what do I know

Well after a couple of years of roughing it alone, my wife and I have decided to bring a new member into the family. See below for our latest addition, Ptosis LeGros (3 months old) a Yorkie-Shi, or Shorkie. We’re through the first day … and beat. We’re ready for day two though and all future exhaustion.

Well, I’ve been looking for a new Wordpress template for a while and I’ve finally found one I like. I had to hack away at this one called Simplistic, but I think I’ve been able to get it to where I want it. I’ve also got 12 posts queued now in “Draft”, so this weekend is the weekend I will be getting stuff done. Stay tuned for Monday, after nothing is published. :’(

It’s been a whirlwind trip, but I’ve come and gone from the great state of Oregon. I spent a week in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, at vendor training for one of the biggest MS shops in the financial industry. While the training was very enlightening (more to come on that later), it should come as no surprise that I was excited to try to the local cuisine. Since we ate out at every meal, here are a few local places that I’d highly recommend trying out if you ever find yourself in the area:

• Burgerville - Fast food chain that uses food directly from Oregon with milkshakes that rival those of Chick-fil-A (as far as fast food goes).
• Camp 18 in Seaside - Tasty soups and bread, huge portions, and an amazing location.
• Pizza Schmizza - Gourmet pizza by the slice.
• Imbrie Hall - Great appetizers; try out the Cajun tots for some good bar food!
• Thai Orchid - Great lunch specials and curries. If you like spicy food, ask for “extra hot”; “hot” works out to be a “medium”.
• Old Market Pub - Delicious specials and great atmosphere.
• Mio Sushi - Fresh, delicious sushi as well as awesome Katsu Don and lots of Japanese lunch options.
• Jake’s Famous Crawfish - Classic staple of downtown Portland. Classy place with some of the most amazing salmon I’ve ever had in my life. The halibut is great too!

Please keep in mind, I am stealing all of these great suggestions from our trainer, so thanks to Michael for the excellent suggestions. We also had an opportunity to stop by Rose’s Deli and Bakery and Stanford’s which are descent places to check out as well.

No trip would be complete however without some great beers and Oregon is famous for its microbreweries. Let me just tell you, tasting is believing. Most every local restaurant is equipped with its own brew and I was fortunate enough to get a small sampling of the selection Portland has to offer. Below are the beers I’d recommend at least trying if you’re looking to quench your thirst:

• Imbrie Hall - Some super IPA with triple the hops, Ruby, and the Rubinator (Mix of the Ruby and a stout called the Terminator).
• Old Market Pub - Mr. Toad’s Wild Red Ale, Hot Tamale!, Black Magic Nitrogen-Powered STOUT, and the Honey Root Beer.

Last but surely not least, I have to give a huge shout out to Simeon and Ryan for taking the time out of their busy days to hang out. Both guys have helped out the Adogo with remote presentations, so nothing is better than traveling to meet the people with which you only get to chat. Thanks for showing us around!

Portland is a great city with a cool technical population and a very lay-back vibe. If you ever have the chance to visit, definitely give it a shot. If you have time, check out some of the pictures Zach took on the trip for a good laugh.

Well, it’s been a crazy month or so since I’ve posted, but a lot has happened on the Brevard restaurant scene. Here are a few of the tidbits that have crossed my path:

• Islamorada Restaurant, our local Suntree Cuban joint, recently closed for renovation and re-opened as Cocomo’s Grill, a not so Cuban but more island inspired style restaurant. After stopping by for lunch (review to come one day), I found out that the place is under new ownership and has a new wait staff. I think they’ve retained some of the cooking staff since many of the dishes on the menu are from Islamorada’s original menu, but unfortunately tostones did not make it back onto the menu; I also didn’t see any of that amazing key lime butter or panitos on the table. The new menu looks good however, so I’m not that discouraged.
• In crazy, all of Brevard’s restaurants are catching on fire news, Meg O’Malley’s Irish Pub, located in downtown Melbourne, had a fire break out on their rear patio. Smoke damage extended to the building costling about $150K in damages. Here’s the write up on the event for those who are interested.
• Dinners2U, the latest local craze in delivered and prepared meals for the Melbourne area, is doing so well that in the next 6 months, the goal is to open a new location in Viera off of Murrell Road. This is great news for the Suntree area since delivery is not available in our area. I want to order a few more times from Dinners2U before I write them up, but so far it’s home cooked meals for a descent prices (considering all of the food you get with your order). Here’s more info for the curious.
• Leaning Tower of Pizza Restaurant is celebrating 25 years of serving the Melbourne area. They’re running spaghetti and slice specials for the month; buy one of either and get one of the same for $0.25. Leaning Tower is a great establishment and deserves all of the praise that it receives. Swing by, check it out, and show your support for a staple of the city.
• A little birdy told me that the owners of Island Pasta Company downtown have purchased, or are in the process of purchasing, Chowders on US1 in Suntree. From what it sounds like, Chowders will remain a seafood restaurant but look for a new name and menu in the future. Not sure when that future will be, but I’m excited to hear something new will come from that spot. They’ve got a great view and I’d love to go back.
• Cantina Dos Amigos is now back open after being previously closed due to fire. Looks like business is back to normal.

So that’s about all for now. I have some reviews for some Brevard classics coming down the pipe as well as some new establishments with some great potential. Talk to you soon.

Well, looks like I made it through the April Adogo meeting with both my presentations on BlazeDS. I put quite a bit of work into the presentations, so thanks to all of those who attended the presentation. We’ve updated the Meetings page with links to the recordings if anyone is interested. I have to apologize for the quality of the sound, however; I think I accidentally messed up the white noise calibration. In any case, thanks to the Adogo for having me as always.

Well I’ve finally put the finishing touches on my Adogo presentation for tomorrow night on the “Mechanics of BlazeDS” and “Remoting and Messaging with BlazeDS”. I originally called the 2nd presentation “RPC and Messaging with BlazeDS”, but I didn’t have an opportunity to integrate SOAP/REST into the picture, so I’m renaming it. In any case, I was able to throw together a pretty cool little sample app that should allow for some audience participation (pending my laptop can spare the memory). Hopefully some of my former co-workers from CFI can make it out. Sebastian and I will be driving out right after work, so see you all there.

Also, there will be food this time around thanks to TekSystems, so worst case, come out, be fed, and ridicule my meager presentations.

It’s been a while since I’ve presented at the Adogo, so I figure I owe the group a couple of presentations. Based on the feedback we’ve been getting from the mailing list, I’m going to take a little bit of a different approach to this month’s meeting. We’re going to do 2, 30 minute presentations, one focusing on the conceptual and one focusing on the practical. The topics this month will be “The Mechanics of BlazeDS” (conceptual) and “RPC and Messaging Using BlazeDS” (practical). For those of you who are interested in seeing how Java will integrate with Flex, I will be showing off how to integrate POJO’s for use with RPC.

Hopefully I can keep the presentations short and the content simple and interesting. If anyone decides to stop by, make sure to hold me to that goal during the meeting. Primers should be posted soon. See you on April 1st, same time and place as always.

Yesterday I stopped by the Acadiana Adobe User Group in Lafayette, LA for Ray’s presentation on Adobe AIR. He showed off a time allocation app using Flex and then HTML/JS. He was able to show us a few quirks with SqlLite’s DATETIME datatype that Adobe added as well as some gotcha’s with respect to using HTML/JS with Spry. It was cool to see another user group in action. The Acadiana group has been meeting on and off for many years and they all seem to get along very well. Thanks to everyone in attendance for warm welcome and best of luck with the group.

As most of you that read my blog already know, I have decided to resign from my position at CFi in favor working closer to home. The drive from Orlando to Melbourne was working its way up to 4 hours daily (on bad days) and, although I was able to listen to quite a few podcasts, I have a weak constitution for daily travel and had to find something closer. In leaving CFi, I will say this: CFi has one of the best technical teams with which I have had the privilege to work. Max has lead the department in a great direction in terms of architecture and I know they are going to have some amazing success. If you consider yourself a talented software developer, you should be seeking out CFi for employment and consider yourself fortunate if you’re given an opportunity to work with this great team. I’ve always thought that it’s a bit crass to say to an employer when you leave, “Thanks for everything; I’ve learned a lot.” My usual response is, “No problem, good luck with the new employer that doesn’t have to invest that time into you.” With that being said, I have learned a lot and hope I was able to contribute enough back to the organization so that I don’t sound like as much of a jerk.

As a special thank you to the web team, I would like to leave you each with a few words:

• Mike - Thanks for hiring me when I needed help and always reminding me, “More typing, less talking”.
• Jason - Keep the PC alive and make the fan-boys say “Wayh”.
• Chris H - Now that I’m gone, whenever SVN doesn’t work correctly, you may seek retribution as you see fit.
• Michele - Ok, I give in, you’re not evil. Seriously though, protect your Disney memorabilia, I think a member of the Nougat Room has been eye’ing it.
• David S - Hide the clock in the light room and charge a toll to look at it. For all those who won’t pay, remove the padding on their timelines or punch them in the face.
• Chris E - You ARE a freagin’ highlander and I hope when the time comes for “only one” you give me an 50+ year head start.
• Pam - HI PAM! Thanks for showing me people can actually do a good job in QA.
• Brian - Thanks for all of the books but please stop offering me a copy of “Tropical Mucho Macho”.
• Bucky - You have shown me dozens of uses for the phrase “Shut your stupid, smelly face”. I hope to use it well.
• Adam - As I promised, whenever we work together you get the first i18n project I can find that involves only externalizing strings. You’re welcome (BTW - I’m an ass).
• Vincent - Accept the roast beef cheese-steak and reduce your Disney intake, specifically mermaids.
• Russ - Thanks for taking time to explain half of the stuff I was supposed to know already. I look forward to bumming more homemade beer off of you with the promise of delivering empty bottles.
• Dan - Thanks for humoring my crazy ideas and being the only one who will listen to SER. If the JRoR (pronounced -jroar) dies you have my permission to rewrite all DNS records to point to Tallyhoh.
• Max - Ok you’re not on the web team, but always remember it’s not good unless it’s got a nutty texture.

So that’s it. It’s been a pleasure working with everyone and best of luck to you all and much success in your careers. It’s been a privilege.

I want to give a huge congratulations to Tyler and Dan over at Protoh for successfully launching their first product, TallyHoh. TallyHoh is an online feed reader with social networking aspects integrated at its core. The application is built using RoR, supports OpenID, import/export of OPML, and is stocked full of great content just waiting for a user’s perusal and review. Reading, listening, or watching a news item is just where it starts; as a user you have the ability to say if you liked the item (tally) or if you thought it sucked (folly). The idea may seem common place but it definitely has some addictive properties. Funny enough, TallyHoh in its pre-release form was/is all the rage at our office, beating out Google Reader and others as the feed reader of choice.

Dan and Tyler have put a lot of hard work into their product for its launch and I wish them nothing but the best. I would encourage anyone interested to give TallyHoh a shot. Great work guys!