I finally have the new design up now. I know it’s nothing spectacular but I am pretty pleased with it myself. It is a big improvement over the simple design I originally had for my portfolio that I did at the end of last year in my web development class. I also actually like it a little better then the WordPress theme I was using on the blog before. Anyways, I now have the consistent look that I wanted across my entire site. I think there might be some other pages or sections I want to dig up that are laying around.

The two new things right now are my portfolio and photo gallery. I’ve had the photo gallery around for a long time but always kept it hidden. I have my pictures from the Dominican on there now as well as pictures from my other trips to California and New York.

Let me know what you think of the updated site.

Was a little bored tonight so I put together a little epoch time converter that’s pretty basic. When working with some databases the times are stored as epoch values in which I need to convert. There are a number of ways to accomplish this but I figured since I was bored I would make a little script to do it for the enjoyment of all. I plan on adding a date to epoch feature to it later on when I’m bored again. Feel free to make suggestions for other scripts.
Epoch Time Converter

I feel like I’m in a dream. I was checking the latest news back home at work this morning and seen that the Supreme Court sided with Sobeys and Superstore in their Sunday shopping case. This is one of those things that almost seems too good to be true, but is great to hear. I can only imagine the mess that would have been created if the government decided to appeal the ruling. So, starting this Sunday (October Nova Scotians can finally shop to their hearts content. The bonus is, now you can even get that pesky item previously blocked off at Sobeys on Sundays!

Too bad I’m in New York to enjoy it.

Interesting, but rather sad and disturbing, news today. Robert Norman Smith, who is infamously known amongst Keith’s drinkers, is facing charges of child pornography. I can’t imagine that will be too good for business. Word has it that they are pulling all of the ads with him, which I will miss. I wonder if they will get a replacement and continue on the trend of those great commericials.

You can read the full article in the Globe and Mail.

Well, hello there! It’s been a little while. Just stopping in to link to this rather interesting article I read in the paper today, here’s a quote:

“This January, a rare change is in the air in our own national capital. The Rideau Canal has not frozen over, although a whole lot of people think hell has. Stephen Harper is becoming prime minister of Canada.”

– LAURENT LE PIERRÈS, The Chronicle Herald

Despite popular belief, one can enjoy learning - I now know first hand. What’s the secret you ask? You just have to learn something that interests you.

Off and on for the past two weeks (unfortunately not as much this week due to work, more on that later) since I returned from New York I have been doing a fair amount of reading, and as such learning. Before I left the Big Apple I went to Barnes & Noble and picked up a book called Agile Web Development with Rails, mainly for some reading material for the flight home and also because I am looking at it for a future project. So, what is Rails? In short, it is just another programming language for web sites using Ruby (know as Ruby on Rails).

I won’t go into too much detail about it, not right now anyways. I think in due time it will become my preferred language to use when devloping web sites. It is designed in a manner where it does a lot of things for you which allows you to focus on things such as testing which you might normally not have as much time for. For those of you following along, Rails follows the MVC architecture.

So far I have created a little online store application using Rails. Nothing fancy, just something they teach in the book but it has me pretty excited. I still have a lot of reading left to do but I am eager to start making some of my own applications with it in the future.

I don’t know about you but I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend in NY then sitting at “home.” You just got to love the rain. At least if it was snowing I wouldn’t get as wet going out! But, I guess I shouldn’t complain because the weather has been pretty good since I have been here. I haven’t got to work soaking wet… yet.

On the bright side I didn’t have any real plans for this weekend. Speaking of weekends, I just realized that next weekend is possibly my last weekend here in NY. Seems like time might have gone by a little faster then I had thought. I was planning on heading down to California from here but I am not so sure if that will quite happen yet. I may end up going back home before I get to go down there. There have also been no plans made for me to come back here, but I am not sure I want to think about that too much right now.

The only real news for the week was on Thursday night I met up with someone and we went out for something to eat and to see Transporter 2. I don’t recall seeing the first but I do have some criticism for the second. The special effects at some parts were really badly done. It was really disappointing that in the 21st Century with all the technology that is available now to the studios that some scenes looked so fake. I have seen similar scenes in other movies that looked much more realistic. Anyways, it was a good night overall, I needed to get out to clear my mind.

On a different note, but pertaining to my work life, I was talking for about an hour last night on the phone with a guy I have been working with for awhile that wants to see about getting me a job down in Florida. This would involve me physically moving down there and probably staying put for an undetermined amount of time. Likewise, I had an offer for a possible job with another site in the office I am currently working out of in California. Some people will probably think I am crazy for not making a decision on either immediately but there are things to consider. For one, I am enjoying being able to work from where I please right now. I like being able to go on a trip to somewhere for however long and still be able to do my job. Basically, I don’t want to be tied down to one spot for any amount of time, I am liking the travelling thing. Of course there is always the money factor, which can easily persuade ones decision.

Now, a quick word on the recent “threats” to the subway system in NY which I am sure most of you have heard about. On Friday I ended up going into work a bit later then normal (partly being paranoid and partly because I was up late the night before.) There was definitely a noticable increase in police presence. I wasn’t really scared or nervous though, maybe just a bit paranoid as I mentioned. People generally associate NY with bad things happening, whether it be terrorist attacks or general violence on the streets, but after being here for a month I can say that really isn’t true in most areas. Terrorism can happen anywheres, NY is just a good target to make threats to scare people, and it works, but at the same time, as with the recent threat, people go on with their daily routine. People still need to make a living and they can’t do that by staying home because they are too afraid to take the subway into work. With me, I could have stayed home yesterday but I chose not to. But, that could also be the “it couldn’t happen to me” mentality.

Well, back to being a couch potato today, it is supposed to rain tomorrow as well I believe so it could wind up being one boring weekend.

Well, I have to admit I have been keeping an eye on CNN since last night to see what was going to happen with Katrina. Luckily it didn’t impact New Orleans like they originally thought since it changed its track overnight. Despite that though they still are in pretty bad shape down there, especially in the residential areas. Mississippi is what ended up getting the worst of it and it definitely isn’t too pretty. It sure looks like they will be cleaning up there for a long time to come.

On a personal level I do know someone down in LA but they are further west so they didn’t get hit too much by Katrina. Hopefully things will be better and repaired come December when I am supposed to go down there for a cruise. I can’t imagine them not being put back together for Mardi Gras, that just wouldn’t be right.

That’s about it for now. I have been back from NY for about 5 days now and have been keeping pretty busy. I found out I am completely out of practice with golf, scoring a 67 on 9 holes, yuck. I am also out of shape because that was on Saturday and I am just now getting over the pain from it.

Well, I finally decided to give this blog thing a try, we shall see how often I forget to update it!