Life

Me Today 8.14.08

Finally found a house, putting deposit down after work, loving the new job still, and learning Ruby.

The First Week

Well I made it through the first week working at DigiMedia and I gotta say, I loved it. It is a bit of a big change from freelancing from home but I was expecting that. I love having to go to work each day and being around other developers and designers and working on larger projects. I spent most of this week in Photoshop cranking out graphics. The rest of the time was spent finishing a WordPress project that was already started. Fixing errors, setting up some new plugins, and other things of that nature. I got a crash course on their Ad Manager which is just massive and look forward to messing with it more and ending up giving a quick class on WordPress to some retail people. Overall it was a pretty good week and I think I will enjoy working there. Another plus with the new job is having to learn Ruby. As you know, I’ve wanted to for awhile but client work always got in the way. However, with most of the work at DigiMedia being done in Ruby this gives me a chance to finally learn it. I have some books that I’m going through and several people I can turn to for help if needed.

Besides starting the new job this month we will also be moving in the coming weeks. We are still debating on a house or apartment, either way we plan to rent. Between me just starting the new job and Melissa planning to change from online classes at Uni of Phoenix Online to local classes here at Midwestern State University for nursing starting in January we just aren’t sure what would be better for us. Either way it will only be for 2-3 years.

I am also attempting to finish my redesign. I posted a screen of it on flickr awhile back and got lots of great feedback. I have started coding it to WordPress and just about done with the main page but still have several things to do. The problem is client work is on top of my list right now and taking up most of my evenings and weekends so I’m having to make time for my projects which right now there just isn’t enough of. I would like to have it done by the end of the month. As next month is full as well between getting settled into the new place and taking a mini-vacation to Kansas to see Melissa’s grandparents.

Play, Want, Bin: July 2008

I plan to post a Play, Want, Bin at the end of every month to show what I’m currently playing, wanting, and binning. Seen a few other people including Rockers Delight which I’m borrowing/stealing the idea from.

Play

Super Mario Galaxy - This is still one of the best games for the Wii and I’m playing through it right now. Me and Mario go way back and this game never disappoints. It is one of those games that you must play on the Wii. Great use of the controls and the whole flying between planets/stars is a great addition to the normal Mario levels.

Halo 3 - I have no clue why I keep coming back to Halo 3 but I always do. I binned it awhile back and here it is back in play. I had a break from gaming (the reason there was no play, want, bin last month) for the past few weeks and have been in the mood to shoot some people in Halo. Maybe I’m just looking forward to Halo Wars also.

Want

Soul Calibur IV - I was a fan of Soul Calibur II on the original Xbox. It was also my first time with a Soul Calibur game. I have seen and heard great things about the game so it is at least worth a rent but I might end up buying it. Either way I’m checking it out.

Nintendo DS - I have wanted a DS for awhile and finally going to buy one soon. My son is wanting one for Christmas so it is the perfect excuse to get myself one as well. I have several games on my list that I want to check out and my son has already been looking at games for him. What games are a must have?

Bin

Nothing has really been binned recently. Most of that is because I haven’t spent a lot of time gaming the past month and with our upcoming move into a new place, my gaming time will be limited again.

There you have it. My current Play, Want, Bin list. Feel free to post your comments or your own list.

A Big Transition

If you follow me on twitter then you already know this news and if you don’t follow me, why not? The big upcoming news is that several weeks ago I was contacted by a local development company wanting to know if I was interested in coming in for an interview. Now I have been freelancing full time for well over two years and part time for awhile before that. I love working from home, setting my own hours, finding clients that I enjoy, etc. However, last year I started thinking about maybe moving to a firm. I had looked at a few but in the end just kept with freelancing. Being contacted by DigiMedia last month was an opportunity that just fell into my lap so I had to at least check it out.

I went for an interview and it went great. Met the other developers and got a tour of the place which was really nice. They are located on the 8th Floor of the Chase Bank Tower here in Wichita Falls, TX. In fact just down the street from where I live right now. All the guy there were great, they have a great setup and working on projects that interest me. The company started as a domain company with a huge portfolio of top level and mostly generic domain names (jerky.com, drum.com, etc). However, they are working on developing out some of those domains. Meaning it will be 100% internal work. I won’t have to deal with clients, invoicing and all that admin stuff that I hate doing anyways. Some of their recent two sites are FantasyFootball.com and MovieReviews.com.

I am looking forward to joining their team and finally got word last night that I will be starting this coming Wednesday. I will still be doing some freelancing part time. I have a few clients that I will continue to work with and of course plenty of personal projects to finish up. So, things will be changing for me but it looks like for the better and I’m excited about it.

My 5 Things for Viddler

I’ve been wanting to do more videos and I finally got around to doing a 5 Things for Viddler. So, enjoy 5 things you may not know about me and if you haven’t posted your own 5 Things video, head over to Viddler and post one already.

The Dark Knight

There are no real spoilers in this post about the movie, however if you want to know nothing you might want to overlook this post.

I’ve had my ticket to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight for awhile and last night was finally the night. I ended up getting there about 10:30pm which is about 30-40minutes later then I wanted to but still wasn’t bad. The theater I was at, the only one who was showing Batman here in town, had 5 screens showing last night between 12:01am and 12:30am, all sold out. I was in 12:01 and when the time came for the movie it was awesome. The last Batman was good but I didn’t think it was amazing. However, this was one of the best movies in a long time. Everybody was worried for awhile about Heath being The Joker and comparing him to Jack.

That time is gone. Heath set a new standard for a villain and will always be The Joker. They left some amazing story lines for The Joker to continue in the next movie and after seeing it, it really hits you that he won’t be coming back as the character. He did an amazing job. While watching the movie you don’t see Heath at all, you don’t even realize that Heath is the man behind the makeup. You only see The Joker, not a character. He really dives into the role. Overall the whole movie was great. Most people will talk mostly about Heath but Two-Face was portrayed much better then in the past and the emotional problems that Batman faced made a great story. Needless to say I will be going to see the movie again this coming week. As, I don’t think once will do it justice.