imagery

23.08.08

stepping out of the ßoat

The newsletter¹ I sent out in January provides a good summary of the project I was developing for Human Resources at Power to Change. Launched last December, the Online Application Tool was quite polished by the end of March, when my contract ended. For the technically savvy, I wrote/ranted of my love/hate experiences with Ruby on Rails back on Valentines day.

Having received an inheritance from my Grandpa’s death, I was in no hurry to work. Rather, I attended the Open Web Conference, did some housesitting, and dreamt up ways to become self-employed, if only I could find the motivation.

to write with light

Trinity Western University runs two photography courses over the summer. It’s something I have wanted to do, but whenever I checked online, it was full.

On May 19th I sent in an inquiry for the one-week program in Kelowna, it begins this Labour Day weekend.

The morning of May 20th, I was invited to attend the classes that began that evening. The 6-week program in Langley still had room!

Arranging to stay the night in Fort Langley (thanks Jason), I packed a bag, and hopped on transit from Mission.

That evening took us from the Camera Obscura through to modern DSLRs, plus some practical advice on composing with the viewfinder.

Mike Rathjen is the kind of instructor who practices what he teaches, so naturally he shares all sorts of great tips beyond the curriculum. That night I finally learned what the “big deal” was about full frame sensors.

Accommodations were “interesting”, definitely living a little on the edge, and just trusting God to provide.

But it worked out, I had fun, and learned a lot. Casual photography doesn’t require much thought or planning. Our assignments were a different story, and that’s a good thing.

GAiNfully employed

Having depleted my savings on classes, new camera lenses, and Photoshop, it was time to go back to work.

After attending my Dad’s wedding, I accepted a 2-month contract with Global Aid Network. With the help of designer Bill, we are revamping our website (which is now live – 28.08.08).

code is Vogon poetry

I’ve “discovered” WordPress, and it’s actually pretty good. No, I haven’t been hiding under a rock for the past 5 years. I was there during the initial buzz of the “semantic publishing platform,” I just was never that interested.

Then last November, I setup a Lua blog on WordPress.com. In March, I designed a custom theme for uikit, and no, I’m not making any iPhone apps right now. Then in May I retooled the MacSword site to use WordPress, using a multi-lingual plugin, and interestingly, still hosted on SourceForge.

In the past, nathany.com has always been some custom concoction, written with whatever technology I was playing with at the time. Last week I finally moved nathany.com to WordPress. For now my custom template matches my old site and doesn’t add any WordPress specific features – like commenting and such.

It does make it a little easier for me to maintain my content, and if you are so inclined, you can subscribe to my feeds.

The GAiN website also uses WordPress as the underlying CMS, with quite a bit of customization to suit its’ unbloglike nature.

crossroads in the distance

A consequence of working on a short-term basis is that my mind never stops wondering what to do next.

For awhile now, I have been debating if I should continue in this career of computer programming, or go back to school to take up something else. Time will tell…