Lesson in Canadian Geography

I live in Calgary.  I'm clearly not a master in geodesy, but I'm pretty sure Mississauga is not somewhere between Richmond and Calgary.  Canada Post rocks.  And we're wondering where our tax dollars go...

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

Know When to Stop

I get myself into these situations once in a while where I get really excited about a particular problem and end up with a mess as the solution.  Here's my workflow.

1. Think about it.
2. Sketch out a solution.
3. Code towards my solution.
4. Refactor (go to step 1)

Somewhere in that loop I go from 4 to 3 to 4 to 3 a bunch of times and when I come up for air I have a complete mess.  Ideas pop into my head quickly and I seem to go down strange paths here and there. Before I know it my code is littered with random design thoughts that don't hang together in any way.

STOP!!!

... git here we come ...

Great UI == Damn Near Impossible

Getting a User Interface right is like scoring a 52 at your local Golf Championship?  Ain't gonna happen.  I'm currently working on a brand new UI for our users.  They want an easy way to edit data.  Great.  I'm guessing they're meaning efficient and intuitive.  Well easy for me isn't easy for you.  Actually, quit the opposite.  If you take my Dad for instance, who is in his 70's, you are going to get someone that is not at all that interested in typing CTRL-Z to undo his changes.  In fact, unless he gets a giant icon on the screen that gives him a very obvious indication that he can actually undo his changes, he won't even know the feature is there.  On-the-other-hand, if you make me pick up the mouse to do anything I'm going to get pissed off.  So, that simple case tells me that getting it right for everyone is damn near impossible.

Let the Training Begin

Well, I survived my first 20 minute run training session.  It wasn't pretty let me tell you, but my goal is to get out 5 days a week until the race. Whether it's for a bike ride or a little run, I have to get out. I'm hoping that after a couple of weeks I can sustain a 20 minute run. That's a big goal for me because I can't keep a sustained run to 5 minutes.

For those of you who don't know, I've been encouraged suckered into signing up for an Adventure Race.  It's an 8 hour race (~55 km) that includes navigation, trail running, mountain biking, river canoeing and repelling off some cliff.

I need to lose at least 60 lbs if I'm going to attempt this.

Not Too Shabby

Well, a day of playing with Drupal has produced a fairly nice site for what I need.  I must say that I am quite impressed with it.  I'm sure if I grab the infamous CCK module the power will really come out.