Dave’s Personal Blog

I came close to death last week. Such a thing gives one pause to think…

Life is too fragile to waste on bland food, bad music, cheap wine, weak coffee, unpleasant women, undue rushing about, and poorly written software.

… I’m just sayin’, is all.

Carpe Diem

I was reading a food related email thread in gmail and it suggested this link.  I was intrigued so I checked it out.  It just got me mad.  And so I blog.

How totally lame… look at the poor cute piggy… gimme a break.  That tactic doesn’t open my wallet for poor 3rd world kids… and it isn’t going to close my wallet at the butcher section.

I was a vegetarian for close to 14 years… almost 14 years of no meat.  A good chunk of that with no eggs or cheese.  You know all I have to say about that? (listen up because I don’t say this lightly) I WAS WRONG.

My culinary world is simply exploding these days… I’m discovering a lot that I’ve been missing in the wide world of food.  I think Anthony Bourdain sums it up nicely: 

“If it’s slower than me, dumber than me, and tastes reasonably good… pass the salt!” 

In response to Peta, I offer you this link: The Bacon Show

Go forth and enjoy that smokey, salty, piggy goodness.

Now, don’t get me wrong.. I have nothing against folks that abstain from meat (or just pigs) for religious or cultural reasons.  Personally, I don’t understand the idea of putting meat in Indian food.  There are plenty of examples of simply excellent indigenous vegetarian cuisines.It’s the peta style vegetarians that I have issues with.

Hmm.. I’m hungry now… a sandwich would be good… I think I have some ham in the fridge.  Yum!

Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday in Sri Lanka.  He is one of a handful of authors I remember vividly and fondly from my childhood & teen years of reading one scifi novel after another. See An appreciation of Arthur C. Clarke on the Official Google Blog.

You got it.  Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Steve Jobs isn’t the only one who can quote Dylan.

… speaking of Steve Jobs and changin’ times… I may be bumping into Mr. Jobs at the local Cupertino Starbucks before long…

Next month I’m heading to California… Silicon Valley to be specific.

After over 3 years of saying “I’m not interested” to Google, I’ve accepted their offer of a position. I’m not sure how public I can be yet about what exactly I’ll be doing… but it will leverage my experience and expertise in Agile Development, TDD, Ruby, Rails, and RSpec.

This change is not without some sacrifices, but we think it’s the right move at this time. One downside is having to end my association with Obtiva… which I have greatly enjoyed. They’re great people and great to work with.

One benefit is that I won’t be having to focus so much on billable hours to cover the bills anymore… so there should be more time for things like RSpec and writing.

I’m in New York doing some teaching this week. I’ve been before but usually only for day trips… once for an overnight. This is the first time I’m here for several days at a time. Tonight the weather was nice enough to get out for a walk after class. It’s such a blend on the streets. I’ve grown myopic living in rural Atlantic Canada where everyone pretty much looks the same. I sat this evening at the window counter of a burger place (corner of 6th Ave and W 32nd St) facing out on W 32nd. I like watching people, so this was a great way to spend a meal. Pretty much no two people who went by had the same shade of skin (maybe a slight exaggeration.. but not by much). And my hotel is in the middle of “KoreaTown“. Home is going to seem somewhat blander.

I’ve been doing some work with Obtiva for a while. It’s been a good experience for everyone involved, and so we’ve decided to take the relationship to the next level.

I’m happy to announce that I’m now part of the Obtiva team, doing project work and training (primarily Ruby and Rails based).

It’s been a long time since I blogged. It’s a long story, but things were rough until April… getting screwed over by a client. We ended up getting some money from them in the end, and I’ve hooked up loosely with a shop run by quality people that I know well enough to trust. Since then, I’ve been keeping as busy as I can handle with building web-apps in Rails. So things are going better.

To kick off what will hopefully be a new lease on life for this blog, we’re switching things around. First is a new look. That’s partly just visual, and partly due to switching from Typo back to WordPress (which has come a long way since we switched away from it). Some things are working, some are not (like the tag cloud ). So bear with me as things get finessed into shape here. 

Update: the tag links work now.

Here’s wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

The last year had some high points (hanging out in Chicago with Aslak Hellesoy & David Chelimsky, making the switch to working remotely from home full time and so having more time with Nancy and the boys, making the switch to fulltime Rails, rediscovering my Nintendo fanboyness), but also some serious suckage (mainly having to do with cash flow and a skank of an ex-wife).

Have a good year, everyone.

Over the last couple days I got out my paints and had another go at a DS cover insert. I’m fairly happy with this one.