Happy Festivus to one and all!

I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2008. It’s been a great year with lots of twists and turns.

2008 was the first full year of 360|Conferences, and saw us visit; Atlanta, Milan Italy, and return to San Jose CA, where it all started for 360|Flex. It also saw us start to make some money, enough that we paid ourselves a little money, not a salary, but we’re able to show a bit of income for our efforts, which in a start up never hurts! Lastly, 2008 saw us announce our first non Flex event, 360|iDev, the first and largest iPhone developer conference.

I moved from being a Flex  developer consultant, working for some really great companies like Universal Mind, and Esria, to being the Community Evangelist/Solution Engineer for EffectiveUI. I love writing code, and still do, albeit not daily, and I’m trying to learn to write some iPhoneSDK code as well, but there’s something about helping EUI get more out of social media and community. I’ve learned a lot in a short period, and can’t wait to see how ‘09 treats me.

2008 was also the year we lost Terrance :( He was 10, I’ve lost a few animals over the course of my life; Chip, Mandy, Hamster Little Tike, Turtle Duke, Rat Eon. The dogs were family pets, and the others I was pretty young, I guess it never sunk in back then.  Terrance hit really hard, I had had him and his brother Philip since they were about 8 weeks old. Losing him so suddenly really hurt.

2008 was our first year in our new house in downtown Denver, w00t! We left Highlands Ranch in December ‘07 leaving behind moms in SUVs with nothing to do all day, starbucks on every corner, and more kids than I’ve ever seen in my life! We love it in Denver, if you can’t tell! We’ve enjoyed meeting our neighbors, and exploring our new neighborhood.

I also joined Jeff as co-host of The Flex Show, in 2008, and we just recorded my 1 year anniversary episode. I can’t believe it’s been a year! It’s been awesome, and I can’t wait to spend another year, helping Jeff to deliver the best source of news and interviews in the Flex Community!

Thanks to 360|Conferences, 2008 is also my first year in any type of frequent flier program. I’m finally Ascent level on Frontier Airlines. Granted they’ve been sucking more and more as an airline, and may not exist for all of ‘09, but hey, for the time being, I get on the plane first, and get my bags faster, can’t beat that.

2008 also (in December, but still) saw Tom and I launch OurStartupStory, where we’ll be talking about our views and experiences with 360|Conferences. We’ve got some great guys writing with us, so it should be a wealth of view points, definitely something to keep an eye on. (as if I need a new blog to write for, but oh well!)

Here’s to 2008, and an awesome 2009! Can’t wait to see what the new year has in store for all of us!

Tags: 2008, life

A lesson in 2008, Don’t F with Community

So last night I saw a very powerful example of not doing business like it’s 1980.

I remember as a kid, and even as a young adult, saying, “Wow, I had no idea a Wal-Mart/Starbucks/McDonalds/You name it, was going in there.”

Those days are no more. The internet has changed that, forever. Builders and land barons can no longer simply build something and slap a sign on it, and move on, not caring whether the community approved or not. It was easy, once built it’s hard for the community to stop something that’s already built.

Last night, hopefully taught Focus development that very lesson. They’ve signed a lease with 7-11 to put up a store at Broadway and Larimer, where the old auto repair shop building is. They did this without ever mentioning it to the Ballpark Neighborhood (where I live). Normally that’d be fine, I’m all for business, especially business coming to my neighborhood.

Unfortunately my neighborhood is a bit teetery. We’ve got 2 homeless shelters a block apart, and about 1.5 blocks from the proposed location of the 7-11. The concern isn’t just bringing the homeless further into our neighborhood; they’re already here, lots of them near my house. It’s the crime, the traffic, the impact on the residents of the lofts immediately next to the 7-11. It’s a lot of things, that Focus Development seems to have chosen to ignore.

The alleyway behind the lofts, apparently is frequented (nightly from the sounds of it) by homeless, drug dealers and takers, and apparently prostitutes. Currently a call to police allows the police to take the offenders, or at least drive them away. However with the 7-11 there, the offenders simply have to say they’re on their way inside or have just left, keeping the police from making that area safer.

So where did Focus go wrong? They never told the community, the community that is directly impacted by this 7-11. They seemed to have thought that they could simply set up this 7-11 regardless of the community’s opinions. Sure that’s how business would like it to be, but that’s simply not the case. Not these days. Business owners and residents alike all vowed to do whatever they could to stop the 7-11, and even more so, every future endeavor Focus Development undertakes in the Ballpark Neighborhood. That can’t be good. And How did this all go wrong for Focus? The Internet. Skabber twittered a blog link, that was an Email from someone else. I twittered the event, and blogged it. Word spread fast. In the ‘old days’ word didn’t spread, fast or if at all. Business should keep that in mind. I suspect there won’t be a 7-11 at Broadway and Larimer, just a hunch, but I’m guessing it’s not gonna happen.

Side note. the only two people “for” the 7-11, 1 that lives in Cherry Creek where the 7-11 there is completely nice and there’s no problems. DUH. And the President of our Association (will have to see how long that tenure is) who lives in Congress Park.

Tags: community, neighborhood

New and improved johnwilker.com

After tapping one of my good friends for some of his mad SQL skills, as well as dusting off more of mine than I intended to, I’ve now successfully moved johnwilker.com over to a hosted wordpress blog site.

Same Domain, same feed (assuming you’re using the feedburner feed, sorry Sim, but you can use this one)

A few comments got lost :( No posts did though (I think). It turned out to be much more manual than I expected. I’m still re-categorizing old posts, I’ve done 5 of 23 pages of posts in the admin, sheesh!

There’s a few reasons for the change. As much as I love BlogCFC, it was time for something a bit more robust and widely used. Mainly from the third party options stand point. Twitter updates, and other plugins, themes, etc. Using third party tools like Ecto or Marsedit to post. Or posting from my phone, consuming Flickr feeds, etc.

Ray’s done a damn good job, and my wife’s blog is still blog CFC. My Personal blog (which will be closing down in favor of a single point of contact (this blog), is still BlogCFC as well.

I also use Wordpress for the EffectiveUI blog, so having a single admin to master is kinda nice.

There were also some small annoyances with BlogCFC that crept up during the last update I performed; inserting a link was a multi step process. the first time I inserted a link, it would use some weird javascript thing, with a string of numbers. I’d have to go back to the link and edit it re-pasting the URL. Very likely a PEBKAC thing, but still annoying, and with my new and varied responsibilities, digging around in CF isn’t likely to be a priority for me :(

Future dating of posts was very frustrating. Ray and I worked on it for a good couple weeks, and I think it just comes down to not being a big part of BlogCFC. When possible I write blog posts days in advance. That worked pretty well with BlogCFC, however, if for some reason I had to change the post date, all hell broke loose. Unfortunately, that’s a common occurence, as I sometimes blog about things that won’t be public until a certain date, and sometimes that date changes (despite my frustrations, LOL). Inserting rich media like youtube, etc was hit and miss too.

Like I said, most if not all of these hassles could be solved by tinkering, but I just don’t have that leisure now. the Wordpress community is huge, godzilla huge!

Writing for the Denver Metroblog, the various 360Conferences blogs, and the EUI blog, I got used to working with Ecto. It’s nice to have a native mac app to do my blogging through. However I couldn’t use that tool with BlogCFC.

So here I am, on Wordpress. Let me know what you think :)

Tags: BlogCFC, Wordpress

More proof my wife is great!

Without even knowing it, prior to our meeting, she bought a widescreen, HD capable TV.

Tom and I bought a PS3 for 360|Flex Atlanta, since he’s already equipped for gaming, and Blue Ray, I got this one. Not counting when it’s doing a tour  of duty as the official Rock Band/Guitar Hero station for 360|Flex, it’s now our Blue Ray player. I doubt I’ll ever own or play a PS3 game, since my gaming days ended when the Original NES died… Good times, good times.

I was pleasantly surprised (I was fully thinking that we’d be buying a new TV sooner than planned to handle HD content) when I upgraded the PS3’s OS to support the BD/BlueTooth remote control, and it comes up with “HDMI Device Detected. Use it?”

“Oh hellz yeah!”

I watched a few minutes of Spider-Man 3 (came with the system), and then Transformers, and WOWZA! While I don’t think the world changed, or that I’ll never watch non 1080 content again, I will say that DAMN it does look great!

Tags: 360Flex, Wife

SF wrap up

Flex training was great. I have a much clearer understanding of the technology and different aspects of using it. Rob Rusher is a great teacher of this course.

Saw a few sites, we went to the Coit Tower one night. THe group from class was supposed to go out Salsa dancing with Rob, but I ended up having to work and Emily was tired. So Rob flew solo.

Nicole and I went up to Napa on Friday for some wine tasting. It was great. We picked up two cases from V.Sattui. Can’t wait for those to arrive.

We hit a few other places, Mumm was good, but not good enough. We did pick up a bottle of Brut from Chandon

We had sushi with one of Nicole’s friends and her husband. Great sushi place called Kirala in Berkeley.

Hung out with Ahmad one more time. Had a yummy dinner at Plouff, then walked to a champaigne bar for a drink. Had a good Port (Fonseca LBV 1999)

On our way to San Jose on Saturday we stopped at Mt. Tam, and walked around. Was incredible. very scenic.

Our last stop was the Winchester Mystery house. Highly recommend it! It’s very interesting. Lots of walking though, beware.

Tags: Adobe Flex, Napa Valley

I’m Getting Married

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so excited, nervous,

scared, happy, ecstatic, did I

mention nervous, happy,

excited?

Tags: Marriage

Not so current any more

Well today was the last day of work. I leave for Colorado tonight.

It was your typical last day of work, lots of hugs and handshakes. And for me, lots of work. My last day at any job is always a pretty hectic one. I actually had code to write.

BC and I talked for a time too. it was good. I like being a sounding board for ideas. I can tell he’s really trying too, which gives me hope for the state of IT for Argent. I was able to give him some feedback I’ve been meaning to give, so I feel better about that. I hope our conversation helps.

The Denver DataCenter is still an option as well, which is nice. BC assured me I had a spot in the organization if I wanted to come back.

All in all it was good. I’ll miss most of them.

Tags: Argent, Colorado

A weekend in Big Bear

Saturay - 4.28.2005

Started the morning with the traditional Alpenhorn Bed and Breakfast four course breakfast

1. Fresh Fruit (as opposed to the old stale stuff)
2. Homemade granola and yogurt. This trip we bought a bag of granola to take home. Who’d a thought ground up stuff could be so tasty.
3. Banana oatmeal broulee. I don’t like oatmeal much but how can anything with caramelized sugar on top be bad?
4. Main Course - Eggs Alpenhorn with a mushroom gravey. Basically a poached egg on top of an english muffin with gravey on top. Worth the price of admission on it’s own.

Since our last visit was spent almost entirely in our room or the main living room area this time we decided to get out and see Big Bear. Thinking a hike would be fun we headed to the Discovery Center. After taking one look at our shoes the old mountain man outside the center says,

“The Cougar Crest Trail will be just right for you I think.”

Vans, sneakers, no hats, hiking sticks or shorts, must have been a dead give away that we weren’t quite prepared. Don’t get me wrong. We’ve both hiked before, Nicole more recently than I. But niether of us thought about hiking in the packing of bags for this trip. Not that it would have mattered as I have no hiking gear anymore. I said I had been hiking before, just not how recently.

The Cougar Crest trail was a very good hike. Lots of very nice scenary, very few people. Aside from the obligatory, “hi, hello” exchange when passing other hikers, it was just Nicole, the trail, wilderness, and I. Very nice. Oh yeah and the sun, which mercilessly broiled our necks and faces.

Cougar Crest trail is 1.9 miles long. Clearly they were measuring basd not on how the crow flies or the tired hiker walks, but on something like how the mole digs or something. I can do 1.9 miles on the treadmill in not too long. This took for-freaking-ever. Again, I was wearing vans, Nicole, sneakers. That had a lot to do with our pace.

At the end of Cougar Crest Trail we hit the Pacific Crest Trail which lead to Bertha Peak. “You’ll know it by the radio transmitting gear all over the top” the discovery Center guide book said.

From the end of Cougar Crest to Bertha Peak was only .6 miles. The most uphill, and difficult .6 miles I’ve travelled in…. my whole life I think. Perhaps I’m a wuss, but damn if it didn’t kick my ass.

At the top, the view was bitchin’ very very bitchin’. After found a place to “water the flora” we headed back down. Anyone who says down is easier than up should be choked. Down is just as damn hard, maybe more so.

After such a long hike (took us about 4.5 hours) we did what I’m sure all outdoorsy types do… headed to the local pizza joint for a large pepperoni and pitcher of beer.

What’s not to like about monkeys?

Nicole and I went to see David Sedaris at the Barclay theatre at UCI. This dude is just damn funny. I’m not sure if he’s as funny to read as he is to listen to. His voice and tone just makes his stories so much more hilarious.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a really long time. It was a great experience. Particularly hearing him explain how he writes. what his “process” is. Very informative.

I’ve got Me Talk Pretty One Day on my iPod. gotta start listenning to it. Can’t wait.

Tags: David Sedaris, Monkeys