The Wonderful, Wonderful Door

This past week has been a good one for Jack learning new skills and his favorite new skill is knowing how to open and shut doors around the house. Holly caught him on tape the other day with the bedroom door and I thought some of you might like to see it.

Random Jack on Daddy's Face

Long Overdue Random Jack

For all of you who do not frequent the realm of Facebook, here are some recent pictures of Jack from the past weekend that you might enjoy.

Oh, to Splash the Day Away

Last night we had a bath after a trip to the mall to check the clearance rack at Baby Gap. Normally during bath time we play with our floating friends and crawl around the tub, but apparently that was not what was scheduled this time around. This time we were fascinated with constant and intense splashing. The video is a lot longer than some I've posted, it clocks it at 3 minutes total, but he is pretty cute the whole time.

9 Months = Bipedal

Well, some people don't seem to want to believe me that my son can walk when he only had his nine-month marker yesterday, but guess what? I have video proof. He can go a lot further in one go than he does in these videos, but when he sees the camera is on him he gets a little flustered and gets a bit anxious for some reason. Anyways, now that he can walk basically the length of the apartment I'm moving on from telling people that he is "learning to walk" to saying "he can walk."

And Then He Could Clap

Yesterday Holly noticed Jack doing something new with his hands. Instead of flailing them about like a bird on crack cocaine and swinging them all over the place while growling and groaning, he was watching them very intently as he smacked his palms together. He was starting to figure out clapping after seeing Holly and I do it time and time again.

It didn't take him long because this evening he was clapping up a storm, non-stop, as much as I could get him to do it. He would clap when I gave him a piece of my brownie, when he saw something he thought was funny, or at just about anything else. Even better? I have video proof for all of you to see.

For Aunt Shyla

Lately Jack has taken to finding the most random things to be hilarious. Yesterday it was when I sneezed while playing with him on the floor. He went bonkers, so of course I milked it for all it was worth. Luckily we were able to catch the laughing fit on camera this time.

Shyla and Russell Leaving

Well, the day finally arrived that Shyla and Russell had to officially depart for their new home in California. I've got a lot of conflicting emotions about the whole thing, but mostly I really wish they hadn't had to leave.

Having them nearby in Spanish Fork has been a good thing for me. They came to Grandma Chatfield's for dinner on occasion to break up the monotony of me being the only person who wasn't technically related to anyone else (not to mention providing another male presence at the table), they had us over top play games every once and awhile, they liked to come over to hang out and especially to see Jack, Shyla was always an eager and willing babysitter, and perhaps more than anything I really, really enjoy spending time with Russell.

I owe him in particular a very big thank you for all the patience and support he has put forth in helping me to pursue a career in web programming. Shyla told me once that one of the only reasons he actually taught the class I took from him after there weren't enough students was because I was in it and he wanted to make sure I learned things the right way. He took a pay cut to keep teaching that class. I don't know how to pay that kind of generosity back.

Everything I know about web programming has basically been taught to me by Russell. Even the smaller stuff I learned before I took his class he has helped me to refine, make better, or replace with better practices and ideas. Without Russell my Conquer Club Trivia website and my website for the creative writing instructors at BYU, Writers Camp, would not be in existence. He put in a lot of time and effort to be my advisor during the capstone class for the minor and he has put in even more time on his own when I have questions about new things I'm trying to learn or have been struggling to get something to work properly that I know I should have been able to figure out on my own.

I owe Russell a lot for what he has taught me and I'm sure I will owe him a lot for what he will likely continue to teach me in the future. I still don't know javascript very well after all.

In the end, I know that moving to California was really the only option for them, and it does make sense to keep a job that pays you well, but I'm going to miss them a lot. I think Holly will miss them a lot and I am positive that Jack is going to miss them. He really, really would light up to see Shyla come through the door for a visit, and he was starting to do the same for Russell over the past couple of months before they had to leave.

Shyla was pretty impressive last night when they finally had to say goodbye after going to dinner with us to Cracker Barrel and then spending some time hanging out. I can't say I have done nearly as well today. Holly and Julie are off to see the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple this morning and I'm watching Jack while they are gone. We took a nice nap together, but I woke up with tears because I miss Shyla and Russell so much already. That is not something I normally do.

I really, really wish they hadn't had to go.

Not Entirely Sure

I'm not really sure what I want to write about today even if I really shouldn't feel the need to write about anything in particular as this is my blog after all, but I want to write about something, so I think I may just ramble for a little while and see where things go.

This morning I sent of my resume and portfolio to yet another potential employer. Yesterday I followed up on other jobs that I had either applied for or saw new listings for and all of them had been "filled" so I went my merry way towards the next ones on the list. This particular job is actually here on campus in the mechanical engineering department. They are looking for what seems to be a junior-ish web developer to help with the department website. I took a look at the website and can't really see why they need someone but I'm not going to complain.

I called up the contact within the department to ask if they were still looking for someone and they said that they were, so I got a few more details and sent off my information. According to the job listing the only real requirement is that you have a proficient knowledge in at least one of the following programming languages: HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, or mySQL. Lucky for me they weren't another employer looking for Flash and .NET programmers, and also lucky for me that I think I could consider myself at least proficient in three or four of the languages asked for.

Seems like I fit the bill, at least at first glance. The contact in the department told me that they would review my resume and portfolio and then most likely call me to set up a preliminary interview. It's a waiting game now I guess.

I'm cruising right along in my efforts to re-read the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan before the next book comes out on November 3rd. I'm almost finished with the third book (my favorite) and will be trying to finish at least 2 per month for the next couple of months. I may want to try and cram as much in before the start of school as I can if possible because I've got a couple of literature classes, but we'll see how things turn out. There are also a lot of other things happening this summer that take up time too.

Conquer Club Trivia is doing as well as can be expected. I still haven't found a lot of time to stock the system with questions (there are only about 300 or so right now), but Russell was kind enough (and much more tolerant with me than I probably deserve) to help me find a bug in the system that was allowing repeat questions when it shouldn't have been. It turns out that I had made another what we now call "Caleb Mistake" in an entirely different place that was backing things up wrong. It's now fixed though, so that is good.

The first day the site was live I had 96 unique visitors, and the next day I had 156, but that has been the record so far. Since then things have tapered off rather dramatically and it seems there are about 25 to 30 visitors a day, which is respectable for something that only fits such a small audience anyways. If I can get more questions in I think it will help a bit, but like I've said before, I don't expect it to be anything that is wildly popular, especially since I'm not making any money off of it in the long run.

I finally broke down and asked my first every question on the BYU 100 Hour Board this week, something I've always refrained from doing on some sort of strange principle before, but I had a fun question after going to dinner with Holly the other day and figured since we personally know one of the board writers I could address it to them personally and have a little fun with it. Now I just have to wait and see how long it takes for them to find the answer I guess.

Which leads me to another thought. The BYU 100 Hour Board is old, like really, really ancient, and as far as I can tell hasn't had a proper face lift in quite some time. It has the appearance of a website built in the late 90s in my opinion and doesn't seem to function all that well according to the writer that I know. Obviously given my current area of interest this has me pondering and considering the idea of making a website with a similar approach, but in a much more aesthetically pleasing way. We'll see if anything substantial comes of the thought down the line, but it's at least something to think about.

Jack is crawling, but that certainly seems like old news at this point. He now stands up next to the furniture with only one hand and steps to the side so he is barely holding on. He also has learned to push boxes against walls and use them as step stools to get to drawer and cupboard handles that he has been a long time in pursuing. Even yesterday I found him unexpectedly hanging onto the cross-bars on the back of our kitchen chairs with both feet off the floor and on the cross-bar between the chair legs. No fear, that's my son it seems.

He is also getting a bit better at sleeping through the night. Sometimes he still wakes himself up, but now he doesn't necessarily need to be fed in order to get back to sleep. Many times I can just rock him in the rocking chair for a few minutes and he's out cold again. If he does eat, he doesn't chow down on six or eight ounces of formula like before, he's lucky if he makes it through two before nodding off. I take it as a slow and steady move towards not eating at all during the night and sleeping more soundly because of his heavily increased physical activity during the day.

Solid food have been an interesting endeavor to say the least. He loves his rice cereal, but basically refuses any sort of "baby food" that we've tried. We have gone with peas, applesauce, peaches, pears, squash, and a couple others, but his reaction is to spit it back out, clamp his mouth shut and give us a look of, "Are you seriously trying to feed me that?" So, we eat a lot of rice cereal, share Daddy's mashed potatoes from time to time, and luckily we've added oatmeal to the list of things we'll eat as well. I'm thinking he is just going to go straight from the rice cereal to the real people food, sort of like Cymbre did back in the day.

I guess that is enough rambling for one day, I'll try to get some new pictures of Jack up sometime soon for everyone who likes to see those. Maybe some from our recent trip to the zoo or something.

The Job Hunt

I'm not looking for much, just a solid job for either part-time or full-time somewhere in the web programming field. I know I don't know every single programming language out there, but if I can find a few open positions that are pretty close to what I know I think I can learn whatever else is needed fairly quickly.

The one job I had hoped to get because I was pretty sure my skills were either on par with or far beyond what they needed was at Heritage Web Solutions, but they refuse to return calls and have "misplaced" my resume and application twice now. I guess that option is out. It would have been the most convenient by a long shot though.

I found a few new jobs to apply or at least research a little more yesterday, one in Sandy and one with the Provo Daily Herald that seems like it might be promising. I also put in a call in response to an advertisement on Craigslist to someone who was looking to pay to have their small business site reworked into something more professional looking. That one would be a freelance job, but could net a little bit of money and experience as well.

Mostly I wish I had time to learn new programming languages more quickly, but with school, my current job, and taking care of the family there isn't much time for that sort of thing. The catch is that without some of the new languages I worry I might not be all that marketable while looking for better employment. Steep hill to climb I guess.

If anyone has any leads on jobs or freelance projects, let me know as I'd certainly be interested.