Refreshed

This weekend I went to the Houston ALT.NET Open Space Conference.  It was definitely a refreshing experience.  You can check the wiki to see what went on and get summaries of the sessions (not all the sessions have summaries yet).
I started to collect a list of things to read, things to listen to, and things to watch that was recommended by anyone in any of the sessions at the conference.  If you have any other recommendations for the list, please either send them to me or edit the page and add it yourself.  A lot of the entries there still need some explanation on why people should spend their time reading, listening, or watching.
I learned a whole heckuva lot over the weekend.  What I really found though was a desire to help build the developer community here in Houston.  I saw this weekend that we could have just as stimulating a conference here in Houston as in that other big Texas city up north with all the weirdos.  We need to show everyone that Houston is a great city for software developers!
Here are some quick things that I’m going to be exploring in the coming weeks (sooner than later hopefully):

• Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight (aka Prism):
• I learned that you can use Prism to build any type of application, it’s not completely tied to WPF or Silverlight.
• I’d like to see how to apply it to ASP.NET MVC or Windows Forms.
• Building complex (multiple-solution) software:
• The build is software too.
• Move away from copy/paste build scripts and towards convention based builds.
• Data Binding and Transformation:
• I’m still interested in how to do simple data binding and make it extensible.
• This is the basis for rich Windows Forms applications I think.

All in all, a great weekend.  Thank you to Ben Scheirman and his crew who organized the Houston ALT.NET Open Space Conference, and thanks to “Doc” for his expert adult supervision.  It was great seeing familiar faces and making new friends, thank you all for an awesome weekend!

Technorati Tags: altnetconf,altnethouston

Refreshing

I’m working on a personal refresh right now.  I changed the theme of this site to make it look cleaner.  I’m also signed up for the Houston ALT.NET Conference (http://houston.altnetconf.com), which is pretty exciting.  The last time I went to one of these open space conferences, it lead to a flurry of blog posts followed by a hiatus (thanks to business with school).  I’m guessing something similar will happen here.
I’ve been starting to get active on Twitter (more listening than tweeting).  My alias there is @garoyeri.  I find it to be a good way to find interesting conversations.  My Twitter client of choice (for now) is TweetDeck.  I’m going to try and post interesting links for things I’m looking at.
Code-wise, I’m thinking about a more extensible way to do object data binding for desktop applications.  For web applications, the data is refreshed once on the server-side when it hits the page, then updated by JavaScript/AJAX on the browser-side.  For something like this, AutoMapper looks like a great way to make it happen.  When dealing with desktop applications where the same data could be displayed in several places, the data binding / mapping needs to be “live” instead.  I’ll be posting more about this sooner than later.
I’ve also been looking at coding aspect of the software development process in our workgroup and have set up guidelines for our group.  I’ll write more on that too.
The StockSample I was writing about earlier got a little stale.  We’ll see if I pick that series back up or not.

Technorati Tags: personal

2 double-oh 7

All right, it's already two months into 2-double-oh-7 and I'm finally updating my blog. Blogger had a huge upgrade and (as you can see) I switched over to a new template. It's also nice that I can log in using my Gmail instead of something else... First, I'd like to look at last year and see how I did on my New Year's resolutions...

• Get my weight below 200 pounds: d'oh. I think I gained a little weight. I must have plateaued. I'm still fitting into my clothes though, so it's not bad. I'm holding at about 215 to 220 (with clothes and shoes and after work).
• Keeping in touch with my extended family: Woo hoo! I got to know my cousins more and the six of us got a lot closer this year. We're all busy busy, but we keep in touch more.
• Learning Armenian: umm... didn't get around to this. Boo on me.
• Attending an Armenian youth event: My brother and I attended a few AYF (Armenian Youth Federation) meetings. It was... interesting... It wasn't our cup of tea, although now we can say that we went and tried. I got some good reading materials out of it though (although I haven't even read any of it yet).

Observations about 2006:

• On the love front, I'm in love, been in love, gonna remain in love. Hoo-Yeah!
• On the home front, I'm keeping in touch with family and being a good son.
• On the work front, I think I vastly improved my people skills. I believe I have been making great strides in being easier to work with and recognizing other people's contributions. The fact remains though that I am hard to impress (in software terms).
• I started working on my MBA in the fall. It's tough doing the school + work thing, I have utmost respect (always have) for people who do the school + work (or work + school, the additive property holds here) thing. The work is easy, but tedious, and it burns me out. Luckily it is only 2 nights a week. It's manageable. I've been trying to go to the gym on campus for those days, but work's been really busy and they've needed me to stay to 4 to help out instead of leaving at 3 to go to school. It's worth it though, bonus time is coming around and I know that my contributions will be recognized.

Forward-Looking Statements for 2-double-oh-7

• I want to get my weight down. Below 200 may not work, but at least near 200. I plan to go to the gym for longer sessions, try to attend some of those classes they have. I also plan to consistently go to the gym at school. Finally, I need to know my limits with food. I'm finding that my body tells me when its full, but I keep eating anyway (this goes for dinner mainly). I think I can manage it. I think starting school messed me up a bit, but I can adjust and persevere.
• I want to learn to read and write Armenian. I have resources, and I just need to set a schedule for myself. It's going to be tougher now that I have my MBA classes as well (until 2009), but I think I can manage.
• I want to learn to speak / understand Cantonese, at least on a basic level. It's an interesting language, but I feel I have an obligation to myself and my family to master my own language first. There are 10 months left in the year, plenty of time.

I think that's a good start. I may add to the list as I see fit.

Life is Good

Life is good. I could qualify that, but it would detract from the simplicity of the statement.

Yikes, it's been a while

Hmm, it's been a while... it seems that life has gotten in the way of me updating my blog. No matter. Things are going very well according to plan. I'm starting working on my MBA (at the University of Houston, GO COOGS!) next week. (YAY!) Aaaaand... work is really great. I got back from the Dr. Dobbs Journal Architecture and Design World (learned a lot and met some interesting people). Umm... other than that, things are pretty much going steady and nice. My laptop battery (Dell 600m) is one of the recalled ones (kinda makes sense, the side of the computer where the battery is heats up a bit). Still, Dell is making it super easy, just type in your battery serial number, then fill in your address info and "voila" you will have your new battery (and instructions on disposing of your old one) within 20 days (ish). We'll see how long it REALLY takes. I'm finally starting to use Visual Studio 2005 (good grief, it's about time!). I wish Microsoft would hurry up and release their SP1 patches for Visual Studio 2003 and 2005. I'm also starting to learn more about web services and such. Very interesting. Oh, my abstract was accepted for the Baker Hughes Technology Forum 2006! Party on! I'm going to talk about how Inversion of Control can streamline the build / debug / test process. I'm also going to give a presentation for my group about all the goodies I learned at the Dr. Dobb's AD World thingy. I went to my last HDNUG (www.hdnug.org) (Houston Dot Net Users Group) meeting that I'll be able to attend for a while. I won a book (Test Driven Development (the NUnit book)), and a Best Buy gift card (shweeeeet). TDD is very interesting, I need to finish that book and send the HDNUGgers a review. I really want to start an independent project (been wanting to for a loooong whiles now). I'm thinking either an email-based game engine or perhaps a good subversion (subversion.tigris.org) client for GNOME. Not sure yet. Both would be fun projects. The former would be a .NET 2.o project using Windows Forms (or GTK#) and the latter would be GTK+ and C/C++. Oooooh... tasty. But... alas. School will take up a lot of my time I believe (and I really want to make sure I have enough time to get back into running). At one time, I was able to run almost 3 miles straight... I need to work back up to that. I've been going to the gym on a very regular basis now so far this year. I need to get my run on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can keep up the burn. My goal of being under 200 lbs by end of the year doesn't seem like its going to happen. But hey, my clothes all fit better and I can wear some brand size 34 jeans, so that's a huge step in the right direction. In Nerdage news... I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my computer to the behemoth gaming machine worthy of an uber-nerd. Mmmmm.... silicon wafery goodness. Vee shall see how that little plan goes... Ah... hopefully I'll be keeping up with this blog more. It is very refreshing being able to dump my brain out here for my own posterity.

Super Bowl!!! (in HD)

Hanging out in California at a friend of the family's house... I got to watch the Super Bowl on a big (BIG) screen in HD. It was nice! On one of the commercials, I could see the guy's contact lens, it was THAT detailed! Also... it seems that picking bad (really bad) movie rentals is a Korean thing. I have a friend (who happens to be Korean) who is notorious for picking terrible movies to rent (when they are out of the mainstream). We went to Blockbuster today to rent some movies and my friend said a friend recommended a movie called "Old Boy". It was a Korean movie (dubbed). It was very strange. Very. Strange. Strange.... Yea. It was like watching a Steven Segal movie. You don't really watch the movie, you just comment on it and make jokes about the main character's bad choice of lines and weapons. This movie had a common carpenter's hammer as the interesting weapon of choice. The first scene had the main character urinating in the lobby of the police station. Like I said... strange. Anyhoo, now we're gonna watch "Red Eye" with a bigger group (I think we should scratch the "Old Boy" disc as a service to Blockbuster and their customers). I'm fairly sure that the two guys working there laughed at us when we left with this particular movie. ',;-)

Cleaning out the closet

Maaaaaaaaaan... today I decided to clean out my closet, removing all the clothes that don't fit anymore. Last year I lost like 20 pounds and dropped two inches from my waist (party on Gar!) I didnt realize that I had 10 years of clothes in my closet. There were a lot of shirts that I hadn't touched in a long long time. In the end, I now have a two foot high pile of shirts and pants (many more shirts than pants) that are way too big for me. These are either going to get handed up to my dad or donated. We usually take our donation stuff to Katy Christian Ministries, and they either distribute it or sell it I think. I can see the back of my closet now, it's much more manageable. I just wanted to share that personal victory with the internet. ',;-)

Sinus Infection

Blah. Sinus infection sucks... but I'm on Z-Pac (sp?) It's some good stuff. It is a 5-day antibiotic, so by Sunday I'll be totally clear of little critters. In practice, I'm usually cleared by day 3 (sometimes 4) but you gotta make sure you finish up the prescription. I get these sinus infections whenever the weather changes. 2005, however, has been a very weird weather year and the last time I got hit was March. To add insult to injury... my insurance changed from a copay system to a deductible system, and I didn't have my HSA debit card yet, so I had to pay for the doctor's visit out of pocket, more so than I would have about a week ago. Ah, but life is good, I took a sick day and stayed home from work. ',;-)

Happy New Year!

Ok, it's now 2006 for all US time zones (I think). Happy New Year to everyone! I wish you all the best in the coming year and may it be as good (if not better) than 2005! New Year is a great time to reflect on the past year and see how you feel about it. Yes, that's a bit cliche, but it's just one of those things that people do. This year has been an incredible year for me! Let's do a quick recap...

• I had a new year's resolution to lose weight last year. I ended up losing 20ish pounds and dropped two inches off the waist. I'm fitting in my size 36 pants now and most of the clothes in my closet don't fit me anymore.
• I'm in a great relationship with a great girl! Our closeness has only increased over the year (does that make any sense?) We're always finding things that bring to light just how alike we are in our ideals, dogmas, and methodologies. It's great to be able to talk to someone about a situation and have them say "Yea, I feel exactly the same way!" That's a cool feeling.
• My work has gotten more fun. I have been given fairly free reign over how I do my job (programming). I can pick my tools and feel free to explore new things. We have new and interesting projects that people want to use and are itching to use. We're making our company oodles of cash money and they are compensating me fairly well. (I could always use more money, though... that goes without saying).

So yea, it's been a great year. But now, time to think about 2006. I have made some resolutions that I plan to keep for 2006. I'm gonna put them on the internet now to make them permanent!

• I want to push my weight below 200 lbs. I plan on being more consistent with my running regiment. I have been going to the gym on a very regular basis (3x a week), but I want to start taking the aerobics classes to do some fat burning.
• I want to keep more in touch with my extended family. My cousin is getting married in February and I feel like I don't know him anymore. I haven't really been as close with my cousins as I would like. I plan on hanging out with them whenever I can and plan some family outings and such. Also, I would like to get closer to my brother. We don't really do much together and it would be nice to just hang with him.
• I want to learn to read and write Armenian. I can speak (well enough). But my vocabulary sucks and I can't read or write very well. There are some great websites that have lots of good info... I'll post some links later. One comes to mind: Armeniapedia. I would also like to at least attend one Armenian youth function / gathering / party.

That's about it. Not a long list, but it has all the important things. These are goals I feel I can attain. This year I also plan on starting on my MBA. I have a GMAT study guide now and I just have to schedule my GMATs, then fill out my application. That should be interesting. I think I will need to start working from home a bit (instead of going all the way down to the office) to make sure I don't burn myself out. Ah, so yea. I'm ready for 2-double-oh-6. How about you?