Written on Monday January 25, 2016 at 10:18 a.m.
Where to start. I guess, the biggest thing that's passed since I last wrote was that I lost a couple of very special people in my life, my maternal grand parents. It was a long and sad time. I spent months in Mexico, learning not just about my family but about myself as well.
My grandmother was the kindest woman you could ever hope to meet. She was an artist, she was strong, and she had so much love. She managed to raise a whole herd of children, and then was still able to dole out more care and support for her dozens of grand children.
My grandfather was my nick-name-sake. I am the spitting image of him, and I hope that I find the strength to carve out a successful path in life the way he did. He owned a farm, a brickyard, and leased several properties. If I could just find a portion of that drive in me, I know I'll find a way to contribute to my community. He laughed often, he never neglected any of his friends or family, and he always found a way to make party more fun.
None of this was particularly recent, I just haven't really had the time to let myself think about it. To actually feel and hurt and process and what have you, and honestly I think there's still more of that I need to do.
Written on Monday April 27, 2015 at 6:26 a.m.
I'm not really sure why I can't seem to consistently bring my self to write some blog posts, it's not a daunting task by any means and it's not like I'm worried about people scrutinizing what I put up here. I think for the most part my problem has just been time.
I think though, that might be starting to change. I've left CrowdCompass recently, I really can't say enough good things about my experience there with them. They helped me grow as a developer and I really felt that I had the ability to influence the direction of the company and the application.
I've started working with InQuicker though, and I think I'm going to move away from doing as much contract work as I've been committing myself to recently as part of this career transition. I really enjoy the projects and people I've gotten to work with, but I think it may be time to start focusing on my own projects.
So far, my experience at InQuicker has been great, the people are awesome and I like what the company is trying to do. I'm looking forward to delving into the projects there and really getting to know everyone.
Written on Monday May 5, 2014 at 10:57 p.m.
I recently read a book called "Smart and Gets Things Done", which was an interesting book on the hiring process for a tech company. I really enjoyed it and I thought it had a good chunk of advice that I will definitely take into account, but it has a passage on filtering resumés that I didn't particularly agree with.
The book essentially stated that ivy league candidates could outperform community college candidates, and it made absolutely no mention of candidates without the opportunity to have taken higher education.
Being a software engineer without a degree myself, I feel like I'm constantly having to fight the mentality that because I don't have a college degree I'm somehow an inferior developer, even though I have a good, long work history, I have contributed to open-source projects, and I have sample works that show an obvious passion and skill that is at least on par with that of anyone who does have a degree.
I understood the logic that having higher education means someone else has already filtered this person for "intelligence", but the smartest, most talented developers I know did not come from universities, they are people who started programming on their own to follow their passion, frequently, years before they would even be old enough to begin higher education.
I don't have a problem with people who have entered a tech career through a path of higher education, I just don't like the exclusive attitude that I frequently see in hiring guides, especially since it seems very few developers share these same prejudices.
Written on Saturday February 22, 2014 at 12:30 a.m.
I've recently been working on a new contract that has given me a very active role in the mobile design process, as in, all of it.
I'm finding myself really enjoying the challenge and the creative freedom as a change of pace from what I've fallen into where I'm typically given a task and complete it to specifications. Not that I have a problem with that kind of work flow, it's just something I'm really burnt out on right this second.
Something in particular that I plan to write about as soon as I find the time is manipulating markup to supplement responsive design and why it's really not as problematic as people seem to believe it is.
Written on Tuesday June 25, 2013 at 3:57 a.m.
So I recently introduced a new member to my small family. His name is Jake, he's a miniature poodle, 2 years old, stands at around 15" tall, and weighs just shy of 12lbs. He came home with us from the Oregon Humane Society 06/12/2013.
I'm really tempted to just spoil him to death, but I've been pretty good at curbing that temptation and actually following a training regimen for him. His training is going really well because of that and he's managed to learn "sit", "off", and "watch me" in just the week or so since we've started. He was already house trained too which was a bonus for us!
Ramiro