the german friday

Well it happened, Nikki and I became the loving parents of a beautiful baby boy! Read all about him here.

Jen and Chris Place welcomed their son into the world today, Adam Christopher Place. He is a very punctual young man. Today (July 23rd) was the actual due date given to Jen by her doctor. At 5:30 am, the newest Place started his journey to the outside. By 9:00 am Chris and Jen were on their way to the hospital. After an intense but relatively brief labor, Jen gave birth at 12:46 pm. No C-section this time. Mother, Father and son are doing excellent, and are expecting to be home by July 25th.

Now here’s the tale of the tape:

Name: Adam Christopher Place
Birthday: July 23rd, 2006
Birth Time: 12:46 pm
Gender: Male
Weight: 7 lb. 15 oz.
Length: 20 3/4″
Hair: Plenty
Cute: You Bet!

The summer months get kind of slow at my full-time job. That’s never good, but it does give me a chance to catch up on technology. Last summer it was advanced javascript, PHP and Flash video techniques. This summer it’s going to be parenthood, above all else, and also designing with web standards.

The web is a weird and wonderful place. Web browsers are forgiving as far as software applications go. There is no governing body to keep an eye on all us damn kids. This leaves the door open for anybody to do whatever they want, which is great. What’s not so great is that we can do it however we want. Writing code in whatever manner usually suits the situation. Doing the best we can at the time. I’ll admit I’m guilty. I’ve put together a project in whatever manner will meet the deadline. Well, it’s time to take a step back and put some thought into the manner in which I’m building. I like what I’ve read so far about the current set of standards. I say current, because like most things web-related, the standards are constantly evolving and being re-evaluated. I may never reach a point where my code is absolutely flawless, (I did start out life as a designer after all) I will be able write, quicker loading, more efficient pages, using XHTML and CSS.

There is at least one book on the subject in every room of my house, but I’ve kind of warmed up to the way Jeffrey Zeldman tells the story. He was one of the founding members of the Web Standards Project, and is considered to be the leading authority on standards in the web community today. I pre-ordered his book ‘Designing with Web Standards’ from Amazon and received it today. So far it is putting this whole thing in perspective. The only question that is really still bugging me is, ‘Why did I wait so long?’

I am already comfortable using CSS for text styles, table styles, background images, etc. But laying out pages entirely with styles fells a little like sitting in the passenger seat of a car being driven by a blind person,and it’s your job to describe to him how to parallel park. I guess like everything else in life, you’ve got to start somewhere, and with struggle I’ll get through it.

But to put it in a different light, it’s got to be one hell of a lot easier to build on familiar knowledge, than to learn how to be a parent from scratch. Yikes!

We visited the new IKEA store in Canton, MI a short while ago. What a neat store. If you are unfamiliar with the product line and brand, it’s interesting. IKEA is a swedish company that designs and manufactures smart, beautiful furniture and housewares. Their goal is to make great design accessible.

Nikki and I had been to the Chicago store several times over the years. Nikki’s Aunt Vicki, Uncle John and cousin Natalie live in Schaumburg. I was not new to the offerings or the company. I think the methods and philosophy of the company are great. Many of their products are designed and thought out with the end production in mind. That makes for cheaper products. It’s not great quality, but definitely

On July 18th, The Bronx released their second self-titled album. This one has a little more by way of melody than the last record, but still drives hard. If I understand correctly they replaced their guitar player last year and he plays all of the tracks on the new record.

The Bronx are, oddly enough, from LA. I had heard that they look and act like a band from LA. I recently caught them in concert at the Magic Stick in Detroit (July 16th) and was pleasantly surprised. The lead singer shuffled by me before they went on and he looked and acted anything like what I’ve always thought of LA people. He’s a small guy with some severe male pattern baldness, and he gave a big hug to a young guy who was walking with a cane. Cool in my book. If you’ve ever been to the Magic Stick you’ll know it isn’t the biggest place around, and I think the acoustics are pretty good. These guys tore that place down. It was something like 95 degrees outside, so like 115 inside and I had the chills.

Anyway if you are a fan of hardcore rock, or well written and executed music in general check out the new cuts from The Bronx on AOL (yep censored).

And check out the funny video for ‘History’s Stranglers’.