Jeff Gardner

Mar29

Pet projects

I know, shocking carry on. I’ve been pretty quiet on the writing front recently. Too much programming to do. I’ve been working on a few little pet projects over the last few weeks. One is a site (with a simple web app) for the local bike advocacy group here in Blacksburg. Bike Advocacy at Virginia Tech is still a work in progress, but it has been really fun so far. The whole site is built in rails with a little Google charts thrown in for fun. The app is built to allow user to sign up and then track the miles that they log over the course of April.

The other project was whipped together last night when I was sitting up after coming home from the bar. The SupaFly DH is coming up this weekend (weather permitting) and the site for the event is just a little HTML/CSS, also put together a speedy little rails app to handle the time calculations and placing of all the riders in the race. Not bad for not all there at 3am.

I’ll be back soon, I promise.

Tags: apps, web development, work
Posted in Web Apps | View Comments

Dec8

50,000 words, a new job and skiing before Thanksgiving

Yeah you could say that I’ve been busy.

Let’s start with the novel. I posted here before say that I was taking part in NanoWriMo this year. First off, it was great fun overall and I did finish make my 50,000 word goal by the end of the month. Having a deadline on something as large as a novel (even a small one like 50k) is such a good thing, it forces you to just pour the words out onto the page. No matter how bad they are, and believe me, they are bad. Everyone writes crap for a first draft, especially under a deadline, but as many writers that chimed in on the NanoWriMo pep talks each week said, “A shitty finished novel will always beat an unfinished great novel.” I am inclined to believe them if only to stroke me ego a little. So make your plans now, signup for NanoWriMo 2009 and write yourself a novel!

The new employment situation: I am the new front-end web developer for Entermotion. They are a Kansas based company that builds webpages for clients and also develops web apps under the moniker Paste Interactive. It’s, so far, been a fantastic gig. I am super busy day to day and I am now working from home. It is a remote job, meaning that I can work from wherever – this is going to be pretty key for the impending move to Italy next winter.

And no, I haven’t moved to Colorado. I’m not sure who did the snow dance so well this fall but I’ve already skiied 4 days this year. Three at Whitegrass on the xc sticks and then yesterday at Snowshoe on the tele skis. It’s been all beautiful snow and soft powder (east-coast style, no cold-smoke). Here’s to the wonders of winter and the beauty of sliding down a hill really fast with sticks attached to your feet!

A few images of the xc at Whitegrass from the last few weeks for your viewing pleasure.