Performed Well

For the last 6 years or so, I've considered myself primarily an Angular Developer.  First AngularJS, and then made the switch to Angular (version 2+), and have really appreciated all of its valuable uses for frontend webapps. In my new job with VMLY&R, I've needed to make the switch to React-Native framework.  I thought it would more complicated than it's been so far.  I thought i would have a harder time understanding it and a harder time liking it. Actually, so far, I've enjoyed it immensely.  And in many ways, it feels more natural to me than Angular.  Certainly the ramp up time is nothing compared to the time I spent ramping up from AngularJS to Angular. React is a genuine joy to use.  I love how much it uses the latest JavaScript ES6 syntax and how the components feel like a very natural extension of JavaScript and a beautiful blending with existing HTML components. I am not a big fan of Facebook, but I am very grateful to the Facebook team...

I started a new job last Friday.  At this time last month, I didn't have any interest in leaving the amazing job and fantastic coworkers I had at the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) where I had worked for a little over three years. But I was given an excellent offer to work as a Senior Frontend Developer for an outstanding company called VMLY&R that handles advertising for dozens of Fortune 500 companies such as Ford, Wendy's, and Pepsi.  I felt this would be a great move for my career, my family, and my personal growth. I'll be working primarily with React (a JavaScript UI library) on the frontend and Node (server-side JavaScript) on the backend.  I had only experimented with React prior to this, but I always really enjoyed it, and can see a lot of excellent potential in it.  I've only had a day of work so far, but this afternoon, I'm getting on a plane to fly to Portland, Oregon to meet with the client (NWEA) who is hiri...

Last week, Christine and I were in Philadelphia, PA for a convention.  And for whatever reason, we decided to eat at the McDonald's across the street from the convention center.  There were so many poor quality little things about this fast food experience that it became comical to think through them all.  I'll list a few here: The floors were very sticky. No tables were clean.  Christine ended up cleaning a table herself with the cleaning fluid that was on the counter. One of the two soda machines was completely boarded up. There was no ice in the ice machine on the other soda machine. I asked for more ice, and the lady on break said "You have to wait.  I'm the one who gets the ice, but i'm on break now, so you have to wait." I asked over the counter for more ice, and they just told each other, but nobody even attempted to remedy the situation. So I waited for ice, and when the lady on break got it (after her break was done), she just set the bucket...

Have you ever felt that your life was too good?  Too easy?  Too much fun?  Too many things to be grateful for and not enough conflict? That's me sometimes. In some sense, that's me right now. I listened to a podcast today that raised some serious doubts in my mind about the likelihood that our country would remain mostly free--as i feel it is right now.  This made me sad to think about.  But I also found myself faced with the realization that this is not really my burden to carry anymore than the plight of billions of less-free people all over the world is my personal burden to carry.  My life is so unbelievably good right now, that at times I feel guilty about it all.  Should I just enjoy my life or do I owe a debt of misery or something in solidarity with all the people who are truly hurting right now? I'm not really sure what good that does though.  Things are great where I live.  My family, my job, my health... it's all wonder...

I am very excited for my little sister Mindy! About 15 months ago, Mindy started dating a wonderful man named Brice Belden.  Last Sunday, on her birthday, after a production of White Christmas that Mindy directed and choreographed, Brice proposed to her onstage in glorious, lavish fashion in front of a crowd of her best friends and biggest fans. It was one of the finest proposals I've ever seen.  I'm so proud of Brice for putting on such a big display for Mindy and giving her an amazing story that she can tell her friends and children for decades to come. And more importantly, Brice loves Mindy deeply and is immensely supportive of her and her dreams.  I have prayed for years for Mindy to find someone great like him.  We are thrilled to welcome Brice to our family.

When I wrote Code for Teens , I set out to teach programming concepts in a way that was accessible to anyone, regardless of religion. Those of you who have read it know there aren't any religious messages in the book.  Still, I was recently turned down by a group of educators known as Secular, Eclectic, Academic Homeschoolers (SEAH) solely for having two paragraphs that reference a church. SEAH was excited to promote my book on their website until they found two short paragraphs that mention a church (no reference to the faith of this church in the book at all--just a mention of it).  SEAH asked me to rewrite this portion. I told them that I did not control the published book anymore (the publishers do), but I could make an insert that replaces the "church" with "summer camp".  So I rewrote those two paragraphs and submitted them as an addendum that they could distribute with the book or use any other way they wanted. Apparently, this wasn't enough. ...

 A close friend of mine was recently wronged in a terrible way by a scoundrel of a man and then afterward by our own legal system. I'll speak with vagaries to protect the identities, but here's the gist.  My friend was taken advantage of by a pathological liar.  In order to seek justice, my friend took him to court.  The liar was caught committing perjury over a dozen times (literally) while on the stand , and was forced to admit many of his lies in open court, along with having broken contracts and lied to cover his tracks. It seemed like an obvious, cut-and-dried case to prove and vote in favor of my friend.  But to everyone's astonishment, the jury sided with the liar.  And now my friend is stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of legal fees (including paying for the shyster's legal fees). It is such a blatant miscarriage of justice, that it almost makes me sick.  How did 8 members of a jury come to such a conclusion?  Did an...