Blog

My blog. Personal thoughts, anecdotes, and musings.

Buying a television? Don’t buy one from Sears Published May 14, 2009

My two-year-old DLP television died around April 18th. It’s getting close to a month now and after several phone calls and one failed attempt at at-home service, I am still unable to watch my television. I paid for a service plan which is supposed to cover this kind of stuff, but nowhere was I told that it would be fixed whenever they feel like getting around to me. I spent a long time on the phone with various agents.


Las Vegas is a hellhole Published May 12, 2009

First off, apologies to my cousin Kevin and his lovely wife. I’m sure there are lots of things to like about Las Vegas, but I just didn’t enjoy myself in the City of Really Expensive Everything. I went to Vegas for a conference, and luckily enough for me the conference kept me quite busy and mostly away from all of the wonderful distractions the strip has to offer the person who has too much money and time on his or her hands.


Woah! Published April 23, 2009

This site’s theme (and some of its content) hasn’t really changed since 2005, and with everything else going on right now I figured it was high-time I change that. I started by ripping off the theme I did for the Web Design For Developers web site. It’s a nice clean template that I hope will be easier for everyone to read. I’ll be making modifications to this over the next few days, but I have to get some of the other pages up too.


Where I’ve been… Published March 10, 2009

For those of you who watch this blog and wonder what I’m up to, I am a lot more active on Twitter than I am here. Follow me! The last few months have been interesting to say the least. I’ve recently did some work for Inacom Information Systems, where I helped bring a derailed project back on track. It was great to get to work with my friend Jon, who was swamped and overwhelmed by the workload.


Almost a year! Published January 22, 2009

Lisa turns one year old this Saturday. I can’t believe how fast the first year went. Looking back, we had a pretty lousy year. Six eye surgeries, nine casts, and three pairs of shoes. Not to mention countless bottles and diapers. Lisa’s also a biter, so that can be kinda painful. It took nearly six months before Lisa would really let me spend alone time with her, and even today she’d rather be with Carissa if she’s within earshot.


“Web Design for Developers” now available in Beta Published November 19, 2008

My book Web Design for Developers is now available in Beta form. You’ll learn how to design a web site from start to finish, and you’ll use many of the techniques and thought processes you’ve come to rely on as an application developer. You’ll learn some color theory, some typography basics, some XHTML and CSS, and how to incorporate Photoshop and Illustrator into a work flow that works for you, not against you.


Use Firefox Published August 29, 2008

Yahoo thinks you should. Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!


Lisa’s next surgery Published August 6, 2008

Lisa has surgery on Thursday morning. This is going to be the sixth one and I’m getting really tired of this. It’s expensive and nerve-racking, and I really hate putting her through it each time. Ana’s gone this week again, and I miss her. Things are moving so fast and yet I feel like we’re going nowhere.


Long days and short nights Published August 6, 2008

I’ve been busy. Many of my side projects have come to an end and I’m not actively looking for more at this moment so I can get the graphics book finished. It’s holding up my life a bit and I want it done. The problem is that you can’t force writing, no matter how much you really want to. I launched http://www.snippetstash.com/ a few weeks ago. It’s just a simple site that lets programmers store bits of code they tend to use over and over again.


4 months already Published June 8, 2008

So Lisa’s more than four months old already. I can’t believe how much time flies. In the last four months, quite a few things have happened around here. First, Ana just finished up Second Grade. She’s planning to spend her summer doing lots of reading and learning, and hopefully she’ll get some video game time in with me. I’m pretty proud of her–she really pulled it together this year. Next, I just gave a presentation at RailsConf 2008 in front of 208 people.