Baltimore Travelouge

Places that are memorable for one reason or another.

It was made this year, though it collects a few places I’ve visited on trips to Baltimore in the past three years. It’s a log: a list of places I want to remember and maybe revisit. And a map: showing me where things are relative to each other. Its not for driving directions. There is a ‘to-do’ list in the left column, which I’ve discontinued using.

It’s big and I can hang it on my wall, which I can’t to do with a Google Map or Yelp. See it on flickr and direct link to full-size image (1 MB)

New Book Stack

An updated list of the books I’m currently reading.

More importantly, I’m back from my blogging hiatus. I’m hoping to average a few posts a month. Sounds reasonable. To start, here are the books on my shelf right now, all recommended:

• 101 Things I Learned From Architecture School by Matthew Frederick
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
• Visualizing Data by Ben Fry
• The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher

No more months of inactivity! More posts to come shortly, stay tuned.

My Book Stack

A list of the books I’m currently reading.

• Homicide by David Simon
• How to Conquer The New York Times Crossword Puzzle by Amy Reynaldo
• Robot Building For Beginners by David Cook
• Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky
• Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton
• Head First Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman & Eric Freeman

Idea for the post comes from poetpainter.

New job and Adobe Flex

Things have been quiet on the blog front but lots has been happening on other fronts. I can catch you up in about three paragraphs. Here goes.

I switched jobs! I left my job as Web Developer at 3000k, a small web shop in Worcester, about three weeks ago to join Meridias Capital. The Meridias Capital public site is a bit sparse so let me fill you in. The company is a mortgage finance lender centered out of Las Vegas with a secondary office in Salt Lake City. They have a couple of enterprise-level web apps that help faciliatate the mortgage finance process internally. This is where I come in.

I’ll be working out of Boston with Michael Lowry, Director of UI, to architect, design, and build the UI for these apps. I was hired for my traditional front-end skills: XHTML, XML, CSS, JS, etc. but soon after my arrival there was a strong push to investigate Adobe Flex. After some research and prototyping we came to the conclusion that Adobe Flex was a better solution for our RIA then a traditional HTML/AJAX approach. So we have cast off into a brave new world!

Note: We will be looking at add another member to our small Boston UI team shortly. If you have Flex experience or experience developing web apps with Flash, drop me a note. We will post proper details on the opening shortly.

Free Bikes!

Hey friends. I have a couple of older bikes that I’m not using anymore, if anyone wants either of these bikes, they are free for the taking. Bike #1 on the left is a Raleigh Racer and Bike #2 on the right is a Free Spirit. These bikes are both a bit on the heavy side and some tuning would help, but you can ride them around town just as they are, no problems.

Update: Both bikes have been claimed : (

Note: They currently reside in Manchester, NH and will not fit in my car. So either you would have to pick up, ride out, or wait till I get a bike rack.

Neat-o Stuff in Worcester

Downhill Battle - geeky music activism Fujichia - indie something or other Higgin’s Armory Museum - I haven’t been yet, but its #1 on my list Quan Yin - vegetarian Asian a la Grasshopper Da Lat - good, cheap Vietnamese plus boba tea Tortilla Sams - clearly no Anna’s or El Burrito, but still tasty

Halloween 2005

My annual sewing project. The thing is pretty tattered in the picture after a rough and tumble weekend.

Worcester.. hmm

This city is just about what I expected. It’s a bit like Manchester, but not quite as friendly. My new place is nice though. It’s roomy. I’m picking out a new camera this week. I picked out a camera: the Canon Digital Rebel XT! My old digital camera was pilfered when our place in Boston was broken into. I still have my old Canon EOS Rebel 35mm and an old Kodak Polariod camera , but you know the story with film processing/printing these days. $$$ Anyways, expect lots of Worcester photos shortly. The camera is on its way.

Japan 2005 - Photos

Here’s a bunch of photos from my trip to Japan. It was a ten day trip I took with my sister in late May. Click below.

Japan 2005 - Photo Gallery

From Boston to Worcester

I’ve picked up a proper full-time job after almost a year of freelancing. I’ll be taking on the role of ‘Web Developer’ at 3000k, a web design shop in Worcester. I can’t fathom two plus hours of commuting time daily so I will be moving to Worcester at the end of the month. I hope to spend as many weekends as I can back in Boston on couches and in sleeping bags, so no worries. Besides that, I’m backlogged on just about everything right now, including a site overhaul. Once I get a few hours to spare I’ll make this site dissapear and reappear.