Just wanted to say congratulations on graduating to Erica, Claire, Kate, Kelly, Casey, Beth, Vanessa, Colin, and everyone else at RISD who graduated today, some of whom I know I’m forgetting to list (for such oversight, I abjectly apologize). You’re done! Huzzah!
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Microformats
This really deserves a fuller posting than this, but the gist of it: Microformats are a way to make your data more machine-friendly, related to (but separate from) the Semantic Web movement. There are several microformats out and seeing use, including hCard and hCalendar. Several more microformats are currently in draft form, such as hReview, and hResume. What’s really nice about this is that it makes your content readable for both humans and machines, and their extensive use of classes allows a built-in versatility in layout via CSS.
Of course, the drawback is that it’s more cruft to try and remember to implement. The folks spearheading the movement seem to understand this, though, and most of the drafts and specifications have online creators that you can use, and several plugins for popular blogging applications (like WordPress) are in development. I just used the hResume Creator to create a basic resume which I’ve posted here.
826 Valencia
I might be late out the gate on this, but I wanted to call attention to 826 Valencia, which is a non-profit writing and tutoring center started by the folks at McSweeney’s. There are seven branches around the country now, which each one running a unique storefront to help fund their efforts. The original location in San Francisco runs a Pirate Supply Store. The one in New York City is for superheroes, while the one in Los Angeles is for time travelers. Seattle is all about space travel (appropriate since the Sci-fi Museum is also in Seattle), Chicago is meant for spies, while Ann Arbor, Michigan offers a home for itinerant monsters, and Boston is home to cryptozoologists from all over.
So friggin’ cool. I wish stuff like this had been running when I was a kid.
Delays and Excuses
“The best laid plans…” and all that. Apologies for the slow posting. For what it’s worth, the day before flying back to Portland, I came down with a hell of a cough that has been driving me bonkers ever since. At some point, I imagine it’ll go away, but in the meantime, it hasn’t exactly put me in a posting mood (after a string of coughing, most of the time all I really want to say is “fucking hell…”).
Despite the cough, I’ve been keeping busy the past week or two catching up on things that I’d let slide while gone for the month (finally did my taxes today, woo! …and yes, I did in fact file an extension when I realized my paperwork was in Portland and I was in DC, so no guff about procrastinating this time). I’ve also been spending a fair bit of time with my friend Jessica (not going to jinx it by trying to define it into a neatly compartmentalized relationship, but I will say I’ve been really enjoying her company, and leave any conclusions to be made to the reader).
I didn’t get the LaCie job, which is a shame, but I remain optimistic about finding a reasonable position somewhere in the Portland area (not that it’s a requirement, but it would be nice… I’m also applying elsewhere, just less so). I’ve also decided it’s time to try revising my resume again, to see if I can elicit more responses from my job hunting attempts.
Will get back to posting more regularly soon.
DC Sightseeing
I’ve spent the past few days staying with Scott, Shane, and Brian down in Arlington, doing the sightseeing thing through DC. It’s been good fun, and each day I completely filled the compact flash cards I have (two 2gb cards)… this may sound like a lot, but given that I was shooting raw, that’s really only about 500-550 images total. Now that I HAVE those images, of course, I need to actually sift through them, do any post processing I feel is necessary, and upload them… which in some ideal world will be after I move to Zenphoto. So, time willing, maybe by the end of the week.