I work in a warehouse that gets incredibly hot during the summer. It doesn't help that I sweat more than the average person. To say the least, it was so hot that my nipples were on fire last night!
This problem haunts me every summer, yet I repeatedly forget about it. After enduring 11 and a half hours of grueling discomfort, I finally made it home and slathered myself liberally with Vaseline. It worked wonders.
The next night, I brought Vaseline to work with me. I work on a 600-foot-long, three-story tall conveyor belt system. We have several of these, which we call 'modules.' I was alone in my module on the second floor, so I hope nobody saw me. The lubrication under my shirt would wear off every few hours, and I'd have to reapply.
In doing so, I would pull up my shirt around my neck and massage the Vaseline onto both nipples with great relief.
It was undoubtedly as comical a sight as it sounds. HR hasn't summoned me for a chat, so I'm in the clear. Regardless, if they did, it would allow me to raise the issue of installing air conditioning in the warehouse. Asking any company to invest in employee welfare is usually a conversation-ender.
It's similar to asking an old friend to repay a loan - it tends to keep them at bay for a while.
As I was leaving work this morning - which happened to be July 4th - the security officer by the front door wished me a great day and a happy Independence Day. I responded, "You too, don't blow yourself up." That's a typical reply where I come from, and I didn't think much of it until I had said it.
I wondered: Can you say that to your Muslim friends without offending them? The question itself made me chuckle.
Happy 4th of July! And yay! I finally got this website functional.
Last year, I resumed building websites. Most web hosts heavily endorse WordPress, so I decided to try it. It's great not worrying about coding and focusing on content instead. However, the software is painfully bloated. I've upgraded to a VPS, put all images behind a CDN, and migrated the websites to Cloudflare. Despite this, I spend more time optimizing the sites for speed than creating content.
I had planned to let the FartDump.com domain expire since I wasn't using it anymore. But, I chose to return to coding. I started this website from scratch with a text editor. I'm partial to PSPad, so I use it a lot. Despite not having coded in over ten years and being quite rusty, I'm encouraged by the results.
My main website, which I spend most of my time optimizing, loads in just over three seconds. In contrast, FartDump.com currently loads in 400 milliseconds. The difference is indeed remarkable.
I've decided to keep FartDump alive, using it as my blog while continuing to build on the code and improve functionality. I aim to develop it into a fully-fledged blog with all the features I enjoy on WordPress, but only with the necessary code.
WordPress and its numerous plugins, intended for further optimization and SEO efforts, slow down the site even more. It's far better to code the site yourself, using the bare minimum needed.
It will be a long journey to bring this website up to par with my WordPress sites, but once it's done, I can abandon WordPress altogether and solely use my software.
I can't wait.
