Why?

Because I have (as of tomorrow) started another stage of study. I am going to do a Bachelor of Applied Management at CPIT, majoring in Business IS and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Thankfully work have effectively let me have a day a week for classes (paid! woo!) and most of my papers are online. I’ve also managed to arrange it so that I get a New Zealand Diploma in Business as well – the combination of these and my other degree should increase my repertoire quite well.

Also on the cards is the birth of my first son – scheduled for June (fingers crossed it doesn’t clash with Exams ).

As for my own business, well finding time to get any development done is a bit tricky at the moment, with everything else. But thankfully everything else with it is ticking along quite nicely, and it will be up for its official first birthday in April – really good considering the minimal amount of income is just enough to pay the bills and that I am effectively working for free. But that’s what it’s all about right? I’m doing something I enjoy, learning skills whilst I do it (Web Design/Development, Business, People, etc.) and I have a bit of opportunity to contribute back – put some money into different people and tech that I feel will benefit the community and the environment. Oh, and the number of clients regularly paying for hosting and such is increasing slowly

Finally, my hobbies are going well too – the garden is full of heaps of different shapes and sizes of green tomatoes. I wonder if they will ripen this summer properly or not – the weather has been kinda crap. Crap like a summer with only a handful of good sunny days. This, of course, makes the tomatoes take longer to ripen. And when coupled with the sheer amount on each vine takes even longer. But I’m not complaining too much – there are occasional red ones which get scoffed before anyone sees

My trains are coming along quite well too – I have been building up an N gauge layout which takes my mind off other stressing factors. Just purchased come carriages off TradeMe which should look good with the new platforms I just built.

Oh yeah, and to top things all off I am going for my restricted driving licence next week…

Kiwinewt.Geek is no more. Well… as a blog it is no more. As a company it is now going strong.

I have decided to move my blog over to Technohippy.geek.nz because I thought it more suited where I am, where I want to be and how I am going to get there.

This last year has been really interesting. I have given up my bachelor life, started my own company, completed my certificate in Organic Horticulture and had my entire world view changed. No longer do I just want to do programming or web development or whatever, I want to do them in such a way that I can help out people, the environment and my family. If this means I have to plant trees, so be it. If it means I have to protest the National Government, count me in. If it means… well you get the picture.

I must say that watching Julie and Julia the other night gave me a lot of inspiration and did show a bit of what the future holds with regards to this – to say that there will  be trials and tribulations will be a bit of an understatement… I am almost looking forward to the “lying on the floor giving up on everything” then getting backup and getting the last few bits done.

Another part of this is my Project365, which I posted about earlier. Today was perfect weather, really good to go take photos… so what did I do? Went to the beach on a lunch date with my wife. She is so awesome and beautiful sometimes

That all being said, I think its enough general rant for now. I know I want to throw my New Years resolutions in here (and hinted at them a lot) but that will be a whole ‘nother post. More to come tomorrow and the days following… Bring. It. On.

I am, however, getting on top of these again now and will get into development as soon as I am able. Tonight I even installed my copy of a Ruby on Rails Ticket Management System, had a bit of a play with it and almost instantly decided to rewrite it myself. but thats the beauty of Open Source, isn’t it? I can look at the code and see how things have been done and write them the way I think that they should be. The project is old enough that to bring it up to date will just about take a complete code rewrite, so starting from scratch would be a good idea – and it means that I can incorporate a load of plugins to do the work for me

As far as other projects go, I have moved PageSprout over to my GitHub now, so for people going to download it the whole thing looks a bit more professional. Soon I will hopefully be able to work on it as well – I have a growing roadmap on my computer of what I want to do with it and where I want it to head.

Hopefully business will pick up a bit again and it will be all go

Yeah I know, I’m only a one-man shop and put in a load of ‘we’ stuff, but it does sound a bit more professional I think. Just a case of working out where ‘I’ ends and ‘We’ begins… See. Even the grammar associated with that is buggering up!

Oh, and yes I did do the logo myself

I have also added some pages I think that I needed, so please check them out. The main one is the Contract Work page, especially since I would like some extra work to do

Hope everyone enjoys the changes. If not (or if something doesnt work) let me know!

The sooner I can get this sorted the better…

I would settle for a solution that folds up on hinges, provided that the hinges could be small enough/embedded in the wood to make a (relatively) flat surface on top (the small hole shouldnt matter)

Any ideas? Discuss

PS: It is to run my train set on, so I would possibly be wanting to put holes in to run wires through, should I ever decide to use this as a permanent item, which would be unlikely. In fact, forget I ever said this could happen…

So anyway, what have I been up to to date?

• Started my final project for my degree
• Started learning Ruby on Rails
• Learned how to set up Subversion and keep a project in it and up to date
• Made fridge magnets (linky)
• Started to burn-out physically. I need more sleep. midnight – 7am just doesn’t seem to be cutting it, especially since I dont seem to be sleeping right…
• Taken the greenhouse part off my little garden – the brassica are too big for it now…
• Bought NZ$400ish worth of books on Amazon – RoR books, Self-sufficiency books, a Makers Notebook each for Liz and I (need to send mine back – it was damaged)

Also re: the birthdaypresentness, I got UK bikkies, about $100 total, a couple of Jules Verne books, an electric razor and a Pounamu patu (like this one)

So yeah, think I will head off to bed now. Try catch up on a bit of sleep rather than spending the evening self-learning more RoR stuff.

N8 out…