Wow. This week was crazy, and strangely enough, it had nothing to do with the holidays.

Let’s recap: Sunday night I did not sleep a bit, and after telling my parents Monday morning that I needed our family doctor’s number because I was up all night with bad chest pain, they were insistent that I go to the emergency room. Is there a better way to start off the week than a trip to the hospital?

Tuesday was fun, had an 8am downtown, then I stopped by one of our strategic partners in Dublin for a quick checkup and ended up sticking around for three additional new biz meetings and not leaving until well after 5pm. Hence that night from 7 until 2am I had to actually do my day’s work.

Wednesday was ok, but Thursday was back to me jumping in and out of meetings all day, and again another long night of work which concluded with my falling asleep while sitting up at my computer.

Then there was Saturday. On Saturday, I had my high school reunion, which I attended. It started at 5pm at a bar across the street from our new office, so the VIP party at the office started at 4. I somehow found my way back home close to 4am. I’ll let your imagination fill in the twelve hours in between.

So, I did not get much sleep at all this week, but that is ok. I will always trade sleep for excitement and my week was exciting. Yeah, every once in a while it is good to slow down, but if you sit idle for too long it is inevitable that you will get bored. Yes. I am thankful for weeks like these, they can be tough but they are also what makes life awesome.

As the new year approaches I imagine people are discussing their plans for new year’s resolutions. I think to myself, the concept of the new year’s resolution is interesting. It is a good idea, but it’s also a really faulty one. The base premise of improving oneself is wonderful, but why wait for a new year to start considering how you should change?

On the contrary, I believe we should always have that move towards perfection in mind. To me it is a very natural inclination to think how I can be better. How can I improve the quality of myself and my life? This thought should never really leave, we should not need an annual reminder that it is time to improve.

The biggest lifestyle changes that I have seen in recent years have come sporadically. I am just fine with that. Back in April 2007, I began lifting weights regularly, which I still do today. In December of 2007, I started making it a priority to keep up-to-date with web/tech news, a habit that I’ve kept. In May of 2008, I got back into playing volleyball (which, given its frequency, you may argue is actually now a bad habit). In fact, about a month ago I came up with another good one, and I am working on it this moment.

Did I wait around for something to spark these changes? No, that would be silly. Instead, I saw room for improvement, decided that I wanted it, and committed to the change. To me, it does not matter that there was no real reason or catalyst for these changes beyond my own desire for perfection. And, if you have to wait for the new year to roll around before you even consider how you might improve yourself, you’re frankly not ready for change.

This post comes to you from my life as a web developer at dynamIt. There is this issue that I run into from time to time with CSS and IE6 and I keep forgetting how to fix it. I found a good post the other day and I applied one of its suggested methods. It worked, so now I need a place to save this nugget of information. Surely this issue will come up again in the future, only then I will know where to look for the solution.

The Problem
Background images and colors are not showing up in IE6 as they should be. Sometimes they are sort of there, but disappear in an inconsistent fashion when you scroll. Also, I have seen it when they are NOT there but magically show up when you use the Microsoft Developer Toolbar to inspect the element.

The Cause
These seem to happen to a <div> when it has position relative and nested inside is a <div> with position absolute. Other children ( and by “other” I mean position static elements inside) of the relative <div> do not show their background images/colors.

The Solution
Give these “other children” a position of relative (not static) as well and backgrounds should show up as desired.

So simple a solution if you know where to find it. And, now I do.