I’ve entered a photography contest. More specifically, the Aperture Nature Photography Workshops contest.  I learned about it on the MacBreak Weekly podcast.

Vote for my photo!vote

This time, its been six months since I last blogged.  I keep thinking that I’m going to write my own blog using Django, but with 5 year old twins, there isn’t a lot of time to do this.  So I’ll stick with WordPress for now.

What have I been doing this year?  Well, I went to PyCon in March.  It was awesome.  I went to CFUnited in June.  I thought it was second rate.  And I got some training in Flex in July with FigLeaf.  Waiting on my copy of Flex Builder to come in so I can start coding with it.  Its some pretty cool software.

I’ve been looking at using Groovy and Grails for some future development at work.  I’d like to integrate it with Flex for some applications I have in mind.  I’m really getting interested in doing some serious mapping stuff especially since ESRI has opened ArcGIS up with the release of 9.3.  They have API’s available for Javascript and Flex.

I bought a new MacBook Pro in June.  I downsized from a 17″ to a 15.4″.  I really could have used a new Mac Pro, but I can’t afford one of those right now.  So I’ll get another year out of my PowerMac Dual 2.0ghz G5.

I’m set to go. I’ll be arriving in Chicago on Wednesday, March 12 in the late afternoon. I’m attending the tutorials on Thursday and going to the conference through Sunday. I can’t wait. I want to learn Python and Django so much that I’m paying my own way. I didn’t even ask my work since I doubt they’d ever send me to a Python conference.

Thanks to all the upsets this weekend, my rankings have been shuffled a bit. LSU continues to be a dominant #1. Virginia Tech climbs to #13 which is pretty amazing since they still have no offense.

America, the wait is over. My rankings are out. No surprise here, New England leads the way, followed by Green Bay, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh.