As everyone is likely aware, I am no longer a single man…

I want to introduce my wonderful wife, Hayley! We’ve been caught up in a wedding tour (details of which will likely be blogged, I’m sure), and some general “getting used to married life” stuff. It’s been a busy couple of months since the wedding, but we’re starting to finally feel settled in. It’s good to have a companion.

I’ve imported most of the blog posts from the wedding website, so you may want to filter through the archives of the last 8 months to see what’s there. Hayley wrote at least half of those posts, which will give some of you a better introduction to how awesome she is.

I’ve also added some Facebook “like” buttons… USE THEM!

sudo useFacebookButton -reader

We hope to do this blogging thing more often. We’re going to still be busy with life, but nowhere near as busy as we’ve been. Expect updates about cycling (we’re buying bikes in the next 2-3 months), rock climbing (apparently I did pretty OK on my first trip), vacation planning, and teaching primary (that’s right, we teach the Sunbeams!). Oh, and maybe I’ll tell you all about how magical Mass Effect 2 was… If you’re lucky!

By the way, if we’re missing you in the Blogroll, let us know!

I tried a new WordPress theme a few months ago and there were aspects of it I really liked, though I needed to dig deep and fix some php code…  Well, those who know me well know how wonderful of a programmer I can be (meaning I’m terrible), so I never really got the gumption to do something about it…  As a last straw, Aaronius commented on my last post that the comment fields were busted and didn’t give direction on what you were supposed to put in each field..  Welp, that’s all the patience I had for a theme that needed some major rework.

To remedy the situation, I searched far and wide for another theme that I could implement w/o a ton of work.  I finally found the current one (goes by the name of Scarlett?) and liked it enough to spend a couple hours tweaking and edited php at a level I feel comfortable with.  So, for you RSS folks who aren’t actually at the site, here’s a peak at what we’re looking at off to the left…

One of the major annoyances I’ve come across in the last year w/ a lot of the WordPress themes I find available is that they often include a bunch of junk code in the footer that allows the designer to link to some trashy websites and increase their SEO by hijacking my footer.  I’m all for giving credit to the designer or website I’m pulling the theme from, but I’m not about to let some doofus link to porn or some other inappropriate stuff using my outward facing journal of sorts.  I did a quick search and found some help here.  Essentially, this guy suggests putting some finder comments in your Main Index Template, refreshing your page in another tab/window, and then copying the code between the finder comments to paste into your footer.php file.

The process is fairly simple, but with a more complex theme like mine I couldn’t simply copy/paste the code from the page source like the link suggests..  Since I have a custom footer w/ an about me, Twitter feed, and Flickr feed I had to adjust the code I found in the page source w/ a php injection and then modify the remainder from there.  Not really a huge deal, but it took my feeble php skills a little while to remember how exactly to do a php injection properly.  Ick!

I’ve also done some simple stuff like getting the logo changed to the name of my blog, updating the top menu bar, getting the sexy flash tag cloud built out and modified, and setting images for the moving carousel of posts at the top.  I don’t know how much more tweaking I will do, but I feel fairly comfortable with it now.  Hopefully this is a little nicer and everyone approves..  Functionality is more important than appearance, however, so let me know if you see something!

I previously posted my testimony on this blog a couple years ago.  Go here to read it.

Here is another testimony (on YouTube) that I think is really touching.  If you’re at all curious about the Book of Mormon and what I believe to be true, go check out this video.  It’s only 5 minutes, and maybe you’ll understand me a bit more!

The other day I was floating through some links on a friend’s blog and noticed my buddy Andy Wheatley’s website. The funny thing about that is that his page looks EXACTLY like mine. I actually thought I had hit the wrong link or perchance hit the “Back” button on my mouse, but nope! Check his page out here.

Anyway, I used this as an excuse to update the main page. I’m thinking of ways to modify it a bit more than I have, but I had about 15 minutes at work to play with something new, so this is what I went with:

click the image to enbiggen

Let me know what your thoughts are – I think I like the general “landing page” look to it. I’ll most likely change the image, but the guitar certainly works for the time being.

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Quick Update:

I’ve modified the look a little…. :-D

Click the Image to Enbiggen

Yes…

New Year’s Resolution: Blog more frequently so that Jason doesn’t have to pester me into doing it…  Not that Jason’s pestering isn’t welcome, because that’s how I remember to do most things, but I should be better at doing it on my own…

As for a life update:

• I work at ExxonMobil and I love it.
• I’m still single and working on it.
• I still enjoy movies, literature, video games and the occasional comic book (though I admit I don’t read comics or play games as much as I used to, which is probably entirely appropriate).
• I bought an iPod Nano and a Nike+ with my Safety Money I received for surviving a quarter at the largest refinery in the United States – thus I’m hoping somethinge encourages me to run (please Nike!!!).
• I’m throwing a New Year’s Eve party.
• I’m still sexy.
• I still think the best movie line ever is, “Come with me if you want to live…”  Actually, I really just think it’s the most believable line that MUST BE ADHERED TO, even in real life.
• Travis is getting married on January 17th and it’s the best/worst/greatest news ever.  Only worst because it means I have to get spousal approval to kidnap him now…  And him visiting me in Houston became a tiny bit harder.
• I make the greatest Gingerbread known to man.

The End!

So, I completely abandoned Pyxlin recently… I abandoned it because I was pointed towards LDSJournal.com, which I consider a better solution to my needs. Not only is it free, but I like how easy it is to use, without the obnoxious wait times and such that I experienced with Pyxlin’s site. Pyxlin was great, and I don’t regret the money I spent to get a year subscription (it was cheap, and I wrote daily), but that’s all a sunk cost now that I see something that meets my needs in a better way.

Few examples:

LDSJournal.com runs much faster because it doesn’t run on the silly platform that Pyxlin uses!

Pyxlin:

LDSJournal:

As you can see, posting on LDSJournal is very similar to posting on your blog. I don’t have to worry about the silly typesetting thing that gets really annoying.

You can also use Firefox spell checking (see above picture for red squigglies), which you could not do in Pyxlin… You were instead forced to use their retarded spell checker.

LDSJournal also allows for footnotes (images and such) as well as journal addendums that can be time stamped differently to show that you went back to old journal entries and had thoughts that you wanted to share. This could be really neat for reviewing your journal at the end of the month or end of the year. You could go in and explain how certain thoughts became really important to you as the month went on and how different experiences may have shaped what you decided your next steps in life to be.

I also don’t have to have silly chapters and things in my LDSJournal. Everything is associated with a date (see the calendar on both the image above and the one below that lets you know when you’ve made an entry), and when I decide to print something (the functionality for that is forthcoming, but I’m faithful since I’ve already seen development since I moved to their service) it will be set chronologically without hassle. Apparently they are also working on the “tag” feature I would really like, which would allow me to print a different journal just based on entries with spiritual experiences or confessions of love (cheesy!).

I also like that it tells me right at the bottom what my most recent journal entries are and the dates associated with them. This just makes it a little easier for me to keep track of my progress with an actual idea of what I wrote about based on the entry title.

Anyway, this is my new recommendation! Certainly check it out (it’s FREE). I encourage everyone to keep a journal for a bunch of reasons:

1. It helps you process what you did during the day
2. It is great for thinking through whatever you are experiencing in life
3. I often have my “A HA!” moments as I’m writing in my journal, and those really help shape my life
4. It’s sort of recommended by the Prophets and Apostles…

So, it’s about time to do a little house cleaning.  The blog has a new sexy look, new pics are uploaded, and the main webpage is updated with a new main image.  I’m getting a little better with Photoshop, so I’m pleased with how that is going.  Otherwise, I really have no idea what else I want to use the website for right now.  As mentioned in a previous post, I think the blog and site will take on greater value once I’ve gotten married and started a family, but I’m a few steps away from that still.

Over the Holidays I setup new email accounts using the rosenbaugh.com domain.  Hopefully my family members are enjoying email with Jeff as their provider.  :)  In general though, it’s nice to have an email address that will give me a little more flexibility, that is not tied to BYU or another organization I am a part of.  I’m also really happy with the discussion lists that DreamHost lets me setup.  I’ve setup a family distribution list so that an email will go out to all of us by shooting off a single message.  Again, it’s not of super high importance right now, but as the family grows it could be a pretty handle tool.

I’m flying out to Houston to interview with ExxonMobil next week, and I’m pretty excited.  It should be a really fun time, and I’m really hopeful that this pans out.  I originally received an offer from  Accenture (who I 100% recommend for those interested), but I felt very uncomfortable with making a decision that would take me back to Chicago now that I’m not planning on getting married in April.  Houston has a great singles scene, and the pay at Exxon is fabulous.  So, all things considered, this is a really good possibility.  My buddy, Bradford, who is hosting me has had a perfect record in his hostees receiving offers, so I hope that correlates to good things!

I’m picking up dating again.  I still love Britt, but she has most certainly moved on and away from me, so I guess it’s my turn as well.  A couple of unsuccessful dates has made me a little sad, but life goes on, right?  We’ll be having a party here at the house next weekend (after my interview trip), and I’m planning on meeting some people then.  I tell you what though, getting over a relationship like the one Brittany and I had is a difficult adventure.  Things weren’t perfect, but they were pretty dang good, and I still have yet to learn how to emotionally detach myself from those I love (ask all my friends from 10 years ago who still get emails though we haven’t seen each other in a decade).

Anyway, I’ll keep things going on here.  Life is going to get interesting soon, so I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share.