Our Halloween party was a resounding success, if I may say so myself. And despite discovering that ~25 people is way too many to get an actual game of trivia going, there were several people rocking out to Guitar Hero: Van Halen and a ton of laughing, conversing, eating and drinking.

Oh, the drinking.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that any party where 100+ beers aren’t enough, a smoking-ass elephant is only second in interest next to Ian’s chest hair, a taco hands out Halloween candy to your neighbors and one of the cats eats a glowstick (and makes the stairs glow purple with his barf) counts as legendary.

I can’t wait until next year.

(Check out the pictures here.)

All you can do is find a way to be happy in the moment and not take yourself too seriously. I’m working toward that.

It’s the little things that are the big things, and you do them right.

This was the first client site for which I was responsible for the web development (it was designed by my coworker Ben, and Summer, Rex and Megan were responsible for content and overall strategy), and I will not lie: It was overwhelmingly difficult at times. Going from kind of knowing CSS and not ever having built anything in Movable Type to Oh Hi Let Me Build This Site Quickly Now was a challenge, but looking back I see how much I learned from the entire experience.

Luckily I had a lot of support from Patrick (we hired him as a consultant to teach me how to write my own CSS and built in Movable Type–all in like a week) and several super-smart coders and Movable Type users on Twitter who were so responsive and willing to help.

According to the notification we’re not supposed to officially announce anything until the awards are actually given out, so I’m not going to tell you the site name or the awards. I tried to stay as cool and collected as I could at the office—oh who am I kidding, I blabbed to whoever would listen how all those times I said I was going to jump out the window because Movable Type wasn’t working and all those times Ben threatened to kill me because I wouldn’t stop asking for more images in different sizes and colors TOTALLY WORTH IT.

I’m so lucky that I work someplace that lets me do what I am interested in and trusts in me enough to understand that if I don’t know how to do something, I sure as hell will find out. And I’m so proud of the team that worked so hard to make this site so awesome. Even if it didn’t win anything we would still understand its value, but it’s always nice to have validation.

Now, I wonder how I can weasel my way into a trip to accept the awards?

Can’t we all get along? Stop this arguing. There’s too much sand in your collective vaginas. This world should just be one finger-bangin’ party, where angular haircuts, men in capri pants or “lands end sweaters” and girls in fresh “American Apparel hoodies” and “tote bags bigger than their midsections” can cohabitate with rock critics and rock stars. You know, ride the minivan people–two fingers up front, three in the back!

Amen, brother. A-fuckin’-men.

It was also great to meet some people I had only previously talked with on Twitter or via our blogs, and to see again those I hadn’t seen in some time. There was a great deal of killing folks on the popular iPhone game GPSAssassins (I’m a bad ass—Ian and I are relentless on our commute and will take your ass down), followed later by a lot of complaining.

(People, it’s called GPSAssassins, not GPSIHopeIDon’tHurtYourFeelings. Christ.)

Anyway, I had heard that these networking things can be kind of cliquey, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the sessions had a good flow to them and I was never just standing around looking lost, like the weird, awkward girl I really am.

Something I took away from the conference and broached on Twitter this morning, though, is the lack of female web developers/coders in Nashville. I can’t technically call myself a web developer (yet), but I’ve been learning as much as I can for work. I am not complaining about the tech dudes around here, as those who follow me on Twitter are always very quick to help me out when I have questions, but I am left wondering why there are not more women in the field.

The idea of me organizing a female-coder meet-up was broached (and a venue was graciously offered), but I’m afraid I wouldn’t really know how to set it up, or even how I would lead it. Maybe starting with a Facebook group first might be the way to go?

Despite Gordo moving upstairs, BK still finds time to hang out with her old buddy. They tend to bond mostly over tub shenanigans these days.

I got in the elevator, and at the next stop an older gentleman got on. He smiled and started humming quietly as we rode up. It wasn’t until he exited a few floors later that I realized what the song was.

Yep.

For our anniversary Ian got me the Crumpler 5 Million Dollar Home to carry as my daily bag, as I’m now carrying my Canon XTi with me pretty much everywhere I go. I have a 4 Million Dollar Home that I love, but for daily use it was just too small (I couldn’t carry a full wallet, my Flip camera and my braces case all in there together, and there’s no way I would be able to carry an extra lens with any of that stuff).

The 5 Million Dollar Home gives me more room without being bulky or making me feel like it’s obvious I’m carrying a camera. Dimensionally, it’s actually a bit smaller than the purse I would carry on a daily basis. And I get a couple more pockets than I had with the 4MDH, which is great. I love pockets. A lot.

Crumpler recently updated their MDH line, too, adding another clasp and–most excitingly–velcro silencers. Anyone who has used a previous iteration of a MDH knows how loud and tough the velcro can be. While it’s great to know the velcro holds secure, the silencers are great for when you don’t want everyone in a 2 mile radius to hear you RIIIPPP open your bag.

I took several pics of this bag (can you tell I’m excited?), which you can see here.

If you’re in the market for a bag for your camera, I would 100 percent recommend Crumpler. They aren’t cheap, but they are definitely worth the money. I drug the 4 Million Dollar Home around with me pretty much everywhere over the last few years, in all kinds of weather, and it protected my camera and gear wonderfully. And still looks pretty much brand-new.

You can’t beat that with a stick.