me:

• The rendering of the outline to the page could be better (I’ll work on that myself)
• The actual suite of functionality to support outlining metaweblog sites is a little weak (I’ll work on that also)

It’s been a while since I’ve done the [[Frontier]] scripting thing. This should be fun.

The experience of writing in the outliner is much more like writing in a diary than other tools I’ve used. Everything I’ve written is visible… it’s not separated by story or anyting. Click and write… very cool.

Well, I’ve officially hit short timer status at my current job. I’ve accepted a job at [The MathWorks](http://www.mathworks.com/) and start on March 31st.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I’ve only been at my current job for a year, and I’m not used to switching jobs that quickly. I feel like I’m leaving my friends here high and dry. However, you gotta do what’s right for you, and right now, it’s not right for me here.

Just a quick note on a new feature… documents on [[CarneyWeb]] may now be title free… this document is an example of just that.

Does this get saved?