Well, it’s been a while since I made an update around here. Sorry about that to anyone who still comes by, or has a brown line in their feed reader (hopefully it’s not brown anymore!). As always, I continually hope to post more around here, and I think now I may be able to change that, for, today begins a journey into self-employed-dom. I’ll be leaving my post at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in about a month or so and will be making a full-time effort of things over at RHM Interactive.
This certainly isn’t something that I’m doing on a whim. Ask any previous full-time employer that I’ve had and they’ll all tell you that during evaluations and exit interviews, the one theme that’s been a constant, has been my drive toward someday running my own web design/development business. I’ve gained a lot of experience and insight working for those people, and now it’s time to put that experience to use. I’m very excited that what was once just a dream, a plan, an idea, is now becoming a reality and I’m looking forward to being able to work on a host of interesting projects.
What kind of projects will I be doing do you say? Well, my 9-5 focus over the last three-and-a-half years has been client-side code: HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I expect I’ll still be doing a bunch of that going forward, but I also plan on doing some other fun stuff like UI design and back-end coding. I hope to venture out into Objective-C/CocoaTouch land to develop some iPhone application ideas that have been rolling around in my head, and I plan to move this site over to a new platform to force myself to learn a new CMS.
That said, I’m looking to post more here about my adventures as a self-employed HTML Jockey, so keep an eye on your feed reader or Twitter as things progress. Obviously, when the time comes, I’ll be kicking up more dust over at RHM Interactive, and that Twitter account, as well.
Now, where’d I put my parachute?
Today was Rob Maurizi’s last day at Fry. He wishes you well in your future endeavors.
Should you need to schedule lunch or drinks or discuss the merits of web standards and all things Apple, please email him at xxx@xxx.xxx or call xxx-xxx-xxxx.
See y’all at Blaggards.
TINA (project manager):
We're not here to develop functionality
CHARLES (information aechitecht):
Tell me about it!
Fry Chicago is looking for a front-end developer to turn PSD files into XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. Even though the ad doesn’t mention it, I’d say the candidate should have a firm grasp of web accessibility and semantic markup. Knowledge of JQuery would also be a bonus.
Don’t be fooled by the title, this isn’t a “producer” job as it’s normally thrown around in the industry. In Fry-speak, a producer is a front-end engineer. A client-side coder. An HTML/CSS/JS/DOM wrangler, if you will.
But if you sign on for the adventure, you’ll be joining a growing team of standards-savvy developers like myself who are looking to make the Internet (and E-Commerce with it) a better place.
View the ad at Authentic Jobs
- Written on March 14, 2007
- Filed under Day Job; Web
I had the fortunate pleasure to read two great articles on clean markup and web standards back to back on my bus/ferry ride home from work the other day. The first, How to Grok Web Standards, by Craig Cook on A List Apart, and the second Markup as a Craft, by Garret Dimon over on Digital Web.
Read more…
It’s official.
I’ve given notice at UVM and begin work with Fry, Inc. on October 2, 2006. What was once sort of a dream is becoming a full-fledged reality. I’m reminded of the scene from Annie Hall in which Alvy & Annie are at Tony Lacey’s party and we overhear a snippet of a conversation:
Right now, it’s only a notion. But I think I can get money to make it into a concept. And later turn it into an idea.
[source:
WikiQuote]
It sort of went that way. A notion in Katie’s head years and years ago, countered by my own fear of moving and great change being clouded by a “good job with great benefits” and being responsible for my (now late) brother. But now Billy has passed, and Nicholas was born, and with this the need to be less than 300 miles from anyone called family became stronger than ever. Katie’s notion never died, and in fact, it became a concept, then an idea, then a seemingly never-ending series of “plans du jour”, with many near starts.
None of them seemed quite right though. None of them had the potential to be my Annie Hall (if I can even compare myself for a brief instant to Woody Allen (which I can’t, so I’ll stop)). Then I ran into an old friend at a wedding and everything began changing. While running around Rhode Island looking at strange (to both of us!) towns to consider calling home and interviewing for jobs that only fit in some ways, a job that seems like the perfect fit becomes available in the old country (my old country, anyway).
So here I am, with only a few weeks left at UVM before doing what most of my friends did ten years ago– moving home. With any luck it won’t be nearly as crazy as it sounds, but I have a feeling that that’s not going to be the case.
Stay tuned…
Why do people from Waterman keep coming into the lab and looking around?
One time when this happened, someone wanted to turn our room into a language lab. Another time, I think the nursing school was planning a computer lab for their students.
Word on the street is that someone wants to take over the fourth floor of Lafayette for more classroom space. God knows we need it, but I have to wonder where we’ll end up.
- Written on April 11, 2006
- Filed under Day Job
On this, one of Steve’s last days at the Free Press, he sends us the following, which is effectively one man’s meaning of life:
To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.” I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk I have a work station….. Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice?” There’s no future in time travel. If you can’t convince them, confuse them. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don’t have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? I gaze at the brilliant full moon. The same one, I think to myself, at which Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato gazed. Suddenly, I imagine they appear beside me. I tell Socrates about the national debate over one’s right to die and wonder at the constancy of the human condition. I tell Plato that I live in the country that has come the closest to Utopia, and I show him a copy of the Constitution. I tell Aristotle that we have found many more than four basic elements and I show him a periodic table. I get a box of kitchen matches and strike one. They gasp with wonder. We spend the rest of the night lighting farts.
And how.
