Concerts and Shopping

So what's going on in Filips world lately? This weekend I blew around $2000 on shopping for things for my new place. Everything from shelves to a big screen TV. How big is the screen you ask? I bought a 3 year old 50 inch Toshiba for 900 bucks. Now as soon as I get a dvd player it will be difficult to justify going out to the movies! I've spent much of the time in the past two weeks buying and installing stuff into my new appartment. Unfortunately, today I blew out a ceiling light when trying to install a new one... so how did it happen? Well when I took down the old light fixture I noticed a mess of wires underneath. They all looked shielded so I didn't think much of it. However, when I went to install the new fixture, one of the screws went deep into the mess of wires and must have hit an exposed wire. After a brief explosion, some black smoke and a slew of black dust that stained the cieling, I thought to myself "I should have turned off the circuit breaker". Anyway, I'm alive and un-charred so after the building comes and fixes the mess I made life should be back to normal.

In other news, I went to the Tea Party concert at Cowboys on monday. I can't put into words how truely inspired these performers are. All I have to say is that to truely appreciate their talent you MUST see them live. The recorded versions of their music does not do them justice. After the show I felt like what the hippy generation must have felt like after a Led Zeppelin concert... honestly, I think they are the modern equivalent. In the end, I caught a towel from the bassist and a Drumstick. Good times, great memories!

Tragedy strikes... Again :-(

Well, if it wasn't enough that in February my brand new PDA was stolen along with my walet containing NO money but all of my personal ID type documents (citizenship, health care card, etc...) AND in March all of my investments went down; now I've lost my real wallet with all of my day-to-day important stuff. Sometimes lifes a bitch... and then that bitch slaps you again and again and again.

What do I do?

I figured I'd post this section because I wanted some spot on my blog that mentions a kewl new technology called xTile. But before we get to that, what do I do and what am I working on? Well right now I am working for an Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM) Company doing Automation and Integration as well as some web application development. So what does that mean? It means I work on building macro's for people to get stuff in and out of databases (MSSQL and mySql) and massaging data into desireable and meaningful form. As part of the in/out database task, we are building a web based manhour forecasting tool. We have been using Java with help from Cayenne as our ORM (object/relational mapping) tool and Tapestry as our MVC (model-view-controller) web application framework. Now to most of you who know me (other than kozmo with whom I work) all of this means little or nothing to you. Which is fine... at least you know I do something with software :-D However, those of you who are interested in the above, I would like to introduce xTile. This little marvel component uses the xmlhttprequest (aka Ajax) to allow components to directly interact with tapestry without the need to refresh the webpage. What does this mean in lamance terms? It means the web application can have a more 'desktop application' feel instead of a typical submit/refresh web feel. Now I haven't actually used the xTile library yet but it sure sounds snazzy. Stay tuned for updates on how I like it.

As a development environment we use Eclipse with the Spindle and Tomcat plugin. Today I also came across the Tapestry Palette plugin for eclipse which adds another layer of coolness for those developing Tapestry apps. I will keep you posted on how that works out.

News

This section I'm going to dedicate to posting only the cream of the crop, IMHO, of news that I come accross. No particular restrictions on the topic of the news, but I always find I like to know where I get interesting tidbits and this will be my log. We'll start with this:

Research that may lead to humans re-growing body parts! This could mean no more scars, no more amputees and potentially no more paralytics!

How about randomly generating your next university paper? You could get an 'A' considering that one of these randomly generated papers got accepted to a conference. Hmmm... I wonder if they'd make a 'randomly generated thesis' for me?

Life Just keeps getting better...

I started to move into my new place this weekend and I have to say it Rocks! And to make things better my company has just announced that it will be moving its office even closer to where I live. Now how can you possibly be closer than accross the street you ask? Well they are moving to a building that is directly beside of my building to the south. This means to get to work I can just go down to the 4th floor of my building, go across a little patio section between the two buildings and go up to my office. I don't even have to cross the street anymore to get to work! Now that's what I call convenience. Now if only they would build a grocery store into TD square I would be the happiest man on the planet.

Unlimited Email Storage!

Google is offering infinity+1 storage. My Gmail account has 2060 megabytes of storage and it's increasing. Say what!?! - you say. That's right, Google's gmail accounts have ever increasing storage space. Don't believe me? Check out thier counter at Gmail and you can see what the current storage limit is. Yet another reason why Google is great! Again, if you don't have a gmail account, you're silly. If you want one, email me and I can refer you :-D

Moving Soon!

Very exciting news in the life of Filip. I will be moving! If you want to know where, sign up at Bebo and become one of my contacts. If you don't already have this service, you are silly. It's like an address book that updates itself! Anyway, my new place will be downtown so I will be right accross the street from where I work, a stones throw from Eau Claire and Prince's Island and the YMCA, a few plus-15's from TD square and a 6min walk from SOHO and a 10min walk from the safeway. Muahahaha no need to get a car now! All you friends who were waiting to cash in on my IOU's for rides will have to wait a few more years :-( My new place will have a salt water pool and squash courts, so I offer those in return to all of you who trucked my ass around town when I needed it.

Posting VIA Email!

If you are reading this that means I have successfully posted a message to my blog using an email. This is the kewlest thing since sliced bread!! I just send an email to my blog and it automagically posts it for me. Oh the wonders of modern technology.