Spring Cleaning

Google recently announced that it was discontinuing blogs published via FTP which is how this blog used to be published.  So, today I scrapped my custom built template I put together several years back and took the plunge to storing all of my content on Google's servers.  The following are the changes:

• Since the posts are stored on Google's cloud instead of my home machine, and I want the same URL to work, I had to change kevin.servebeer.com from a DNS host to a DNS alias that points to Google's servers.
• Since my picture gallery is still stored on my host machine, I had to register another hostname so that my picture gallery is still accessible.  My picture gallery can now be accessed at http://kevingallery.servebeer.com/gallery2.
• Set up a broken link host to point to kevingallery.servebeer.com so that pictures from old posts continue to work.
• Completely new fresh template design courtesy of the new online template designer
• Besides the new obvious colors and look and feel, a few cool new things:
• Date based hierarchical listing of old posts
• "Cloud" labels where the label names are larger for those that are more frequent
• Subscribe widget with several options to subscribe to the blog
• Cooler "What I'm Reading" section taken directly from my Google Reader account.  The items are sorted by most recently updated and include icons and thumbnails related to the item

Since I'm completely on Google's system now instead of using a hand built template on my home server, I hope to continue to add new and cool features that only the non-FTP deployment can provide.

Hopefully this fresh look will also give me more motivation to post more often.  Nowadays, most of my motivation is spread thin between school, work, and our bathroom remodel (details to come later).  I should be done with school this summer though and hope to pick up on a bunch of neglected projects like this website.

Wish List 2009

Here's this year's wish list that I'll update as ideas come to me:

Download in PDF, Excel, or Text.

Hitched

Megan and I got married on June 20th, 2009. It was a beautiful ceremony and reception with photos, video, etc. to follow later when I get all the pictures back from the photographer.

We got back from our honeymoon a few days ago from Playa del Carmen. Check out all of the pictures at http://kevin.servebeer.com/gallery2/v/honeymoon. The resort was amazing and we had a great time. I slept like a baby every night. Some of the highlights included our trip to Tulum to see the Mayan ruins, swimming with the dolphins, and a monkey sticking its tongue in Megan's mouth:

Um, This is Awesome

I need a fish tank with one of these:

Engagement Photos

Megan and I took our engagement pictures a couple of weeks ago while we were in Wichita at Lasting Memories. After filtering through all the stiff and awkward pictures, we picked out 15 that I posted here.

I think we will probably use some form of this one for the papers:

This one I requested to take as a joke but it actually turned out pretty good:

New Years Countdown

Wish List 2008

Here's this year's wish list that I'll update as ideas come to me:

Download in PDF, Excel, or Text.

Live Shiba Inu Puppy Cam!!

Watch all the little Ember's live :) It even has sound. This totally made my day...

Map of Live Results of Election

Happy Halloween!

Some cool and funny pictures I've seen floating around the last week or so:

Denver Pics

I'm a little late as usual with the notice, but the pics from all our cameras from our trip to visit Kristin in Denver are up. Check 'em out.

Actuate Conference in Vegas

Still catching up here...

About a month ago, I made way to Vegas for the Actuate International User Conference at Red Rock in which I delivered a couple of presentations/workshops:

• Investigating Actuate iServer Logs and Monitoring Performance
• Understanding, Parsing, and Reporting off of Encyclopedia Logs and Monitor Script - WORKSHOP

Cool thing about this trip is I got to meet my mentor, Justin Miranda, for my OpenMRS project that I just wrapped up for the summer. He made a presentation in which he discussed what OpenMRS is and how they are using BIRT and touched on the ODA that I am working on.

The blowout party was impressive as usual and was at TAO Nightclub at the Venetian. The food and drinks were top shelf and I wasn't complaining about the ladies in the bathtub :)

The rooms at Red Rock were probably the nicest I've stayed at in Vegas. I was particularly impressed with the flat screen TV in front of the bathtub:

I also had a good view of the Red Rock Canyon:

And the pool area below:

Red Rock had a lot to offer as far as live games, food, movie theatre, bowling alley, etc., but it just didn't have that Vegas feel because it's so far from the strip. For some people, this is exactly what they want, but I'm not one of those people :)

Fencing Things In

Wow, I haven't written on here in more than 3 months. I've been crazy busy with my Google Summer of Code project and spent most of my free time on this. Quite a bit has happened since then and I'll try to catch up in the next couple posts.

So, at the beginning of the summer, my dad and I started the project to fence in the backyard with a privacy fence. We chose treated lumber for the posts and rails and used cedar for the pickets.

All the pictures from the project are here, but I'll highlight some in this post.

Here's the holes from the post hole digger next to the neighbor's chain link fence. Annoying neighbor wanted to keep his fence so we ran the privacy fence right next to it:

Dad and I starting on the concrete work to get the posts in the ground:

The next picture is my favorite. While dad and I were making the holes for the post, we ran into what we thought was a gas line. After closer inspection, the end of it had a U-joint! After almost 2 hours of messing with it, we pulled out an 8 foot drive shaft that was buried in the back of the yard more than 3 feet at the deepest point. Here we are posing with our "trophy":

Setting the posts:

Got the rails up:

Dad pre-built a nice steel tube gate that we braced with extra lumber and concrete and hung:

After a good 5 or 6 days, we had the whole fence framed out. I spent the next month or so hanging up the pickets:

The dogs have certainly been enjoying running around the backyard with no supervision. However, I've recently started redoing the entire backyard since there's virtually no grass so the dogs are no longer allowed. More on seeding the backyard later...

Many, many, many thanks to dad for making this happen!

New Colorado Pics

Finally got around to uploading pics from the Colorado trip I took with my parents a few weeks ago. Check out the album here.

This semester is almost over so hopefully I'll get my sanity back soon :)

Accepted to Google Summer of Code

I found out on Monday that I was accepted as a student for the Google Summer of Code for this summer 2008. I will be working with OpenMRS which is an open source medical application primarily used to track prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in developing countries. I'll be extending and enhancing their BIRT ODA among other things. Info about the accepted projects with OpenMRS are here and more details about my project are here. The official start is May 26th. I'll be blogging on this separate blog to track my progress and experience with this.

Super Mario

Can you spot Julian Wright?

Rock Chalk Championship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Championship Bound!

'Nuff said.

Final Four!!!!

Here we come Roy!!

50 Inches of Heaven

I'll be picking up the TH-50PX80U later this week!! More to come...