Jonathan Gnagy's Blog

It’s been a while, but I’m still here. Alive and well. Job’s been going great, and my baby girl is growing like a weed. More like a beautiful rose. Either way, I’m pretty happy.

I’m still doing plenty of development, especially in JRuby and, believe it or not, Java. The little bit of Java development I’ve been doing lately has made me appreciate Ruby that much more.

Since my last post, I’ve gotten a new laptop (13" MacBook Pro), got a Motorola Droid (the original) (and I rooted it and installed UltimateDroid on it), and I’m back to using a Mac at work again.

I’ve got to start working on some additional features on my blog, like facebook integration, since I’ve been using that a lot more lately. Like I said in a previous post, facebook is much more fun when you have friends. Now that I’ve got a few on there, it’s pretty nice.

I’ve successfully unloaded the truck I rented (with the help of a couple good friends). My back hurts, I cut my hand pretty deep, and I’ve got a seemingly never ending list of groceries to buy from the closest store.

That drive seemed a lot longer than I remember it being. Maybe it was the truck, who knows. After all that driving, and all that unloading, I’m still not done. Now I need to unpack all these boxes too, and rebuild my dismantled furniture. I will admit though, that it’s nice to feel like the hard part of the move is over. Now I have to wait a couple weeks for my wife and baby girl to fly up here to live with me. Maybe the hard part isn’t over just yet.

I’ve had some time to burn since I’m not working for a couple weeks while I’m on paternity leave. During the night, my wife and I take shifts watching Marissa sleep (yeah, we’re paranoid like that). During my last shift (this one), I’ve accomplished quite a bit. I’ve managed to:

• Utilize Google’s Translate javascript API to provide site-wide translations
• Create a fully-functional, albeit simple, Todo / Checklist system and integrate into my blog
  • Uses Scriptaculous effects
  • I serialized the list items into an Array, so I only need a single column for an arbitrary number of list items. Also, no need for a separate “ListItems” model / table.
  • It allows me to mark lists as public, so everyone can see them. By default lists are private.
  • All adding and removing from the list is done via Ajax (with a non-javascript HTTP/1.0 POST fall-through), so it looks pretty snazzy.
  • I’ve started an experimental option to apply my tagging system to lists as well, but I haven’t figured out how I will make it all work, or how to display it.
• Polish up some sections of my site that weren’t quite passing XHTML 1.0 Strict compliance tests. I’m sure there are more out there, so feel free to comment if you happen to come upon a page this isn’t. Come to think of it, I’m sure the list stuff isn’t yet, since I didn’t check it.
• Make more of the site RESTful and support more pure XML operations (for scripting and such).

I’m sure I did more stuff, but I can’t really remember it right now. My eyes are awfully blurry… I’ll try to figure out some code to post tomorrow.

My wife gave birth to my daughter, Marissa Wendy Gnagy, yesterday (12/22/2009) at about 4AM. I can’t believe how much of a life changing experience it would be. I tried to mentally prepare myself, but I wasn’t even close. I’m just ecstatic. Here’s a picture I took while holding her (luckily we got her to sleep for a little while). She’s my little angel.

I’m very excited that my baby is almost here. I know its going to be very difficult in almost every way imaginable, but I know it will all be worth it. I can’t wait to tell my baby everything I know. At first, I wasn’t really sure if I was ready to be a father yet, but I’ve come around to the idea, and I’m going to give it my best shot. I think with the support of my wife and the rest of my family, I’ll do just fine.