Humanitarian Aid
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I got a little teary-eyed when I read that the humanitarian efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have saved over 400,000 lives in developing countries by “training medical staff and birth attendants how to resuscitate oxygen-deprived babies at birth”. Our little girl Emmy had problems breathing at birth and it was those skills combined with a loving Father in Heaven that allowed her to live. I’m glad that an increasing number of parents around the world can see doctors and nurses perform these miracles.
The Ruby on Rails Test Drive
I just had a few weeks off from school and work, so I thought I’d take a look at Ruby on Rails, which has been the “next big thing” in web programming for over a year now. Two books and over a month later, I can say that I’ve been impressed with that test drive and I think I’ll devote some more time to learning more about how to use it. As a test project, I’m working on re-writing Quotational using Ruby on Rails to get some experience beyond just typing in some example code from books.
I enjoy the structure that Rails offers, and that way it has of making web programming fun again. I’ve used PHP for several years now, and I find myself rewriting things continuously just to make things better. While this has certainly made me a better programmer, the steeper learning curve of Rails lets me do more in a shorter period of time although the degree of difficulty is higher. Rails brings a common framework with it, and one that seems to be more accepted in my experience than any PHP framework that I’ve worked with.
So far, the major drawback has been the availability of free resources for the Rails newbie, although this is a problem that is increasingly getting smaller. My initial impetus to take that first step toward learning Ruby on Rails was an offer for a free PDF book from Sitepoint, a deal that has since expired but is still definitely worth paying money for. That book was a great resource for me, and I’ve since gone on to buy a similar book, Agile Web Development with Rails. Those two books provide a lot of the same information, but reading through them both helped me pick up on things that I would have missed otherwise. From here I may not have a lot of time to devote to learning Ruby on Rails, but I definitely plan on continuing that effort.
Interface Simplicity - Joe’s Goals
In a world so full of noise, sometimes it’s great to retreat to a place of simplicity. One of my recent web retreats is getting back into Joe’s Goals, where I’m digging the new 2.0 interface that keeps everything on one page. It’s pretty simple - every time I complete a goal, I click to put a check mark on the box for that goal. I can add another check mark by clicking on the box again, or click directly on a check mark to remove it. It’s pretty simple to use, but the great part is that I’m the one to choose what a check mark means. I’m not affiliated with the site in any way, but I am a daily user.
Joe’s Goals is a simple way to track productivity chains - I can set it to show me how long I’ve kept up my daily scripture reading or my exercise (and I can even exclude Sundays for that goal). It’s simple, free, and easy. Thanks, Joe!
World’s Blankiest 90’s Albums
I recently found myself looking through my CD collection. In high school, I had a boring job. Sure, it was fun at times, but too often we ran out of real work and they stuck my friend Bill and I in a room to do menial tasks like counting the number of pages in documents. Boring. We quickly found that a solution was to buy a new CD every week or so, and that made things fun. It’s also the reason I have songs like It’s the End of the World As We Know It memorized, and because of that, I can be a lot of fun at parties.
Here is a list of the World’s Blankiest 90’s Albums, which is basically just a trip down nostalgia lane for me. The only restrictions I make is that the CD had to be released in the US during the 90’s, and that it had to have more than one song on it that I loved to listen to. Oh, the memories.
Denver and the Rockies
First, I just wanted to say that the last few weeks have me somewhat disappointed in the national media. With that said, I immensely enjoyed my trip to Denver to see the Rockies in the first World Series game in Colorado, which was also the longest 9-inning game in World Series history. The reason for mentioning the national media is because of their labeling of the World Series as boring… which I really disagree with. If you only looked at box scores and post-game reports, you might think that I was really depressed watching my Rockies, which just wasn’t true. They played well, all things considered. The Red Sox are a great team, which gives me all the more reason to dislike them. In fact, I’ve had more fun loathing them lately than I have had loathing the Yankees (although that will never stop being entertaining). I’ve had this rising anger toward the Red Sox ever since they beat up on the Cardinals in 2004… not fun. Bottom line is that this World Series was as close as it should have been, and there were enough momentum shifts to keep me in my seat along with tens of thousands of other Rockies fans in Coors Field. I got to go to the World Series, and that’s something even Red Sox dominance couldn’t take away from me.
Check out this video showing the Rockies miraculous postseason run. This video forgets to show us the 14 of 15 games they won at the end of the regular season, which was miraculous enough. Thanks, Rockies! I’ll be back to see you soon.
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Geocaching
