Ry’s Blog

It has been ages since I last updated my blog. Perhaps I should rename it to “Overdue Update,” since those are mostly what I post. My recent inactivity is made doubly obvious by the fact that the index page of my website is still nothing but boring, basic HTML. How long ago did I say there was going to be an exciting new appearance? Too long ago. It almost makes you wonder if I still take my Internet presence seriously. The answer is yes, but I’ll go into that later. First, I’ll give you a little update on what I’ve been up to recently.

First and foremost, I have been battling college. I started this semester hoping it would not be another crappy one. Unfortunately it started rough, and I was unable to focus on any of my personal projects, which always bums me out. Things have improved though. In my programming class I have been responsible for writing the client/server communications portion of a first person shooter we are developing using Java and JOGL. This has kept my mind interested and focused on the class, and it has been going great so far. It has challenged me to actually invest some thought and creativity into the class, which has made it so much more enjoyable for me. My painting class has also been enjoyable as of late, which is a breath of fresh air. I also had an essay I wrote for my Literature of Horror class selected by my professor to be read this April 27th to the English department. It discusses the artistic contributions of H.R. Giger to the film Alien. I am excited that my writing, along with several other pieces by students in my class, was chosen to be read. I am looking forward to showing off my writing and gloating over it.

Also, on somewhat of a whim, I bought myself a skateboard. I was inspired to purchase it after riding around on one that my friend, Jeremy had. I bought a deck, griptape, trucks, wheels, and bearings, and put the bastard together myself. It looks pretty damn cool. The deck has a kick ass set of wings on the top, and some very nice graphics on the bottom, which remind me of the Obey Propaganda shirts that the Buckle sells. It’s really top notch. Sadly, I have not had an opportunity to go outside with it much. We had a week of warmth, during which time I bought my skateboard, but immediately after my purchase Nebraska was plunged back into the frigid 2o degree zone. So while Nebraska freezes its ass off, I’ve been practicing on it in my living room. I can officially do a rail stand (sorta). That is about the extent of my abilities. I am looking forward to warm weather so I can go attempt the dreaded ollie outdoors. Chances are I’ll be planting my face into concrete in no time.

I have also had a breath of fresh creative air flow through me, and I have been channeling it into several of my neglected programming projects. The first of which is a program for rapidly generating PHP websites based off the schema of a MySQL database. Basically, it is a Java application that examines the metadata of a database and writes out PHP code for doing basic insert, update, delete operations. I am sure someone has already done this, but I don’t really give a shit. I hate the way most of the PHP frameworks out there work, so its nice to have a program around that generates PHP code I can actually stand to look at. So far, I have cleaned up a large portion of the code, and it is structured much more elegantly now. I also created a new side project for easily handling command line arguments in a simple manner. I am really excited about making progress on these projects, and can’t wait until they are mature enough to make available for download. I am anxious to start adding some real content to my website, and I am also (or course) interested to see if anyone will actually use the software I’ve been writing.

Which leads me back to my website. Both of my domains have been dead for too long, and I am currently working on changing that. I ditched my angst-ridden old blog layout, cool though it may have been, and I am going to attempt to start making rylowry.com a more professional looking place. All of this is in preparation for actually having some software available here for download. I want to start making it look like the business I originally envisioned it as. I suppose we will see how that goes. Until my next long overdue update, stay tuned!

Oh, I nearly forgot. I also moved my Wordpress database from MySQL 4 to MySQL 5 and upgraded it to the latest version. I am still in shock and awe that I did not completely screwup either the database or Wordpress. I shall interpret this as a sign that the Internet gods are pleased. Adios!