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.

Playing with Cucumber and looking at CodeSchool‘s new offerings are a pleasant way to while away a few hours.

Happy holidays!

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.

Now I’m back home, and starting to do some Ruby on Rails work I hope that inspiration will strike.

(Photo’s a little blurry, but I’m happy with how well my old point & shoot does without a flash in a club…)

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.

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.

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.

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…

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…