Resource Developer Passes Away

The email missives came regularly, updating our staff about Ms. C's condition. She was diagnosed a couple of years ago with leukemia. Her sister, a good friend of mine had taken charge of the kaleidescope of medical procedures that require almost a medical degree to navigate. Persistent, my friend with no background in medicine, became an authority on every drug and treatment that her sister was facing. She took Ms. C along with her only child, back to her own home to care for her beloved sister.

Ms. C who owned her own business raised her son by herself after her brief marriage. I met her through my friend. A take-charge kind of woman, she was single, running a successful business, raising her son and owning her own home. An American dream... just not with a spouse.

Last year, during a remission, she moved back to her own home again to try to create some normalcy after many series of treatments. She felt good. Her need for independence after relying on so many, had taken a toll. We hired her to develop areas of our website. She thought it was cool to be able to surf the net and get paid for it.

Her work was thorough and complete. She learned very quickly. She relieved a burden on our staff. And as many of you know, how difficult it is to keep good researchers on task.

Then one day, her emails stopped. I knew she was struggling again. The work came to a grinding halt as we knew it wasn't any of the regular email excuses that we've all used about sending and receiving messages. I talked to my friend and she told me that Ms. C had relapsed, and the cancer was back.

This week, we received the email that we were dreading. Ms. C had talked to the family and her doctors asking for no more treatments and to be released from the hospital. She was ready, and wanted to go home. She was peaceful in this decision. And when the time came, her entire family, along with her priest, was there to bid her farewell. She died yesterday afternoon on a beautiful, sunny day in spring. We send our prayers to her son and her extended family.

Website Makeover

Oh, the agony of a novice that is trying to figure out PHP and Mysql. I'm not a programmer and I didn't go to school to learn computer languages. I'm like most web design learners. I just want the site to look good and navigate well. And that ain't happening. The myriad of templates and tutorials is making my head spin. I can't believe how many templates and CSS files I've created. I just can't make up my mind and pick one to work with and redo the entire website. Maybe I should use all the templates and all the CSS files since the site has so many different places to go.

One of our colleagues who does websites very well is Matterhorn Marketing. He has created a ton of sites for Eastern rafting companies. His sites all look good and navigate easily. Why can't I just let him take over our site? I know he'd do a great job and I know I could finally relax a bit over here. He could take over our internet marketing and I could go on vacation for the first time in years... wha' up wit dat? Why not?

The thing about letting anyone else do your website is mixed up in a realm of ego and control. Will the site be hosted on their servers? Will the files be part of my website or hosted somewhere else? Will I get the template files, the header files, the CSS files, the PHP files, the graphics, the footers, the blah blah blah blah and on and on... and what hidden scripts will be lurking in those mysterious places that only a webmaster knows? Sigh... I'm telling you, this has been the toughest decision ever.

And yet, while the other rafting companies' webmasters are busy optimizing, we're sitting here procrastinating. And guess what, we still haven't made a decision on which way to go, and our first rafting trip is in two weeks.