Yearly Archives: 2008

Crazy Eights

This is a meme that Beth tagged me to do. You asked for it, you got it. Toyota.

8 things Iâ€™m passionate about:
1. Learning
2. Being a good husband and father
2. Living up to my beliefs
3. Having fun
4. Being prepared
5. Tinkering with technology
6. Learning about how to be a good husband and father
7. Learning about having fun
8. Learning about how to tinker with technology

8 things I want to do before I die:
1. Finish school
2. Decide what “finishing school” actually means
3. Own a house
4. See lots of places with family (because family vacations are more fun)
5. Get season tickets for a baseball team and go to every game
6. Never throw up again
7. Become a contestant on Jeopardy!
8. Visit all 50 states

8 things I say often:
1. “You guys are dangerous”
2. Too early for flapjacks?
3. When will then be now?
4. We got no food, we got no jobs, our pets’ heads are fallin’ off!!
5. Don’t you worry about blank, let me worry about blank.
6. God’s given me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well.
7. You have the whitest white part of the eyes I’ve ever seen. Do you floss?
8. Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out that he’d melt my brain.

8 books Iâ€™ve recently read:
1. Hop on Pop
2. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (I hope to have this memorized soon)
3. The Book of Mormon
4. There Was an Old Lady
5. Clifford does something with something else
6. Agile Web Development With Rails
7. Grover’s Own Alphabet
8. The King of Torts

8 songs I could listen to over and over:
1. “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by R.E.M.
2. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies
3. “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants
4. “Arch Drive Goodbye” by Eve 6
5. “Real World” by Matchbox Twenty
6. “Soul Meets Body” by Death Cab for Cutie
7. “Omaha” by Counting Crows
8. “Breathing” by Lifehouse

8 things that attract me to my best friends:
1. Humor
2. Respect for things that I respect
3. Easygoing nature
4. Similar interests
5. Affinity for the movie Groundhog Day
6. Respect for my beliefs
7. Cheerfulness
8. They drive me to be a better person

8 things Iâ€™ve learned this past year:
1. Being a parent is often more fun than it should be.
2. Children do crazy things.
3. It’s easier to be happy when you have a budget
4. I don’t take enough pictures
5. I enjoy having a backyard
6. Playing in the snow is fun
7. Be sure to make comments like “If the Rockies go to the World Series, can I go?” when they have such a small chance of doing it that your spouse is required to say yes.
8. “By small means the Lord can bring about great things”

8 people I think should do Crazy 8â€™s:
1. The Monster from Cloverfield
2. A monkey with a typewriter
3. Jane Austen
4. Mike Tyson
5. Optimus Prime
6. OK Go
7. Snagglepuss
8. Howie Mandel, cult leader

Humanitarian Aid

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.