Regarding the "gallery hacks" post a little below... it feels really odd to be programming, after spending so much of my life after '92 avoiding it.

Here's the backstory. After graduating from high-school in 1992, I had it in my head that I was going to be a programmer. I had taken two computer science courses in highschool, writing Turbo Pascal 1.0 and Hypercard code on ancient Macs (the SEs), and a tiny bit of Turbo Pascal 7.0 on PC (ever so very little).. I'd been using computers since I was 9, and even did some LOGO when I was 10... it seemed the natural way to go.

So, when I went to college, I signed up for any programming courses I could get -- which ended up being Modula-2 and VAX/VMS assembler, both with the legendary Elaigh.

My year spent learning programming was a horrible one. No matter what I did, how hard I studied, how much of the syntax I memorized, I just couldn't 'get it'.

And I failed. Both.

Well, that's not technically true. Elaigh was extremely merciful, and gave me a P status -- which, while not being a fail, isn't an especially great mark either. :)

It turned out I just didn't have the right mindset to be a good programmer; I still don't. I took a year off school, worked at a building supplies store, then went back for my English degree. I looked forward to never having to program again.

Flash ahead 10 years.

Shortly after starting my current job, I was dropped right into the middle of a PHP project, dealing with file maintenance, user access and database manipulation. I got a great crash-course in PHP and SQL.

Shortly after, I took over control of the company website, which meant I had to learn ASP, and quick.

I now know both, and deal with them on a regular basis (as you can see from the Gallery thing). And, while I'm no programming god, I do know my way around. (for example, I know to base an if statement's actions on a successful match, rather than a fail (unless it's the fail I'm counting on).... :) )

And it's weird. Because I resisted returning to programming because of the horrific experience I had with it. And now, I'm almost enjoying it, learning new things every time I dabble.