A status update

More than a month has passed since my last update. Did you miss me? I sure missed you, I truly love you guys. Jokes aside, it was rather uncharacteristic for this blog to go so long without a post, so I feel that a status update is in order before my feed ends up in the Dinosaur reports of your RSS reader. And with humanity facing the imminent threat of the Large Hadron Collider, I didn’t want to be sucked into a black hole without saying a few last words.

At the beginning of August I moved from Markham to Toronto (technically North York). My wife and I were prepared for this move, so it went well. That said, there were negative aspects beyond our control.

The Satellite Dish installer had a few interesting discussions with our property management, and while they eventually agreed to a compromise that would preserve the holiness and virginity of my balcony, they also caused me to miss the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. I really wanted to see the fake singing by the Chinese kid and the computer generated fireworks, but alas nothing. I consoled myself by eating dumplings a la Kung Fu Panda, minus the Kung Fu part.

Perhaps more devastatingly my ISP took its sweet time to activate my DSL service. And when they did, things worked on an off for all of August. When my ISP had problems connecting me to the tubes, I tried what any respectable geek would do. Despite my impression of the Statue of Liberty, standing near the window with my laptop in hand, my attempts to freeload on Wi-Fi were futile.

If these disruptive happenings weren’t enough, I’ve been very busy with work and the book I’m writing (Ruby on Rails for Microsoft Developers). I’ve written 7 chapters so far and just passed the 300 page mark. The schedule is tight, and there is so much that I want to include, so I have to dedicate almost all of my spare time to the book. On the bright side, I think I’m going to give readers their money’s worth.

The direct consequence of my focus on the book is that This Week in Ruby and This Week in Rails have been interrupted. A few of you enquired about them, bringing to my attention how much you appreciated them. Unfortunately, for the next two months I won’t have time to read all the daily feeds I normally follow and come up with weekly (or bi-weekly) reports of what’s cool and worth mentioning from. My friend Gregg Pollack may take over for the Rails post that gets published on the official blog. Unless someone sends me a complimentary English Bulldog puppy, in which case I promise to do both reports weekly and I’ll even put your picture with a halo over your head on the sidebar of the blog.

Another victim of overcommitment is the (vapor)shootout. Right now I’m at full capacity and need the laptop for both work and the book, so that will have to wait. If you want to lend a hand with the project, feel free to jump right in though.

Finally, while I may not have time for the weekly reports or the shootout right now, I can still spare some time to write posts more frequently. And there is no reason not to indulge in such a rewarding activity. So expect more technical articles, especially now that there are many interesting things to talk about (Google Chrome, Django 1.0, Rails 2.2, etcetera).