Interviewed by HoggWorks' Gideon

Brian Hogg was walking around FiTC with a puppet and against all odds managed to talk a bunch of cynical web-nerds into interviewing. I was the first. I'm not that cynical. Of puppets, anyway. I deal with client service reps every day. HA! I'm so bad!

Gideon interviews yours truly

Bit-101's Three Useful Methods

Keith Peters posted on his blog last week three useful methods.

I've added a couple of extra methods that I'm finding I use more often than not and might as well shove into this class. Shove is an inelegant word, but I'm an inelegant guy.

//thanks, Keith.

public static function distanceCalculation(x1:Number, y1:Number, x2:Number, y2:Number):Number
{
var dx:Number = x1 - x2;
var dy:Number = y1 - y2;
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
}

//I mixed something up here. Fixed the randomRange value return. Thanks again, Keith.

public static function randomRange(start:Number, end:Number):Number
{
return Math.floor(start + Math.random() * (end - start));
}
It's fair to note that I didn't create these methods. They were found at various times in various locations. I just keep misplacing them and looking for them again. Good to know that it's last time I'll do it.

It's nice to be spurred on to centralizing this stuff. Thanks, Keith!

Emergency Rooms

How can you get the feeling of urgency when you're made to wait for over an hour and a half to be seen?

Declan fell off our bed this morning. To put this in perspective, our bed has a 19 inch mattress which is about a foot off the floor. So Declan fell about 3 ft to land on his back and bump his head on the floor.

He immediately started crying, Libs picked him up and held him on the bed for about 10 minutes before she told she was concerned that he seemed sluggish. He'd slowed down considerably. Something I attributed to shock but that Libs thought meant he could be concussed.

I called my retired nurse of a mom who basically said "Better safe than sorry, bring him in." So we packed up, went to Toronto East General Hospital nearby.

I think the second you say your child has suffered head trauma, regardless of the degree of it, a healthcare professional might consider at least briefly checking on him. Even if it's only to make sure it isn't a sign of parental abuse, for god's sake. I'd happily be put in cuffs if someone could just allay my fear that little D wasn't hurt. However, not at TEGH. Nope, they put us into the system, told us to wait in the pediatric waiting room where he could watch tv. The tv that didn't work. And he could play with the toys. The incredibly dirty toys.

So there we were. Worrying about concussion. Declan recovered quickly and was playing with the toys within minutes. If you ever need to balance between holding Declan and letting him play with filthy toys knowing you'll wash his hands afterwards, let him play, man. Let him play.

After an hour and a half, we all became impatient. Declan had missed breakfast and was getting incredibly cranky. He wanted out of the confines of the room, so Libs started to walk around a little with him. I decided to call mom again and see what she thought.

"What's he like? Still sluggish?"
"Nope, he's running around like a maniac, pointing at every drawing and painting and naming all the stuff he sees."
"Are his pupils dilating? Or locked and fixed?"
"Well, if I cover his eyes I get about a second before my hand is forcibly removed by him and I can see they change a little. I don't really get enough time to make his eyes react, but they do a little."
"Go ask how long you can expect to wait and if they it's a lot longer, check yourselves out."

So that's what I did. The chart hadn't even been moved to the ward. When I asked one of the three nurses standing around the station if they just wanted to pop their heads in to take a quick look, I got a resounding "No". And I was reminded that all the beds were full and it would be a while. An indeterminate length of time, of course.

So we checked him out. I am so angry right now with TEGH. Is this what happens when you're considered an essential service? You become simply "essential" without "service"?

Note, I did check his pupils with a flashlight while he was eating breakfast at home and they definitely reacted. His mood improved even more when we finally were able to give him the cheerios he wanted so badly.

Screw you, Toronto East General Hospital. Thanks for taking what was a great week at FiTC and ending it with such crap.

FiTC TO over for another year.

Sniffle. Just like that, FiTC TO is over. One last lunch with some folks and off they go to their respective locales.

James Patterson's work is incredible. It's really evolved. I look forward to seeing his universe unfold. I wish I knew him better personally, as he's a hell of a guy.

Robert Hodgin continues to impress with his incredible work. Plus, his dry wit and sharp tongue is a boon to all of us that have the pleasure of knowing him. And he has some wicked people to work with at Barbarian Group

Grant Skinner and his wife Bobi are two people, that if I missed them, I'd miss them. Plus, Grant's words of wisdom taken from his years of speaking was a tremendous help in calming me down before, and after, my session.

Erik Natzke and his lovely Tobey left early but they were catching a flight to Norway so who can blame them? Seeing his work has always inspired me. Plus, he punches hard. I get to punch him back and he doesn't mind since he's built like a tank.

Phillip Kerman has been doing some really funny videos.

Chaos-101. Keith Peters. All she wrote, yo.

There's lots more, of course. Josh is even more of a brand, partnering up with Umbra. I don't see them on Umbra, but he also designed bedding. So if you've always wanted to curl up with Josh and drink a hot chocolate with him while watching the English Patient, here's your chance. I'm pretty sure he won't do that in person, unless it's the extra-long director's cut. He's a sucker for Ralph Fiennes.

Lastly, this was year was different because Libs got to join me once in awhile and meet all the people I've been talking about for the past however many years. She finally managed to have a nice chat with most of them. And we brought Declan to the festival for a short while where he captured the hearts of every onlooker with his crush on the Seneca bee.

and stole a beach ball from Aquent.

Faïk Tattoos

My presentation at FiTC TO went well, from what I can tell. Not everyone will agree, but such is the way. I did get some really great feedback following the presentation which I truly appreciated. Everyone seemed interested in the source materials. This is a good sign. So for those of you that waited the 12 hours, here's everything. And thanks to everyone that attended my session. It was extremely rewarding to see so many faces. I hope you got something out of it.

OOP for the OOPless

Navigation is as follows:
S (s) - show slide navigation
H (h) - hide slide navigation
if slide navigation is opened, you can click on individual slides to jump to a slide.
right arrow key - next slide
left arrow key - previous slide
down arrow key - progress through slide


Once the slide has 'opened' (meaning the background image has come in) you can just burn through the slide to get whatever you were looking for. I probably should have visual titles on the navigation, but I'll get to it, I promise.

Source Example Files from the presentation.

FaïkTattoos
Not too shabs for a week's worth of work.
Source files

Thank you, Shawn, for the opportunity. I haven't spoken publicly for a couple of years and it was fantastic to come back at such a prestigious event. I look forward to taking money from everyone in poker. Or having a little cry in my beer as I sit on the sidelines after being busted out.

FiTC TO in Two Days!

My talk, OOP for the OOPless, is in two short days! I'm nervous and excited at the same time.

There really is nothing better than FiTC. It's a lot of fun and the speakers are top notch.

I haven't spoken for them in two years. Jeez maybe three. I had a downslide of public speaking since going fulltime and my little Libs getting pregnant with our little Declan.

So I'm very nervous. VERY nervous!

Hope to see you there!