Raible Designs

Brrrrrrrr

I attended the Java User Group meeting tonight and managed to document a good portion of it. I hope to post it in the morning when I wake up. After the meeting, a number of us headed to the local brewery and enjoyed some brewskis together. We left around 11:20 and I made it home (riding my bike) at midnight. While it was 19°F when I rode to work this morning, the 26°F on the way home seemed a lot colder. Maybe it was the beer. Anyway, it's good to be home. Let's hope it warms up before I ride back in in 5 hours.

Life Update

Technology blogs are boring for the most part. Sure it's cool to read about someone configuring or trying something out for the first time. However, if you run a technology blog and you read through your archives, chances are there's not much in there that peaks your interest anymore. Part of the reason I started this blog is so I could look back over the years and see what was going on in my life. This is one of those posts. One of those posts that I'll look back on and appreciate.

2005 has been a pretty good year so far. This is largely in part to the fact that I don't work from home anymore, and therefore get some interaction other Java junkies. Another thing that's made it really nice is riding to work. I've ridden my bike to work every day since I started doing it. My goal is to ride everyday but those when it's raining in the morning, or when I have one of those "Oh shit!" mornings and I'm late for a meeting. I think I can ride all but 5 days this year. The past couple of weeks, it's been pretty cold (20-30°F), but it's actually been quite nice. It's a lot like skiing - you just have to dress for it.

Another reason I've been enjoying myself a lot is b/c I haven't been working on the weekends or late nights. I've been sleeping in, going to bed before midnight, and having a good time with Jack and Abbie. Last weekend, Abbie I went to Ocean Journey and the Colorado Crush game. Apparently she had a good time b/c when I asked her if she was excited about the DU Hockey Game this weekend, she said "Football!". Looks like we might be going again.

Jack is growing up fast and is already in 9-month outfits and he's only 5 months old. Since Holly moved in, he's been "Happy Jack", which is nice considering he cried 12 hours/day for the first couple of months. He's smiling a lot, squirming like a madman and even rolled over a couple of days ago. Before we know it, he'll probably be crawling and chasing after his big sister.

Last, but not least, I'm learning that I need to take advantage of my contracter status more. Today I took the day off to work on Spring Live. I hope to start doing it more often, as well as taking days off to work on AppFuse. My strategy for that is: go in early and work 4 10-hour days per week. If I'm in the office by 6, I can be home by 6 and hardly anyone notices.

Speaking of AppFuse, it continues to be popular and has the most mail traffic on java.net. While that's great, it's tough to keep up with the mailing list. I've started to not reply b/c I need to get other things done. The last two weeks of this month, I plan on pumping out new AppFuse and Equinox releases, so I'll likely get back into it then. Developing open-source projects is a lot of work, but it's a nice way to show clients your knowledge.

That's pretty much it. Julie continues to be the woman of my dreams and it's awesome living in a new/big house in the heart of Denver. I don't know how much I'll update this blog in the next few weeks - sometimes it's just better to quit e-mailing and blogging and get some work done.

Made it home!

We made it home today and boy is it great to be back in Denver ... and healthy. We had a great time with my parents and sister at my parent's place in Salem, Oregon. It was so cool being back in another place I call home. For the past few years, I've always looked at Montana as my true home, but I came to realize that I need to visit Oregon a lot more. It took me until this weekend to realize the power that your parents house can hold for you. I experienced one of several "perfect moments" in my life when I was holding baby Jack on Saturday night. It just felt great being around so much love. And their basement sauna rocks. I'll be installing one in my basement in the next year.

Friday was a nice and smooth flight out there. We left at 8:30 a.m. and Abbie slept for most of the flight. Not only that, but Frontier has individual TVs for every passenger. Julie loved it and watched HGTV for the 2-hour flight. The highlight of the trip is when both kids threw up (from coughing) w/in 5 seconds of each other. Like some kind of wonder-woman, Julie got both kids messes in the same hand.

My sister, Kalin, showed up a couple of hours after us - and we all enjoyed a nice evening together. Later that night, Kalin and I made a "Welcome Home Dad!" sign and drove to the Portland airport to pick up my dad. He flew in from Amsterdam (after visiting Germany and working in Tanzania for a week) and had been on a plane the past 20 hours.

We spent most of the weekend just hanging out and laughing with old friends. One of my best friends from high school (whose name is also Matt) has two boys (4 and 2) and Abbie had a great time trying to keep up with them. I was terrified of them at first b/c they were so crazy, but I ended up having a great time with them throughout the weekend. Julie dreads Jack growing up now more than ever.

Today was a nice easy flight, where Abbie slept half of it and watched Monsters Inc. the other half. We came home to melted snow, and missed the "2 feet" of snow that fell last night. After having the last week off being sick and then on vacation, I'm very motivated to do some AppFuse and Spring Live work this week - in addition to my regular job. It's good to be home.

You know you're sick when...

You know you're sick when you lose 9 pounds in 36 hours. Ugh. The fever and cold sweats seem to have subsided, but my cold is still in full force. Abbie has a cold but doesn't seem to have the fever. Julie and Jack seem to be immune to this bug. Should be a fun plane ride tomorrow - good thing it's only 2 hours to Portland.

Comments are flakey?

I've gotten several e-mails from readers that they haven't been able to leave comments on this blog. I suspect it has something to do with twisty comments, but I just tried them in Firefox 1.0 on Windows XP and they seem to be working fine. In order to help me track down this problem, try posting a comment to this entry and see if it works. Make sure and copy it before you post it, just in case it doesn't work. Clicking on the "Permalink" or title for this post will take you to a backup comment form that seems to work regardless. Thanks for the help!

Update: From the various comments, there doesn't seem to be a common thread. It seems that half the folks that used Firefox + XP it worked for and the other half it didn't. I doubt it's a caching issue, but I have been seeing a lot of the following in my logs:

ERROR 2005-01-22 19:51:01,944 | RequestProcessor:processMapping | Invalid path /comment was requested

Roller recently changed from using /comment to /comments - so I don't know if it's spammers hitting the old URL or what. My guess is yes since it seems to happening in blocks. I'll try to add a preview button tonight so users will get taken to the permalink form for previewing. Either that or I could just change to always using the permalink form. It's up to you guys - let me know what you prefer.

Riding to Work

One of the reasons I'm jazzed about my new gig is it's within (bike) riding distance from our house. Usually I start riding to work when it gets warm, which is usually in March or April. However, I used to ride to downtown to the Tivoli Theater when I worked there in college. Back then, I'd ride no matter what, and I worked there in the winter. A buddy of mine works downtown and he's been riding to work all winter - even when it was 0°F out. To make a long story short, I got motivated by him this weekend and decided to start riding my bike to work. Today it was 29°F and the ride was beautiful. Riding in the cold is a lot like skiing - you just have to be dressed for it. It only took 30 minutes, which is 5 minutes slower than the Light Rail and the same duration as the bus.

Being in the office is like being on vacation

Ever since June of last year, I've worked out of my house. I had a couple of different clients, but none of them required I go to their office - so all my work was remote. I'd done this before - in fact all of 2002 I worked out of our house in Morrison. Working at home has its perks: no need to get dressed, fast equipment/network, seeing the family more and highly flexible hours. It also has its downsides. The biggest downside I'm finding is you actually have to work all the time. For the most part, when I worked from home, I wrote code 8 hours+ per day. Sure I'd read blogs and have a conference call every now and then, but for the most part, I was working and thinking the entire time.

After being in an office environment for the past 4 days, I'm finding it's like being on vacation. In an office environment, you typically have meetings. In meetings, you don't really need to think - you just sit their and participate. No coding, no problem solving, just good ol' human interaction and communication. Not only that, but the team I'm on is a great group of guys and I feel like I've been working there for years. Stuff that used to take me 2 days to figure out now takes a couple of hours with a team member's help. Furthermore, since we all have similar interests - there's a fair amount of water-cooler talk. The part I really like is the comradery. You know the kind - where guys insult each other to no end and both parties are laughing the whole time. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in my cube and laughed my ass off while these guys take jabs at each other.

Of course, my perspective could be scewed. I've been working on my Mac all week, which Powerbook owners know is a pleasant experience. It may be slow, but I'm paid hourly, so I don't mind too much. Oh yeah, and the best part? I got a window seat. I can see out over the city as well as the mountains. Life is good in downtown Denver these days.

New Gig starts Monday

It's official - I'll be starting a new gig on Monday. I'll be working on a project at Xcel Energy in downtown Denver. I've always wanted to work downtown - so I'm pretty pumped about it. I had internships there in college, but never worked there in the "Real World". I signed a contract through the end of the year, but it sounds like they have a lot of work, so it could be longer. The best part is I'll be working with Bob Johnson and Bruce Snyder - both good friends of mine.

I met Bob while working on a contract in 2003. We didn't work on the same team, but he was the first AppFuse user I'd ever met. I'll also be working with Jeff Genender, who supposedly has the Tomcat integration done for Geronimo.

I'm definitely looking forward to working on a team again, especially with these guys. I'm thinking of riding my bike to work everyday, but that might have to wait until March. I was going to try and raise money for the tsunami victims by riding no matter what (snow, cold or rain), but I don't know if anyone would donate. It should be an easy 20-30 minute ride when the weather gets nice.

It figures...

Today is the first day I've had to go into an office since May of 2004. Today should be a 9" day here at Raible Designs - there's 12" of fresh powder at Vail. However, I managed to get a 3-day architecture-review contract so I'm heading to the client's site downtown. To enhance the commuting experience, it's colder than a witch's tit outside (2°F) and there's a few inches of fresh snow. I think I'll try the Light Rail (there's a station 1 mile from our house) and hope it's not too crowded.

A nice start to the new year

I had a really enjoyable weekend. New Years Eve was spent with my high school buddies Clint and Jess at a local bar. It was low key and fun to hang out with old friends. It was good I didn't drink very much because I went to bed at 3 and Abbie woke us up at 6. Saturday was a pretty lazy day, but I did manage to clean out the garage. Now so we can fit 2 cars in our 2-car garage. This is key for snowy days.

Last night, we went to the DU Hockey game with the kids, Holly (Julie's sister) and our good friend Justin. Everyone had a great time (Abbie loves the games) and DU won 9 to 4. Today, I woke up early and went skiing with Clint and Autumn (his girlfriend) at Copper. We missed all the traffic by leaving at 7 and had a nice breakfast before getting on the slopes at 9. We skied until noon and then went our separate ways and I drove back to Denver. I made it back just in time for the Broncos game. Justin came over and we watched them kill the Colts (let's hope they can do it again next Sunday). After football, we headed to another DU Hockey game tonight and watched them shutout Northeastern 4-0. This time, Tonya and Suzie (friend from college and her sister) joined Justin and I and took Julie and Holly's seats. Again, Abbie and Jack had a good time and it was a nice way to end the weekend.

Life is so much more fulfilling when I get off the computer. Next weekend, a good friend is flying in from New York to do some skiing. Couple that with a Saturday night hockey game and a Sunday morning playoff game and next weekend is looking pretty good too!