Coding and Cartography

Probably won't be a very long post this evening because although my day was incredibly productive, it was really quite boring once you try explaining it to others. Most of my day was spent inside on my computer doing work that is vitally important to the projects I'm working on, but not very exciting.

The first part of the day, I created a home page for the resort I'm doing business counseling for, "Rainforest Haven." So, maybe I say this every time I create a new website, but I feel like this is my greatest work yet. While I'm not ready to show you the entire front page, as excited as I am about it, I will give you a slight preview of the top introduction bar to the home page:

I actually took and Photoshopped the picture of the large frond-leaf myself from a large potted plant in our living room! The background pic is actually from the resort. I am excited to show you all the rest of the home page, which turned out just beautiful! Hopefully the entire site will be ready in 2-3 weeks. So, while I was excited about the results today, the means to get there largely consisted of typing HTML code into Notepad (because REAL nerds never use editing programs! We code in the raw!!!) :-P

Later I did a little bit of shopping with about the half team, came home, and made lunch but not before first getting a Choco-banana from the vendor near our house (as mentioned in last Saturday's post)! Delicious! 

Eating a choco-banana while wearing my lucky shirt! 

Disneyland price: $4.00

Belizean Vendor: One Shilling (about 12.5 cents American)

We also ran into a man named Francisco on our way home who Lindsay is leading a social media project to get a wheelchair for. He has several severe physical disabilities and it takes him an hour to walk 3 blocks with a cane! We also filmed a segment for the YouTube fundraising video Lindsay is making for him. Here he is with Jake and Lindsay:

By the way, some of you may remember him from the fundraising video I made a few months ago. Watch it again and see if you can find him!

While out and about town we also distributed some flyers for our computer class, which we will begin again with a set curriculum on Monday. After that, we headed back home, as I mentioned before, and I was back at the computer again, this time doing more research for the Succotz revenue project I've been telling you all about. We made some VERY exciting progress and brainstormed some great ideas to help solve the revenue stream problem of that poor impoverished village. I also used satellite imagery from Bing Maps (see Monday's post) to start creating a map that will be very important in our plan. We are going to compile information on all restaurants and attractions in the village and put them on this map as a guide for tourists to draw them into the village more when they come through to visit the Xunantunich ruins. The reverse of the map will feature advertising space for some of those locations, the revenue of which will go to the village council to help make further improvements that will infuse additional capital into the village. This is just one part of plan to increase revenue in Succotz. Of course, for the map to be useful, we're going to need to coordinate with the village council to name all of the streets since most of them are currently nameless! We also will probably be installing street signs with the selected names in a few weeks. Take a look at my preliminary map (don't worry... it will be a lot prettier when it's done!):

I am, admittedly, not trained in professional cartography, but I must admit that making maps is really fun! It's also much easier when enabled by modern satellite technology. :)

Later in the evening we had our dinner from Sister Kay: heart-shaped waffles, sausage, Belize-style scrambled eggs (don't know what she did to them, but they were incredible!), and tossed fruit. Having "family dinner" together as a team is always one of the highlights of the day. We all get along so well and have such good times:

From left to right: Sarah, Emily, MacKenzie, Pete, Jake, Megan, Rin, and the hands of Ashley

Well, I told you from the start today that it would probably be a shorter, more boring post, and I seem to have delivered on that promise. But, of course, I have one last picture before I sign off for the night:

Can you find the iguana?

(Special thanks to Megan Swan for today's iguana pic since I was holed up on my computer all day!)