Raible Designs

What do you want to be doing a year from today?

One year from today (April 25th, 2004), what do you want to be doing. I don't care if it's career or life related, I'm just curious. Why? Because I think it's important to set goals and realize what you were thinking last year. So here's mine:

• I'd like to teach at least one technical training course in a classroom environment. I loved doing this for Sun.
• I'd like to get my Java 1.4 Certification and possibly one more, don't know which one yet, something that'll inspire and challenge me to learn something new.
• Be a good husband for my (possibly) pregnant wife.
• Spending LOTS of time with Abbie and Julie - hopefully only working 40 hours/week at a higher paying job.
• Attempt to figure out what I want to do for the next 5 years. Do I really want to be a code monkey for the rest of my life - or get into management?
• Read Abbie at least one book from the Chronicles of Narnia.
• Sell our house and move into a new one in either Colorado, Florida or California (in order of personal preference). Julie's preference is Florida, Colorado or California (her sister lives in San Diego).

Why don't we get drunk and ...

Sunset at Buffett.

Tailgaiting at Jimmy. ;-)

Matrix on IMAX

This is huge (via Erik)! The second Matrix movie sequel is to open on giant Imax film screens in the US at the same time as standard cinemas. Fricken SWEEEEEETTTTTTT!!!! I'm so pumped to see this movie - and now it's going to be shown on IMAX?!! Man that's cool! I'm going to have to motivate a skip work day so a bunch of us can get together and see it when no else is there.

Snow in Denver

Glad I'm not riding to work today!

Later: Yeah - that's snow! We only got a little bit in Denver last night, but Loveland Ski Area got 25 inches in the last 24 hours! Wow!! Oh yeah, that's my wireless internet antenna on our roof.

Wanna hear about the stupid move I did yesterday? Sure you do ... come on... OK, so I signed up (and paid) for the Rocky Mountain Software Symposium next month. Julie has been planning a trip to Florida in May for the past few weeks. She bought her plane ticket a couple weeks ago, but never bought mine because our internet service stopped working in the middle of her 2nd transaction. So she waited until yesterday, found a good price, and called me to ask if she could buy my tickets. She bought them, I approved it at work, and all is peachy keen. Right? Wrong - I received an e-mail from from Jay Zimmerman last night (via a mailing list I'm subscribed to), and doh! - Julie bought tickets leaving the Thursday before the conference. So I had to call and change my flight and pay the $100 change fee. Damn - hope the conference is worth it - there goes my early bird discount rate!

The University of Miami Job

The good news is that I got an offer for the job at the University of Miami yesterday. The bad news is I didn't take it. The pay was too low (1/2 of what I'm making now) for us to even consider it. Julie's main criteria for moving to Florida is she doesn't want to go back to work. She wants to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years, and I don't blame her. So I had to make the call today and turn it down. It sucked. The folks at U of M seemed like very nice people and (probably) would've been a great team to work with. Oh well, life goes on. Maybe in a few years when Julie is working again. Nothing against U of M, it's their pay structure that needs work. It must be tough to get highly qualified developers with such a low pay scale.

Now Julie and I are questioning the move to Florida. We really want to get out of our house - it's a tri-level and Abbie's going to be crawling soon. So I think we're going to put our house on the market. If I still don't have a gig in Florida by the time we sell it (could take a while) - we'll just buy our next house here. Of course, this plan sounds great to Julie while the weather in Colorado is nice. I'm willing to bet that she'll sing a different tune in October. ;-)

Riding in the Rain

Last night's ride home was an invigorating experience. 30 minutes into my ride it began to rain. Then the lightning came. It made me feel so so alive as I strained my muscles to go faster and I gritted my teeth to block out the cold. 20 minutes later I caught a tailwind and a smile molested my face. 15 minutes after that a double rainbow appeared and I giggled like a little school girl. It was won of my best riding-home experiences and a great feeling of accomplishment flooded my body as I stumbled into our living room. Very wet, but very alive.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Abbie wanted me to tell you all Happy Easter, so here's a big smile for y'all!

Broadband is back!

Finally, my internet connection is fixed. They replaced all the equipment yesterday (bridge, antenna on roof) and now everything is humming along like lightning. Sweet - good to see you again my friend.