Blog posts

With the Green Card interview yesterday (of which Kari has the full story) ending some hours earlier than expected, we decided to walk back along Jefferson from the federal building to our hotel, two blocks from the GM tower, exploring downtown Detroit. Downtown Detroit contains one of the densest populations of striking 19th century architecture I’ve seen in some time. Beautiful, tall, stone buildings are to be found throughout the downtown area, but they’re almost all extremely neglected. Boarded up windows and empty doorways abound, and aside from the Renaissance Center and a handful of office buildings, the only lively properties are casinos (largely established in 1996 to compete for tourist dollars with neighbouring Windsor). It’s one of the starkest examples I’ve yet seen of the devastating impact of urban sprawl, and deeply depressing. Looking upwards to the decorative tops of buildings was an inspiring experience, but the eyes’ journey back down to earth was sobering. ...

A super-brief update. I am currently sitting in a cafe in Windsor, Ontario. It’s my first time outside the US in 11 months, and proof that my application for permanent residency was approved. My passport is stamped and freedom is good :) More details to come.

Thanks to the proof-reading assistance of Ryan, this latest version of Services_Technorati should now comply with the PEAR coding standards, so I’ve moved it to alpha status, and upped the version number. Next up will be writing some unit tests for the module. After the fact, I know, but an important step. Getting a CVS or SVN repository up and running is also high up the list. And it’s probably time to return some attention to a project where I’ll be using this module to step-up the real-world testing. ...

A couple of bug reports reminded me that it was time for another release of Services_Technorati. This release fixes a typo and adds some important checks on the return value of $this->_checkOptions() I’m hoping to finish the last few coding standards issues this week so I can move the package up to alpha status. There’s still no word from Technorati about fixes to their attention.XML support, so I’m not inclined to hold up the package’s release based on that. ...

jystewart.net appears to be settled in on the new server now, and I’m back from a quick sojourn to Nashville, TN. Hopefully I’ll get back to a decent writing schedule shortly.

Three posts in one day. Whatever next? (I make no promises to keep it up) We’re headed to Nashville on Sunday to partake in this. If you’re in the area, please come along and join us. “Up From The Ryman” At The Downtown Presbyterian Church, On the corner of 5th Ave. North and Church St. 154 5th Ave. North 254 - 7584 Monday, April 11th 6:00 Pentecost Is For The People: An Evening Of Conversation with Will Campbell and David Dark in the chapel ...

Karl posted a comment on my previous entry asking for highlights and surprises from the festival. I’d intended to post something to that effect at some stage, but there’s no time like the present… Musically there was plenty to enjoy. With the presence of Brother Danielson and Half-Handed Cloud (and, to a lesser extent, Sufjan Stevens) there was a definite avant garde stream running through the event, and it was great to see the warm response to those artists. Among festival-goers there was a clear appreciation of what they were trying to achieve and many of us really enjoyed their sets. Seeing John Ringhofer (Half-Handed Cloud) perform was great after listening to his latest album so much of late. ...

This entry would have been sooner coming, but a few details leapt in the way and this week has been no calmer than the last. It’s definitely good news that the Festival of Faith and Music went so well as it did. This festival was always going to be a different experience for me than the last: not having a 28-hour journey and the associated jetlag was a big bonus, and it was never going to be quite so life-changing as my first visit to Grand Rapids. But while none of those who were at the inaugural event could claim quite such an impact as it had on Kari and I, it was clear that there had been some repercussions, as evidenced by the warm friendships between people who had first met two years ago, and Daniel Smith’s statement from the stage that he had felt freed up to “try some new things.” ...

I’m now ready to move this domain to its new home. Apologies in advance if you experience any interruption in services.

Mosaic Springs is the name Linda Sack has chosen for her business selling the mosaics she specialises in, running mosaic workshops, and producing art by commission. Today I’m very pleased to be able to launch the latest iteration of the associated website: www.mosaicsprings.com. As with all newly launched work, the site isn’t quite finished. There will be some new images creeping in over the next little while, and maybe another section, but it’s available for the world to see. The design is based on a logo Linda had commissioned, but the focal point is very much the photographs of the vibrant mosaics Linda has produced lately. Enjoy! ...