Once again I have waited far too long to write, so sadly, this will be yet another catch up post. I am hoping to get better about this in the coming months for reasons which will become apparent later in the post.

Why you should back up your data (advice from recent experience)

My G5’s hard drive died a few days ago. Luckily it is still under warranty, and there wasn’t anything on there work wise that I didn’t have backed up else where. Sadly there was a lot of personal data that could be potentially lost forever. A lot of photos, a lot of music, and the redesign that I was working on for this site may not be recoverable.

This last one is probably the biggest pain to bear. I had pumped a lot of hours into the redesign and it was getting close to completion (as far as the design aspects are concerned at least). Apple will hopefully be able to recover my data, but it is hard to say. It will be a tremendous set back in the redesign if those file cannot me recovered.

I do love a good excuse.

Since I most certainly can’t be without a computer for a whole seven days, I took this as an opportunity to finally purchase a MacBook Pro. A purchase I have wanted to make for quite sometime now, but never had a good enough “reason” to actually go through with. Well now I have said “reason”, so I bit the bullet and shelled out the money for the laptop. Granted this “reason” may not be good enough, but there are other reasons for this purchase as well, which I am coming to.

I also purchased the 500GB Time Capsule to back up the laptop as well as the G5 when I get it back. So, hopefully, I will never lose data again.

Finally got around to it.

I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 today. Actually it was 2.5.1 if we are being technical… which we are. It was painless and I am enjoying the new interface, though it did take a short amount of time to locate everything. Happy Cog did a bang-up job on the redesign of the back end, and I must say I do love the color scheme.

Lastly, but best of all!

I have acquired a new job, a job that could only be described as the best possible position that I could have at this point in my career. I have been appointed as the Webmaster for the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. It will be challenging but in a good way. It will stretch my design and development muscles and push me in new directions on the web. Academia is always on the bleeding edge and this is exactly where I love to be.

I will also be going back to school at a severely reduced tuition rate to finish my bachelor’s degree and possibly get my master’s as well. This is the second reason for the new computer. While the U of A will provide me with a Laptop for the job, I wouldn’t feel comfortable using it for school, and since I generally need a decent amount of power to do what I do, I purchased the MacBook Pro.

This is also why I hope to be blogging more in the future. I think it will be applicable to my job and I will have more to write about day to day.

To Summarize

A lot has happened and mostly for good. I am looking forward to the coming weeks as I settle into the position and to the coming fall semester.

My brother came up for the weekend. It had been a couple months, and with recent events in our family, it was really great to spend time together. We went to Rainbow Guitar and he bought a new amp and selected a new guitar that he will be purchasing as soon as he finishes his taxes. We went out for sushi and he taught me some new songs he had learned. All in all, it was a very simple weekend and one I relished.

I love my brother. He is one of the most amazing people I know. He often chooses to love when others would judge and he seems almost untouched by this harsh world, even though he and I have seen our share of hardships.  He has a simple wisdom that I fear I have all but lost. He is most often selfless and gives what ever he does not need. He is compassionate and always kind. He has a sincerity about him that many of us couldn’t even attempt to fake. There are no facades to him, only honesty. He seeks God with passion, but without ambition. My brother is honestly filled with love and a heart greater then many have had the joy of seeing in any single person. He commands a great deal of my respect, and he deserves all I can give him.

I have been meaning to sit down and write about this for the past week, but things have gotten a little crazy and so I am just now getting to it.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Molly E Holzschlag last Friday, and it was really an amazing meal. We talked about everything that we both are passionate about and I learned a great deal in the comparably short amount of time that we spent eating sushi. I rarely get to sit down and talk real web talk, and so it was a real treat to do so with someone such as Molly. At the risk of sounding like a fan boy, it was great to finally meet the woman who’s  books I have read and blog I have followed for so long.

Molly, thanks for lunch!

P.S. Such a fan boy