cleverswine.net

2009 is upon us. We as a country have a lot of improvements to make this year. I, as an individual, don’t have a lot of change in mind. My only big resolution is to lose some weight and get back into shape. I’ve let myself go since meeting Bren. I feel bad for her, because she thought she was getting involved with a lean, mean, programming machine. Now, I’m an unemployed fat slob (okay, that may be an exaggeration). Anyway, happy New Years and good luck in 2009. I’ll be eating my black-eyed peas and cabbage for sure this year!

Since I’m pretty much stuck in the house due to the snow (and lack of a job), I’ve decided to learn something new. I’ve begun writing a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application. WPF has some insanely cool UI features, including declarative UI effects. My first project is a simple screensaver that pulls photos from Flickr and displays them as a slideshow with cool transition effects. Eventually, I’d like to create a dashboard type application that displays news, weather, email, etc. The dashboard will be more UI intensive, so I’m not quite ready for that. Creating WPF forms is very different than creating traditional Windows forms.

The yard,
originally uploaded by cleverswine.

This is our back yard. I have no idea how many inches we have so far, but I’d roughly estimate 12″. It’s still coming down as of Monday morning. After driving to the MAX station this morning, I’m ready for the snow to be gone. Driving through it makes me very nervous.


Check my flickr set for updated snow photos

Like most of the U.S., we’re getting our fair share of frigid weather in the Northwest. We got some snow on Sunday, and there’s plenty more to come in the next week. I’m excited, but I can definitely see why some people don’t want to live where it snows a lot. For ongoing photos of the Portland area snow storm of 2008, check the flickr pool: Portland Snow Day 2008. Also check mine.

I just installed Windows Live Writer as a tool to publish stories to my web site.  It has some promising features, and works with Wordpress (yay MS).

I also just installed DropBox because I’ve been meaning to find a way to create offsite copies of some of our important files.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I hear good things about it.

Hmm, now that I’m about to publish, I’m wondering if it will handle Wordpress tags… it did not.

Tonight we bought and installed an over the stove microwave oven. The most impressive part (or, the part that I’m proudest of) is that we wired up and installed a new electrical outlet. There was an old (70s) vent hood above the stove, and we severed the cord and rewired it to an outlet. All in all, it was a lot of work, and I’d be inclined to pay someone next time.

The awful economy has finally hit home. Razorfish was forced to lay off quite a few people to deal with hard times, and I was one of those people. Fortunately, they gave me a good severance package and then there’s unemployment pay if it comes to that. Being a responsible person, I have a large sum of money saved up for a rainy day, so I’m not freaked out yet. The worst part of being jobless is the idleness (and it’s only been one day). I’m currently trying to milk LinedIn for connections and job opportunities, and I’ve contacted my old consulting firm.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of creating a new .Net blog where I post code examples of simple solutions to everyday problems (staying true to KISS - keep it simple, stupid). Rather than write paragraphs about complex and obscure solutions, I’d write fully functioning code examples that serve as a reference to common tasks. Maybe I’d mix in some Ruby, Rails, Perl, PHP, database, etc. It all depends on how long I’m idle.

I’m at the Chicago office this week, helping out on a .Net web project. I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but my first impression is that it’s big and old (old != bad). I’m staying about .75 miles from the office, so I might walk back to the hotel this evening and check things out on the way. I probably won’t get out much while I’m here, but if I do, I’ll be sure to take photos.

WW Election Night 08 Party Invitation,
originally uploaded by wweek.media.

I might be here tonight.

Someone of mild importance has finally given Lance Berkman a shout out for his insane month of May.

For six glorious days, Lance Berkman was the best hitter anyone has ever seen. This will go down as one of the best weeks anyone has ever had in the history of the game…