log entries of timotheus

Next week will be my one month anniversary at the new job, Innovative Interfaces, Inc. as their primary Web Administrator / Developer. Overall it’s been a really good experience. Working on tools that libraries around the globe will use is quite cool.

Adjusting to a 40 hour workweek is taking some time. Part of what is challenging is the work is really interesting, so much so that by the time I get home my brain is kind of tired. This means my own code projects are taking a while to make headway on. The good news is with this job I can really leave it at the office. This means, for the first time in over two years really, I can game! PC or console; it’s all good once again.

I’ve been playing a LOT of Age of Wonders lately. It has captured the heart of my beloved Tara and we play for several hours at a time.

I feel like I am about to begin an adventure of epic proportions. With corporate and personal taxes out of the way, I can begin to really focus my efforts on learning new tech.

Installing Ubuntu 9.10 Server on a virtual machine now, going to get that all configured properly.

I will be training both my design and programming skills. My design project is to design a theme for this blog, in a more serious interpretation of the ‘log entries’ idea. Think Alien(s) (the movies) style of interface. The programming projects are numerous, and I will go into more detail later. The basics are: Drupal extravaganza, some Ruby on Rails or a PHP-based framework, Open-Sourcing Nickelpinch, and a linear calendar app.

I found a great motivational post in my RSS feeds today. It’s from Kellbot, a fairly random blog I read. She popped up on my radar because she was mentioned on BoingBoing once about making a trackball input device for a PS2, and that’s cool.

Anyway the post is about being Self-Employed or Unemployed, and how to make it.
http://www.kellbot.com/2010/03/staying-awesome-while-youre-unemployed/

You should read it yourself, but one point that really hit me like a meaty punch in the gut was this:

“Either way, you should have something to show for the time you haven’t been rotting away in a cubicle. Make other people jealous of you rather than pity you.”

Holy wow. I always feel like I can be doing more, and some of my projects are taking much longer than I planned. And a lot of that has to do with me, and letting other things get in the way of my goals.

I should get “Make other people jealous of you rather than pity you” on a banner for my office/workspace.

So, How are things going in timland, you may be asking? Why the lack of blog posts? Well, the answer to that last one is simple. I met a girl. Her name is Tara. We’ve been together almost four months now. She is amazing. Things are going well!

As to timland, things are going mostly well. I’m really enjoying living in Berkeley, with my awesome house mates. I’m a big fan of the area as well. I like having part of my day being a walk to the Monterey Market to pick up fresh fruit.

Work wise, cog motive is steadily rising to meet new challenges. We’re getting a real portfolio of work done now. We just need time to put our site together, heh. We are also learning a lot about how long things really take to complete, and getting a feel for appropriate billing. Which is good.

Financially, things are interesting. I’m learning a lot about how I deal with a slightly negative income, which is to say, I don’t deal well with it. Lots of preoccupation. I have planned for this possibility, and savings is a good thing, but obviously the less time this goes on the better. I have a second job thing I’m working on, and I’m pretty confident this will bring me back to a more comfortable, some might even say positive, financial position.

One thing that is not so well is my current reading status. I’ve only read two books in the last three months, which as we all know is highly anomalous. I’m making more of an effort lately. I have two books from the library I plan on reading quickly. I need to at least get to one book a week. Otherwise things just aren’t right.

I’ve been working on nickelpinch.lite, and I like how it is looking. It’s so easy to use and simple now! Almost all the mockups are done, then I can start making the scripts to generate the pages. I used to do it the other way around, and boy was that time consuming.

Okay, not wanting to jinx things but I would like to try to update this once a week. We’ll see..

Tara and I are getting ready to head up to Sacramento for the day. It should be pretty fun.

What the blogging? I know.

In other news, had a big breakthrough on Nickelpinch. Instead of focusing on this mythical interface that I want, and as a result is keeping me from working on it, instead why not make the mobile version first? I’m calling it the lite version, a simple version with the same functionality that I want in the finished product, just not so ‘shiny’. It will work on mobile devices as well as comps identically.

Really though, that’s sort of my calling card. Very simple interfaces for helpful web apps.

I was going to write about all my plans for work this week, but then I realized doing that would rob me of even more time. So, just know that I am working hard. When I have more time, hopefully later in the week, I will do an update.

Stay classy.

Last night was Opera at the Park. It’s where the San Francisco Opera simulcasts their performance to AT&T Park. This might be my favorite way to watch opera now. Because! Because during the good parts people clap and cheer, which makes it really fun. Also, I was quite impressed with the San Francisco Opera’s production quality. The sets were incredible. It also became freezing cold.

There was one part where Tosca was lamenting her decision she’d have to make; the moon came out from behind the clouds and the birds started flying all around the park. It was, dare I say it, magical.

Tara and I left after the second intermission and walked around, and I took some neat photo’s of the bay bridge.

Photo’s of the evening.

Ok, so I sort of missed my Wednesday post. But I’m doing it now, and that’s what matters.

I’ve been doing mostly research related things on the work front, playing with Python and learning its syntax. Also I’m reading “The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro, and this book is driving me crazy. Weird things are happening, but I can’t figure out if it is all in the main characters mind or what.. It’s a great read.

Tuesday night our household started running a Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition game. We have four players, two of which have never played pen and paper style before. I am the DM, running the story, and so far I am having a lot of fun. I spent hours preparing for Tuesday night, not realizing how long combat encounters can be. I’m prepared for the next couple months now, heh. Justin did his daily sketch on our game, check it out on his site. I think it looks amazing. It is sort of crazy to see something you described through another persons artwork. It’s exactly how I was picturing it too.

Today I want to gain understanding on how plugins for WordPress are made, and begin work on a plugin for the WordPress theme Prologue. I’ve made a lot of changes to it, and I think other people might find them useful.

All this means I should really get busy today. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.

I found this via TOKYOMANGO.

Terunobu Fujimori built this tea house. Apparently you are supposed to build a tea house yourself, so he thought he’d try something different. I thought it was pretty inspiring. More pictures here.

I’ve had this thought for a a couple days now:

“If man had never seen flying creatures, would he have invented the wing? Would he even had a desire to fly?”

My gut tells me no. The only thing they would see in the air are clouds, or things that are thrown. I could see people wanting to emulate clouds, so balloon’s might be around. Also, I could see projectile invention, such as transportation rockets.

I just don’t know if the concept of “glide” in the air would exist.