Bugs!

So we decided we've reached the point where we need to stop adding features (at least, big ones!) and focus on fixing bugs and cleaning it all up a bit. We're constantly coming up with little improvements to make to it all, and that really is the best thing about working with someone else if you can pull it off. You really get a lot of incremental feedback, which is a good thing if you can still focus.

I suspect it also helps that we're doing very different parts of the project. That's the way I work with Kandace a lot, too. That way you kind of start at each end (Peat, the code, and I, the design) and work toward each other. Once you meet in the middle, you can go back and make sure everything jives and fits in.

Music: We're now listening to Swell, a terrific and highly underrated band from San Francisco. The 90's, I think. Peat really enjoyed The Moog Cookbook I was playing earlier, I recommend it.

Drink: Water. But I think the fourth pot of coffee is on the way. Just a post-lunch hunch. 

Who Died and Made You Coffee Expert, Anyway?

Peat suggested that I tell y'all a little bit about why I care about coffee. Probably because he's tired of me raving on and on, with that little bit of white spittle in the corner of my mouth that never seems to quite go away. What can I say. Wide awake and alert here! Reporting for duty! Should probably be working on the app, shouldn't I!

Coffee has always been a passion of mine. I've taken part in nine different coffee businesses, from starting them up from scratch, to working at bigger names like Peet's and, of course, Stumptown Coffee Roasters here in Portland. While I never followed that career path long enough, or with enough dedication, to become a roaster, I was always quite interested in what roasters cared about. I've had more of a taste for coffee than wine, or at least more of a talent for tasting the stuff.

But I don't pretend to speak on too much authority. I know too many coffee experts for that. In fact, that's maybe a bit of what makes me a little humble about it. I've been involved with Stumptown since before its first shop opened in a burned-out ex-hair-salon called The Hair Bender. And many of the folks at Stumptown know more about coffee than anyone I've met. And if you know the people who run Stumptown, you know about the coffee industry, and how passionate an industry it is.

I've seen a number of sites dedicated to wine tasting. Wine tasting is something I've never been great at, as I mentioned, but I love tasting it and I love drinking it. Yet I could never find anywhere online to share coffee opinions. But the incredible design of Cork'd, launched a while ago, along with the impetus of Rails Day 2006, brought Peat and I together to whip out the web application I've wanted for years, but could never quite put together. So cheers to Peat, and all of Rails Day and its participants.

We hope you like our little app.

Junior Senior!

Oh, I've been saving my second wind for this album. Or vice versa. Junior Senior's most excellent first album, D-D-Don't Stop the Beat. This is an album you can't possibly sit still to – maybe even more infectious than the Herb Alpert we listened to about, oh, 300 hours ago I think.

The application is starting to feel coherent to me, from a visual standpoint. The CSS is getting solid, if long, and we're starting to cover pages like the home page when you first visit, after you log in, search results, and all sorts of fancypants stuff like that. 

Drink: We aren't drinking anything but water at the moment. We took a little walk earlier, and that was nice. It looks to be a mellow day in Portland here. Not sure what this has to do with our beverage choice… 

Half Way

Well, it's 9 AM, which means we've been at this for 12 hours.  Everything is coming together very nicely, and I have a feeling we'll be able to squeeze in some bells and whistles beyond our original plan before the time is up.

It's good to see the sun again.

Music: Camper Van Beethoven, to whom we dedicate our color scheme.

Drinks: Cold coffee. 

Breakfast!

Time for a short break for breakfast:  home made hashbrowns and eggs, courtesy of Kandace!

In the mean time, it looks like I'm up to #2 on the commit list … I don't expect to be there for long, but I'll bask in the glory while I can.  Ray's uploading some photos, and the music has been turned off while we regroup and consider what's next.

I think we might go for a walk.

Onward!

I Must Be Dreaming…

This music makes me feel like I'm in a car commercial from the late fifties. It actually goes pretty well with the visual design we've been trying for. In a weird sort of way. It's light out. The birds are chirping. When's the last time I stayed up so late it became early again?

I'd like to offer some clever lesson, as Peat does in his posts, but no lessons learned here. How could I possibly be this alert at six in the morning, I'd like to know.

Death by CSS box model. Still Herb Alpert playing, and for some reason Peat is taking pictures of this. Someday I'll look back ever so fondly, won't I? Ever so. 

I Thought I Was Clever …

I like validations. Validations are good! Unfortunately, I haven't worked much with the validates_associated validation, and it's been biting my ass for the last hour. Thank god for Herb Alpert. As soon as I get irritated, The Brass kicks in and takes me to a good place.

Things are truckin' along. The sun is coming back up!

Music: Rockin' the Alpert.

Drink: Cold coffee.

Joints: Starting to ache. This is when sleep dep gets interesting.

Herb Alpert

We are listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Have you ever listened? My gosh, how can you possibly have a care in the world? How can you possibly be worrying about unit testing? You're such a silly programmer! Everything is A-OK, we're listening to Herb Alpert!

And still working on that second pot of coffee. Gotta keep up those commits, boys. Win one for The Gipper, and all that. 

It Ate My Post

I'm just writing to tell you how pissed I am that my post just got eaten by WordPress. Dammit. It was really funny. Peat kidnapped me, and wouldn't let me go to the bathroom and stuff. It had funny parts, and scary parts, and parts where we made more coffee (Ethiopian Harar Longberry from Stumptown) and got really loopy and I'm not supposed to tell you any more than that.

Music: Peat's treating us to some Mister Bungle. Psychedelic! 

Ohh …

… I just discovered some Mr. Bungle in my playlist.  I wonder if Ray likes Mr. Bungle.