lucas-photo.com

Okay, from the outset I have to apologize. It’s my own fault; I *know* to allow extra time for construction when coming across US 192.

Truckers used to use 192 as a fast shortcut from the Orlando area to I-95. The DOT decided that they wanted them to pay tolls instead, so construction on 192 is scheduled for completion approximately when hell freezes over.

Worse, I missed the turnoff for the venue and had to loop about 1/2 a mile around the block. So I was 15 minutes late getting there.

I’d missed half the show. Literally.

My fault. I’m sorry.

The rest of the prejudging took about another 30 minutes. I’ve posted what I managed to get. Enjoy.

Okay, rather than start from scratch I decided to take the existing design and see if I could install the “brains” of the bodybuilding page (the part that builds and sizes all the links based on the page name and config file, and the extra information associated with each show).

The answer: yes, I could.

This means that contest pages (Mid-Florida and forward) should work in both IE and in good browsers now, and also should integrate more nicely into the style of the site as a whole.

So that worked out; though I’m still not completely happy with the apparent incomplete download on the pop-ups, I can live with it for now. I’m curious as to how the new layout works on screens with lower resolution than mine– drop me a note on the feedback link if you have a comment.

Hopefully I can catch up on some of the other latent projects over the next few days: I still have:
* the Space Coast show to put up,
* a very nice update to Sherry’s page to finish,
* a travelogue from my last Cincinnati trip,
* about nine brazillion photos of figure competitor Toni to go through, and
* a shoot of figure competitor Brandy Gardner to handle.

And oh, and the Ancient City is next weekend.

And oh, I’ve started my diet– not sure if I’m competing or not, but I’m going to train towards it anyway.

So much to do… (boggle)

I’ve just spent six hours of my life trying to figure out a way around the IE missing-images bug, and I’ve had no luck at all. There’s some combination of (presumably correct) CSS and MS-specific extensions that are causing the images to display partially or not at all.

I *did* find pages and pages of hacks to get around the mistakes in IE’s rendering engine.

I also came across an interesting allegation that says IE has been triple-dipping on image loads, making it look as though IE’s popularity is much higher than it actually is by registering more server hits than are actually needed to render a page.

I woudn’t doubt it. I’ve always found those high numbers to be very suspicious.

Damn you, Redmond, for foisting such a malfunctioning, non-compliant, MS-bound piece of crap like IE on an unsuspecting public. And if it turns out that the only reason we’ve been biting our tongues and adding workarounds for your busted code is because you artificially inflated the usage stats, well, that’s good too. The repercussions will be *very* entertaining.

For now, though, either get Firefox or keep holding down the “Shift” key while you click the thumbnails. I’ll figure something out eventually.

All the shots from the 2006 Mid-Florida Muscle Classic are up. Quality’s not what I prefer, but when you’re speed-shooting in the darkest venue on the circuit, you takes what you gets.

Before anyone asks, I have no idea what the story was on the albino guy in the green suit. Rumour has it he lost a *lot* of weight. He only got two shots in the site, not because he was embarassing, but because he couldn’t pose to save his life. And when you’re speed-shooting, you can’t wait for someone to accidentally land a good one– other shots are passing you by while you wait.

Next show up is the Ancient City, and that’s a very well-lit stage. Before that, though, I have half of the Space Coast show to put up. At least it should go more quickly. With luck then I can address the backlog of portrait shots…

One more thing, I modified the pages to work with more current HTML (only a slight modification of the working code on the portrait and stock sites). I’ve just been informed that it’s not working in IE. Of course my first suggestion is “get Firefox”, but if you *must* use IE, here is the temporary workaround: hold down your “Shift” key while you click the thumbnail. This pops open a blank window, which forces IE to redraw the page. Meantime, hang in there, I’ll get it working.

According to the news, North Korea’s Taepodong-2 ran out of steam about forty seconds after being summoned to action.

They were able to get it up, but not keep it up.

It happens to the best of us, from time to time.

(I’m probably going to lose my “PG” rating for this.)

Take a moment, if you will,
and remember that in a few days
we will be celebrating our freedom.

Not fireworks.
Not a date on the calendar.
Not a day off from work.

Our precious *freedom*.

Take a moment, if you will,
and remember that in a few days
we will be celebrating American Independence Day,
not “July 4th”.

So I was getting two more tires put on my car, which left me with some time on my hands. “Face Off” played on the waiting room television.

(My $DIETY, I’d no idea that movie was so awful. How many ways can you try to glamorize a bullet coming out of a gun?)

Given the choice of watching the movie or watching the traffic go by, I opted for the cars. That’s when I noticed that I was looking at one of the intersections in Gainesville with the “white lights”, the ones that ostensibly turn on when someone runs the red light.

Guess what? They don’t work. They don’t work at *all*. They came on randomly when the light turned red.

Often they came on when a motorist had legitimately proceeded into the intersection on yellow. Other times they came on after someone made a legal right turn on red. In some cases there was no one even at the intersection in that direction, and hadn’t been for ten, maybe fifteen seconds.

But you *know* these things are going to be used as evidence in court cases.

At some point you have to think that maybe our elected officials have become less concerned about our safety in the traffic system and more concerned about finding new ways to hand out tickets to get revenue.