Dave’s Personal Blog

George Carlin passed away last week.

The world is suddenly a less funny and more politically correct place. He will be missed.

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.

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.

Wow… it’s the end of October again. A year ago we were in the process of buying our house. Now we’re close to our second Yule here.

We did a family pumpkin carving tonight, the results of which you can see in this post.

Other than that, the occasion has pretty much snuck up on us, busy as we are with finishing up a client project and readying to launch a service to fill a conspicuous gap. More on that later.

All of us TextMate users got a Halloween treat when we got to our desks this morning (assuming we have auto update set). The splash screen and application icon are the wicked jack-o-lantern you see to the right, while the “no file loaded” background was a nice cobweb. Nice to see the TextMate folks have a good sense of fun… all the more reason to use their kick-ass product. See Allan’s post here.

Nova Scotia lifts Sunday shopping ban:

”
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 4, 2006 | 4:00 PM AT

CBC News

The Nova Scotia government has swung the door to Sunday shopping wide open now that the province’s Supreme Court has sided with two grocery chains.

In a ruling released Wednesday, Justice Peter Richard said the government went beyond its powers with regulations introduced in June that prevented Sobeys and Atlantic Superstore from selling products seven days a week.

Shortly after, Premier Rodney MacDonald said the government will not appeal the ruling and it will clear the way for Sunday shopping.

‘The rules will be the same for all retail outlets, creating a level playing field for all retailers in Nova Scotia, regardless of what they sell,’ he said.

Retail stores of all kinds can open on Sundays and other holidays, starting this weekend. The only exception is Remembrance Day, which is covered under a separate law.”

It’s bloody well about time!

Arrrrrr… I be wishin’ ye all a mighty fine International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

For those amongst ye all that have ne’er set sail, ye’d do well to be watchin’ this.

So to all ye salty sea dogs and saucy, sharp tongued wenches I say… yo ho yo ho… now where’d me rum get off to?

Welcome to my new site!

I’ve finally decided to get serious about this, and thanks to some friends .. here it is:

• Nancy - for pushing me to do it, and for hosting it, and for being the most excellent girlfriend a geek (or anyone for that matter) could possibly have… if you have a site to be designed or hosted.. talk to Lunatrix
• Steven - for introducing me to WordPress and getting it set up.. and generally being a pal

My plan is to slowly populate this site with various bit and pieces of usefull information. From lessons learned to book reviews to vacation pics.