The Other October Update

This October is wrapping up in spectacular fashion.

Sweet and Chunky

This past Friday was a bit surprising for me. Work was "meh" at best, but I got through it knowing that I had a full weekend ahead of me. Friday night turned out to be very interesting. I ended up at the Toledo Museum of Art (for which I am a member now) with Aryn for a dessert-themed wine tasting. This was the sweetest set of wines I have ever had. The final of the four was a delicious cabernet sauvignon port that came with a perfect punch of sweet and alcoholic. I enjoyed it so much I bought a bottle.

After the museum we ended up at (our usual?) Doc Watson's. I am definitely warming up to Doc's, and I made an awesome discovery - Doc's wins the boneless chicken chunk battle. I judge almost all sports-eateries / bars on their boneless chicken chunks. It is one of my favorite junk foods and Doc's nails it: actual chunks of chicken right off the bone, deep fried in a thick, meaty batter, and tossed in one of a few sauces. That Doc's only offers five sauces says something about these chunks - it's all about the chicken, and there is no screwing around here.

Sorry, Jeds. There will always be a time and place for your Fireballs, but when I want the perfect chunk, I am off to Doc's.

P.S. - Wonder Showzen. That is all.

Where are the Bagels?

Ann Arbor's Day of .NET was this Saturday, and it was a decent day, but certainly not as awesome as my last AADODN. On the plus side, the drive to Ann Arbor is painless and perfectly manageable, which means I have no excuses to not visit the city from time to time.

The first session I attended focused on how to properly use data in a mobile environment. Most of this talk was focused on some generally good practices that apply across most software development: use asynchronous requests when talking to services on the web, store data locally, and make the mobile user experience paramount.

The second session focused on operating as an independent software developer. This is much more involved than simply finding a contact job and rolling with it. Michael Eaton covered the process from top to bottom - managing time, the importance of having quality a lawyer/accountant/insurance agent, time tracking, and various other topics.

The third session I went to covered iPhone development using C# / .NET. I can only say one thing about this: given all the effort and expense that it takes to get a C# app developed in the MonoTouch environment, it is probably worth just learning Objective-C.

The Coding Season

As this fall season slowly-but-surely transforms into winter, I am looking ahead to my next big project. Since I tend to spend a lot more time inside during the winter than during the summer, I tend to do a medium-to-large programming project. This winter I have a couple of projects in mind: additions to the BrandonBruno.com website and working on my Android development skills. In addition to the redesign of my website that rolled out last month, I hope to move some additional changes live in November.

Alright, now I am off to enjoy this wonderful Saturday night.

B3 out.