Archive for March, 2006
Difficulty
0Sometimes I forget just how difficult it can be to do web programming. I mean, yeah, it is simple to throw something together and put it up on the web – no big deal. But sometimes, as with other things, the devil can be in the details. It seems like lots of times I spend tons of time tinkering so things look just right. I hate that it takes me so long to get it that way, but that’s how it goes sometime.
It looks like I’ll probably be doing some more actual web development at work, so that should definitely help my development skills outside of work, so that’s definitely a plus.
Web development can just be downright frustrating at times, but I still love it!
Condemnation
0I saw this today. It kind of made me upset. It’s funny how the “most progressive” and “accepting” city in America, supposedly, can come right out and condemn these kids who are just exercising their freedom of religion and freedom of speech. However when there are other gatherings and rallies supporting all sorts of different causes and the city has no official condemnation of those groups. Isn’t it funny that when people get together to support a Christian cause, the city has to officially condemn that gathering? Now, how accepting and progressive does that sound to you?
The Perfect Song
0A friend of mine, Dennis, wrote a cool book entitled The Perfect Song. It’s a book about a guy named Poul who follows a songwriter named Mendel around the country, picking up his scraps he leaves behind on his quest to write the perfect song. During the course of the book, Poul takes the songs and gets them published, and basically Mendel becomes a world famous musician without even knowing it. Dennis is truly an amazing writer. I’m reminded of that every time I read his blog. Hopefully if I stick with this I’ll start to become a better writer.
Anyway Dennis and I have been beginning to rework his Perfect Song web site. One of the first things we did was to add a blog to the site. Dennis has also been working on doing an audio version of his book, and he’s begone to make the chapters available for free on the site. Check it out at The Perfect Song Audio Book.
Life Changes
0It’s amazing how quickly your life can possibly change. Within the last week Danielle has gotten 2 job offers, one of which could be a really big change for us. It’s just amazing how stuff like that comes about when you least expect it. We’ve both thought for a while now that we would be staying in Mansfield for a while. We have our PowerKidz group at the church, worship team that we’re involved with, new friends, etc. etc., and now it feels like everything could be getting all shaken up. It’s kind of scary in a sense, but it’s also pretty amazing. Sometimes I just wish it was easier to know what the right thing to do is. Oh well, I guess that’s part of the excitement of life. Stepping out when it’s not comfortable and seeing gwhat lies out there past your comfort zone.
Some big changes have occurred at my job during the last week also, so that has also been interesting. Thursday and Friday were some of the longest days I’ve had there so far, but everything is going really well. Sometime I want to write more about what it is that I actually do at work. Actually, my job is part of the reason I created this site. I want to test out techniques I’ve learned over the last 6+ months and see how well they work on in the “real world.”
It’s funny. I got this site, and I thought I would have all sorts of stuff to write all the time. But now that I actually put some thought into and don’t just throw any old stuff up here, it takes more work than I thought.
Bracket Busted
0I don’t know about the rest of you, but my NCAA Tournament bracket is all kinds of busted now. I had Duke winning it all. They’ve been my team for a long time. I don’t even really know why, but I’ve always liked them. I’ll still watch the other games, but it won’t be as exciting now that they’re not in it anymore. Oh well, I love March Madness!
The Teacher?
0Tonight, as with many other Tuesday nights, I spent some time with Dennis Miller, Director of Public Relations at Mansfield University. Dennis and I have been working off and on for a while now on his Perfect Song web site as well as helping him with some technical issues on the Mansfield University Podcast, which by the way is the only podcast I know of of its kind.
It’s been great spending time with someone, who deep down, really is a techy geek, or at least an aspiring one. We usually catch up on the latest in the technical world over dinner at McDonald’s before hitting his office to work on whatever project has been chosen for the evening. Dennis has really caught the vision for podcasting as well as the vision for what the social web in general. He gets MySpace, podcasting, and all the other new things coming out there are connecting people in new an unexpected ways.
Dennis has some really cool stuff coming around the bend on his site as well as some other stuff we have up our sleeves. What started as the tech guy coming in to fix a computer issue has really and truly sprung into a great friendship as well as a fun outlet for some of my technical “expertise.”
In one of his recent posts Dennis referred to me as his teacher. I’ve never really seen myself that way before, and I still don’t know if I do. I do love sharing my knowledge of all things computer with others, especially others who are willing to take that knowledge and put it to new and interesting use. The more I work with computers, the more I realize how many little things there are that can trip people up during their computer use. I’m just glad that I can provide a helping hand along the way.
The Slowskys
0Has anyone seen that new Comcast high speed internet commercial featuring the Slowskys, who are a couple of tortoises? I think the ad is great. They don’t like cable internet because it’s way too fast for them, but DSL suits them just fine.
I’ve never used DSL, but I have never liked the idea of it, and I don’t even know why. I love my cable internet, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t trade it for DSL unless I was absolutely forced to.
Check out the commercial if you get a chance. It’s an absolute riot.
Road Trip
0So, yesterday we went on a long road trip with our friends, Darrin and Krista. Let me give you a little back story first.
Thursday night we had a SuperChic[k] concert at our church. The concert was amazing. Superchic[k] was the headliner, and Eleventy Seven (punk rock), Seventh Day Slumber (rock), and KJ-52 (rap) also performed. All of the shows had a ton of energy, and I’m pretty sure most of the bands said that they would love to come back after the reception they got at the concert.
Fast forward to Saturday. I’m at the church helping Darrin set stuff back up for Sunday, when he gets a call from an unknown cell number. He lets it go and then listens to the voicemail. It just so happens to be the road manager for Seventh Day Slumber. Apparently he was missing an 18 inch subwoofer and wondered if we had it. Darrin said no and that was that. Or so we thought. Danny calls back and says that he was sick that night and threw a bad sub away, but he might have also thrown the good one away too. So we go on a little dumpster dive, and sure enough, the subwoofers were both in the dumpster.
Long story short, Danny says he’ll pay for our gas and get us in back stage if we bring the subwoofers to last night’s concert. We knew it’d be a late night, but we were up for it. My friend Kevin was nice enough to lend us his portable DVD player, so Darrin and I got to watch 24 on the way down.
The concert was a blast. We hung out a lot with Danny, and he shared some cool stories from all their crazy trips out on the road. Krista brought Apple Butter and chocolate truffles for the bands, which were as huge a hit last night as they were Thursday night. I was even able to score some autographs from Eleventy Seven. We didn’t get home until almost 3 this morning, but I’m not feeling too bad. I can go home and crash in a couple hours.
If you ever get a chance to check out any of these groups, I would highly recommend it. Check them out at :
Style
0Well, I hope you all like the theme I’ve picked for this site. I already know that my sister-in-law isn’t wild about it, but she’ll get over it. I’ve got a couple of other ideas up my sleeve too. I might even make it so everyone can change it to a style they prefer.
I’m really excited to actually have a site of my own to tinker with. Now I can test out all the stuff I’ve been learning at work over the last few months with no real fear of screwing anything important up.
It’s my plan to make this a great site with (hopefully) interesting posts as well as some programs I’ve been working on (at least for you Apple folks out there). I’m planning on having a section of test code also to try out some new things I’ve been learning.
Stay tuned for more information.