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Karen’s Random Ramblings

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Karen Shelton View Drop Down
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Joined: November 26 2000
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    Posted: March 20 2005 at 7:30pm

Sunday
March 20, 2005
7:26 PM

After months of working on upgrading the HairBoutique.com HairTalk Messageboards, finding the best software to upgrade to and then fine tuning the board designs, here we are after one week of turning up the new HairTAlk. 

I can't believe that I found posts that go all the way back to the very official beginning of HairBoutique.com in March of 1997.  WOW.  That is a lot of hair wisdom posted here for so many years.  Has it really been 8 years?  It seems like 8 months but not 8 years.  And here we are with yet another new messageboard.  Where did the time fly? 

I think I like this new HairTalk the best of all (kudos to Jeff) because of the dizzying array of great user & admin features including the ability to Select A Theme to custom set your own board.  My favorite theme is the Nocturnal because the HairBoutique.com sign in the upper left hand corner looks like it is covered by tiny white twinkling stars.  I have asked Jeff to try and find scenes that include mountains and/or waterfalls or seascapes as well.  We are both looking for more cool themes.

Part of the conversion process for the Messageboards, besides converting the hugeeeeeeeeee database, is to go through and edit and clean up all the pre-existing messages.  Eeyy Yiii Yii.  What a task that has been.  I am not even done yet.  In essence all the trash posts with off-topic messages are being deleted, edited down appropriately or moved to other threads.

We are also creating more appropriate threads and may eventually still delete some of the less active topics.  So be prepared for some more changes, although not as dramatic.

Once the Messageboards are stable and functioning (thanks to our HB Admin Team & HB Moderators) we will be working on the rest of the HB site.  Last weekend I spent hours updating HairNews columns.  I literally have stacks and stacks of HairNews that needs to be updated and added that are in the database but not loaded into the pages yet.  Stay tuned.  There is enough good stuff there for a huge library. It's a good thing I am a major packrat by nature. 

And speaking of a library, one of my PAs (Sherry) has been organinzing my physical library here at HB.com.  I used to have 10 foot piles of magazines (higher than 10 feet and they would topple over), books and snippets of hair & beauty notes and info stacked around the HairBoutique.com building and in my office.  The piles got so bad, you could literally hide behind the magazine mountains and shoot someone w/a paint ball and not be detected. :-)  Not that anyone did and hopefully they won't now get any ideas.  Sherry, my PA, who is a neat freak - bless her organizing little heart - took on the Karen Shelton Out Of Control Memorial Hair & Beauty Library.  Now we actually have a physical room with real wooden bookshelfs that are organized alphabetically from A to Z and labelled with neat readable labels.  I can't believe it, the mountains are moving and I can find all my Allure Magazines from the past 10 years all in one place.  WHEW.

Brigid, our summer college intern from the past 2 summers will be here from Purdue again this summer.  She popped into Dallas a few days ago during her Summer break to find a place to stay and get set up to start back at HB.com the first of May.  We are all so excited to have her back.  Some of you may remember Brigid, her beautiful face and hair used to grace the cover of our old HB Marketplace before our last upgrade.

At any rate...it is good to see that at HairBoutique.com we are continuing on our path of Progess...Not Perfection... and are taking it one good hair day at a time.

Speaking of Good Hair Days...our warehouse guy Phil...is in a Got2B Product Testing Frenzy.  For the past several weeks he was testing the spiking products.  The results?  He was walking around the building asking everyone to touch his spikes.  They were awesome by the way.  He has really gotten the hang of spiking so that he gets perfect fullness and separation.

Next on Phil's testing agenda is the got2B pomades.  He is going to alternate between defiant and playful.  He is a great test subject because he loves to play with new hair care products and is constanty getting his hair cut into new styles.  When he first came to HairBoutique.com last Fall the first thing he did was bleach his hair white with Manic Panic.  Now he is back to brunette but with spikes.

Brigid, our Purdue intern has been testing light hair conditioners for her fine strands.  She is gaga over Philip Pelusi.  Brigid's dad is testing the Paves Gel which Oscar Pelam really likes.  In fact, Oscar is a huge fan of the Paves Professional styling line and really like the Star Power Firm Hold Reparing Styling Gel.

Jack Raiber, our head accessories guru who has been w/HB.com for going on 3 years is out of town until Wednesday on HairBoutique.com conference business.  Today was wild w/out him because we all took turns (Phil, Oscar, Jeff & I) helping pick hair accessories.  It may not sound like a big deal but we literally have thousands and thousands of hair accessories neatly organized in huge containers that are all carefully marked.  The hair accessories have their own wing of the building. 

I was picking headbands today and there are over 530 headbands in just one part of the HB building.  I was getting almost cross eyed picking different L. Erickson (the 1/4" satin bands are sizzling hot), France Luxe and Susan Daniel headbands.  Then I had to pick Mei Fa hairsticks.  I hate that because they are so gorgeous that I stop and look at every single pair which then takes me hours to find what should take me 5 minutes.  :-)  I told the guys not to let me pick hair accessories anymore because I get so easily distracted and need to be back working on the Messageboards. 

Will I continue to post here on a regular basis?  Geez, if you know me, it depends on the phase of the moon, the day of the week and whether I remember my password to get here.  :-)

I hope anyone who wishes to create their own journal will take advantage and have fun posting. 

Karen

"I would shed tears the day no one copied me" Coco Channel



Edited by Karen Shelton - May 11 2006 at 8:17pm
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
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