First things first. I spent a bit of time this morning applying a new template (Krypton) to my site. This template is a third-party solution from BehindTheRabbit, a developer who has built templates for Wordpress, Rapidweaver, and Sandvox. It appears from his site that he's concentrating on the Sandvox templates, so I thought I'd throw a little support his way and give this one a try. This is similar in color-scheme to a BlueBall Cubicle 'hacked' version that I had done a few years back. My issue with that was that Charlie is a much better css guy that I was, and I didn't get all the glitches of my code modifications worked out to my satisfaction. I switched back to the original Cubicle version and have been using that for over three years. So, we'll see how Krypton works out. It actually integrates pretty well with the more recent Jalbum theme I've used on my galleries. Now all I have to do is to get out and take more photographs.
On the kid side of the world, this is (again) the big weekend for Grace. I just dropped her off at the airport for a flight to Newark—it's Westminster week! She's back showing in juniors for her final time—she'll be taking the Curly-Coated retriever Thriller into the ring for her finale. We're fortunate that the blizzard has subsided and that Newark airport is back open (they opened at 8:30 am this morning...). Grace has shown at Westminster (in juniors) twice before—making it to the finals both times, and coming in 3rd last year. She's putting a ton of pressure on herself—not only to make the finals, but to finish better. The reality is that 2 finals (that's 8 kids out of about 140) is incredible, and she'd be damn lucky (and good) to make it again. But this is her show, so we'll see. If she does, she'll be on USA Tuesday evening (I think it's 6:30 or so). And you can catch video of the show on the Westminster site.
And, as always, we're really proud of her no matter where she finishes.
Noah's been enjoying his extended weekend killing zombies, and I haven't seen my oldest in nearly two months. He's trying to find a job—that's a tougher situation today then when I was his age. Jen is down in Indy this weekend showing George—not looking for a win, but helping support a major. Pffffttt. Dog shows...
Finally, I'm starting a new position at AbbVie (the pharma arm of Abbott Labs that spun off on the new year). I've moved over to Development IT on a visiting scientist position, and I'm going to build a team that will focus on doing 'quick hits'—writing small to mid-sized applications that solve problems. I've been doing that as a 'hobby' for the last few years—and it's been terrifically successful. It's time to put some focus on doing it for real, and build a team (and community) to support it.