I have been riding in to work by motorcycle for the last 4 months. I got my motorcycle endorsement at the end of April. I took the Team Oregon Basic Rider Training before getting my endorsement. It was a very fun class. And I really felt prepared to ride on the road after it. So, I'd recommend it or it's equivalent in your state.

There were a few reasons that I got a motorcycle. One was to just do something different. You know, shake things up. Another was to save some money. With selling my car and getting a cheap motorcycle, I was able to knock a few grand off my credit cards. :-) Also, I'm getting about 55 MPG. When I fill up, it's like $8. Oh, and insurance is like $160/year.

Since I was a new rider, I figured I should get a very cheap bike. That way, I wouldn't cry if I happened to lay it down. So, I got a 1981 Honda CM400 Custom. Here is a picture of my commuter bike. I've already put on almost 2000 miles.

Anyone else ride a motorcycle in to work?

As part of a new Adobe initiatives user groups are supposed to have co-managers. So, I will be the new co-manager for the PDXRIA group. The title feels a little like "Assistant to the Regional Manager" ;-). And in more exiting news, Simeon Bateman will be stepping back up as the main manager.

We will both do our best to provide engaging presentations and valuable opportunities for networking. For more details see Simeon's blog.

P.S. I'm going to try and blog more often.

We've been really busy at work for years. A lot of the time it feels like a grind. But, yesterday, I really enjoyed myself.

I have been working on a project that will get us started on using CFCs for our database access. I know, I know. We're a little late for that train, huh... Well, a huge portion of our application was already written in the FB3 framework before CFCs even existed. That's a lot of procedural momentum. It took me a long time to get approved to start this project (and even longer to fit it in my work schedule).

Due to requirements at work, I am using Brian Rinaldi's Illudium PU-36 Code Generator. I made a minor tweek to the generator code so that I could use it outside of the flex interface. And I've been spending some time here and there customizing the generator templates to produce the code I want.

Yesterday, I finally got the per-table templates to a good place and started building the service that will pull it all together. As I built that out and made small changes to it and the templates during the day, my test template kept getting cleaner and simpler all day long! I really just wanted to share how exciting it was. I'm doing something that will really help us at work! And I'm proud of it from a technical perspective!

I think the last time I was this excited at work was when I proved that we could use AJAX and started making parts of our application much more intuitive. :-)

If people are interested in what I'm doing with Brian's generator, how I'm using it, how I'm organizing my CFCs, etc., I could write that up. Anyone?

Ok, I really held out as long as I could. I've wanted an Xbox 360 pretty much since they came out. At the time, I just couldn't justify the purchase financially. Then last Christmas, we got a Nintendo Wii (which is excellent for families or parties).

Well, this year I'm doing better off financially and I couldn't wait any longer. So, about a week ago I got myself a shiny new Xbox 360 Elite.

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OT: My dad (Jack Phillips) has just finished a project at work for securing email and document transmission. There is a free beta. So, if you have need in your business to send sensitive documents or email securely, go check it out. PositiveDelivery.com

I am going to be the Senior Architect for our ASP model software package at work.

I have been cranking out features where I work for years now. It has been full-steam ahead the whole time. It is the busiest job I have ever worked.

A very large portion of our application was written in FB3 right before ColdFusion MX came out. There's nothing wrong with that if you only want an HTML front end. The code is fairly clean and well-organized. In the interest of time (and for lack of a better way), the application has continued to be written in procedural FB3.

For some time now I have wanted to explore abstracting our data access and business logic into CFCs. I tried pitching it several times. However, we never had the time and resources to do it.

Our company has been very successful in the last year. So, now, what was essentially a team of two programmers doing everything has grown to a team of 4 programmers and 1 designer. This has finally given us the resources to tackle re-addressing some foundational stuff in our application. And I finally made a convincing pitch as to why we should. So, I, as the new Senior Architect, will be doing just that!

P.S. My blog has been really quiet lately. Embarrassingly quiet. Hopefully, with my new position, I'll have some interesting stuff to blog...