I'm melting! Meeeelllttttiiiiinnnngggg.... What a cruel world!

Welcome to another week of tracking for my F284 Independent Project, the Party Palace Facelift.

Here's what I have for you this week:
I'm insane.

I've come to this conclusion as taking F212 and F240 at the same time is making my brain melt, with the F284 Independent Project tacked on top as some very large, overly sweet icing. All I have to say is, wow. I should have taken F212 and then the next semester F240, because at the same time isn't working so great.

The good news is, I've gotten some CSS work done on the PP website, and am on schedule to meet the October 31st deadline for that. Provided the world doesn't implode. No telling there, since I had someone tell me the world is ending on October 21st. Tomorrow. Hope not, but only time will tell there too.

Anyway, tune in next week for more fun and updates, and hopefully I should be about done with the CSS for the site, and getting ready to work on the slideshow.

PS, I have some ruby slippers of my own, and I'm wondering, should I be Dorothy, or the Wicked Witch for Halloween. Not sure which one is better at this point. =D

More Spiderman Costumes Than You Can Shake a VERY Large Stick at...

This week has been insane, for multiple reasons...
1. Oct 6th, the PFD came out. And so did the masses. The store has been swamped!
2. It's October. Everyone and their Aunt Bertha is out looking for Halloween costumes.
3. The costumes. (Said like "oh the humanity!" but it's "oh the costumes!")

Let me elaborate. We have a kind of filing system in the back of Party Palace with about 95% of the costumes. At the beginning of the summer, they needed a little help. Not a lot, just a little updating, put some new costumes in. No big deal. Only as summer went along, and we were so short handed, no one could get near it. About 5 weeks ago one of my co-workers came back to work after a long break, and tackled the costumes as her personal project. Only problem was, her head wasn't back in the game yet.

Imagine 5 different 50's dresses. 3-5 sizes each. 5 different styles. One of each size, each style, in one box, labeled as one thing. Now multiply that one by 4 different boxes, scattered around willy nilly. Now imagine that kind of filing, in various strains of severity, but on the scale of about 2-3k costumes. Yes, thats a K. 2000-3000. Last week alone, I did 48.75 hours. And I was scheduled for 28. This week, I've worked 40 hours already, and I've only been scheduled for 16 so far. Can you see where I've been?

The good news is, Mens is finished in the back. Mens is updated on the wall. Womens is finished in the back. Womens is updated on the wall. Girls is finished in the back. Boys is 1/2 finished in the back, and plus size, both genders, are finished in the back. Once we finish the boys, we'll update all the numbers in the front, then pull ALL the posters down, clean the wall and clean up the posters, put new price labels on them, and repost them all as fast as possible. Hopefully before Saturday.

And then I get "me" time. Translation: Training Nina in the Party Palace ways, checking in freight, receiving freight POs, and finally..... website work! Yup, this story was going somewhere. Did some research on PHP this week for a possible form on the site where a customer can email us an idea of something they're looking for, or to request that someone call them about a certain item, but thats about it, unfortunately.

Fixing the costumes was a huge priority, and took a huge chunk of time, but it's almost done!

Thank goodness, cuz honestly, I'm starting to have dreams of being buried in an avalanche of size 4-6 Black Ninja costumes.

*shudder*

Famous Last Words...

Here we are again, another installment that just proves my sanity is a limited quantity, and I'm about to go out of stock.

I've submitted my final proposal for the project and I've set some pretty lofty goals for myself. Look....

PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION TASKS:

1. Using Photoshop, clean up existing pictures of balloon art and balloon decorations to be added to the new site. If needed, recreate some of the balloon art and retake the pictures. Some of them are very low quality, and will need to be redone.

2. Fine-tune and complete a CSS page to be used site wide.

3. Write up, and implement a new slide show type feature for the pictures.

4. Visit vendors sites and get pictures of the party themes to be used on the site, complete with credit for the pictures. If need be, scan pictures of the themes from vendor catalogs.

5. Write up and deploy the new site, with full working links.

PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE:

1. Photoshopping balloon art: Estimated completion date – October 1, 2011.

2. CSS page: Estimated completion date – October 31, 2011.

3. Slide show: Estimated completion date – November 15, 2011.

4. Vendor pictures of products: Estimated completion date – November 22, 2011.

5. Initial site deployment – December 1, 2011.

I fully expect the initial deployment to not be perfect, and will probably continue to fine-tune and tweak the site the entire time I work at Party Palace, but my goal is to have a new working version up before the end of the semester.

Seems like some lofty goals, I know. I went light on myself for the month of October, as this is the busy season for Party Palace, what with Halloween fast approaching, but even still, looking at the dates laid out, it feels doable. (Famous Last Words... Hey Billy-Bob, WATCH THIS!!!)

*SIGH*

In other news, I've started fixing the balloon art pictures. I ran into a snag this week when I discovered that the software on the computer at work was Adobe Design CS4.... and Photoshop is Adobe Photoshop CS. No number after the CS. I opened one of the pictures in it, clicked on the magic wand tool, clicked on the photo, and the entire application crashed. Not good. So I'll be fixing the pictures partially at school, but mostly at home. Hopefully once I get those all finished, I'll be able to do more writing for the CSS at work and school, but we'll see how that lines up. I haven't gotten to speak to Lori yet, she just left on a short vacation, so next time she calls the store I'll let her know about the Photoshop. I actually plan on getting a copy of CS5 for my laptop once the dividend comes out, but I still have a couple weeks to wait on that, so.... yeah. Home it is.

Tune in next week for another episode of "Angel's going insane!"