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.
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.
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.
April 11, 2006 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.