Author: Chris Minnick

Chris Minnick is an author, trainer, web developer and co-founder of WatzThis? (www.watzthis.com).

He has authored and co-authored books and articles on a wide range of Internet-related topics. His published books include: JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies, Coding All-in-One For Dummies, Mastodon For Dummies, Beginning ReactJS Foundations, Adventures in Coding, JavaScript For Kids For Dummies, Coding with JavaScript For Dummies, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies, Webkit For Dummies, CIW eCommerce Certification Bible, and XHTML.

In addition to his role with WatzThis?, Chris is a winemaker, painter, novelist, swimmer, cook, and musician.

tassels of love

I had a dream where I was watching a band that consisted of a woman standing up and playing drums while singing, and another woman who just stood at the front of the stage and danced. They had several songs, but the one I remember was called “Tassles of Love”. I could sing the chorus to you right now, but I won’t. I will write out the lyrics, though, in case you want to use them on your next album.

Tassles of Love

Chorus:
See that woman there, over in the shadow.
She knows what it’s like. She’s standing in the tassles of Love.
The tassles of love. mmm mmm. The tassles of love.

Scuba!

I got my scuba certification card today. The feeling of having accomplished something a little bit beyond the ordinary is one of my favorite things. There are hundreds of easy little ways that I could continue to improve myself while getting my accomplishment fixes. I’m working on the next one now. I’m thinking that getting a commercial driving license (so I could drive a taxi) would be a quick and easy thing….why the hell not. They probably make you renew it and pay fees….I’ll figure it out.

Big easy

now for the latest news. We went to New Orleans over the weekend to meet up and hang out with Margaret’s Mom and sister. This was our first visit to the state of Lousianna…check one more off the list. My impressions of New Orleans are as follows: the french quarter night life could give a person (especially a married wierdo like me) a big headache. The food is very good, but you wouldn’t want to eat it very often. The buildings are interesting, and the city has a very foreign country feel to it, except for it’s also very american. The cemetaries look fascinating, and I’d like to check those out more on the next visit.
Regarding the whole swamp business…I understand that the location had strategic value in days of old, but they really should start moving people to somewhere else before global warming goes much further or their going to have some serious troubles. We took a swamp tour. Saw many alligators and held a baby one.

cruisin’ 2

More about the cruise: We started in Puerto Rico, then went to St. Croix, then St. Lucia, then Barbados, then Antigua, then St. Thomas, then back to Puerto Rico. We didn’t see much of P.R., so I can’t really make a judgement about it. I do want to go back and check it out for real. Our favorite island out of the others was Antigua. Amazing scenery. The locals didn’t seem as desperate as on other islands, and the place seemed to be doing fairly well while still holding on to a culture of its own. We snorkled over a large reef there. I have more notes, which I’ll probably post later on.
St. Lucia was also very nice. Friendly people, tons of fruit (mostly banana) trees. We were abandoned by a cab driver who took us to the beach and said he would wait, but it turned out to be a blessing in discuise (I know, I need an editor for my web log) because we got a cab driver who actually talked to us and we learned a great deal…including how to say “cow’s penis” in the local language (a french creole). Apparently, it’s an insult.
The virgin islands that we visited (St. Croix and St. Thomas) we’re mostly nothing special.
Barbados has the largest city of any of the islands (save P.R.), Bridgetown. Seems interesting, but roving gangs of taxi drivers are a nuisance and the city’s infrastructure looks like it’s seen better days.
That’s my report for now. I’m just trying to get caught up here on what’s turning out to be a pretty hectic spring!

cruisin’

We just got back from our first vacation in 3 years! Carribean cruise. Very nice. I’m having a hard time adjusting to normal amounts of food and not drinking rum all day long. In case anyone is interested, we cruised on the Celebrity Galaxy to the south/east carribean. I have to go eat now, but I’ll write more about it later!

scuba

I just realized that I never wrote down anything about Scuba diving! It was amazing! I’ve never experienced anything so weird…ever! There were fish…everywhere. Big fish! Because it’s a lake, and it was windy and had just rained, we couldn’t see very far (maybe 10 feet). But, it was really quite a thing, and it’s amazing how well wet suits work!

theme music

I’m looking for theme music. My idea is that I ought to have a song that plays when I enter a room or when I’m walking down the street. Maybe I could just carry a small tape player with me. I’m thinking that a good idea for a web business would be ‘MyThemeMusic.com’, where people could go to create their theme music…pick a drum beat, pick a bass line, add some horns and the guitar line, and there you are. Click here to order a cd of your theme music. What would you pay for this?

While you’re thinking about this, here are some links:
AP Calculus Theme Song
Name that theme song
and here’s a good one…Some Asthmatics discussing what the Asthmatic theme song should be. See, everyone needs a theme song.