Almost a year... lots going on!

Wow, just realized I had not posted in almost a full year. Then, reflecting on all that's been going on I realized why I had not stopped to post.


In the last post we visited Buena Vista CO on a long motorcycle trek. We actually were visiting because I was anticipating an interview and perhaps moving to Buena Vista. This was all transpiring time-wise about a week before I was due to commit to a full semester of teaching at Front Range Community College again. Long story short, two days before I had to commit to Front Range I turned down the job offer and we stayed in Longmont and I taught and continued to work freelance web and video projects. August to December was crazy busy with three classes as well as a couple of independent study students.

Christmas was obviously busy and January kicked back off with another full semester of teaching and freelancing. Toward the middle of January Julie and I reconnected with an old friend from when we had lived in Colorado before. Other than a great dinner and reconnecting with friends that dinner resulted in an interview for contract work with a startup with which our friend was working. The contract began on Feb 14 and was for three months and required me to be in the Denver Technical Center (DTC) five days a week when I was not engaged teaching. For those of you not familiar with the Denver area geography that was about an hour to an hour and a half from our home in Longmont.

So for the next three months I was teaching part time, working for a startup full time, and doing what I could for freelance clients.

As the semester ended and the contract with the startup was coming to a close, I was offered a permanent full time job as UI/UX Lead Developer with the startup beginning my last day of teaching for the semester. I accepted. Obviously a relocation made sense. Julie resigned at the consignment boutique she had been working at for over 2 years and began getting us ready to move.

May 26th we left Longmont and moved (this is so trite a statement compared to the grueling weekend it really was, but that may be another post) into a townhouse in Castle Rock. My 1 - 1 1/2 hour commute is now just 15-20 minutes. Love the house... love Castle Rock!

The startup is WaveCloud - a web-based e-book focused business working to bring together several facets of the e-book universe into one single site. It's a very robust and ambitious vision. We launched in beta in early June and following an ambitious release schedule to enhance and expand what WaveCloud offers for readers, authors, as well as agents and publishers.

For now, Julie continues to help get us settled into Castle Rock and is slowly, patiently watching for where she'll be working.

That's the cliff notes for the year. Maybe I can fill in the pieces as well as keep up to date going forward.

Temple Grandin

Occasionally you see a movie, read a book, or hear a story about someone inspiring and hope to meet the person. Then there are the once in a lifetime opportunities you have to not only meet that person, but to get to work with her (or him). Late last year I found out there was a project on which I might be working with my friend Dan (of Vendor Hippo). The project was amazing in and of itself. But then came the part about the "talent" for the video project.

I had never heard of Temple Grandin till that day. About a month ago, as part of preparing the shoot I viewed the Made for HBO movie about her life and was moved to tears by -- well, many things in the movie. Today I got the rare privilege to direct a shoot with Temple explaining the ins and outs of handling sheep. What an amazing morning.

It was awesome to hear her explain the things the movie depicts but related to sheep. Her passion for helping people understand livestock so the handling of the sheep is less stressful on the animals and the humans was evident.

Claire Danes... I'm impressed. What a great job of portraying this special person. You definitely deserved the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Mini-series or Movie Oscar you won for the portrayal of this bigger than life lady.

Those of you who even think you have a tough life and need a leg up to move forward in this life... see the movie!

Teaching, teaching, and more teaching!

There haven't been many posts here on my site/blog in quite some time. That's because I've been busy!

From sheep, sheep, and more sheep to teaching, teaching, and more teaching. I was all poised to teach four courses at Front Range Community College here in Longmont (their Boulder County Campus) when Colorado Mountain College asked me to teach one of the same courses I've taught at FRCC for them online. They had several students who needed the course for their certificate or degree and couldn't find anyone to teach it. That was one week before the course was supposed to start. So I've been pretty busy converting the classroom experience into screen casts, discussion topics, exercises, and assignments that can be completed through a Blackboard interface.

Then, I was excited to meet yesterday with the folks over at Boulder Digital Arts (http://www.boulderdigitalarts.com) about teaching some PHP and MySQL over there. It looks like that will begin just as the FRCC and CMC gigs are winding down for the semester/summer.

Whew! I love it but it's definitely a schedule killer!

Sheep, sheep, and more sheep!

Well, I've been kind of more silent than normal but I have an excuse. I've been traveling weekly shooting (video of) sheep. It all began in late July with a trip to Sacramento followed by trips to Ohio, Iowa, Meeker CO, and Greeley. Below are some photos of the folks we shot interviews with for the American Sheep Industry. The interviews will break up the panel discussion segments during a live television broadcast on the RFD-TV channel in September. It was a very interesting set of shoots and the editing is going great. I learned so much about sheep and what it takes to raise them here in our country... oh and I met some GREAT folks who put food on your table every year.

Great times! Thanks Amy Trinidad from the American Sheep Industry and Dan Borgmann of Vendor Hippo for all the help!

Spread-arden

I've dubbed it our "spread-arden" because we're using small places across the yard to grow our veggies rather than one big section. The seedlings we planted on May 2 are transplanted into a large brick area around a tree, but we're going to have to move them since they don't seem to get enough sun. More on that later.

The tomato plants we got from a friend that were in a little Target starter pack (seeds, soil, envelope -- just add water) started out great in the starter pack, but once transplanted went to pieces. So we replaced them with a starter plant from a local nursery and added two other types of tomatoes as well as red, green, yellow and orange bell pepper starter plants, a jalapeño starter, an Anaheim green chile starter plant (thank you Rod Grice for introducing us to these as hors d'oeuvres to be placed on the grill as it's heating up and eaten while the real meal is cooking on the warmed grill), and last but certainly not least a cucumber starter plant.

It's only been 2 months and we've already learned so much and can't wait to set out next year's "crop" based on what we've learned so far. Nonetheless I'm really enjoying tending the small plants and watching the beginnings of the fruit (or veggies) of our efforts. Today we added tomato cages around the tomatoes and bell peppers so I thought I'd snap some photos to share.

Herb Garden & Veggies

Week 4 plus a few days we planted the herbs and we got some starter plants for our veggies. Here's some pics:

[caption id="attachment_217" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Herbs Planted & Sage Transplanted"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_219" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Tomatoes"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_221" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Green Bell & Jalepeno Peppers"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_220" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cucumbers"][/caption]

Seed Nursery Day 14

So we are 14 days into our seedling nurturing. As you can see several FINALLY have sprouted and are beginning to look hopeful. Lavendar, Spearmint, and Parsley pots still show now sign of life but the others just popped out one day over the last week (Basil was first) and seem to be progressing quite well. Today we may spend some time prepping their outdoor home for transplanting in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday we bicycled around town to a couple of nurseries to look at starter plants for some flowers, fruit, and vegetables we hope to add to our horticultury mix for the season. Other than a few pretty flowers for Julie, we're planning to put out some tomatoes, peppers (jalepeno, anaheim, bell), squash, cucumbers, cantalope, watermelon, and I want to try some beans of some sort... green, peas... not sure yet.

The last time we attempted a garden was in TN and we planted a number of seeds for tomatoes and peppers. What we got was WAY too many. Yesterday we were thinking one or two tomato plants initially. Then we remembered we could make fresh salsa and decided to up it to four or five. YUM!

We're trying something new this year!

When we lived in Hendersonville TN we attempted to plant and eat some of our food from a garden. We were not very successful. Partly because we were pulled in SO many different directions with work and other commitments. Now though, we're less over extended and more motivated since Julie's diagnosis with a wheat allergy and it's associated food changes. This morning thanks to some seeds and materials from our daughter and friends we attempted to launch at least the seasoning and spice portion of our new garden for this year. (and some tomatoes not pictured here... maybe another day)
We're attempting to grow some seasonings and spices, as well as some vegetables. I'm going to try really hard to post regular pictures and blog posts of some of the stuff we're trying to do. So for today, here's the first post and picture:
[caption id="attachment_208" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Our Seed Nursery Day 1"][/caption]

Fix Hijacked Search From URL in Firefox

So I don't really know when it happend but I noticed a few months ago when I entered just a set of words in the address bar in Firefox rather than giving me a list of Google results I was presented some kind of Comcast sponsored Ask.com search (thanks Comcast... I'm guessing some "gift" from you since I'm a Comcast subscriber). I wanted my Google results back. A quick search on Google gave me the answer to fixing it. Here's the page I found to help me get it back the way I wanted it:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/06/12/hack-to-modify-firefox-3-address-bar-to-return-search-results-when-query-or-invalid-url-is-entered/

Thank You

With all the hyper-marketing to buy stuff surrounding them these days, holidays in the USA seem to have simply lost the essence of their meaning. To many, Easter means candy and gifts, Christmas means food and gifts, and Thanksgiving means food, football, and Black Friday. Today I'm going to do my best to spend the day looking at the many amazing people who have been provided all around me to help me become a better person and to just plain enrich my life. So if you are reading this, chances are you are one of those folks and I'm just plain thankful for you.

Bailout My *ss

(Ma, don't panic over the title... it was the only appropriate comment I could find for the title)

So, I've put off writing about this for a while. But felt like writing about it today. In September 2007 we "purchased" a home in Henderson CO via an owner finance deal (that's the simplified version of the whole deal) where the owner held a mortgage from CitiMortgage (a subsidiary of Citi which has seen at least $25billion of our tax dollars) and was supposed to pass our payments through to the Citi loan for two years until our self employed status allowed us to refinance with a conventional mortgage. In September of 2008 we became aware the owner had not been passing our monthly payments back through to the CitiMortgage loan and Citi was proceeding with foreclosure on that loan. Essentially that meant we were screwed and would lose all we had invested in the owner finance deal. At the time the house we had "purchased" for $275k was valued at around $242k and the outstanding on the original owner's Citi loan was right at $242k (our outstanding was $235k).

All that to get to this beef. On June 15, 2009 the property was sold by the the clerk's office at Adam's County for $263k to a single bidder. Who was that bidder that paid $21k over what the home was valued and the same amount over what the original owner owed to CitiMortgage? Yep, you guessed it... a Citi subsidiary. So the huge and failing mortgage company you and I are paying taxes to cover a $25billion plus bailout to, paid $21k more for a house than the value of the home, not to mention $21k more than the orginal loan that they were foreclosing on.

So there's another reason for the bailout to have a bad taste in your mouth.

Great stuff happens in crowded places too these days!

Seems that all the news these days about things happening in public places like plane and train terminals is negative. This video is simply a feel-good (obviously staged) event that makes me smile when I see it. We need more great stuff happening, and promoted, in big places where people gather rather than all the stuff we tend to see on the news these days. So, here's my part to promote it!

[youtube width="600" height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg[/youtube]

Suck on this for healthy teeth

I think several folks when I had told them I heard this in a science/health related news story thought I was nuts. But now I see this article so I have some proof my madness is at least founded!

We are entering a whole new era in dentistry. One in which we'll be able to eat candy to prevent cavities. Specifically, we'll be able to suck on a licorice lollipop....

So one day soon we'll be able to prevent cavities with lollipops. Maybe next we'll have plaque scraping treats and edibles that floss for us. Though it is still a thing of the present, this gives me hope that a trip to the dentist will one day be a thing of the past.

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/02/09/suck-on-this-for-healthy-teeth/

Love this dog!

He's a regular at Boulder tech events. Words are simply not enough. (For those who didn't believe me)

USABILITY: This has always cracked me up...

... and I finally got a picture I could post. Having worked in usability testing for about a year I found this really funny from the first time I saw it.

Funniest Tweet of the Week: TNAuctioneer

TNAuctioneer gets my first entry as my favorite tweet of the week:

TNAuctioneer: just watched Dirty Jobs and poo eating Talapia! then wife tells me we are having Talapia for dinner! can you say loss of appetite?

What a blast! IgniteBoulder - Oct 29, 2008

Dan Borgmann (vendorHIPPO.com), Ryan Wanger (TheReluctantEater.com) and I at IgniteBoulder.com

Slideshow via Flickr

Video via YouTube

So last night, Dan of vendorHIPPO.com, Adam (AK my son), and I went to the IgniteBoulder event in Boulder CO. It was a blast! We hooked up with Ryan Wanger (of The Reluctant Eater) before the event began and got acquainted. Ryan and Dan had hooked up via Dan's new interest in blogging and Ryan may be a food reviewer for Dan's vendorHIPPO.com site.

Perhaps the most fun of the night was the look on Dan's face from about the third presentation on... (wish I had a picture) but it's that blank stare you see when it's obvious someone has been drinking from a fire hose of info. But he did great.

We heard/saw 20 slide (timed automatically at 15 second intervals) presentations on everything from what soap bubbles have in common with yoga (really a bizarre presentation, seriously), to info about Lucid Dreaming (maybe more bizarre than the yoga/soap), to instructions on branding yourself, perception possibility, what angel investors are thinking, and more.

Maybe next time I'll live blog the event. A video of the event is in process. I'll edit and post a link here when it's available for anyone interested.

Overall a great evening of branching out and exploring new stuff. There are Ignite events occurring all over the country (world?) and you should definitely check for one in your area and go if can.

Thanks to Andrew Hyde of Boulder for coordinating this event! Let's do another!

Interesting Whose Lists You End Up On

The whole social media thing is a very interesting and inexact science. While I'm certain I was and continue to be on many people's "lists" from work over the years, every now and then you'll get random emails and tweets you were never expecting and you end up on someone's list. Todays came from twitter nflscore:

Classic Game Meets PHP

So today in class our instructor led us in an activity where we group coded a web version of the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors. It was a very interesting exercise and very educational to work as a team. I kept up with most of what we did, tweaking it a little on the way, and then massively tweaking it when I got home this evening. So, if you want to take a look go play Rock, Paper, Scissors online (WARNING: It's a little addictive.)

Pro Coders Would Consider This Child's Play

But, I don't care! I'm stoked I actually could do it! And without copying and mimicking someone else's code. For those of you who don't know, I enrolled in a PHP/mySQL course at Front Range Community College this semester. I figured it was time I actually buckled down and learned how to code for real (rather than finding code someone else wrote and using it or modifying it to suit my needs).

Today was our fourth class meeting and we came out with five assignments. I have to say the last one made me a little nervous. Especially when the instructor told us we would really not like him when we got to step 4 and 5 of the fifth assignment. Guess what... I don't hate him at all. (Of course, it's yet to be seen if I did it "wrong")

The fifth assignment was a story problem instructing us to create a PHP script that fictional high school students could use to estimate the time and cost for their jobs mowing lawns around the neighborhood. Here's the text of the problem:

The students use the following method to estimate the time and cost of their jobs for customers:

1. Calculate the total area of the yard in m² (Multiply the length of the yard in meters by the width of the yard in meters)


2. Calculate the total area of the house in m² (Multiply the length of the house in meters by the width of the house in meters)


3. Subtract the total area of the house from the total area of the yard to find the total area of the lawn that must be mowed.


4. Find the total time it will take to mow the lawn knowing that a high schooler can mow 4.3m² of lawn/minute


5. Find the total cost for mowing the lawn. The high schoolers charge $10 per hour to mow the lawn

Given the following dimenstion for a Customer:

• Length of Yard: 62 meters


• Width of Yard: 93 meters


• Length of House: 27 meters


• Width of House: 20 meters

Write a program which uses PHP to output the following (and then a sample text output that should appear on the page).

So, check out my page (P.S. It looks like the output with the correct calculations... YAY!)
And, here's a link to my main page I'll use throughout the semester to link to all my projects/assignments... if anyone cares!

So, here's the crazy thing. I finally understand the addiction of coding. I've had friends for years who were hard core coders. And, though I always appreciated their zeal and passion to just sit and write code... I actually understand and have experienced it myself tonight... whoa! More problems... more code! I'm ready! (I think I'm addicted!) Is there a CWA (Code Writers Anonymous) chapter near me? I may need it!