Fall 2008 Update

As usual, I've gotten wicked busy and have gotten behind on blog posts. But I've got four days off for Thanksgiving and blog updates were on my to-do list.

So geez, where to start. Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a good one. As with last year, we stayed at home, and Brenda made a small turkey. Everything was fabulous as usual. Even had a couple pies, pumpkin bread, veggies and shrimp for me!

We watched the Macy's parade and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, and then a couple unexciting football games. Then we decorated the apartment, which is way faster than decorating our old house. And capped it off with the Opus & Bill Christmas special, and Mickey's Christmas Carol. This year, we're committed to getting through all our holiday videos :)  I've also resolved to read the original Christmas Carol by Dickens.

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a ton of reading since I started taking the train to work. I have an Audible account for audiobooks, and it was great when I was driving. Unfortunately my mind wanders when listening to audiobooks on the train and I realize I haven't been paying attention for a few miles and have to rewind. I hadn't really read anything but computer books since high school, so I'm really loving getting back into it.

Books read so far:
Watchmen (graphic novel)
The Dark Knight Strikes Again (graphic novel)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The Bourne Identity
Neverwhere
Joomla Development (okay, this is a programming book)

Currently I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman (who also wrote Neverwhere and Stardust, which is also a fantastic movie).

On the work front, things are going as well as can be expected, given the current economy. We've had some layoffs and some people quit, but we seem to be weathering the storm so far. And I'm on my sixth desk, but I now have a fabulous spot with a window! I've learned to not get too comfortable in any one spot, though.

Besides our recent loss of Sasha, the animals are doing just fine. We had to deal with a flea problem over the last couple months, but I think we have it licked. Apparently fleas were particularly bad this year.

I've also been trying to do more artwork, or as much as my schedule will allow. Been crazy busy at work and I often work late, or work at home. I haven't posted anything in a couple weeks, but gotta start thinking about this year's Christmas card.

To follow my artwork, just go here. I've got ideas for more stuff, just gotta find the time.

Amazingly, there's little else to report. Seems we've just been working and that's it. Upside is that we both have the entire week of Christmas off, probably 4-5 days spent in Ohio (and on the road). I really prefer to fly, but with the flight and car rental, we're probably looking at almost a grand, as opposed to a couple hundred to drive.

More updates as soon as something remotely interesting happens.

First NFL Game!

On November 16th, we saw our first NFL game. It was at the Georgia Dome and the Falcons played the Denver Broncos. Unfortunately due to a couple bonehead moves, we lost 20-24.

Overall, we had fun. Being able to take the train directly to the Dome was really nice, although we'll be more prepared next time for the thousands of other people that feel the same way. I've been taking the train to work for months and had never seen cars so full.

I think I need to go again to get a better feel for it, but overall I've enjoyed Braves games much more. I think the worst part of a football game is as you get higher up, the seats get smaller and closer together. Plus, nobody came by selling beer. What's up with that? Also, football stops and starts a lot more than baseball, and there's less entertainment going on during breaks. And I REALLY missed the giant video screen Turner Field has.

But all in all, a good day, and we'll definitely try to get to at least one game a season.

Now I just need to get to a hockey game :)

Here's a recap of the game we went to.

RIP, Sasha

I wish my long blogging hiatus could have been broken by better news. Unfortunately, it's with a heavy heart that I must report our kitty Sash passed away today. As you may or may not know, Sasha has been sick for a few months. It started out as a thyroid problem, for which she was taking medication. But she was also anemic.



Over the last few months, our once fat cat had become skin and bones, despite her still eating like a horse. A week or so ago her stomach started getting bloated and the vet removed quite a lot of fluid from her stomach. She also noticed a mass near her lung. The vet was almost positive it was cancer, probably lymphatic. Unfortunately the proceedures for finding out for sure would have been too hard on Sasha's body.

So they put her on another medication and we debated about giving her kemo drugs. But today Sasha just seemed to collapse and was unable to stand or hold her head up for a half hour. We got her to the vet and she'd lost even more weight and was unable to hold her temperature. The vet said her systems were shutting down and only gave her maybe a couple more days.

It was really, really hard, but we felt it best to spare her from suffering through it, so we decided to put her to sleep. Sasha was 14, but we'd only had her for about six years. We wish we'd had her longer, but are thankful we were able to give her six good years. We truly enjoyed her and will always miss her.

Here are more photos of Sasha in better health.

My Drawing A Day

I've come up with this crazy experiment to post a "Drawing A Day". With all my sites, it's a pain to post to all of them, so I've created an account with a popular artist site. Check them out daily (or until I can't sustain this anymore) by going here.

Artoo Potatoo

The latest addition to my spud army

I'm SO Making This My Ringtone

A bunch of new Muppet videos have surfaced on YouTube, but this by far is the funniest.



Boy I really hope this is a sign of a Muppet comeback.

My Conference Video Online

I finally got my video from the conference edited and uploaded. So if you feel like listening to me drone on for a half-hour, check it out here.

Laughing Baby

I'm not a big video re-poster, but I came across this last night and almost hurt myself laughing so hard. 


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Idaho Spuds

Here is the latest edition to my potato head army, Idaho Spuds, fearless adventurer from Taters of the Lost Ark. So far, I now have seven Mr. Potato Heads: Easter Spud, Santa Spud, Spud Trooper, Darth Tater, Spider Spud, Optimash Prime and Idaho Spuds.

Spring Update

So here we are again. It's May 11th (Mother's Day) and I haven't posted since January. Honestly doesn't feel like that long. So here goes, an accumulated update that hopefully will be halfway interesting.

The Job Front
On February 7th, I attended an Atlanta PHP meeting as usual. This night there were a couple guys from a company called Spunlogic who were scouting for PHP developers. I spoke to them afterwards, exchanging info about our respective employers, and I made a joke that we (Cool Blue Interactive) were their competition. As it turns out, we weren't. Spunlogic already had probably 25 developers, and a total staff of 80+. 

So I went home kinda feeling like I'd been slapped upside the head, and the conversation kind of haunted me. I contacted them the next day and we started the employment flirting game. I had a total of three interviews with them in less than two weeks. They ended up offering me a job and I accepted. 

So as of March 24th, I'm a Senior CSS Developer with Spunlogic. Actually, four days after coming on board, their name changed after being acquired by an even bigger firm. So I actually work for Engauge Digital now. So I've been there about a month and a half now, and I have to say I absolutely love it. It's exactly what I'd envisioned a successful web firm to be. Exactly where I saw myself, only I wish it didn't take 11 years to get here.  

Oh, and in the time I've been there, we've already worked on GMAC Insurance, Chick-Fil-A, and a big chain of steak houses called Ruth's Chris Steak House. Coming up is work for a dog food brand being created by a popular celebrity. Will say who it is when I can :)

See some photos of the offices.

As for Brenda, she quit her job at the drug clinic a couple months ago. It's a thankless job that's crazy stressful and to make things worse, the management was not easy to work with, to say the least. 

So right now she's working part-time at a local Jo-Ann Fabrics while still looking for some things in her field. But she also is looking at design school at one of the local colleges. And she's also back to working on jewelry and accessories. Her site can be found here, and she'll be selling some things online at this website soon. 

The Animals
Overall, the pets are doing very well. A few months ago, Aticus had to have medicine for some kind of thing in his eye that made them all cloudy. And just recently, we had Sasha at the vet a couple times. While she was boarded for Christmas, they saw she had a problem with a tooth, but the couldn't pull it because she had some heart weirdness. So all the bloodwork and tests was kind of expensive so we had to let it go for the time being. Then a couple weeks ago she started having spells that looked like mini-seizures and she'd lost a lot of weight. We just thought it had something to do with the tooth and she wasn't eating.

Turns out she has hyper-thyroidism, so we'll have to give her a pill every day forever. But we were able to get the tooth pulled and the seizures have stopped, so I think we're back to normal. Crazy animals.

Baseball
Yes, I'm WAY into baseball this year. Specifically the Braves, of course. We've been to three games so far, and are going to another this Saturday. And I make sure to watch every game we're not attending on TV. Brenda still thinks my body has been possessed by an alien because I now know all the players' names and their positions.  They've been doing really well lately, so hopefully that will continue.

I'm A "Speaker" Now
I'm going to be a speaker at this year's Spring Break web developer conference at Ohio University in June. On my birthday, to be precise. I'll be giving two talks, both related to CSS and/or javascript. What's even better, one of my idols in the field, Eric Meyer, will be the keynote speaker. I'm totally excited and terrified at the same time. I'll be speaking about a topic about which this guy literally wrote the book on (I have three of his books). So no stress whatsoever.

Miscellaneous
Still loving Atlanta. Pollen count is high as usual, but not as bad as last year, since we're getting some rain. I had sushi for the first time recently, and really quite liked it.  Traffic is still a pain, but I get to my new job earlier, and get to leave earlier, so it doesn't seem quite as bad as before. Still in the car 90 minutes a day, though.

Saw Iron Man.....twice. Yes, it's that good. If you haven't seen it, stop reading this and go do it. All I have to say is that Batman and Indiana Jones really have their work cut out for them. That said, Indy 4 is only 11 days away! Just hoping Spielberg and Lucas don't completely destroy this like Lucas killed Star Wars.

So that's all I can think of for now. I may add to this as I remember anything noteworthy. Will try to post more often.Â

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Andrew and Brenda: The Comic

I've been considering starting up a new web-based comic, and thought I'd test the waters by doing some strips featuring us. This first one was pretty fun, and I definitely will keep doing some more. Once I get a better technique down and settle on a theme, I'll start the "real" comic.

Snow In Atlanta

For the second time in a week, it snowed in Atlanta ...and with accumulation. For those of you back in Ohio, I can't overstate what a monumental event this is down here. You'd think the apocalypse is upon us at the first sign of a snowflake. Grocery stores run out of bread and milk, schools shut down and traffic slows to a crawl.

Earlier in the week, it started snowing close to rush hour. Not good. The first mile or so going home took about 45 minutes. Yesterday (Saturday) it snowed even more, with a bit more accumulation. Here are some pics. It's about half gone already today, but it was pretty cool.

Best of 2007

For anyone interested, I just posted my 'Best of 2007' movie list over on my other blog. Click here to read.