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*

First step, minions... Next, the WORLD!!!

This week, I got my first minion.

I can't tell you how happy I am to have Nina working at Party Palace now, not to mention that I have an honest to God minion. It's a proud day for me. *sniff*

What this means in terms of this project is.... I have more time to get things done! Yay!!!!

Nina is a good friend of mine, from years ago when we both worked at Home Depot. She married my very very good friend Corey, and most recently, decided to join me in my insanity at the Party Palace. I'm teaching her how to assist me with freight, like a good little minion, and it's letting us get things checked in faster, more efficiently, and give me time to work on the website! Whew!

I got a lot of time in on the pictures this week, and have finished using Photoshop on all that we had. What we realized after I have them done, is that some of the pictures are VERY old, and due to lossy optimization (JPEG, how we do love thee so!), they're quite frankly BAD. So after showing them to Lori, I asked if she would be willing to make some new art, specifically for the site, that my minion (man, I love saying that!) can take pictures of that we can quick Photoshop and post. She agreed, so look forward to hearing about all new art!

In other news, for a limited time at ye olde Palace, buy $20 worth of stuff, get a free viking helmet! Double win!

A Dis-Jointed Week

So... this is the blog post that was due to be posted and turned in on September 29th. But, *as you look at the calendar*, it's October 2nd! Too right you are, let me explain. No wait, there is too much, let me sum up.

Wednesday I got a wake-up call that there are certain things I really shouldn't do. Now, periodically I learn one of these lessons, and I move on with the knowledge, and still might sometimes do that thing. And after I did it, just shake my head and say, "Wow, I shouldn't have done that. I KNEW I shouldn't have done that. *sigh*". I am secure in the knowledge that I will never do what I did again though.

Wednesday afternoon, at work, one of my coworkers was getting a bouquet ready for a customer. We use a disc system, meaning you inflate the balloon, choose your ribbon color, hold the ribbon under the neck of the balloon, pull it over a pin, and slip the disc over both. It seriously takes about 1/10th of the time it takes you to read that. In balloon terms, its better than sliced bread. So she's getting this bouquet ready, and when she does this one balloon.. it didn't catch the ribbon, just the neck of the balloon. So when she lets go to grab scissors to curl the ribbon, the balloon floats up into the net. Thank goodness for that net, let me tell you. I look up, and even as tall as I am, the balloon is juuuuuuuust out of reach. Normally when there is something in the net I can just reach up and grab it. Not so this time. So my dumb ass decides to do a little baby jump and grab it, saving us the time to go get a stool from in back, climb up, and grab the balloon. I jump, I grab, I land. And I cry. I dislocated my shoulder. Apparently through the magic of genetics, I have slippery joints. Who knew? The best part is, I'm standing there in massive amounts of pain, and everyone is telling me there is NO way I could have dislocated my shoulder. Just couldn't happen. You see, I still had a small amount of range of movement. They maintained that if it was truly dislocated, I wouldn't be able to move my arm at all. Silly me, I believed them. I make it thru the day, and go home and promptly go to bed. At 630.

Now it's Thursday. I wake up and I have WAYYYY less range of movement than I did the day before and oh mommy, does my shoulder freaking hurt. I whimper and cry through getting dressed, go to work and open the store. When my coworkers get there, I explain whats going on, and try to go to the doctor. Then I get a spiel about how since it happened at work, my personal insurance is no good. They'll refuse it. I have to pay everything in full. I'm not that rich. So I go to see my mother, who is, for longer than I have been alive, a nurse. She takes one look at my shoulder, compares it to the other one and pronounces "Oh yeah, it's dislocated." Through a lot of crying and manipulation, we got it back into it's proper location. I was given drugs, and drove home to log onto class remotely. I watched class, getting fuzzier and fuzzier by the end, even falling asleep in my chair. A jerk when my cat jumped on the table bringing me screaming awake, I went to bed. Completely forgetting about that pesky little blog post I was supposed to do.

Cut to Sunday. Today. Guess what I remembered when I woke up? >.<

SOOOOOOO... Independent project! It's October 2nd, I had my first deadline set for October 1st... and I've missed it. I'm still working on the pictures as I have time, and getting new pictures of new balloon art for the website, but I'm nowhere near completed yet.

Lesson learned for the week: Get a stool.

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!"

Biography of a Balloonatic

Here we are again for another rousing entry in the Party Palace Facelift blog. This would be infinitely more interesting if I was any good at blogging, but we'll just have to muddle through together.

I've always been interested in gadgets, from the time my dad brought home an Atari, complete with this FASCINATING game called Centipede. A few years later, he brought home our first PC. A lovely IBM named Hal. I snuck every minute on it I could, and before long I was hooked. For Christmas when I was 11, my parents gave me an Apple IIe... with a color screen. *GASP* Over the years, new gadgets, new computers, I'm an addict. I haven't found a 12 step program developed for the likes of me yet, but I'm sure eventually they'll think of one. I probably won't go though, cuz no one likes a quitter.

For years I kind of bumbled along, trying to find a job doing things I liked. The problem was, I always ended up finding jobs that just let me do things I was good at, not necessarily things I really enjoyed doing. I did radio, which I loved, but eventually the corporate nonsense of it kind of killed it for me. Computers still hold an immense attraction for me, though. When the opportunity to go back to school arose, I chose to go in that direction, rather than back in the direction I was heading with radio. So far, so good. I like what I'm studying, and it's going well. My goal for when I finish this degree is to try and get a job working on Ft Wainwright in one of the IT divisions, utilizing what I've learned, and actually trying to have a career, rather than just a job that I put up with, as I did for so very long. I'll actually be sad to leave Party Palace when the time comes, it's been the first job I've had in a very long time that I look forward to going to work.

As far as IT goes, I really prefer the web design side of it. I like the creativity that's involved, making something new. While I'm still learning, and I'm not the best there is yet, I look forward to learning more and more every day.

The dawn of an age.... or a semester =)

So, through providence, or luck, or a smattering of both, this summer I came to work at our local party store here in Fairbanks, Party Palace. It's really our only party store here in town, in a place that really needs it. We sell balloons, regular and balloon animal, specializing in balloon bouquets for nearly any occasion you can think of. We also have a fantastic selection of party supplies, costumes, and more accessories than you could shake a VERY large stick at.

So one day, I decided to look at the website, as I'd heard a customer mention they'd looked for something on the web site and couldn't find it. Being an IT major, with an emphasis in Web Design and Administration, I figured I'd check it out and see if I could help them out.

This is what I found.

I went and found the owner/manager and asked her if she would have any problem with me giving the site a much needed overhaul, and her response was "I've been waiting for someone to ask me that!" With her blessing, I spoke to my adviser at UAF, Keith Swarner, and we figured out that not only could I help Party Palace out, but I can use it as my Independent Project for my degree. A win/win you might say.

So there you have it. Expect to see a lot more posts as this project gets going for real, and I start making some real progress. I'll be posting most of what I do to my own website so I can tweak it all before we add it to the live Party Palace site, and I'll add links to it here, so you can peek in on my progress.

Angelesa Ward