Thursday, June 24, 2010

Busy busy week...

I've had a very good and busy week. Today, I finished a website that I designed and built from scratch. It is based on a template the customer liked, but I put a lot of my own ideas into. I did have help from a developer who's been with the company awhile, and I am really grateful that she's been guiding me. She's also been very encouraging and helpful to me and my fellow co-workers, who are also still pretty new to the company.

I ended up having time to take on a bunch of other developers' website revisions, which will keep me busy tomorrow. Before getting all those revisions, I had time to look into the Certificate programs at Cypress College. I'm very interested in the Web Development one. Some of the required classes are XML, Perl, Python, and PHP or ASP. The Web Page Design Certificates have required courses that include Java, C++, and XML. I may go for that one too.

It really depends on what they offer and if the classes are online or in person. I'm leaning more towards online since I hope to continue working full-time and would like to keep up with my workload. It is nice to finally have a good job doing something that I enjoy. Also, it's good to be working with some nice smart people, most of whom are also pretty creative. I think my team has been great to work with so far, and I feel like I've already learned a lot from them.

Anime Expo is next week, and I am very excited about it. I got my time off approved last week, and I've had everything else (tickets, hotel room) planned for awhile now. I'm going to all 4 days of Anime Expo, so it'll be very fun to see how big it's gotten. The 4th of July is on Sunday, so I'll also get the day off for the Monday after it. It'll be like a 5 day weekend! It's hard to believe tomorrow is already Friday, this week has gone by so fast.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

so many blogs... so little time!

After a bit of tweaking to this blog, I've decided to start writing here again. I was going back and forth between this one and my old Xanga, but I think the improvements to the Blogger templates makes this one better. Plus, I somehow manage to get 8 hits a day here, which is surprising because I haven't posted in months. I have a travel blog on my own domain, but it's an iWeb site and I'll only update that after a trip of some sort. This will be my normal place for me to write about what's on my mind.

A lot has happened since my last post. Just last month, I got a job doing actual web design full-time (though it is a long term contract position). I really like my company, the commute is not bad, my co-workers are great (and most are new too), benefits are good, and the cafeteria is excellent. I enjoy the work and it's actually what I want to be doing with my life.

Aside from working, I'm planning to go to Anime Expo at the beginning of next month. It'll be exciting since the last time I went was in 1992 (it's 2nd year) when it was still in Anaheim and only 1 day. Now it's 4 days long (though the last day is shorter) and at the LA Convention Center. I managed to reserve a reasonably priced and well review hotel that is fairly close to the Convention Center. I'm still waiting to get my 2 days off of work approved, so there's a little uncertainty.

I have been a bit more selective about concerts lately, partly due to financial reasons and also partly due to not knowing what's going on in music these days. I did go to a bunch of BRMC shows, Coachella, some Amoeba instores, and a concert with a bunch of Japanese bands. I don't mind being more selective about shows, it is a bit tiring to be out late for concerts and I am working more now.