Coffee and Code

Does it seem as if, as you grow older, time seems to pass more and more quickly?

That’s how I've been feeling these days... But enough. The month of July has been a lot of fun: fair weather, outdoor adventures, good booze and great friends. It has also been insanely busy month, as far as my occupation is concerned. I’ve recently taken the tactic of trying to convince myself that I enjoy stressful, high-pressure situations. Seems to be working out, but if I've lost all of my hair by Christmas then I might have to take that back.

As I write this, a Bowflex commercial is playing on TV: "I gave all my fat clothes to my fat friends!". What an a-hole, huh? I’ll bet his "fat friends" were like, "Oh, thanks" but peed on his car door handles afterward or something.

Uh-oh, looks like I’m hitting the bottom of my blog-worth thought barrel. I’d better go for now - that whiskey’s not going to drink itself, now is it?

Okay, this is just a short post to explain the above photo:

My sister snapped this photo in Denver that was posted in someone’s shop... At first glance, it looks like your typical "Pet Found" ad... Except that this is not a cat! As near as I can tell, it's an Opossum.

Either the person who made this is an evil, brilliant genius, or very, very confused... My favorite part? "Not very friendly! I think he might be scared :-(" HA HA HA!!!!

Okay, I just found this picture on Hannah’s facebook profile so I just had to write a post about it.

My cousin Hannah lives in Montreal. She flew down for the weekend to visit my sister in Denver, and yesterday they went up to Cheyenne to visit the family there. Pictured here is Hannah holding Sebastian, my newest nephew as of April 11th, 2008. This is a great picture! In the background you can see Don Bess, my sister’s boyfriend. (Andy, my brother is in there too, but you can only see his leg...)

I haven’t met Sebastian yet. Hopefully I will get a chance later on this summer when my schedule slows down enough to allow some vacation time. I haven’t seen Claudia and Don in a really long time, and I know that they will show us a hell of a time in Denver. Plus, it’s only a two hour shot from Denver up to Cheyenne to see Mom, Dad, Andy, Haley, A.J, and of course Sebastian.

In other news, I picked up some new music this weekend: Avenged Sevenfold (self-titled), and the Dropkick Murphys’ "Meanest of Times".

Avenged Sevenfold is the band’s latest album, and I do like it. It’s not quite as heavy as their previous album, and contains a lot of twisted love songs. However, they still riff sick and make me bang my head.

"Meanest of Times" is my favorite: the Dropkick Murphys’ brand of Irish/punk/hardcore/folk music really wants me to get out my bottle of Jameson and "tear it up". Their music kinda makes you want to sing along. I’ve been listening to it loud all weekend.

Well, that’s all for now. I wish everyone a great Memorial Day and happy trails!

It’s been a while! I have been really, REALLY busy, so I thought I should seize this three-day weekend to do some catch-up, i.e. post a blog entry before the month of May slips away...

First, I should let you know that I am moving this blog to a new website at the end of the summer: www.punkulo.us. I didn’t link it here because the domain currently points nowhere. I am almost done with the design for the new site, and am pleased to say that it’s different than anything I have designed in the past. Maybe I’ll post a screenshot soon.

I also finished up on a months-long project I was working on for an associate... a good feeling! So, I’m devoting the summer to working on personal projects, such as the above-mentioned website and a new version of my online I-Ching: The Oracle of Changes application.

Last Saturday, a litter of six baby squirrels popped up from a hole in our front yard. I must say, they are very cute and photogenic. (I normally don’t care for squirrels, but I have a weak spot for the baby ones.) I think they might be orphans because I haven’t seen the mother yet. So, my girlfriend and I have been looking after them when we can, fending off the marauding neighborhood cats and such.

Well, that’s all for now. I will return for another post in June. See ya!

I signed up for an account on Adobe's Photoshop Express Beta program the other day. It's One of a handful of truly useful Software-as-a-Service (SaS) offerings I've found.

The User Interface

The design of the site is quite polished; the user interface is clear, simple, and easy to understand. I didn't care for some of the markup (heavy use of tables) and the application seemed to take quite a while to load initially. Overall, though, the site looks great and the UI is a winner.

Features

While the Express version isn't anywhere near as robust as the full-fledged version of photoshop, or even Photoshop Elements, it does offer some basic tools that make quick retouching of photographs and artwork a snap.

Here are some features, just to name a few:

• Cropping, rotation, and distortion
• Saturation, tint, and hue adjustment
• White Balance
• Sharpening

You can also organize your photos into galleries, and we're not talking boring ol' lists of pictures here - Photoshop Express allows users to create rich, highly interactive photo galleries. (Even 3D ones!)

What's Missing?

One thing I would like to see on the site is more community/collaboration features. Currently, you can create public galleries on the site with one or more albums. The ability to leave comments on other users' work would be cool; some syndication support would also be nice. With that, the Photoshop Express site could become a landing spot and networking point for designers and artists.

Also, I think the 2GB storage limit is a little low; I think some of my designer friends could max that out rather quickly. But, since there are no super-huge .PSD documents to deal with, maybe not.

All things considered, I like Photoshop Express and look forward to using it. Oh, and did I mention it's FREE?