Category: Just Saying …

I’ve been working on a couple of programming projects the past few weeks. One is the FoodieFeeds site (http://www.foodiefeeds.com), which shows the latest food blog posts from member sites. It’s in partnership with my friend Larry Gaian, AKA “the BBQ Grail”, for whom I have worked on several other web sites the BBQ Grail and others.

Another site I am working on is what will eventually be an open-source product. Not quite ready to announce that one, but I do have the new domain name all set up. More on that when it’s closer to being ready for prime time.

I am also helping out a local business update their web site. This one is actually a paid consulting gig. With all these projects, I am spending a lot of time in the basement office here at home. It’s a nice place, quiet, with some music via SkyFM.com. playing in the background.

There is also a possibility of a full-time position. Initial interviews have gone well, so am waiting for the results on that. It’s a pretty good fit for my experience, and looks to be an interesting position.

And keeping busy with other things. Spring is getting closer here in Utah, so I’ve been planning for the garden area. This is a new project for me. I am trying out the ‘square foot gardening’ technique, so have the lumber ready for building the garden boxes. The weather has been a bit cool to work outside, though. And planting time around here is not until the middle of next month, so I am basically on schedule on that project.

Pam and I went to the Utah DMV yesterday to get our Utah drivers licenses. We had all the required identification (old drivers license, social security card, a bill with our new address, and a DNA sample) that is needed due to the new federal “Real-ID” requirements. Since those new rules do not allow mail-in renewals, there’s more people than usual at the DMV.

Our wait was only about 2 hours. We both had to take an open-book written test. I missed 2 questions, Pam missed a couple more than that. But we both passed, paid the fee, got our picture taken, and left with a temporary Utah drivers license.

This morning started out with a bit of snow, but my clever and diabolical plan of procrastination worked, as the 1″+ of snow all melted off the driveway by about lunchtime.

Still working on the ‘sub-stealth’ project for the FoodieFeeds site. Making some good progress. Some of the new FoodieFeed sites have interesting tips about food (in particular, BBQ), so am also enjoying visits to those sites.

The ‘stealth’ project has gone public. Actually, the site went live last weekend.

The site is a Food Blog aggregator, called “FoodieFeeds” (http://www.foodiefeeds.com ). It’s a joint project between me (the web programmer) and Larry Gaian, an old friend who runs several BBQ-related web sites (the main one is ‘The BBQ Grail’ at http://thebbqgrail.com . We’ve worked together on several BBQ-related web sites.

The site is a way to a centralized site of the latest entries from participating Food Blogs. It uses a customized process and databases to build the page. It works pretty well, although sites with Atom RSS feeds are sometimes harder to get the information from. Still working on that problem.

Also working on another stealth project related to FoodieFeeds.

In the meantime, the job search is in progress, but not much action lately. So I keep busy in the basement by working on web site programming. My PHP and MySQL skills are getting better each day.

I’ve been working on the new web site. Almost ready for prime time; perhaps by Monday. It’s been keeping me busy; I am much less of a TV couch potato now.

No significant progress on the job front on my end. Pam did accept a position as the bookkeeper/accountant for a firm in Midvale. It’s about the same commute as we had in CA. She will start next Monday.

That means that I’ll be doing a bit more of the cleanup around the house. Perhaps even cooking dinners. I’ve had some practice, though. It was a year ago that Pam broke her wrist and elbow (different arms), so she was pretty much chair-bound for several weeks. I did all the laundry, cleaning (most of it), and soda-fetching. I figure I can handle it again.

And it will get me up earlier so I can take the grandkids to school each morning. The web projects will keep my day filled. And I’ve got to re-design this blog, since Blogger is taking away FTP transfer. Looks like another WordPress site will be happening soon.

I’ve been working on a new web site project. It is still in “stealth mode”, so can’t give too many details. But it’s heavy in PHP and MySQL, and will include page view tracking and ad placement/tracking.

The ad tracking part will be built from scratch. I’ve looked at a couple of open-source ad management systems, but didn’t find any I liked. So, I’m making my own.

The project helps keep me busy during the day (and sometimes in the evening). The job hunt still progresses; had a good interview today with a big-time recruiting company. That went well; we shall see.

As for this place: it’s run by Blogger software, with data transferred via FTP to my domain host. Got a notice from the Blogger folks yesterday that they will not be supporting FTP posting of posts. So now I need to figure out what to do.

I am leaning towards a WordPress-based site, since I’ve been working with that for the last 4-5 months, and have gotten fairly good at it, if I do say so myself. It’s another project, though, and I hadn’t planned on it. I need to get that other project finished and running first.

So, we’ll see what happens. Finish the ‘stealth project’, move this blog to a new front end, and still look for a job. That should keep me out of trouble.

Staying low this week. Our family is sharing a mild cold virus. This one is persistent: just when you think you are getting better, you get congested. But it’s not too bad. And it was a good excuse for some Baskin-Robins Rocky Road ice cream to soothe a scratchy throat.

Some web work the past few days. Been helping a friend with various BBQ-related sites. They are all WordPress-based, and he wanted a common look-feel to all of them. So I used my favorite WordPress theme, customized everything (which is quite easy with that theme), with a minor color change for each of the three sites. I added the necessary widgets, some customized PHP code for a few areas, and they are done.

The sites are:

• The BBQ Grail (http://thebbqgrail.com )
• MOINK Balls (http://moinkballs.com )
• Snouts to Tails (http://snoutstotails.com )

And then there’s the WikQUEpedia site (http://wikquepedia.com )

If you have any interest in BBQ (or are looking for some good tips), I’d suggest that you take a peek at those sites. The MOINK Balls look really good. (You’ll have to visit the site to figure out what a MOINK Ball is.)

Woke up this morning to about 2 inches of snow on the ground. The snow was a bit soggy, since temps have been warmer overnight – there was a mix of rain and snow overnight.

So, I grabbed a granola bar (oatmeal-raisin), put on my boots and coat, and went outside to shovel off the driveway. My technique is ‘push and shove’, with a bit of ‘lift and throw’ at the edge of the driveway. Then walk back to the center of the driveway to repeat. Since the driveway is so wide, there’s too much snow to do a push-and-shove all the way across the driveway. So I have a small pile of snow – currently about a foot high – down the center of the driveway.

I got the driveway all cleared off (except for the center pile), did the front sidewalk, and called it ‘done’. Went into the house for breakfast and to read the papers.

About mid-morning, it started to clear up outside. The sun came out a bit in partly cloudy skies. At about noon, I looked outside. The snow had mostly melted from the streets, and the neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk were clear of snow.

The neighbor hadn’t shovelled his driveway today. He let the sunshine and warmer temps do the job for him.

The rest of the day was low-key. Cleaned up the kitchen a bit, worked on my CellarWeb web site (http://www.cellarweb.com ). And that’s about it for today.