This year is starting out well, and I’m not quite sure what to write about.
Usually there is something which presents itself, for now I’m content and don’t have any ideas for posts. Maybe no news is good news.
Category: Musings
January 22nd, 2012
Irresolute New Year
December 27th, 2011
Happy Holidays
I have survived my Christmas excesses, and now it’s time for a little relaxation.
Playing with Cucumber and looking at CodeSchool‘s new offerings are a pleasant way to while away a few hours.
Happy holidays!
November 20th, 2011
Freedom and Loss
Cats
were part of the package when I got married nearly fifteen years ago. In those years a dog has come and gone, and Little Guy – the younger of the cats – died. Many a time we thought about what life might be like without the responsibility for pets, and made plans for the day we would finally be pet free. We’d have the freedom to take trips without having to arrange someone to take take care of the cat – food, water, litter, twice daily injections of insulin.
That day came. Rosebud made it to twenty, outlasted the other pets, and had a few years as the cat who got the sunny spots.
Now I have no more litter to scoop, don’t have to remember to inject insulin into the cat, don’t have to mop up hair-balls and other evidence of feline habitation. The basement no longer smells of used cat litter. The vets have had their last bite at my credit card. We are free of pets.
The house seems very quiet and empty.
October 30th, 2011
Nothing to Say
In the past month I have changed jobs, visited England, gone to a wedding in Northern Ireland and its reception in Ireland. Maybe because of all the excitement I haven’t had the urge to post, and no coherent content has leaped into my imagination.
Now I’m back home, and starting to do some Ruby on Rails work I hope that inspiration will strike.
October 5th, 2011
More Musical Nostalgia
Last night I went to the Mod Club in Toronto to see a date on the Two of a Perfect Trio tour. Loud, but not too loud, and with Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, and Adrian Belew the “Crim-centric” encore was what I was looking forward to. Stickmen and the Adrian Belew Power Trio were enjoyable, and come the encore it was interesting to see how the character of some numbers had become more muscular from my recollection of the King Crimson double trio. All in all a fun night.
(Photo’s a little blurry, but I’m happy with how well my old point & shoot does without a flash in a club…)
August 20th, 2011
Modern Holidays
On the road again for a few days. In these days of iPhones and near ubiquitous free WiFi it seems that there’s no escape from traces of work, and the piles of email which seemed fun in 1995 somehow seem more pressing now.
Discipline is what’s needed. I’m sunk!
Still, a change of environment should let me think a few things through, and maybe I will start posting more regularly again.
August 7th, 2011
Define the Aim Positively
One of the aphorisms which appear at the bottom of Discipline Global Mobile‘s pages is:
Define the aim positively. Do not define the aim negatively.
Confronted with an important choice I find the negative has a much more powerful emotional grip than the positive. I disappoint myself.
Fortunately there are many other aphorisms to contemplate.
June 20th, 2011
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
I can easily spot when other people are driving themselves into the ground.
A quiet and enjoyable father’s day weekend whose sole task oriented “goal” was to get a curtain rod put up in the bedroom. I can see “me the stranger” at the end of last week was a tired grumpy old man. Fortunately I’m less tired, less grumpy, and a little less young.
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
June 8th, 2011
Chuck Noris on Rails
This evening I got together with a couple of people from work to get some more than trivial experience with Ruby on Rails with them, and try not to come across like a Perl zealot, Ruby weenie, or PyHole – those types of people whose single minded narrow minded zeal and certitude pretty much turn me off any technology regardless of its virtues.
Someone suggested that we change the venue of our Rails experience from an office at work to a patio at a watering hole. As Dave and I had planned to sample some Chuck Noris IPA after the session, we did the agile thing and headed out laptop at the ready. The three of us made it to Stout on Carlton street in spite of the tropical heat and humidity, the delays on the TTC, and much to my relief there were still growlers of Chuck Noris to be had. Once we arrived we made another quick decision to remain in the air conditioned lounge rather than swelter on the patio.
If there’s one thing I have learned from Walker Texas Ranger it is that no matter how desperate the situation it can all be resolved in the ten minutes before everyone has to go, so once I was hooked up to the WiFi and the first pint of IPA and some food had been consumed I was able to try a half hour of “trio programming” (agile + 50%!) getting a couple of screens going.
Some of the things we learned:
- rvm is great.
- bundler makes it really easy to switch rails versions, particularly when it’s easier to suspect the new 3.0.8 rather than anyhting we did!
- Overconfidence is dangerous – we made several models, one of which was called Action. Not a good idea in rails. http://oldwiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ReservedWords
- rails gives you a lot of functionality for a small investment in code.
- Three heads are better than one.
- We should try a place called Granite up near Yonge and Eglinton
This week is turning out pretty Ruby heavy, yesterday’s Toronto Ruby Brigade meetup, Chuck on Rails tonight, and a Ruby hacking meetup tomorrow…
June 6th, 2011
Weekend Fun
I finally turned a best intention into action this weekend, and we took a quick trip out of town to break the city routine.
A friend had picked up some flying lessons on WagJag, and thought their lack of transportation meant they couldn’t make it out to the airfield. After a chance conversation we decided to make a day out of it, and piled into the car and set off to Burlington Air Park.
Everyone had a good time, and I managed to get some hours in my pilot’s log book after a break of 30 years…
