Complete (tho' never done)

Finished adding data. Removed the 'Under Construction' labels. The site is live, tho' of course it's always been, but now it's official.

I should feel so relieved. I deeply feel i did it right, that it's a good thing. But my thoughts are only of what else should be done. Here's what i wrote to TEDC:

What i did:
- Distributed publicity re what we were about to do.
- Established the website under the Chamber website TrinitCounty.com.
- Developed the database structure, website design, and programming.
- Visited every tourism-oriented business i could find, from Kettenpom to Eagle Creek, Wildwood to Mad River, Hyampom, Salyer, over 200 locations; told 'em about what we're doing (all but unanimously, folks were very supportive); took pictures, collected data.
- Entered all the data into the database.

The result can be seen at TrinityCounty.com/Visit.

It's not perfect. Here's what i'll be doing in the next weeks:
- the 'banner' at the top of every page really needs a dramatic image or images on it.
- Improve the appearance of the individual 'site'-level display (adjust font sizes and such).
- I need to obtain a couple more illustrative photos, and I should write some better category descriptions.
- Some of the sites have very long descriptions. In the intermediate displays (as one 'drills down' thru categories to reach individual site displays), these need to cut off uniformly.
- Add 'Search'.
- Get the site registered with Google Search.
- Seeing it as it turned out, I realize that there needs to be more geographic grouping in the display listings.
- And on the 'Virtual Tour' map, it should be possible for the user to select/limit the display to certain categories only (to reduce the clutter of 'pins').
- There is already a good way for businesses to add their info to the site initially, but there should also be an efficient way to edit that info. (I'll add an 'edit' button to each site, which will go to an editable display of the existing info, for submission.)
- Bug: if there is no actual site in some category, then the category should not show at all.
- Bug: Since a business may fit several categories (e.g. Lewiston Hotel: Hotel, Bar, Restaurant, Historical), there are several different ways to get there. The 'Path' line that is displayed for it should reflect how the user got there, but presently it may reflect instead some other (unexpected) way of getting there.
- Also, i will send email to every business on the site that has an email address, re-alerting them to their presence on the website, and asking for corrections or improvements.
- And i'll add a big link on the TCCOC homepage over to the tourism sub-site.

Here's what else should be done over the longer term, as funding becomes available:
- Re-do the entire 'old' Trinity Chamber website, to improve appearance & update info.
- Re-do the Trinity Chamber Business Directory, into the same style as the new tourism site, so that each business has a picture, description, and contact info.
- Something similar to the Tourism site could be done under TrinityCounty.com for other topics of special interest, such as Real Estate, local organizations, etc.
- Improve the TCCOC calendar, and get every group in the county participating to keep it updated.
- Add non-business sites to TrinityCounty.com/Visit (mainly USFS campgrounds, picnic sites, trailheads).
- Revamp the TEDC website.

I'm anxious to hear everyone's comments and ideas. Tell me what else I can do.

Data, Data

Added data to the database, on&on.

Weaverville 2

Wandered downtown Weaverville. Again, most folks are very nice, others busy, stressed. I feel so sorry to annoy anyone. It's interesting that in the entire county, Weaverville's the only place anyone's that busy with customers.


Meredith's Family Vineyards (closed)
Bottle of Ink
Gold Rush Jewelers
Johnny's Pizza
New York Saloon
Main Street Shoes
Kudos
Lil Kustom Shop (closed)
Selah
Weaverville Hotel & Emporium
Weaverville Antiques (closed)
Angela's Beads
Trinity Treasures & Treats
Main Street Gallery
MammaLlama
Mountain Marketplace
Olson Stoneware
LaGrange Restaurant
The Diggins (bartender wouldn't give me any info!)
Garden Cafe'
La Casita
Trinity Theatre (closed)
Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant
Old Town Station
Highland Art Center
Trinity Congregational Church
Whitmore Inn
Nugget Restaurant
Brady House (closed)
Jake Jackson Museum

Weaverville

Canvassed Weaverville businesses:

Marino's Pizza & Italian Restaurant
Lighthouse Restaurant
Bodega Cafe'
Trinity Alps Performing Arts Center (the new facade looks really good!)
Tops Mini-Mart
49er Gold Country Inn
Weaverville Gas
Trinity River Fuel
Susie's Bakery
Motel Trinity
Plotzke Ace Hardware
Mountain Outpost
Trinity Alps Golf Course
Round Table Pizza
Sawmill Grill
Weaverville Victorian Inn
La Mexicana Taqueria
Tops Super Foods
Wild Bird Gifts
Dragonfly Outfitters
Subway
CVS
Burger King
Corner Mart
Miller's Drive-in
TriniDeli
The Red House
Sidney Gulch RV Park
Red Hill Motel/Cabins
Budman's Book Mine
Granny's House

Despite being sunday, Weaverville businesses (compared to every other part of the county i've visited) are busy (some, very). And i'm not done yet; there's still the whole town center.

Lewiston, Google Maps Are Wrong, and Host Troubles

Ran thru Lewiston again, visiting businesses:

Trinity River Resort
Old Lewiston Bridge RV Resort
Old Lewiston Inn B&B
String n Beans
The Country Peddler
Maxwell's Hometown Market
Old Bridge Cabin
Old Lewiston Schoolhouse Library & Museum
Old Lewiston Mercantile & Variety Store
First Congregational Church
Lewiston Valley Motel & RV Park
Lewiston Mini-Mart
Plug & Jug
Trinity Dam Good Pizza
Lewiston Community Park
Trinity Fly Shop
Indian Creek Lodge
Indian Creek Trailer Park
Red Barn
Dave's Taxidermy

I was so privileged to talk with Herb Burton of the Fly Shop, he's worked many years on the politics of the Trinity River. We are so lucky to have so many dedicated people.

A constant complaint i hear, and see, is that Google Maps Are Wrong (re: road names)! Dang! I've added it to my list of things to do: find out how to complain & get it fixed. Likewise re Directions: over&over i hear that Google (or MapQuest, said to be worse) sends people on an extremely round-about route, often on marginally-passable USFS roads.

Back home, i find the online-database-modification feature provided by TrinityCounty.com's web-host is inaccessible, dang! Today's saturday, i must have this project done in 5 days, and there are no office hours at Velocity til tuesday. I send an email, leave a phone message.

Meanwhile i can continue to add businesses to the site, but the problem is that if i make a mistake, there's no simple way to correct it (other than programming a complete PHP page to address the specific problem). And 1 inadvertent mistake (something as innocuous as an extra ENTER carriage return) can completely kill the Virtual Tour feature.

A couple hours later: it's gotten worse, now even anyone attempting to access TrinityCounty.com/Visit get a database failure message.

Luckily, Travis (of Velocity) happens into the office (1 hardworking man) & fixes it. Seems may be this new database-based site is just demanding more memory of his server than it usually deals with; he increases the limit.

Rolling Along

Added more places to Visit!, for example: Redwoods & Rivers.

Pix, & finally adding sites to the site (woo-hoo!)

I've increased the photo size on the individual 'Site' page. But previously i've only been using 160x120-pixel images (for small-file-size/fast-download); blow these up bigger, and they're blurry. Unacceptable. So i did a test, decided 448x336 is a good size, large-enough dimensions but still only ~33k filesize (vs ~7k for a thumbnail-size image). (I may eventually go to BOTH sizes, using the small one generally and the large one just for 'Site' pages, but that's more work than i can deal with right now, deadline 7 days away.)

Evening, i perfected my data-upload code, and added several DownRiver attractions to the website, for example Bigfoot Rafting. (I'm not happy with the look of the individual site page, will get to that later.)

Calendar, Spaghetti

Updated the TCCOC website with a notice re the Spaghetti Feed for Mill Workers. And added an entry to the TCCOC online calendar re same.

Evening, added a Google map to the individual 'site'-level display, example: Almay Ranch Resort. It's still not what the final actual display will be, but i'm a step closer.

Corresponded with Butter Creek Ranch of Hyampom re: where exactly are they located? (I couldn't find 'em on my trip thru Hyampom.)

Also, worked on what *i* will use to upload new data from all the many sites into the database. When the public does this, their data goes to a file, which i then read, which i then allow to go into the DB. But if it's just me, i don't need that middle step. Also, if it's just me, i can upload the photo directly into the destination directory, instead of an intermediate location.

Line Breaks

Fixed the line-break problem from saturday, i feel so much better. Just a few more details to go, then i'll be ready for massive uploading of all the data i've collected from all around the county.

Lewiston

Early morning, photographed downtown Weaverville businesses, before parked cars would spoil the view.

For the Lewiston excursion, Jill Richards of Trinity County Arts Council came along, but she works late-nites so we couldn't get started til 10, then there was coffee, and she actually wanted to enjoy the sights and people-contact along the way, good for her!, so everything took long; i completed only maybe 1/2 of the town. Will return another day. Visited:

Trinity Alps Marina, Fairview Boat Ramp
Trinity Dam
Pine Cove Marina
Lakeview Terrace Resort
Lewiston Dam
Lewiston Fish Hatchery
River Oaks Resort
Lewiston Hotel
Mountain Valley Grill (good lunch!)
and finally One Maple Winery, very nice!

Database Entry, & The Fix Broke Something Else

Spent all day & eve on the program to upload uploaded data into the database. Progress, but much more to do.

My Joss Hose site 'fix' (regarding quote marks) did fix it one place but broke it somewhere else (because one place the text from the database is used in HTML, but elsewhere goes into javascript, and the two handle quotes differently). So i just took the offending phrase out, too complicated to deal with now. Also a problem with the first test automated database entry; it adds a carriage return to the end of every string, i don't know why, and that again screws up when using the data in javascript.

I know these kind of entries are really boring to anyone reading it, but such is the working life of a programmer.

Map Mistakes, & Under Attack

The 'Virtual Tour' map was still in my Firefox browser, but had disappeared from Internet Explorer. (I think THE greatest frustration in web development is that different brands of browsers, and different versions of same, display pages differently. What works in one may not in another.) I found that when i'd added a link to the Joss House Association to the description of the Joss House, the quotes enclosing the link so baffled IE that it couldn't interpret the map's javascript. So i fixed it (all it took was a '\' in front of each quote). Also discovered i'd forgotten to transfer over several support files when i moved from AllThingsTrinity.us to TrinityCounty.com. Now the map looks & acts much better.

Couldn't get into the database editor; Travis at Velocity (who hopped right on it, he's a good man) reset it; he reports that an automated process had been trying to break into the FTP service. (Once inside, it could mess with the files, adding, changing, deleting.)

Why would anyone mess with TrinityCounty.com?

oh, and i improved the individual 'Site' display, e.g. Almay Ranch Resort.

Weaverville Fire

Spent all day and eve re-programming (improving) the Weaverville Fire Dept site, especially the Photo Gallery.

Down South Day 2

Got a flat tire descending Pelletreau Ridge to Hyampom. Finally there, visited:
-Merlo Winery
-Hyampom General Store
-Old Garrett Ranch
-Old Hyampom School
-Hyampom Bar & Grill

I think i thoroughly traversed the roads, and i even met up with life-long-resident Van Garrett (i knew him ~30 years ago when i was a [shudder!] county planner), who directed me. But the above is all i could find, tourism-wise. Even the Meredith Family Vineyards, well-known of Hyampom, had no public facility, that i could find.

Waited an hour for the Hyampom Road re-construction to let me thru, then back to Hayfork, good lunch at Casa de Castellanos, where the nice lady assured me the garish exterior coloration will fade with time.


Then to Wildwood, visiting:
-Wildwood Store & Cafe'
-Wildwood Bar

At the bar, the guys inside gave me a seriously hard time about the "Obama Bucks" which must be funding what i'm doing. It was the ONLY impolite or negative response i've had anywhere in the county. (And TEDC told me later the WIRED funding for this effort actually came out of the BUSH administration!)

On to Douglas City, visited:
-Douglas City Store / Trinity River Outfitters
-Timber Lodge Motel

That late-afternoon, i presented what i've done so far to the TEDC Board. They believe that Real Estate is a tourist attraction, so i'll endeavor to add that to the site.

Down South

The weekend gone to firefighting, i'm taking days off from the day-job to complete the Hayfork/SouthernTrinity/Hyampom/Wildwood tour. Today, visited:

Casa de Castellanos Restaurant
Northern Delights (lovely!)
The Social Place
North Valley Bank
Mountain Actors Workshop Inc
Zion Natural Foods Market
Hayfork Drug Store
Hayfork Family Dairy Store
BBQ
Ruth Dam
Ruth Lake Marina
Journey's End
Ruth Recreation Campground
Hobart Creek Campground
Ruth Store & Bar, + Blue Moon Cafe'
Zenia Store
Kettenpom Store
Six Rivers Lodge
Mad River RV Park
Mad River Burger Bar



Wonders of tech, this came to you broadcast from top of South Fork Mountain, between MadRiver & Hyampom, where i'm camped out! (cold up here.)

Hayfork Interrupted

This was my big Hayfork/Hyampom/Wildwood/SouthernTrinity weekend, two days surveying every tourist-related business in the south two-thirds of the county. I visited:

Big Creek Lodge Motel
Ropin' Rhonda's Saloon
Hayfork Discount
Bert's Kone & Java Barn
Frontier Fuel
Tommy Knows Pizza
Wiley's Market
Head Change Arts
Hayfork Hotel
Farmer's Market
Ernie's Department Store
Irene's Cafe
Ewing Reservoir

Was making good progress, then duty called me to the Weaverville Sawmill Fire.

Map, Calendar, Joss House

Almay Ranch successfully used the find-your-place upload feature; they got it right on.

I connected 'What's Hap-nin' to the Trinity Chamber events calendar.

And I added an appeal for help for the Weaverville Joss House from the Trinity Chamber homepage.

Handling Uploads

Remember that anyone can upload information about sites of tourist interest. Two folks so far have tried the feature:

• Hodge Management: Today i emailed 'em, suggested they do a separate upload for each campground they manage, so that each one appears on the Virtual Tour.
  
• Almay Ranch Resort: Looks like a lovely place; i never knew it existed. It's in the Trinity Center area, but i don't know exactly where. They did their upload before i added the Google Map allowing folks to exactly locate the latitude/longitude of their site; so I asked 'em to try the map-locate feature.

Other than that, I worked on the PHP code to automatically interpret the uploaded info (to allow review/edit, then entry of the info into the DB).

Map

Only 22 days left; stressed. Last nite dreamed over & over about sub-folders.

Today: i adapted the Google Map 'Virtual Tour' to the new TCCOC database, and made further refinements to the data upload page, both still in progress.

Weaverville History

Carol Fall (see Trinity Roots) suggests 'Visit Trinity!' should include nodes for all the historic sites in Weaverille, coordinated with a Walking Tour. Good idea. The database structure and PHP programming can already handle that. It's just a matter of generating & uploading all the data. (The hardest part of any website is generating the 'content'.)

Away

4 days south, celebrating my parents' 60th Anniversary.

TCAC

After the day job, worked (volunteer) til 9pm for Trinity County Arts Council. Their site hadn't been updated in a year, and included some sour grapes left there by the previous volunteer webguy. I was finally able to obtain the password, and deleted or amended a whole lot of inaccurate info and now-bad links. Here's it now, still certainly a very poor site, but, trust me, much better than it was.