It’s been a long, long time since I did any serious web programming — about four years, in fact.

Basically, when I left the world of banking, I left the world of web development. I had discovered that WordPress did a perfectly reasonable job creating a framework for whatever content I wanted to throw up on the web (which is different than simply wanting to throw up on the web, period, which is what you might want to do if you spend too much time exploring Vincent Flanders’ Web Pages That Suck).

Since then, I’ve frequently thought about the principles of usability and good web design (in fact, I think about them every time I encounter poorly-designed user interfaces and badly-designed websites!) — but I’ve spent basically no time doing actual web design work.

Along the way, I rather forgot how satisfying I find it.

This isn’t to say that it’s quite as satisfying as dancing or riding a bike — but it turns out that solving web-design problems is still pretty fun.

Today I learned how to pop custom CSS classes into WordPress themes in such a way that they’ll actually work. Theoretically, this shouldn’t be hard if you’re already familiar with CSS classes — but it had been a while since I built a CSS framework from scratch, and I had to think about where to put my classes in the main stylesheet for the theme.

A flash of intuition (“DERP! SEE IF THERE’S A ‘BODY’ SECTION, YOU MORON!”) solved that problem for me, and the result was immediately, immensely, deeply satisfying. I may — MAY — have gotten up and done a little dance. It’s possible that I also sang a ridiculous song about being awesome*.

Maybe.

Ahem.

So, anyway. I am surprised by how happy I am to be doing web work again.

Maybe not so happy that I want to do it all the time for the rest of my life (too … much … sitting!), but definitely happy enough to think that I’d like to keep cracking away at it so maybe I can do it part-time while I’m working on my graduate degree or something.

In other news, the Tricross’ rear brake has lost most of its stopping power, so the Tricross will probably go to the shop tomorrow (where it will definitely get a tuneup, new rear brake pads, and a new chain, and possibly get a new rear hub or wheel). While I’m there, I might see about finding some kind of ridiculous swept-back bars for the Karakoram, because Dave just built up a gorgeous Bridgestone with lovely swept-back bars and now I’m riddled with envy or something.

Also because I am unlikely to do any serious off-road riding soon, and the Karakoram mostly lives its life as a grocery-getter.

Still practicing balances all the dang time. My balance à la seconde is starting to come together rather nicely. Boy, does that one work the ol’ turnout.

That’s it for now. Back to work!