I’m finally starting my Monday schedule – during Wednesday afternoon.

I’m off to the Boys and Girls Clubs for a quick meeting before going to fix my grandmother’s wifi router that’s acting up.

I’m meeting at the Club on a few projects I volunteer with. The first is writing a script for the membership database for a prize contest (I believe) which should be a fun project that I’ll enjoy as it’s coding. The second is the Downtown Youth Centre project which I’m liaison for with think|haus. The third is the McMaster Children’s University.

Think|haus is involved with managing the computer network at the Youth Centre and teaching the youth how to manage the network themselves. It’s a really exciting project for many of us at think|haus as many of us started on computers back in the 90s when students were the only ones who understood networking. Myself, I ran my high school computer network (even had a master key for every room in my high school) for three years which leads to my involvement on school board committees when I joined the Board’s IT committee (I wasn’t going to let some suits tell me how to run “my” network).

The McMaster Children and Youth University is an amazing outreach project of the University. Each month, the University offers a lecture designed for children and youth open to the public. The University also hosts a group of about 40 children from the Boys and Girls Clubs for a tour of the campus and front row seats to the lecture. (I’m working on an extensive blog post about this experience and the positive impact it is already having.)

I’m looking forward to moving forward on this fun projects today.

For about a week now, I’ve been fixing off cold symptoms. I’ve improved my diet, hydration, and rest. Despite this, my symptoms persist.

Today, New Year’s Day, was the first day I suffered from nausea – absent fever or muscle aches – due to whatever virus I’m fighting.

It’s completely killed my productivity today. It’s nearing 2000hrs and this is the first I’ve been able to sit and write today.

Oh well, it could be worst, I could actually be really sick.

I’m going about my business getting groceries at the local supermarket when the elevator music playing overhead changes to a song I never really liked but triggers happy memories today.

It’s one of the favourite songs of a lovely lady I dated many years ago. I couldn’t stand the song, really couldn’t stand it. Today, it makes me happy as I relate it to her. (Her and I remain friends but live in different provinces so we’ve drifted apart over the years)

The song?

Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up – http://youtu.be/aJxrX42WcjQ

On the note of small things triggering memories. I went on a couple of dates with another lovely lady whom has a thing for cheesecake. Calling her love of cheesecake a “thing” is an understatement. (When I first met her for less than 30 seconds, our mutual friend whom I was visiting quickly said to me “No, Joseph” using my full first name for emphasis of her objection – that’s how obvious my interest was.)

The Chesse Shoppe on Locke displays a sign outside their door advertising the sale of Godiva Double Chocolate Cheesecake. Every single time I walk by that sign, I pause and think of her. (She lives in Europe now)

Both triggers of positive memories made my day yesterday. I’m very fortunate to be blessed with them as friends.

Is the golden age of tech blogging over? Is the golden age of blogging over?

Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over is a good read as it provides both sides of the debate.

As an early adopter of blogging, I caused disruption to the higher education news landscape in Canada. (Scooping student newspapers from three time zones east was fun) I was eventually “bought-out” (of sorts) when hired as a reporter/blogger by Maclean’s. I eventually moved most of my blogging activity (short-thoughts and links) to Twitter.

Now, I find myself missing the original reason I started blogging, playing with the coding that powers my CMS. For this reason, I’ve returned to blogging.

I believe blogging will return and communities will re-emerge around blogs as Twitter and Facebook become too congested. The addition of advertising to these platforms will encourage early-bloggers who moved to these platforms to return to their own clean gardens – their personal domains.

Regardless of if Mr. Owyang is right or wrong, his post is an interesting read.

As we end this holiday day, I wish you and all a Merry Christmas.

It’s been a Christmas to remember for me. I had the opportunity to spend time with friends, family, and time with those I rarely see or haven’t seen for years.

The holiday is about our connections to God and others on the journey with us.

As we look forward to the year ahead, we can be thankful for the year that is past.

Thank you to all my friends, readers, and those that work to make the world a better place.

May the Christmas spirit remain with us.

With the Christmas slowdown finally underway, I’ve found some time to start diving into coding my WordPress theme.

I haven’t coded with much depth since mid-2007 when my journalism started to overtake my programming.

I’ve never really dove into WordPress like I dove into MovableType – the blogging CMS that powered the first four years of JoeyColeman.ca.

The MovableType version of my blog was extensively customized with many modifications from the default template which was the based of the site.

I was able to code those modifications during a series of all-nighters in the Engineering computer lab during my first year at the University of Manitoba and the odd all-nighter (often night shift working) during my time at McMaster.

This weekend, I’m taking advantage of a four day weekend to do a few all-nighters at think|haus coding my site.

Thus far:

[check_list]

• I’ve coded my Mediabugs WordPress plugin to appear in the info bar at the top of my blog post instead of at the bottom of the post content.
  My hope is to increase the visibility of the button, making it easier for readers to report errors
• Changes to the CSS
  A couple changes to the typography for blockquotes and “report an error” to improve readability
• Revision History in the sidebar
  I’ve coded the revision history into the sidebar for better readability and to increase transparency of post histories

[/check_list]

For the next week or so, I’ll be doing a few all-nighters working on updating and changing my site. For this time, thing may appear messy or incomplete (ie. the single post sidebar right now)

The blog is one of only four unique installs, I’ll be creating separate sub-sites for coding and mapping. As well, my mainpage will be reestablished as a portfolio.

During my journey across the Interwebs today, I came across this blog post by my then-Managing Editor Tony Keller:

As you’ve heard, Ted Rogers recently put down $15 million towards the renaming of the Ryerson business school. And as you’ll read if you continue reading the above linked-to story, our own Joey Coleman thinks that Rogers (the man who runs the company that owns Maclean’s) cut a pretty good deal — and that Ryerson walked away from the table with less than it should have.

Me, I’m not so sure.

….

This post is reflective of why I enjoyed working for Maclean’s during the early days of my journalism career.

One of my Christmas Eve “traditions” is on hold for the next two years – ordering snack food through the window at the Shell gas station in Ancaster’s Meadowlands.

I have a friend who works for the Hamilton Street Railway and the past couple of years, I’ve joined him for his last trip on Christmas Eve. When we arrive in Ancaster after 11pm, where he waits 25 minutes between trips, everything is closed except the Shell. The Shell isn’t fully opened, only the window and we tell the cashier what we wish to purchase and they slide it through the window after we pay.

I attend Christmas Mass with two of my closest friends and their family at 8pm in Burlington.

Tomorrow night, I’ll attend Mass in Burlington and then …. while, I’ll have to figure that out. My friend doesn’t drive weekends so it will be another two years before we restart our “tradition” again.

… a couple of years ago, a lovely woman I was dating at the time called while I was walking to the Gas Station. It was rather amusing to explain the tradition to her. Later that evening, I was looking for chocolate in my place about 3:30am in the morning. (I was working on a breaking news story) Not finding any, I opened her gift to get the chocolate (and replaced with twice as much chocolate two days later). She, rather humourously, noted I should’ve bought some chocolate while at the gas station.

… lastly, here’s a YouTube still with audio of my favourite popular music version of a Christmas Song