The book has quite a lot going for it. Primarily, it’s backed by some bright people who are at the forefront of web development and design. Authored by Jeremy Keith with support from Jeffrey Zeldman, Mandy Brown and Jason Santa Maria, it’s hard to believe this will be anything but a must-have publication.

The issue I have is that it’s only available in print so far. This seems ironic considering the subject matter:  the power of HTML5 to present information across a digital medium. I’d like to see a little more leadership by example rather than killing more trees and putting those of us outside the US through the trials of international shipping. From what I see on their twitter feed, an ebook is a pretty common request and their responses indicate one will be available in August.

I’m hoping their next production sees a simultaneous release on paper and the web. The waiting is killing me.

The frameworks I have investigated so far are:

• Thematic
• WP Framework
• Whiteboard
• Hybrid
• Sandbox

Each framework provides the developer with a basic version of a theme, some with comments and documentation on how to build a theme from scratch. I have been playing with Thematic most of all (I am currently using the default Thematic theme) but I am currently editing a new theme using Sandbox.

I’ll let you know how it goes as I get more done.

I arrived in Kirkcudbright to stay with my aunt & uncle late Tuesday after having dinner with family in Dalbeny and then a drive down to the coast.  On my 2nd day here, I received an email from my Realtor asking me to check on a property I might like in Burnaby.  I immediately realized I’d love to have it, and started the process of making an offer.  I am in the process of this as I type, with paperwork making a digital transatlantic trek.

When I fly back to Vancouver, I may do so as a land owner.  I’ll keep you up to date.

Before I could say anything, my hair was a lot shorter than I wanted. But once it’s done, you can’t get them to put it back.

Photos later. Maybe.

As a faculty member at BCIT (in Web Development, no less), you’d think I would have a nicer web site, or at least on that is current.  Alas, I have constantly struggled with my writing and end up abandoning many posts because I get frustrated with the process.

None of that should prevent me from working on template and the interactions on the site, though.  I thoroughly enjoy assisting my students achieve their potential when crafting their own creations, but somehow I slow down when working on my own.

So, I have reverted the site back to the default design that comes with WordPress until I can put the time and effort in to build something I am proud of.

Let’s see how long that takes.

My infrequent posts hit home today when I upgraded to WordPress 2.6 and glanced at the new dashboard, which reported that I have:

• 34 posts, 5 pages, 14 drafts, contained within 22 categories and 0 tags.

Sometimes I spend hours trying to get a post to feel right, or just organize the words so that they make sense to someone other than myself. I have tried to ‘just write’ from time to time, but I end up editing, re-editing and occasionally removing posts altogether because I don’t like the way they read.

My friend Derek writes with apparent ease, sometimes multiple posts a day, and always very well written. As long as I have known him, he has been exceptionally well spoken and written, clearly evident in the fact that writes for a living. I remember years ago, working on his Apple IIc one night, we talked about writing.  He said that he has a tendency to “over-comma”, something I am pretty sure I do a lot.

Some other issues I concern myself over:

• I rarely use contractions when I write.  If you see any in my posts, it is likely because I have gone in and edited them to appear.  This gives most of my writing a very formal, wooden tone.
• For some reason, I regularly use the same word twice in a sentence, or in two back to back sentences.  I used the word “post” twice when writing about Derek’s work… until I edited it out.
• I tend to mix my tenses a lot.  In one sentence I say “he is” and in the next, I’ll switch to “he had”.
• I try to compress my writing into short, sometimes terse, sentences.  I don’t really know what that is – I usually want to get a lot of information out, but I find a hard time doing so.  I think it comes from my high school days when I was constantly being corrected for having run-on sentences.
• Similar to the last point, I find it difficult to include an aside mid-sentence.  That’s likely where my commas come in, but I have no idea how to use a sem-colon, a dash, an ellipsis to accurately denote my phrasing.  Frankly, I just guess.
• I am supremely tangental in my thoughts, which is evident on any first draft of a post.  I frequently have to move large amounts of text from one paragraph to another because they make little sense where they are originally.  This leads to a similar problem previously noted: two sentences with a common word close together – leads to even further editing.
• In my head, my writing is awesome.  This is likely my biggest problem.  Mentally, I know what I want to say, but that’s because, being my space, I have a huge collection of ideas that make total sense to me.  Organizing them into a sinlge written piece looks a lot less powerful on the page than it does in my brain.  This leads to me being frustrated because I feel like I’m not able to convey my thoughts accurately, which results in a percetion that my writing sucks.
• I think I repeat myself, or add too many modifiers to describe something.  The first modifier made my point, the second was unnecessary.
• I want my writing to be concise, but also interesting and full of the kind of detail that gives writing flavour.  However, these ideas are at odds with one another in my mind, and I struggle to find a middle-ground that works.  Frequently, I don’t find it.

These are some of the things rattling around in my head each time I try to put my thoughts into print.  Perhaps I’ll take a crack at those 14 drafts.

NASA must be feeling confident today, however, as the marketing surrounding this landing has been impressive. I have seen interest from CBC, Discovery and Space channels, but there is more as well:

• Phoenix updates on the Canadian Space Agency web site
• NASA’s Phoenix Web site
• Updates from MarsLander on Twitter

Very soon, Phoenix will enter the 7 minutes of terror (video) that will make or break this project.

NASA seems to have a lot of confidence that this project will succeed.  Good Luck, Phoenix!

The sun is shining on our fair city and I’m sitting outside as I wait for my appointment at the Genius bar (my MacBook Pro has a minor button issue) in the brand new Apple Store, the first in Western Canada.

Later, I’ll be filming Finnegan, my Duck Toller, for a movie I hope to put together later this weekend or next. I don’t really have a theme or plot in mind yet, but I’m sure one will emerge as the camcorder captures his antics.

Also, the much anticipated Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight with my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, vying for the Cup against the Detroit Red Wings, a venerable opponent.  I expect the series will be a good one, and while I am hoping the ‘Pens will win, I suspect it will be a tough go to get by the heavy experience and grit of the Wings.  Game on!

A quick visit to the clinic and the doctor suggested the likely problem is a stress fracture , so he sent me off for x-rays.  Until next week at least, I am supposed to stay off my foot if I want to get back to normal walking.  A cane was suggested, which I purchased, but after a few days of that, I would much rather have crutches.  The cane has thrown off my alignment and I have more pain in my hip and knee than I ever did in my foot.

According to the doctor, that’s the end of Boot Camp, which is a hassle as I was training for the Vegas hockey tournament.  His opinion is that I should be good to go by the time the tournament begins, though.  I hope so.

Damn foot.

You can find CLI at the author’s site or at Google Code.

Some things to try:

• ‘ls’ (Unix command for list segments) will list the files and directories (which are just the categories in the blog)
• ‘cd {directory}’ (cd is a Unix command meaning change directory) will change your location to the directory you specify. For instance: ‘cd Apple’ will change you to the Apple directory.
• ‘current’ tells you want the current post number is. You can then type in that number and the corresponding post will appear.
• ‘grep {keyword}’ (grep is a Unix command that is used to search text) will allow you to search all posts that have the keyword you specify. For instance: ‘grep Flock’ will find posts that have the word Flock in it.
• ‘help’ will list all the available commands. Try them out!