Another day, another dollar; at least the saying goes. Instead, today I spent my time filling out the last seven years of my life into this nice long form. Oh, what fun! I decided that I didn't have enough fun doing that today, so why not tomorrow too? Aw hell! Plus, a biggon is flying in tomorrow to "run interference" but I'm betting it's to keep an eye on us more then anything and make sure things are in check. When you have this much riding, all per-cautions should be taken to ensure success.
On a positive note, my second tour of duty is way less stressful and demanding then the previous one, at least so far. It looks like I might get the chance to relax a little and enjoy myself too. Plus, by the time this tour is over, I should know San Antonio pretty darn well. Too bad it's damn hot this time of year; the humidity is a killer, not something I'm used to at all
Yesterday Google released a Beta of the Google Web Toolkit. Basically, it is a toolkit written in Java that allows developers to create AJAX applications; a Java to JavaScript compiler. After reading through some of the documentation and looking through the sample apps I decided to give it a shot. The documentation was good and in roughly an hour I had a page that could fetch information from flickr.com using an RPC call.
Sadly though, I'm disappointed there is no OS X version yet, but I understand it's due to the embedded web-browser. So, technically I could use this on OS X, but having the embedded browser is really nice. It allows you to treat your Java source more like any scripting language. You change the Java source, save it and simply refresh the browser window in the embedded browser. Once it's reached the point where you like it, compile it and test it in an external browser.
I'm pretty stoked about this release. I have looked at other rapid AJAX development toolkits like RubyOnRails or Mockingbird, but I like the idea behind this one better. Hopefully I'll have more time to play with this, I've already got a widget I'd like to create in mind!
Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language
Well, it's that time of year again, and Ian pulled through for the second year in a row with a Smith River permit. Fortunately, with Ian's persistence he was able to get a cancelled launch spot. He pulled the permit less then 7 days before we were supposed to launch. Needless to say, it's a miracle that I was able to go. Fortunately, I happened to be in between projects and could afford to take 5 days off; but the Friday before isn't much notice.
The float was absolutely amazing! On Sunday Zach, Beej, Crash and I rounded up our gear and headed up to Camp Baker pulling a raft and canoe behind us. Once we got to Camp Baker we linked up with Ian and Emily. Early Monday morning, and by early I mean noon, we launched starting our first 12 mile day down the Smith River.
The morning after we launched I woke up to snow, not much and it didn't fall for long, but it was a bit of a surprise. I also woke up to an absessed tooth, ugh. Other then that morning, the weather was fantastic! It was still getting a bit cold at night, and I noticed frost on my tent and sleeping bag. However, during the day it was in the 50's or 60's and into 70's after the first couple days.
On the last night, Thursday and also Ian's birthday, we found a trail that led us up to the top of a canyon wall that was way above our camp. The view from there was just awesome! I got some pics of it, disappointed that I didn't take along the SLR though. Next year perhaps.
All I can say is this was a much needed vacation and I'm stoked that I could spend it on the Smith. This is my second year in a row and I hope to go again next year. It's the most beautiful river I've been on and the camping spots are sweet! I didn't take as many pics as I wanted to, but you can check them out here.
It's been a while since I've had a chance to post an update. For the majority of March and April I spent my days in San Antonio on site with a government client; meaning very limited internet access. It's now the middle of April and I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. I didn't realize how being gone almost 7 weeks can really effect your everyday life.
Coming home was interesting. While it was great to see all of my friends whom I hadn't seen in almost two months, things were different for me. After being such a stressful situation for that period of time will cause someone to either adapt or fail. After watching two of my co-workers fail to the point where they ended up losing their jobs, I quickly learned to adapt. So, by the time I got home I felt like I could handle anything. It really reminded me of that part in the movie Fight Club where the narrator is talking about fighting, "After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down." That's how I felt; everything else in my life got the volume turned down.
Anyways, I'm back for a while (hopefully) and I'll be responding to the all of the unread email I haven't gotten to while I was away.
So, I had some work to do late tonight and figured while I was waiting on some scripts to finish, I would spend some time making a few updates to my site; since I was in a coding mindset anyways. I finally got around to making the archive listing not so long, converting it from one to two columns.
I also added something new. Below the archive you will now find the "flickr interesting" section. It fetches a current list of images on flickr that considered the most interesting photos. I might toy around with this and add it so it displays the ones from the current day, but there needs to be a lapse time and I haven't quite figured out what that is yet. For the time being, it grabs the first 100 photos in the list, but I'm toying with the idea of adding AJAX to get the next set of images once it's done cycling through the first set. Until I figure out what if I will do that, it will just start the cycle over again. At least until you refresh the page ;)