Raible Designs

Life Update: New Treehouse, New Kittens and More

It's been awhile since I wrote a life update post so here you go. After returning from Jason and Holly's Wedding in Florida, I took the next week off to "catch up on life". Having a vacation at home with no packing and lots of time to wipe my "to do" list clean was great. Not only that, but the weather was beautiful all week. If you ever get a chance to take a "catch up on life" vacation, I highly recommend it.

New Treehouse
I started out the week by doing something I've been telling the kids I'd do for the last year: building a treehouse. I used this tutorial as a guide for the "foundation" and had a lot of fun doing it. The best part was discovering my Dad had stocked my garage with many tools over the last couple years. I had to make several runs to Home Depot and Ace Hardware for building supplies, but rarely had to buy any new tools. My Dad has been a carpenter for over 30 years (he used to do it for a living in Montana). I was pleasantly surprised to discover some of his skills have rubbed off on me. We still need to build the structure on top of the platform, but everyone is happy with the results so far.

AppFuse
After finishing Phase 1 of the treehouse, I started working on the next version of AppFuse. I've made good progress so far:

• Archetypes now include all the source from web modules.
• Archetypes are now created using archetype:create-from-project, making things easier to maintain.
• Switched Cargo from downloaded Tomcat to embedded Jetty, allowing for faster builds.
• Upgraded to Struts 2.1.6 and Tapestry 5.0.18.

There's still lots of open issues, but I believe there's a lot of value in starting the "working on the next version" process. With the way things are shaping up, I'm considering bumping the version to 2.5 or 3.0 instead of 2.1. 3.0 might be a little ambitious, but there are going to be a lot of improvements.

New Kittens
Last weekend, I decided it was time to create some happy kids and get some pets in my house. On Saturday, we set out on a quest to find some kittens. We visited a couple shelters and a couple pet stores, but came home empty handed. We didn't look Sunday because we had more important things to do. On Monday, we hit up craigslist and found our kittens with a family in Thornton. Upon arrival, I figured they'd be good since the family had a 6-year old, a 4-year old and a 1-year old that was carrying a kitten around by the tail. At least their new home is slightly less chaotic than their last one.

Eye Surgery
Today is my last day wearing glasses. Tomorrow morning, I'm scheduled to receive PRK eye surgery at TLC Laser Eye Center. I'm nervous about the procedure and dreading the recovery. My mom is flying in tonight to assist me while I'm blind and in pain, so hopefully it won't be too bad. A co-worker has lots of books on tape that I'm borrowing to pass the time.

My life is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, but I will have lots of opportunities to relax. In two weeks, I'm heading to Cancun for a friend's wedding. Having a week on the sunny beaches of Mexico is always fun. My current contract expires a couple days after my return. I'm currently negotiating with a few potential clients and hope to have my summer work plans solidified before leaving for Mexico. More than anything, I'm looking forward to taking the entire month of July off and spending it at our cabin in Montana. My Dad is moving up there to work on The New Cabin and there's nothing I'd rather do than help him out.