Raible Designs

New Jobs and School starts November 3rd

When we had Abbie last year, Julie took a year leave from her job at Qwest. She was never planning on going back to work, but her old boss called her up last week and they've been negotiating. To make a long story short, she's going back to her old gig part-time (3 days per week) and starts on the same day I start my new gig (Monday, November 3rd). Because of this, Julie went searching for day care providers today. After seeing a couple nasty ones (she actually left crying), she visited a Montessori school across the street from her office. They have a 6 month waiting list for infants - Abbie's not a toddler because she can't walk unassisted nor drink from a cup on her own. Luckily, Julie was able to sweet talk them into accepting Abbie as an infant and she starts school in a mere week and a half. The place is damn expensive, but hopefully she'll learn some cool stuff. We have some friends who's daughter is going to a different Montessori school in Broomfield and she is almost potty trained at 15 months! She also knows 4 or 5 signs (sign language) and helps clean around the house.

I'm sure this will prove to be an interesting chapter in our lives - Abbie cries every time we leave the room now - so that Monday will probably suck for her. Should be a good winter though - Julie is planning on working Tuesday through Thursday and I hope to work from home on Monday and Friday.

As for the move to San Diego? We still want to, but the weather has been so nice here (80s) that Julie hasn't been motivated lately. The biggest reason for moving is to be closer to family (her sister lives there), but the job market is hopping here right now, so neither of us is that motivated to leave. I think my best bet is to get a telecommuting gig and move during that contract, but those are pretty tough to come by. Who knows - there definitely seems to be more Java opportunities in San Diego than there is in South Florida. I love it here, especially with ski season just around the corner ... I wonder where we'll be next year at this time? I predict California or in a new house (our current one is only 675 square feet).

Java Infested Week

This week looks to be highly Java infested for me. This is a good thing and I hope to learn a lot. Tomorrow, I'm teaching a JSP class at a local company, so I'll probably learn some tips and tricks with JSPs from the students in the class. Wednesday, the Denver Java Users Group has a presentation on JavaServer Faces. Thursday, James is coming to the Boulder JUG to talk about Effective Object Orientation. I'll be attending both. Finally, on Friday, I'm joining Julie, Abbie and rest of her family in Evansville, Indiana for Julie's Grandpa's (a.k.a. "Paw") Birthday. I'm on a late Friday night flight, and it's long, so I plan on knocking out JSP 2.0. Then again, airplanes tend to put me to sleep. Combine that with a book on technology and I may just end up getting some good rest for the party on Saturday.

It's a good time to be a Java Developer in Silicon Mountain.

The life of a software developer

I've officially worked 31 of the last 37 hours. Ugh. There was 3 hours last night that I got to drive home and have dinner with Julie and Abbie. This was followed by a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. code-producing extravaganza, followed by 2 hours of sleep, and time enough to commute to work this morning. And I'm still pounding the keyboard...

Update: Finally tally ~ 33 of 39, I think that's a record. Let's hope I don't fall asleep on the way home!

Deadline Week

This is one of those weeks when I'm a freak of nature. A code monkey with a passion for getting things done. Yet there's too much to do and its all due by Friday.

Yep, this is a week with a deadline. It's been building since I started at this new gig about a month ago. We all knew it was coming, and we're somewhat prepared, but there's still a lot to do. The screwed up thing is I can't seem to think about anything else, and all I want to do is code, code, code. I don't want to eat, sleep or go to the gym. I just want to get it done: code, code, code: I'll neglect my family, friends and body to pump out a software release - because my mind is enthralled by the idea of deadlines. My body loves the excitement, the passion makes my blood boil and my brain just wants more, more, more.

The worst part of it all? It won't matter next week, or even the day after we get it all done. No one will really care. It was a deadline - we said we could do it, and that's what they expected. When we're super pumped that we got it all done, no one will care - we said we could do it. And my reward? I'll be so damned burned out (from spending so much time on the computer) that I won't even want to look at one - not even Foxxy (my new powerbook).

It's strange that I know this is happening - or that I've at least recognized it this time. I don't think it will help though. I'll have to make sure and apologize to Julie and Abbie for being such a narrow-minded prick all week.

What is the fastest way to transfer data between PowerBooks?

In order to be a good husband, now that I've given my old laptop to Julie, I need to transfer all my files, settings, etc. from my old PowerBook to my new one. What's the fastest way to do this? I'm guessing Firewire or something like that. Do the Apple Retail outlets sell anything?

Spelling

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PowerBook G4 SuperDrive Upgrade

I recently purchased a "SuperDrive" for my PowerBook from MacResQ. Here's the specs on this bad boy:

The PowerBook G4 SuperDrive upgrade is bootable and compatible with Apple's Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, iDVD, iTunes, Disc Burner, Apple DVD Player, Toast, and Retrospect. The drive reads at 24x, writes CD-R at 16x, writes CD-RW at 8x, and writes DVD-R/RW at 1x. A 1-year warranty applies.

Sounds pretty sweet right? To create a DVD (that Julie created in iMovie), we need to purchase iLife, which includes iDVD (which iMovie integrates nicely with, so I've heard). The problem? I went to the Apple Store today to buy iLife and I asked them about this DVD burner. They said that any third-party DVD burner will not work with iDVD. And if it does, it's illegal. So I asked, "If this DVD burner works with iDVD, who's breaking the law?" The tech retorted that both MacResQ is (for selling it) and I am (violation of the license of iDVD). Bummer. Do I care? Not really - I just want to know if iDVD will work with this drive?

If so, I'll buy iLife and be a happy little DVD-burning, software violating mo-fo - just like all the corporate workers who've installed their company's copy of Office on their home machine.

Planning Raible Road Trip #7

Last year in September, my parents and I embarked on Raible Road Trip #6 when returning from Web Design World 2002 in Vegas. Julie didn't join us since she was 7 months pregnant. However, Raible Road Trip #7 will be Julie, Abbie and I - and it begins this weekend. I'm starting to get really excited about it. We bought our plane tickets last night, and tonight we started planning the trip. Here it is so far - thanks to all for your suggestions.

• Fly into San Diego on Saturday morning. Stay with Julie's sister until Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.
• Drive like a bat out of hell to Big Sur, which is about 8 hours according to MapQuest. Stay a night or two - those cabins that Andy mentioned sound nice.
• From Big Sur, head to Bodega Bay. I'm a backwoods Montanan, so I don't know about San Fran - we might just skip it. It sure sounds cool, but I also know it's pretty crowded. I happened to remember one of my best friends (that I haven't talked to in years) actually lives in Bodega Bay - so I called him up tonight. He's fighting fires in Montana, so he might not be there - but his wife, Katie, and son will be there - so we'll probably stay with them for a night or two. This brings us to Thursday or Friday.
• Our end destination is meeting my parents at the Oregon Caves on Friday or Saturday, so we'll probably head from Bodega up there (7 hours). Hopefully, we'll catch some redwoods along the way.
• My dad has a couple rooms booked at Crater Lake on Sunday and Monday night. My sister, Kalin, is meeting us on Saturday.

Boy this is gonna be a fun trip. I haven't been on a road trip on California since I was a little kid. It was in the early 80s and my dad had a rigged up canvas topper on VW Rabbit pickup. We camped every night and drove like maniacs during the day. Abbie will be too young to remember, but that's what the ol' camera is for!

New Gig starts Monday

After searching and interviewing for the last few weeks, I finally decided on my next gig this morning. Phew - I'm glad that process is over with.

I've accepted a position with ResortQuest [quote] in Lafayette, CO (about 30 miles north of my house). They run a high traffic (I think) website for booking vacation rentals and own many local property management companies. Currently, it's written in Cold Fusion and I'll be helping them migrate it to a Struts-based architecture. They've already done their Smoky Mountain site in Tennessee, and now there's a big push to get the mountain resort properties done for the ski season.

I'm pretty pumped about the position - there's a team of about 10 and also a Graphics Design group. I've never been on a team with a Graphics Design group - so that should be awesome - no more worrying about look and feel, just coding. The commute might kinda suck, but most traffic is going the other way. Not being able to ride my bike to work will be a bummer, but none of my other opportunities had that either - so I can't fault them for that. One of the biggest perks is that they don't have a BYOL policy, and they've already got the machines in house, so I can hit the ground running.

Because I don't need to bring my own laptop, I will be returning the ZX7 today. Who knows if I'll get a new computer anytime soon - I don't really need one now. My newly installed XP box is humming along just fine, and all I really need is a DVD burner. Does anyone know if it's possible to buy/connect an external DVD burner to a PowerBook? Julie has recently got into iMovie video-editing and we'd like to burn these to DVD w/o buying a whole new computer.

RE: Professional JSP, 3rd Edition

Simon has the inside scoop on (what was) Professional JSP 2.0. He must have some good connections to get this info. I dig that Amazon is listing it and especially that I got mentioned as an Author! Hopefully they fix this little mishap and do an et. al. or something. I'd better do a screenshot so I can have proof that my name was listed at one point.