Blog
Time to see what we have time to see
Category: Random Updates
ginni and I celebrate our 1 year anniversary this weekend. We are going to Horseshoe Bay Resort and we are very excited. It's been the best year of my life, and I know next year will only be better.
I've been on a coding hiatus lately. No particular reason, I just haven't felt motivated/inspired. On my To Do List for web stuff include adding Category/Tag clouds on my site, pictures on both ginni's site and mine, as well as making my mom a new website (not to mention AptFinder).
I've fallen in love with a new piece of software: Teamworks. It's a business process management tool and is very cool. It has a GUI that is as simple as a flow chart to map out a business process, but has the coding complexity to implement functional applications. Recently, I've had to force myself to work on stuff that isn't Teamworks, or I'd get nothing else done.
College football is crazy lately. All the conference realignment talk is keeping the off-season rather interesting, for sure. In case you haven't been keeping up: as of now, the Big 12 is down to 10 teams (Nebraska left for the Big Ten, Colorado for the Pac-10). Despite rumors of Texas, Tech, OU, and Okie State joining Colorado out west, these schools announced that they are staying in the Big 12 and will keep the conference going. I wouldn't doubt if this wasn't the end of it, though. I foresee 4 Super Conferences forming some time within next 3 or 4 years.
Not much else to say except that the Rangers only a couple of weeks out from the All-Star Break. Yeah, I know.
Into the darkness you shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There is no one like You
None like You
Python and Django
Category: Web Development
I want to redesign my website again, but I hesitate because I feel like I do it too often. There are two reasons I do it so much, though. First, I've never been completely happy with any design I've ever done myself, mostly because I'm not a graphics designer. I struggle mightily to come up with a design I can live with, but I can't ever come up with anything that looks really sharp. Second, I like to play when I get a new toy. As I learn new things in web development, I want to give them a try. My website has kind of been my sandbox for playing with the various tools I've acquired over the past few years. The design that I have as of the writing of this post was inspired by JQuery and Ajax. I had limited experience with both in the past, but I redesigned my website to rely on those things. Now that I've really gotten a handle on both of them, I cringe when I go back and look at the code I wrote as I was first learning them. Plus, I just acquired a new toy I want to give a try.
Python is so much more structured than PHP. I struggle to keep my code organized and coherent in PHP because it's such a beginner-friendly language. Anyone can pick it up, but if you want to use OOP and keep your models and views separate, you'll have to really know what you're doing. In Python, and specifically the Python-framework Django, all of that is inherently included. It takes a minimal amount of effort to keep things organized. So now I want to redesign my website - again. If only I could figure out a design I'd be happy with, I'd be good to go...
As To Win the Prize
Category: Running
I ran my first Half Marathon this past Sunday with a time of 1:37:00 (chip time was 1:36:47). I was about 10 seconds per mile slower than the Boston qualifying pace (for the full), but I was extremely happy with how I did. Within the first mile of the race, this guy (George) made a comment to the effect of "Now I don't have anyone to talk to." So I caught up with him and started chatting about the Austin Marathon and how he did in his Boston Marathon back in 2001. His goal for the race was to finish in under 1:40:00 (he did it in 1:38). I decided to try to stick with him throughout the race, which turned out to be a good idea. He kept me entertained through most of the race and helped me keep a faster pace than I would have if I had been running on my own. He was very friendly to the other runners and even to the people that were standing on the side of the road cheering people on. It was a great experience and reminded me of how much I love running in races. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but it will be soon.
We bought a new front-loading washer and dryer this week. It's kind of ridiculous how excited we are about it. It makes me feel old or uncool or something. :P But we are very excited about them. We chose to finance them so we wouldn't have to dip into savings, which I think will be a good thing in the long run. God bless Dave Ramsey, but in order to get a house, we're gonna need a mortgage, and in order to get a mortgage, we're going to need good credit. Hopefully this will help us out with that.
Foundations is going fantastically. ginni and I gave our Life Maps last time and we're looking forward to hearing the Calloways go this weekend. Since we started going, I've gone to a Stars game with Jonathan, had dinner and dessert with the Calloways, and had BWW with all the guys. It's nice to have a social life again, not to mention being surrounded by other young married couples that are trying to grow in their faith and marriage. I'm pretty stinkin' happy about how all of that has played out.
We've also been going to Celebrate Recovery for the past 3 weeks. I originally intended to go just to support gin, but before the first session was over I decided that God had some good work He could do in me there. At worst, it's another day during the week besides Sunday to remind me how important God needs to be in my life. At best, God is going to do some amazing things in my life. I'm leaning towards "at best."
Lots of fun web stuff going on with me right now. I'm learning Python - finally. I've been meaning to get into it for months now. I absolutely love Python and Django. It's really easy to use (especially the Django admin) and very structured. A nice change of scenery from the mess that is PHP. I'm currently redoing ginni's website in Python and am having a blast doing it. I also just found out that I may have another potential paying client. If I can determine that their web server supports Python/Django, I'm absolutely going to do it that way. If not, well, I just may have to convince them to change web hosts.
I can't make any promises that I'll post more often, but I can promise that I will try. (Note that that wasn't actually a promise...)
It's a liar, it's a thief
Category: Writings
A storm is brewing
I can feel it, smell it
the sun is hidden
despite weather forecasts
Darkness has arrived like a familiar old friend
it tears her from my arms
I helplessly watch her tender heart suffer unjustly
as I'm replaced by distraction's sharp edge
I witness her self-hate resurrect
then am forcibly turned from view of her undeserving shame
I refuse to retreat
I will fight these unseen demons
protect her from these unwelcome invaders
I struggle to maintain balance as I sympathize without surrendering
It tries to steal her from me
insisting I will survive
It's a liar, it's a thief
she is me and I am her
we are one
we cannot exist apart
nor can we perish together
We will endure forever
Run In Such A Way
Category: Running
I didn't really do New Years Resolutions this year, but ginni and I did decide to run a marathon in April. I'm also giving up sodas for the duration of the training (although that is mostly out of necessity, if I actually want to finish with a half-decent time - which I do). My original goal with this race was to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For those of you that do not know, I ran my last marathon in 2004 and finished with a time of around 4 hrs 16 min. To qualify for the Boston, being in the age group of 18-34, I must finish in under 3 hrs 10 min. That means I must cut off over an hour from my last marathon and average 7:15 per mile. We're in our third week of training and I'm struggled to run 8 miles on Saturday at around 10 min/mile. If my body doesn't start shaping up, I'm gonna have to try to run another marathon in December (with my dad) to qualify for the Boston. We'll see how it goes.
I went online the other day to look at my credit score, just out of curiosity. It reminded me of how far I've come with financial responsibility. I'm not sure why God gave me the job I have now, making the money I'm making and having a family to take care of like I do. When He gave me little ($7 / hr at PetSmart, all the way through $12 / hr at Frankenstein), I squandered it. I maxed out credit cards, paid rent late on a regular basis, and saved absolutely nothing. I took the one coin He gave me and gambled it away. Luckily for me, He entrusted me with more - and I learned. I'm still learning, in fact. I recently discovered www.Mint.com; it's a great (and free!) budgeting tool. ginni and I are able to make sure we are saving plenty, and giving plenty, without getting behind on bills or going hungry. And even with all that, I still get to play XBox or spontaneously buy Imma a new toy or whatever else, pretty much whenever I want to. The sun is shining down on me so far in 2010, so I say "Blessed be Your name."
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